Week-End Salvo: Speical Early East Coast Edition

[Oracle]

As with everything in all aspects of life, wrestling has evolved over the years. In may ways, it is unrecognizable from 50 years ago. The rules, the shrinking number of D1 teams, the expansion of RTCs, but most of all -- the disparity of talent. Permit me to explain.

After watching the NY state championships last week, it became evident to me that guys with 48-2 records were plentiful. Excuse me, 50 bouts?? Not just an outlier, *many* wrestlers with that many bouts. A closer inspection reveals a stunning number of these wins were quick 1st period falls. Why such a disparity in talent?

The sport is being improved and ruined at the same time by 'specialization.' The better high school kids routinely transfer to schools to improve their skills whether it be Prep Schools or other public high schools with a stronger program. PJ Duke in NY transferred from Carmel HS in section 1 to powerhouse Minissink Valley in section 9. Untold numbers enroll Prep Schools. Now it's become fashionable to skip your senior year to work out at private clubs. Does it produce better wrestlers? No doubt. Does it hurt the sport? No doubt.

Hockey is the only other sport I can think of that works similarly with Junior League affiliations.

Take Joe Sealey from Wyoming Seminary. He's from North Carolina. Spent his entire high school career at Sem. Signed with PSU. Zach Ryder skipped senior year at Minissink Valley to work out with David Taylor's club. Signed with PSU. Was the quality of wrestling in NC and NY affected? No doubt.

Back to the point about pinning 30-40 guys a year ..... I cannot recall that being a thing back in the day. If a guy had 10-15 falls in a year as a non-Hwt that was a lot. The competition was, well, more competitive.

Wrestling is doomed to contract as it moves to more and more specialization. Kids will lose interest, parents will lose interest, fans will lose interest. We will be left with a few uber elite guys who will fight it out to see who the next 4X NCAA champ will be. As Danny DeVito said in 'Other Peoples Money': "The best way to go broke is to get an increasing share of a declining market. I bet there were once hundreds of people who made buggy whips and I'll bet the last guy in that business made the best GD buggy whip in history." That's what wrestling is coming to. Interest will wane to the point where the last guys will be great....and then there will be no others left to compete against.

The Evil Empire at Penn State is dead set on having a line-up of potential 4X NCAA champs at each weight. Specialization is how you attempt that. It's a horse-bleep goal and really bad for the sport. Their over recruiting and stockpiling of talent is awful. I don't care what their line of explanation is -- it's dead wrong. IMO.

[Toast]

Gotta disagree. Specialization in one sport is nothing new. There have been elite club/travel teams for 30 years in many or most popular sports. Ditto transferring to schools with better programs. Searching for a leg up is as American as apple pie. And if elite wrestlers want to go to Penn State and get splinters in their asses from the bench, that's their prerogative I guess.

Overall, I don't think American wrestling has ever been in better shape. Participation has never been higher at the high school level. Women's wrestling is seriously catching on at the high school and college levels. You can watch virtually any event at any level via streaming. Top D1 events are on national television. Our international wrestlers are the best they've ever been. The bleeding has stopped, re: D1 teams dropping programs. There have never been more opportunities at the D2, D3, and NAIA levels. And so on.

Also, just go scroll through the records of good guys through the years on the PA Wrestling websitehttps://www.pa-wrestling.com/. Crushing a lot of fish is not a new phenomenon.

[Richb-3]

There is a wrestler at Wilson of West Lawn (Drew Kaisers school) who is going into states 51-9. Admittedly a lot of first period pins, but only 2 ffts. He could get 7 more bouts. Last he was 51-10 without placing at states. 160 bouts so far. He is a jr. 172, maybe Sadriddinov semi opponent. Blaise Eidle. Wilsonowl was able, to in addition to Dual meets, tournaments they did two 5 meet dual meet one day tournaments, and 3 individual tournament and after that that they did the Postseason dual meet tournament, about 8-9 meets. He did not play football, although I would say Wilson is the strongest 6A program in District 3.

To quote Sergei B, "too many competitions"

I see several other state qualifiers 51-54

[mookie]

I'll take an athlete over a wrestler all day long.

[HFO]

As with everything in all aspects of life, wrestling has evolved over the years. In may ways, it is unrecognizable from 50 years ago. The rules, the shrinking number of D1 teams, the expansion of RTCs, but most of all -- the disparity of talent. Permit me to explain.

After watching the NY state championships last week, it became evident to me that guys with 48-2 records were plentiful. Excuse me, 50 bouts?? Not just an outlier, *many* wrestlers with that many bouts. A closer inspection reveals a stunning number of these wins were quick 1st period falls. Why such a disparity in talent?

The sport is being improved and ruined at the same time by 'specialization.' The better high school kids routinely transfer to schools to improve their skills whether it be Prep Schools or other public high schools with a stronger program. PJ Duke in NY transferred from Carmel HS in section 1 to powerhouse Minissink Valley in section 9. Untold numbers enroll Prep Schools. Now it's become fashionable to skip your senior year to work out at private clubs. Does it produce better wrestlers? No doubt. Does it hurt the sport? No doubt.

Hockey is the only other sport I can think of that works similarly with Junior League affiliations.

Take Joe Sealey from Wyoming Seminary. He's from North Carolina. Spent his entire high school career at Sem. Signed with PSU. Zach Ryder skipped senior year at Minissink Valley to work out with David Taylor's club. Signed with PSU. Was the quality of wrestling in NC and NY affected? No doubt.

Back to the point about pinning 30-40 guys a year ..... I cannot recall that being a thing back in the day. If a guy had 10-15 falls in a year as a non-Hwt that was a lot. The competition was, well, more competitive.

Wrestling is doomed to contract as it moves to more and more specialization. Kids will lose interest, parents will lose interest, fans will lose interest. We will be left with a few uber elite guys who will fight it out to see who the next 4X NCAA champ will be. As Danny DeVito said in 'Other Peoples Money': "The best way to go broke is to get an increasing share of a declining market. I bet there were once hundreds of people who made buggy whips and I'll bet the last guy in that business made the best GD buggy whip in history." That's what wrestling is coming to. Interest will wane to the point where the last guys will be great....and then there will be no others left to compete against.

The Evil Empire at Penn State is dead set on having a line-up of potential 4X NCAA champs at each weight. Specialization is how you attempt that. It's a horse-bleep goal and really bad for the sport. Their over recruiting and stockpiling of talent is awful. I don't care what their line of explanation is -- it's dead wrong. IMO.

And yet, I believe wrestling is growing in participants at the high school level. I think the tale is that the divide is that it is made up of those who start very early, 5 or 6 year old, and those who join late, 7th grade or beyond. I would like to see all the division disappear and just have a single State Tournament with a 32 man bracket in each state. The cream will rise to the top, but you will then see less of the stats of huge number of wins and huge number of falls.

However, there is money to be made by sponsoring bodies for multiple tournament which pays the fat paychecks of Executive Directors. PIAA ED makes a huge salary. Despite formerly having a single tournament and a push to bring back a single tournament....it will ever happen until PA offer wrestling at 400 or fewer high schools. The money is too big from the Gate at Hershey.