Minnesota and South Dakota allow eighth graders now, and if it were handled correctly, I wouldn't have a serious problem with it. But, what I would prefer is to see eighth graders brought up only to fill a need. For example, if a team did not have a varsity 103, you could bring up an 8th grader to fill that spot. Otherwise, these kids stay in the middle school program.
Which, of course, begs the other question; there are schools that don't have middle school programs — how would we address that?
North Dakota, South Dakota, and Minnesota allow middle schoolers (7th and 8th) to compete at the varsity level. Since at our school middle school wrestling is over before Christmas, what would it hurt to let these kids compete at the high school level after middle school wrestling is over? Even if they can't make the varsity squad, the extra couple months of practice they would get would be great for them. Especially for the kids who didn't wrestle in Kids Fed and are just starting. I see lots of kids try wrestling for the first time as 7th graders and do great, just need more mat time.
