Yes, there are going to be times when a good athlete does not make varsity, or reach the state tournament. There will be times in life when a good, qualified employee gets passed over for a job, example, more examples, etc... They are all a part of life. Wrestling has 14 variable positions for varsity. Once they are filled they are filled, should be as simple as that. It's seems to me that wrestling is already one of the fairest sports when affording an athlete to obtain varsity status. If you want to consider "unfair", what about basketball and football. Vince I think I've asked you before since you have a passion for football: are you in favor of mandating in the rules that every football team has to have at least 2 players on the field at all times that weighs no more than 125Lbs? And Basketball: lets mandate that EVERY team must have a player no taller than 5'5" on the court at all times. I'm sure there are lots of players that fit these two examples that never make varsity. Awfully "unfair" am I not correct?
Beleive me, I sypothize with a quality wrestler that sits behind a stud, but that is simply the way it is, and in the case you are so passionate about, it is more of the exception and not the rule. When you start taking basically everyone on the team as "varsity", I think you diminish the Passion and the Pride of the accomplishment of being a varsity wrestler. It would create an exactly similar circumstance as to qualifying for state in 6A with predominately losing records. It simply doesnt mean as much.
Tim:
First of all congratulations to Taylor and your family on his state title. He is a very impressive wrestler who in my opinion is going to one of our star Division I performers someday.
I participated in two sports in high school both football and track & field. In football there was plenty of opportunity for players on all sizes to excel and participate on the varsity level. There are 22 starting spots on the team and the second team guys get to come in and play quite a bit to give the first team players a break even in the state championship games. In track & field when I threw the discus and shot put we were allowed 3 athletes per team per event as I recall. Again another sport that allows plenty of opportunity for athletes to participate against other schools at the varsity level. Coming from this personal high school athletic background it was hard to understand or accept the varsity opportunity limitations that I see in high school wrestling.
I am just having a very difficult time understanding why the wrestling community would want potential state placers not able to compete at the state tournament just because they happen to go to the same school that maybe the state champion or potentially higher state placer attends. It makes no sense to me how anyone thinks that allowing both of these potential high state placers from the same high school to compete at state would lessen the quality of competition at the state tournament. In my opinion, it would definitely improve the quality of the competition. I believe that in 2007 if we had a modified Montana system in place that allowed a team to take say 18 wrestlers to regionals (four over the current 14) that Aquinas would have probably qualified all 18 instead of the 14 that we did qualify that year and I know that you would have had four qualifiers that would have definitely added to the level of competition at state. These extra four wrestlers were wrestlers who would have probably had winning varsity records in at least 75% of their matches and I believe could have placed at state that year. It would not surprise me if teams like Lansing, Emporia, and Colby to name a few could have done the same this year. It could be said very year about a number of teams.
From my experience I see this as a limitation in high school wrestling that potentially holds back participation in high school wrestling. I also do not think it is fair for a potential high school state placer to not get the opportunity to compete just because he is at the school that has the state champion at his weight when he could potentially be the state runner up if he was allowed to also compete if he attended another school. I think a modified Montana system that allowed a school to bring four to six extra wrestlers would give extra opportunities for many wrestlers. Besides Montana, NAIA Wrestling also now has a similar system in place where it allows a team to take more than one wrestler per weight class to their national tournament I believe up to twelve (two over the ten college weight classes) and I believe they can still take that twelve even if they do not fill all the ten weight classes, so if they wanted and it was best for them competitively they could take 2 at 125, 133, 141, 149, 157 and 165.
