Saturday Sentinel: New weight classes still don't make much sense
Comments (...)One of the more interesting things I've written about in recent times is the IHSA's implementation and switching around the weight classes in wrestling. I recently wrote about it after catching up with the area coaches to see how it was impacting the season and the way they fill out their lineups.
I had previously written a story when the changes were first announced, asking the coaches then what they think and pretty much nothing has changed between then and now.
They all hate it.
Essentially what the IHSA did by going along with the National Federation of High School Associations is completely eliminate a lower weight class and then shift many of the other weights upwards. This in an effort to "accomodate" the national average weight of high school wrestlers. That shift then essentially took away yet another lower weight, leaving a glut of kids who want to wrestle that fewer choices to bump up or cut down to.
Why they just didn't add a weight class, which would have prevented this, is beyond me.
Seneca coach Todd Yegge's program has always had a more difficult time already filling upper weights with wrestlers. Plain and simple, he says the changes betray the very thing that makes wrestling the sport it is.
"Wrestling has been touted as the sport for everybody because there are weight classes that athletes can compete in and wrestle others that are their same weight," he said. "I believe that if they keep making the lowest weight class bigger we will not have opportunities for the smallest students in our schools to compete at fairly."
Yegge was also quick to point out that the rules have already changed to eliminate the smallest weights at one point.
"When I started wrestling there was a 98-pound weight class and it has progressed to 103 and now 106 is the smallest," he said. "Well, what about the athletes that love to compete in the sport of wrestling that weight 95 pounds or smaller and have to wrestle other athletes that are cutting down to 106 from 115 pounds or more — which has traditionally been the standard? It does not seem fair to those athletes to be giving up that kind of size difference."
That has been the main argument against the change.
Again, why they just didn't add the 195-pound class and leave the rest alone is beyond me.
Morris coach Jon Lanning has essentially had a hole at 195 all year. However, the new weight shifts have benefited one of his elite wrestlers — Nik Countryman.
"This season, due to injuries and sickness, I have had to forfeit 195, but most likely would have been in the same boat if the weight would have been 189. Most likely, Countryman would have been at 171 instead of the new weight class 182. That allows him to keep his weight up a little more," Lanning said. "Like anything, some kids benefit like Countryman. He would have most likely had to cut to 171 because at 189 (the old classes) he would have been too small. He gets to eat, lift and workout without having to worry too much about his weight. However, smaller wrestlers have taken a hit with new weight classes."
Which is why most people dislike the change. The change was passed after member schools voted on it before it went into effect. It was said to have passed with a "slight majority," however Yegge said he has yet to come across one single person in wrestling who was and/or is in favor of it.
"Somehow the national federation has passed this change and it is said that the majority of coaches have been in favor of this change," Yegge aptly put it. "But to be honest, I have not spoken to one coach that liked or was in favor of this change for many of the reasons that I have stated."
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