I just wanted to maybe hear from a few coaches out there on a few things! We wrestle with a very small squad and there's not a lot of choices at each weight.
Do you do what is best for your team or the individual wrestler?
1st: You have a solid kid at 152! State placer etc. The coach asks him to move up to 160 cause there's no one to wrestle that weight. It is best for the wrestler to stay at 152. What do you do?

2nd. Open Challenges...
There's a Jr. at 265 pounds and a So. at 230 pounds. The 230 pounder could go 215 but that spot is taken by a state placing Sr.
A coach will not let the 230 challenge the other kid because he is an upper classman and has been with the program longer, and could never make another weight. Even though the younger wrestler is better the coach has loyalty to the other kid.
These are both examples of the same thing but from different points of view.
I would like to hear a little feedback.
Thanks!

In my opinion open challenges should only be denied based on wrestlers not being in good standing on the team, i.e. missing practice, disciplinary issues or grades. In the 152's case, the winner of the challenge picks the weight and the loser goes up. If you have a situation where a senior that has been in the program throughout high school has two other wrestlers challenging, the senior gets the winner of the first challenge.

In the 152's case...
There is no one to challenge!
The two 171's can't get down to 160 and they have two kids in the 140's and don't want to send one of them to 160.
You can argue which is harder 4A 152 or 160 but this wrestler wants to wrestle 152, has had good success at 152, and is an upper classman.
So again the question, do you do what is best for the team or a wrestler.
Cause in this case it looks like the coach is flip flopping.
The 230 pounder is in good standing its he just don't want to bust the big guy down to JV for an under classman.
That's not what's best for the team.
I'm just wanting to understand the "whys" of it all!
At the end of the day he's the coach, its his decission, but it could also be lost opportunity for 2 wrestlers!

In my opinion, the state placer gets the choice and the 230 kid gets his fair shot at varsity.

Individual first, team second. If the coach denies a kid an opportunity to wrestle the weight he would do best at just to improve the team's chances then it isn't really about the team, it is about the coach... jmo

Let me further qualify... in a dual event it is acceptable to move the lineup and insert where necessary to improve the teams chances of winning because a dual is about the TEAM. In a tournament the first goal is for your individuals to win and your second goal is to accumulate enough points to win as a team.

where im from you wrestled best 2 out of 3 doesnt matter if your a senior or freshman state champ or not you win your on varsity and the trying to make a kid go up for the better of the team he could tell the coach to go to hell on that this is an individual sport not team sport yes its nice to get the team bling but an individual accomplishment is gonna out weigh the team accomplishment by far. oh sorry got off track and after you beat a guy to get varsity you only have to beat him once after that in the challenges and the guy on jv has to beat them 2 to take the varsity spot back.

You would think one of the 171s would get to 160. If not one of them is sitting at the house or jv