Tim:

I really wish I had not opened this can of worms. The post that mentioned that a young high quality wrestler might decide not to wrestle next year due to his not wanting to cut weight to 189 and the roadblocks on his team with state champions at 215 and 285 prompted me to take this topic off target. I have seen this young man wrestle and he is way too good of a wrestler to be not wrestling varsity next year. It brought back some similar bad memories from my son's high school team two years ago. I intended to get off of this topic completely and I will, but now I feel you just made a completely unfair and untrue statement about me with that post with this quote:



Please direct me to the all of these posts where I am continously suggesting to get rid of the 103 weight bracket and not just adjust it upward slightly. I am not sure that I have ever suggested anything other than moving it up at the most 5 pounds. I have made a lot of posts in my time on the forum so you should easily be able to get on to my profile to view my posts and find them if I have continously been suggesting that we drop 103 completely and start at 112. I may have done so but I don't think so. I can direct you to a post I made over a year ago where I suggested that 103 be just adjusted slightly upward to either 106 or 108. My main thought especially over the last year has been that if the only way to get more opportunities for heavier wrestlers was to keep the weight classes limited to 14 that the best way to achieve it would be to adjust more the middle weights by increasing all the five pound weight differentials upward a little. My suggestion on a little upward move on 103 to 106 or 108 has more to do with concern that some coaches might feel too much pressure to encourage young athletes to drop too much weight to get to 103. Yes, you were correct in an earlier post on this topic that freshmen and other ages are growing at other weights too but statisically the freshmen are not required to fill the higher weights at the varsity level as much as they are at 103 so not as many freshmen get pressure to lose weight as they do in varsity 103.

If I have shown such disrespect for 103 wrestlers I apologize to them and you as a parent. I think a lot of the 103 wrestlers are some of the best wrestlers in Kansas. The list you gave of last year's state placers is a good example of that as are the other past 103 wrestlers that you mentioned in your last post. I really do believe that all those wrestlers would have also been great at a 106 or 108 weight class. I love it that wrestling gives more opportunity for lighter athletes than a sport like football. I have always encouraged my son to wrestle instead of playing my high school sport football. Since the first grade he has wrestled 11 years and only played football three years. He is not playing football this year as a senior and is totally concentrating on wrestling. I have been an advocate though of more opportunities in wrestling for the athletes over 160 pounds. I believe it would be good for wrestling if there were more opportunities for these heavier athletes.