Originally posted by Gibby:
Conversely, at the 8th grade mark, 1/2 of the 9th grade will have had extensive experience working out with the high school and will have an advantage over their club counterparts. I'm not disrespecting clubs, but pointing out the freshmen that would be able to wrestle down because of their age have a distinct advantage because of older workout partners/more mat time in the practice room/ a higher level of competition, etc.
Gibby, with that post you just made the argument for having high school wrestlers separate in competition from our grade school wrestlers in the Kansas USAW State tournament series. Old Illegalhold posted often a couple of years ago about how he thought that we should try to make the 8th grade year a springboard of success for them before they entered high school. One of the things he talked about was this unfair competitive advantage that a 9th grader had over an 8th grader due to the reasons that you detailed in your post. The situation now is even worse for the 8th graders than the one you described, because now almost 100% of the 9th graders have the advantage you described over the 8th graders. (a few older 9th graders are actually 16&U). So my question for you is, would you be in favor of an age grouping that would be set up for 1st & 2nd, 3rd & 4th, 5th & 6th, 7th & 8th graders, 9th and 10th, and 11th and 12th? Is there any reason why Seniors could not be involved in our organization State tournament series?
On this topic I have stated my support for the 9/1 date over the 1/1 date. I like it because it keeps the majority of the wrestlers every year wrestling the other kids in their grade. I definitely agree with Gibby and others that this is a good goal. The people who support 1/1 also have a valid point about making us one with some of the national and other state tournaments. I agree with sportsfan02 who said we don't need to have the same birthday cutoff as other states. We should do what is best for the majority of the Kansas kids. The majority of Kansas kids do not wrestle in national or other state competitions. The ones that do wrestle in national competitions are often good enough that the birthday cutoff is meaningless. For Marvio Tischhauser who won seven straight Kansas Kids wrestling State titles and a some National titles, I don't think it mattered where the tournament directors put the birthday age cutoff. I know he is a very extreme example but we have many kids who win State every year in their lst year in the age group. We even have some who are able to overcome that natural 9th grade advantage that Gibby talked about and still win State as 8th graders. So when you are talking about kids who are really good enough to be competitive at the national level, the birthday cutoff is not that big of a deal. The elite wrestlers can handle themselves. I say lets structure this in a way that is best for the majority of kids and I think that way is for them to wrestle with their classmates every year.
