Intercepted Memo: Regions, Middle School, etc

[admin]

From the Editor:

There has been much discussion on this forum about this year's the regional realignments, the relative strength of the regions, and its success (or lack of) in identifying qualifiers for the State Tournament.

Some of the discussion has been rather heated, and has been critical of the WVSSAC, State Tournament Officials, and even High School Principals.

I am certain that these officials, particularly the WVSSAC and the State Tournament Officials, are well aware of the concerns. Problems and potential problems are easy to identify: Solutions are often difficult to come by - and some are nearly insoluble.

Allow me to make a few points:

1) The WVSSAC and State Tournament Officials are well aware of the issues, and discussions are under way to see if a remedy can be found.

2) It does no good to continually harangue about this on this forum. It is counter-productive to demonize WVSSAC officials and State Tournament Officials while you are trying to get them to see things your way.

3) A tip of the hat from me to the WVSSAC and the State Tournament Officials. I can't imagine how difficult their jobs must be - trying to keep everybody happy. I used to run the pee-wee tournament in Kingwood several years ago. Try as I might, I could NEVER finish the day without somebody leaving the Kingwood Civic Center p.o.'ed about something. Imagine trying to run ALL scholastic sports in WV, and keeping everyone happy.

4) Dear readers: Can we PLEASE tone down the rhetoric on the forum a bit? Everybody seems to be testy this year. Vote for Trump. Leave the European Union. Ventilate your spleen on the WV-Mat Forum. Sheesh. Give me a break. I am the only one on this forum who has their name, address, and phone number listed: Thus, when someone reads something which rubs them the wrong way, I am the one blamed for it. Keep in mind that you pay $0.00 to read this site, and I make $0.00 in maintaining this site. This year the forum has become a real headache.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Back to the point of the post: Intercepted memo from Coach Bill Archer to officials at the WVSSAC:

Regionals

What caused the problem with the regionals?
Loss of population in the schools in West Virginia.

Will the problem be resolved over time?
No same schools that are good will pretty much always be good.
We have too many AA-A Schools and not enough AAA schools.

Most of the talk concerning regions is AAA region four where the new regions put 3 region
championship teams from last year in the same region. The teams in the same region now have won 10 out of 10 of the last ten years state tournaments (South 6, HHS 2, PHS 2).

To make the matters worse, these teams usually have pretty close to full teams. This year 6 out of 7 teams are rated in the top ten from region 4. Some of the other regions might not have enough wrestlers to come close to filling out the brackets. There will be teams that bring people to state that didn't even have to win a match in the regional tournament.

To a team diving to the regional from Spring Valley, they would drive past St. Albans, Nitro and Capitol and then see a sign that says 78 miles to Parkersburg.

What can be done?
Change the regions back to pretty close to what they were, same for AA-A.

Bring the 5th place wrestler to take the place of a region that does not have a wrestler who fills the bracket (1st, 2nd, 3rd or 4th place). Use the seeding that was used for region to decide who gets to go to state tournament.


Regional rules that all regions must follow

Before seeding meeting begins, coaches must vote if brackets can be changed after the seeding meeting. After the decision is made this is the way it stays or changes can be made up to the weigh in.

Seeding must be done for the tournament and the 5th, 6th same way. If seeding can not break the tie it is up to WVSSAC.


Report to WVSSAC concerning having a Middle School State Tournament

These are the facts that I know and have been given before you called last week. I don't think I have any say on these issues - that is up to WVSSAC.


Many of these statements have been when the question has been brought up before.

We can't have a state tournament in Middle School because then they will want them in all the other sports and some would be impossible to do.

We can't get a date.

We don't know where you would put it.

These are your issues.

Here is where I need you to ask me what you need to know, but first let me mention a few things.

We will have a problem with the date. If we stay off the regional High School dates, we would have the regional middle school on (example this year) February the 4th and the state on February the 11th. This is way too early and will conflict with many High School tournaments.

Most Middle Schools have County Championships - they would have to have be held January the 28th.

If we have a middle school state, we can't have it on the state or regionals date.

I don't think we can have an open (any middle school could come) because we may not be able to run it anywhere in the state but at a Civic Center. We may not be able to afford it.

I think we would need to have regionals for middle school. If we had the regionals in middle school, we might be able to have them at the same sites as the high schools and the same dates.

If it has to be at a different place, so be it. I would divide the regions as by the high schools that they would attend. If we run the middle schools with the high schools then we may be able to afford some money back to the schools.

I would start with only 2 wrestlers per region at first. High School started with just the champion, the added runner up, then added the 3rd and 4th placers. When they ran
into money problems for one year they went back to only the top 3.

The money back would be about $5000.

We would run the tournament with the state but fix it so the middle school finals were not state night.

This would be easy because they are only bringing 8 (2 each region in each weight class).

I think the way to avoid all the problems this will cause is to first hear what the middle school principals think and then come to WSAZ next year and talk to the middle school coaches and get some more input.

We should be able to figure out how to do it.

Let me give you one answer, we can run the middle school state tournament with the high school state tournament. We can fix it so that you can give the middle schools back about $5000. That would be the same rate as the high schools and still have close to the same profit for both tournaments.

As you can see by the high school bids for the state tournament, there are not many people that want to host the state tournament because they don't make any money for their schools. They would rather run their own tournament (WSAZ, OVAC, Winner's Choice) and make money for their school.

I am glad to see you guys are thinking about wrestling and appreciate your including what I know in research. I don't care what you chose I only want you to be able to have an idea what could be done.

There is great expense to run wrestling tournaments clocks, mats, officials, Civics Centers and workers. I can make it work, or help someone who wants to try.

As I told the Mayor today my city is short 5,000,000, my state is short $500,000,000 and my country is short 20 trillion.

[aacoach75]

Thanks!!

[sfc1]

I am sure it is a head ache at times. Thank you for giving us an outlet to share this great sport.

[Gator]

A note from me on this subject as well.

I posted a photo of a wrestler in a pinning position on here and it should never have been posted. It was called to my attention and rightfully so.

I apologize to the wrestler, the coaches and fans of that school and I will definitely not do anything like this again. I have many people of this school that I consider friends and enjoy talking with and respect. I have taken that photo down.

I'm a moderator on WV-Mat and should know better. We delete and ban posters on this site, probably more than most could ever imagine. Some never get seen, thank goodness. If anyone has a problem with something posted by me or any others, email one of the moderators on this site with the problem. There are about 8 moderators and we are listed under "the team" at the bottom of the page. Please, if you don't think my post are appropriate, let us know. Doc has enough on his plate and hopefully we can help.

It is no surprise that I am a passionate South fan. I sometime get caught up in the moment by the comment of others like many of you. We let many things go and this is what Doc is talking about above.

Best wishes to the teams and wrestlers this week in Huntington.

Steve "Gator" Gates

[jsams]

someone must have been triggered lol

[Gator]

someone must have been triggered lol

Just very kindly brought to my attention and I feel bad about it. Nothing more.