I know I saw a lot of them the one year I played college football at KSU in 1969. That was a long time ago and we had quite a few very good athletes on that team coached by Vince Gibson that were in the 225-285 range. Any high school wrestling team would have loved to had those guys on their team. KSU was not even an elite football program then. I think they were just over a .500 record team during the Gibson years. That was over 35 years ago. Kids are bigger today. Are you saying there are not that many great 225 to 285 pound athletes wrestling or you actually saying there are not that many 225 pound to 285 pound athletes period? If you mean all sports, realize that you are including a lot of football and even basketball players in that statement. If that is what you mean I think you would get a lot of disagreement from people across the country. Maybe not on this forum, since wrestling is a sport that traditionally has more smaller athletes but with the general sports public you would find a lot of people who would argue that point with you. I guess it depends on your background and perspective, I had a big argument with a pretty good ex-football player last year who told me he did not think wrestlers in general were that good of athletes even college wrestlers.

If you mean bumping up 215 to 220 or 225 without adding an additional weight class, you would just give the football coaches even more incentive to not encourage their players to wrestle after their football season. I doubt most football coaches whose players are around 200 to 220 during football season are very interested in having their players drop their weight to the 189 level.

As far as reading your dead horse post, I read your first paragraph and I read your first point. I stopped reading at that point because I did not consider it worth my time. That would be my advice to you on this topic too if it bothers you so much that I am beating on a dead horse. No one is making you read my stuff. Somehow though I kind of think that you and Richard both deep down really don't think this is a dead horse and are very concerned that one or two weight classes for heavier wrestlers will eventually be added and it might somehow adversely effect the number of classes for lighter wrestlers. I think you both know that kids are getting bigger today. I have been finding some studies that show how the mean weight for 15 to 18 year olds has been significantly rising since 1971. These numbers would not justify a division of 10 weight classes up to 160 and only four after 160. If this rising mean weight trend continues and it doesn't seem to be stopping, I think wrestling is going to be forced to adjust weights upward and offer more classes for heavier wrestlers.