I Think It's Time
03/09/2011 * Revised 03/11/2011
I have had enough with the politics and lack of leadership in our great sport. My site is gone and will stay that way unless changes are made. I have left my SCHEDULE up and it will remain up in a limited capacity. I post events on my schedule and expect to receive results when events are done. This was happening less and less and I am just tired of chasing for them. If you want your tournament posted, I'll be glad to do that as long as you have sent me your results from last year. Just today I received calls and emails from PTWL parents looking for results. East parents want to know how the West is doing and vice versa. My site started as and was primarily for the archiving of results to acknowledge the achievements of the kids that participate in our great sport. There are two other web sites for Maine wrestling and I hope they will pick up the slack. MAWA * InsideMaineWrestling
I don't know if it's the economy, depression, or just life in general but it seems like society is becoming more inactive and less proactive. It used to be that when you thought something was not right, you tried to fix it. It used to be, just a few years back, that MBR was buzzing with comments, speculation, and all kinds of chatter about our great sport of wrestling.
A year ago, on February 7th, my site had 5,783 hits for the day. The best I've had this year is 4,050 on February 13th. The All*Star Tournament was avoided by many of our top wrestlers. A petition was circulated on my site and MBR that needed to get 300 signatures to bring wrestling back to the Maine Games. They got about half that. It seems, that even though you may no longer be wrestling, or have a child that wrestles, that you could sign a petition that would allow for others to participate. The kids wrestled just as hard as they always do but we had our worst showing at New Englands in years.
PeeWee & Middle School wrestling are thriving but this is not carrying over into High School wrestling. Why? Several reasons ...
1. Kids are jumping all over weight classes trying to find the path of least resistance. Why ... because the MPA allows them to. How about a 25% rule with a minimum of 10 matches and a minimum of 5 matches that weren't forfeits. Less than 10 or 5 if only matches were in the same weight class to accommodate those whose only matches were at the end of the season.
2. Class C Qualifier. What the heck is up with that? But my hats off to site director Charlie Swan and meet director Steve Ouellette for doing all they could to make it work. I will give the MPA credit ... they are trying to make the 3 class system work ... but they're just not thinking straight. They tried to fix an obvious shortfall of this system by changing the structure, but it was still a mess and they averaged only 5 wrestlers per weight class. The most was 7 for 1 weight class and 12 of the 28 had 4 or less. See the chart here. I've heard rumors that Winslow was moving from BW to CW and Mt View was moving from BE to CW. Also that Bucksport, Calvary Chapel, George Stevens, and John Bapst were moving from CE to CW. This would presumably amount to 11 teams each in CEast & C West. Hello! It's not about the number of teams but the size of the teams. As shown by the chart, Class C does not have nearly enough wrestlers to fill an East and West division. Adding Winslow and Mt View, who had a total of 15 wrestlers at regionals, would not solve the problem. And what about C East? They are already undermanned and would be much more so with this proposal. And what about Class B East & West? Take 7 wrestlers from B West regionals and they would have had only 86 in 2011. Take 8 from B East regionals and they are down to 100. I have always been a proponent of the 3 Class system ... but things have changed. There were 550 kids that wrestled regionals in 2011. To make it work, you would have to go down through the teams, in order of enrollment, until you hit +/-183 and this would be Class A, etc. Then divide East & West until you hit 92, etc. This would work, but it would only be a bandaid solution unless we change other aspects of the sport to keep the wrestlers that we have.
3. It's time for a two class system. A & B with each having an East and West regional. Regionals would have to have pigtails to accommodate more than 8 wrestlers. Seed the top 6 and pigtail the rest. You couldn't go to a 16 person bracket as someone could end up forfeiting 3rd place because of the 5 match rule. Top 4 from each weight class at Regionals go to states. The state meet, to have them both at the same venue, would only need 6 mats. It could be held in one day at Augusta, Bangor, or any place that can accommodate 6 mats. Sports seasons should be flexible to accommodate the different sports. Setting the same dates for all sports in a season seems to be the lazy way out. It is important that their is an All State New England Qualifier the week before New Englands with the top four wrestlers from A & B. The State meet should be the week before this to bring us in line with the other states. Maine is not usually a follower but a leader. Is the system we have in place better than all the other New England states? All we leading here? No. We have it wrong. Everyone can see it. What is wrong with the MPA? Are they blind? stupid? stubborn? lazy? I don't know ... I really wish I knew. An All State Tournament would only need 3 mats so it could be held at a number of High Schools throughout the state.
5. Hard to keep JV wrestlers. In basketball, if you are a JV, you still have a game every time that the varsity does. In track & field, cross country, etc. you get to compete at every meet. In football, baseball, soccer, etc. you have a chance of getting in the game at any time. In wrestling, this isn't the case. The training and dieting in wrestling are hard and sometimes just don't seem worth it to a kid that rarely gets to wrestle a varsity match. I would like to see more tournaments on the weekends. Let's have them all across the state. Let everyone on a team wrestle. Designate your A, B, C, etc wrestlers and score accordingly. If your tournament can't handle more wrestlers, get rid of a few teams and let them start or join another tournament. Your JV's would be accumulating varsity matches, experience, and possibly wins towards that elusive 100. When our seniors graduate we will have many more wrestlers, with tournament experience, to replace them. It will definitely help us keep our JV wrestlers.
6. Coaches, time to think outside the box. What's good for Maine wrestling is good for your team. Sometimes our narrow-minded thinking keeps us from seeing the big picture. A few years back a kid wins a State Championship. It was only his 1st year wrestling and he was a pretty good wrestler and he happened to win a State Championship. I had him ranked as the 13th best wrestler in that weight class in Maine. There were 12 other wrestlers in the other two Classes, above him. He knew this but was, and should be, happy with his State Championship. He was content to leave it at this and wasn't going to attend New Englands. His coach had 6 other wrestlers that were going and must have thought that adding this wrestler would have helped their teams chances and he talked the kid into going. The kid was pinned in both his matches and lasted 15 seconds in the first one. Instead of ending his career with three victories at States and a State Championship, he ended it on this sour note. A Maine 3 rarely scores points at New Englands. A Maine 4,5, ... 13 has even less of a chance of doing so. There were ten other Maine kids that would have had a better chance of scoring points and helping their Maine team. I'll repeat ... What's good for Maine wrestling is good for your team
7. New Englands in New Haven, CT. Next stop New York. It seems our Maine representative could do a better job demanding that it be held a little closer to the central area of New England. I believe the geographical center of New England is in Maine! The Whittemore Center Arena at the University of New Hampshire would be a great venue. I believe they have Hockey East playoffs around then but it is still worth looking into. The Augusta Civic Center holds the 8 mats needed and I believe the Cumberland County Civic center also will hold 8 mats. I heard that they will only hold it at a High School ($$$). Maybe attendance would be up if they held it in a more central location. With their $20 entry fee this could add up to a sizable amount. I'll bet all High Schools that send wrestlers wouldn't mind paying a little more to have a better venue.
You may have a different opinion ... that's fine. Either way, it's time to get off our butts and contact our principals. Most of their phone numbers and email addresses are here. Most of their snail mail addresses are here. If you don't know what to say, feel free to take some pointers from, or even point to, this page. I have listed the MPA Officers with the first list. Maybe that's who we should be contacting. Before you call, write down what you think, present your case, and find out where they stand on the issue. You can also find out more about the MPA or contact them directly here.
If you want to send me your results, that would be fine. I'll archive them and if I ever bring my site back up, I'll have them.
Added 03/11/11: I have been getting a lot of email on this ... only hope that you are also emailing your principal and/or the MPA.
Added 03/11/11: Go to MPA site and click on Events Calendar. Check out March. They have listings for basketball, ice hockey, track new englands, drama, etc but not a word about the Wrestling New Englands on March 4th and 5th. Go figure.
Added 03/11/11: The president of the MPA, Gus LeBlanc, is the principal of Lewiston High School ... they don't have wrestling. The President-elect, Lloyd Crocker, is the principal of Loranger Middle School, Old Orchard Beach. OOB ... they don't have wrestling.
Added 03/11/11: Item 6 above. Coach says his wrestler was glad he went to New Englands ... was a great experience. I believe him