boconnell

I've never seen refs go back and forth. I think standard is something like track wrestling where results are real time on the internet. I think the solution to the extra ref issue is just that we don't need a ref to weigh in at a local tournament. Let them weigh in pre match in a staging area with an adult from the host school. Postseason it can be a ref. I think all of the logistical stuff can be overcome, but it requires significant changes.

This is super petty. That's okay. That's your right. But crying about people being worked up when that was your goal is sad. If you're going to go heel, go full heel. Don't go half heel and then whine about people not liking it.

Someone earlier said it wasn't rocket science and we could figure out how to do it. This seems like a great way. So you're not a rocket scientist, but you're smarter than I am for this idea. The only issue I see is that it requires an additional ref which isn't cheap or easy to staff. We are way short of refs in Washington and when they're available you spend a higher percent on refs than ever before.

I got you. You are talking about actual prosthetic limbs. Makes sense.

How does it fall in line with rules regarding prosthetics? Braces are allowed. They take time to put on. My 215 this year wrestled with a shoulder wrap brace all season that took about 2 minutes to put on, and he required another person's assistance getting it on. It definitely weight a few tenths. How do you account for it? Does he weigh in without it and then we pause while he puts it on? Or does he weigh in with it and he's out of luck because he needs a brace? I agree with the sentiment expressed elsewhere in this thread that it's not rocket science and it can be figured out. I massively disagree with the idea that he shouldn't be wrestling that day because he needs a brace.

I'm being dismissive for sure. I think the idea that you use multiple scales that are slightly different but not everybody gets to use each scale should be dismissed. It's a terrible idea. I dismiss it. If I had started the thread by saying I don't have much experience and I am just here to ask questions, and then I dismissed an idea i asked for, that would be weird.

You asked for an example of what I meant when I said you were dismissive. Here's an example. The suggestion that anyone with a brace shouldn't wrestle that day. That's a wild suggestion that protective equipment shouldn't be used.

Yep. We changed the out of bounds rules in HS wrestling last year and it was slightly better for wrestling action and terrible for the huge majority of tournaments that remove edge sections to fit more mats. There are already tables on top of action and spectators everywhere at most tournaments you attend. Now we're going to add space for scales. That's not a reason to keep allowing unsafe weight cutting procedures, but it is an actual thing that must be considered.

So you think after every scale being in play for as along as weighins existed we can just switch to one scale? Knowing that it's a short matter of time before someone misses by a tenth or two on a 'heavy' scale, when they could have made it on another mat. And you think referee judgement is what's going to make that okay? I think this is slightly more realistic than just switching to an honor system regarding weight.

For a 16 man bracket it will take 50+ minutes just for the actual matside weighins throughout the day. That has nothing to do with walking kids around. That's just assuming it will take 30 seconds per kid and a minute total for weighins for each of the 300-400 matches (spread on 6 mats). I think realistically it's longer, but that's the low end. Kids who miss weight and kids who have to check scales is completely separate and additional. The good news from a time perspective is if they miss weight than they forfeit and speed things up. But you are right that we could skip the early weigh in and make up that time. It's probably a wash from a timing perspective. Instead of 30 minutes for weighins and 60-90 for bracketing beforehand, you just end up spreading that time out throughout the day. So not longer like I said. I was wrong about that.

This is massively unrealistic. Regardless of what you think kids should do, many will be close to weight. Even vetted scales will always be slightly different. You can't ignore that and still have weight classes. There is a zero percent chance that weigh ins will ever be changed to where wrestlers can't check all of the available scales. Matside weigh-ins will 100% include every kid who misses being walked around to every mat by the ref and whoever is recording the weights. I understand if you think that is worth it and necessary. I'm not sure you'd be wrong. But to just pretend it away is make believe.

I just thought the 'aw shucks' intro followed by immediately knowing everything already was weird/unlikely. If you wanted to tell everybody how to fix weight cutting then you should have just done it. Instead you asked for opinions and told them they were wrong. I honestly think a few months is long enough to know that weight cutting is dumb, so just say it. And matside weigh-ins are definitely the best cure for weight cutting. But I think the current rule set addresses it well enough that I would not want to add a logistical nightmare to the already nightmarish events that are an average HS wrestling tournament. Weigh-ins always allow a wrestler to challenge on all scales because of small variances. Imagine a kid steps up to wrestle and has to check all 6 scales in two gyms because he's a few tenths over and might make it on a different scale. So the ref has to follow him to every mat and wrestling has to stop on that mat until they are done. This would happen multiple times in an average HS tournament. An average HS tournament has about 300-400 matches. If you add a minute for every match to weigh in two kids, spread across 6 mats, you've added 50+ minutes. Plus all of the time added when a kid misses weight or challenges weight. You'd lengthen already brutally long tournaments by well over an hour. I'd be fine with that if I thought the current rule set was failing to address weight cutting, but I think the current rule system is okay at that. I think kids who cut weight pay a price already. I think smart coaches already discourage it in HS kids. The very best HS kids in the country have basically stopped cutting weight altogether. They go up in weight for competition far more than they drop to be bigger.

Maybe I just have a hard time believing that a beginner parent would start a thread saying they don't know anything and they're just here to ask questions, but by page two they'd be preaching to a bunch of lifers. But I guess that could be exactly what this is. It is the internet after all. You start out with questions and ask to be enlightened. But you have arguments locked and loaded and a very dismissive attitude for anybody who even slightly disagrees with you. So you're either a fake persona to present an argument, or your initial post was a falsely humble way to introduce a subject where you want to tell us how wrong we are.

I think this entire thread is a setup. But at least it's one to talk about a worthy subject. The thread starter claims to be brand new to the sport but found their way to this forum. And as the thread has gone on they have talked about very specific wrestling things and even talked about listening to Jordan Burroughs on podcasts. Just tell us you want to talk about weight cutting. Don't create a fake persona to present it.

Great questions and they promote good discussion. We do weighins for each day of competition. For duals it's an hour before. For tournaments it's usually 1-2 hours before the start. We don't have any tournaments where you wrestle only the finals on the final day. But you could have a decent gap before the semis (maybe noon). I think the rules could absolutely be improved. I think trying to promote less weight cutting in HS is good. The team I coach in Washington might seriously cut less weight than any decent team in the state. I don't like weight cutting. I just don't think it's matside weighins or you're prioritizing the lineup over a kid's best interest.

The current rule is one hour weigh ins. You declared that if a coach doesn't support mat side weighins, it's because they care about other things more than their wrestlers.

Great points. They don't make it any less absurd that you said a coach who supports one hour weighins doesn't care about kids.

So now we should be gambling friendly to attract imaginary casual viewers to the sport?

I guess if it's happening already we should try to create more gambling. Maybe if weight cutting is happening we should try to make that worse too.

Prop bets? So we want to make things healthier with matside weighins, but then encourage gambling on a sport that doesn't have a professional level? Genius.

College CC and track don't have weigh ins, but coaches body fat test their athletes and it's far unhealthier than weight cutting in wrestling.

You don't know about those sports if you think they all cut less weight. Weight cutting is nuts across every sport with weight classes. Horse racing goes beyond matside weigh ins and requires a weigh in and a weigh out after the race, and the jockeys still cut amounts of weight that would match or exceed wrestlers. But you make a great point about HS participation and a responsibility to young wrestlers.

None of this has anything to do with matside weigh ins vs one hour weigh ins. If coaches tell kids they are needed down 15 lbs, then they care about a lot of things, and the athlete probably isn't one of them. But they can tell kids they're needed down with matside weigh ins, and they can tell kids they aren't needed down with one hour weigh ins. If you want to argue that coaches who push unhealthy or unneccessary weight cutting don't care about kids, then you've got a great argument. If you want to push that coaches who prefer one hour weigh ins to matside weigh ins don't care about kids, then you have completely lost it.

Is it a black eye for MMA, Boxing, Jiu-Jitsu, Judo, kick boxing, power lifting, rowing, horse racing, sprint football, and youth football? I might seriously coach the HS team that cuts the least weight in the entire state of washington. I have no attachment to weight cutting, but vilifying it is silly.

It's interesting that you directly equate kids weighing in an hour before to coaches not caring about their wrestlers.