Just like clockwork, another state tourney done and another thread started about how terrible TOHK or Thomas act on the mat. Can we find something else to talk about after the state tourney?

In reality, this is what happens year in, year out.
1. Team of Hard Knox wins or contends for state team title.
2. Team of Hard Knox has wrestlers of top quality in its wrestling room.
3. Team of Hard Knox wrestlers are booed when they win and cheered when they lose (by adults).
4. Team of Hard Knox is built from young kids and a few coaches who are dedicated to these young men.

I can speak from experience of what it's like to be in the practice room and coach these young men at the state national level. I'd like to tell you all about it, but it's not that interesting. No, what's more interesting is the stories of what goes on in the room. Making little kids lose 10 pounds or teaching them dirty moves, etc. Boy, those make great stories, too bad none of them are true.

As far as the Rhodes situation, I'm not going to validate his actions. He's done some really stupid things over the past few years and I have told him so on a few occasions. As a friend and coach he has heard it privately from me. I have also told him that he's the guy everyone loves to hate and I'm sure that Coach Knox and Coach Deshazer had told him those same things.

Here we have a gifted athlete, a nice kid, who the adult world that has no affiliation with him specifically , yet everybody wants him to be something he's not. Thomas is Thomas - a kid who I want to choke at one time and hug another, often in the same hour.

However, I think it's wrong to, one put Thomas on a pedistal and ridicule him (he's done some of the same things that others that are not as good as Thomas is), and two, use this forum as a method of tearing down something you know nothing about.

So, here's to the fourth year anneversary of "State is over, let's dog on a kid from TOHK." Hopefully someone at some point in time will step up and "quit hatin' ."

coach gibson