Have been following the thread on this subject for awhile, and have finally decided to post a reply...

Indy Wrestling Club has offered Outstanding Wrestler and Team trophies for years, and I don't ever recall quite as much to-do over them as this.

The intent of the trophies is to provide additional incentive and rewards for kids and clubs. IWC doesn't have to provide them, and they add quite a bit of cost to the tournament budget.

Medals are nice, but imagine the pride a kid has in their hard work to have a 2 foot trophy on their mantel at home. Recognition for excellence is a driving force for humans (kids or adults).

Nothing in life is fair (by the current definition in our society). One poster even suggested that such an award be given to ALL PARTICIPANTS because they are outstanding for even competing. This sounds suspiciously like Rec League Soccer/Peewee T-Ball/Public School System mentality. Perhaps all tournaments should charge $100 per entry, and give everyone a big trophy for showing up. Everyone these days seems nervous about their kid finding out at an early age that there are winners and losers in every aspect of life.

As another person stated, it would be nearly impossible for refs/coaches to keep track of 400 wrestlers on 5 mats, and offer an opinion as to who was truly outstanding in their age class. Quality of competition also has to be factored into what would truly be a subjective decision.

Therefore, the only objective method for awarding the trophy is to establish a criteria, and stick to it. That criteria is:
1) You must be champion in your bracket
2) The champion with most pins wins
3) Tie-breaking is based on total pin time, then technical falls, major decisions, etc.

All brackets are formulated so that seeded wrestlers are afforded maximum opportunity for this award. Yes, it's true that a kid in a 16 bracket has more opportunity than one in an 8 bracket, who has more opportunity than one in a RR. On the other hand, they probably had to overcome more and tougher competition to become champion. How many times have you seen a 3 kid RR with one "A" wrestler and two novices? Does the "A" wrestler's spankin of the two rookies in 15 seconds each mean he/she is the "outstanding" wrestler?

It should be pretty obvious from the above why the "fastest pin" trophy was eliminated from the tournament awards. Now that was a trophy that was often meaningless.

There is not, nor will there ever be, a "fair" method of awarding this trophy. The team trophy situation is no different, yet I've never heard a complaint about that. An excellent, though very small team could post 4 champions out of say 6 wrestlers, and still lose to a team that entered 40 wrestlers and logged a bunch of 2-3-4 placers. Everyone accepts that total points is the criteria for this award. OW is, and should be no different.

I am going to post a poll regarding OW awards. Very curious as to the results.

Just a question about one part of your post. You say:

All brackets are formulated so that seeded wrestlers are afforded maximum opportunity for this award.

If this is so, why are byes given to top seeds? That would give them one less shot at it. I'm not disagreeing, just confused. Thanks to anyone who can clear this up for me.

In our format, top-seeds are purposely NOT given a first-round bye...in brackets with byes, the byes are given to mid-seeds who might have a shot out the front-side. Top 4 wrestlers minimum are given a full slate. Then as byes accumulate, 4th, then 3rd, then 2nd seeds are given byes.

To clarify:

Let's take a 15/16 bracket...

First round: 1-15, 2-14, 3-13, 4-12, 5-11, 6-10, 7-9, 8 gets a bye

11/16 bracket: 1-11, 2-10, 3-9, 4 5 6 7 8 get byes

Hope this helps.

Just one more quick thought:

I DO NOT believe that the problem lies with the kids, OR the trophies. Have been following another thread: "the end of wrestling....", and agree. The REAL problem lies with SOME coaches and a LOT of parents.

All kids understand competition. Shoot, my 4 yo daughter races her brothers down the hall at home, and then shouts "I win, you lose" when she beats them...laughing all the way. She also laughs when she loses, though. How long would she keep racing if I screamed at her when she lost, I wonder???????????

I have to agree with SmokeyCabin on this one. I do not think they are needed in youth wrestling. I don't pay much attention to them at any level. I really don't know how you can compare between weight classes. I think you have good intentions and have set up the fairest objective system possible but it doing so it is still probably not correct. I think it would probably need divine intervention to be correct.

I would not get upset at all if my son did not receive it. It might upset him but not for long. I think I could see how we might have got more upset in his first couple of years in wrestling. Maybe you should not have it for the young kids.

Sometimes a small bracket can be extremely tough. The toughest tournament my son has had in his six years of wrestling was I believe three years ago against a Manhattan wrestler at the Turner Invitational. They were the only two in their bracket and ended up going three matches (one or two were overtime). Both of these wrestlers were high placers at State last year second and third and they were pretty good wrestlers then too. My son has been in some bigger brackets that were a lot easier than that day for him.

To reply to KCwrestlersmom, my son attended this tournament and he was in a 16 man bracket, he was seated number one and he did not get a bye. So I can confirm that they did not let the top ones get a bye at least not in his bracket. We were glad to see it though because that way he got to wrestle four times. He worked to get first place that day, it only makes him better.

They only problem I see is the kids in the smaller brackets don't have a fair chance. My son's brackets are usually only 2-4 wrestlers. I agree with huskerfan, sometimes the best matches are in a smaller bracket. Maybe the ratio pins with shortest time would be a great way to determine it.
BUT.....YOU WILL NEVER PLEASE EVERYONE!!!!!