IMO, I think it would be a shame for the private schools to compete in a separate class. Whoever is the best (last year Ark City, this year SJA) wouldn't you want to prove yourself next year against those top teams? Everything is cyclical, kids graduate and talent changes, so it is hard for me to believe SJA will always win the title. Next year, or the year after, it could be Andover, Goddard, Mill Valley, or it could be KMC or STA. Whoever it is, I want our school to try and compete with them. I want our school to go to the tournaments they go to and wrestle those guys. If we get beat, we go back to the drawing board and work on our weaknesses. If we win, we know we can compete with proven talent. At the end of the year, the state tournament is where our guys should go to wrestle the best of the best. There are some that would like to throw all classes together for this exact reason, but that is a different thread.

I guess I don't understand the whole controversy. It sounds too easy to chalk up a private schools success to 'recruiting'. Any school district that has open enrollment like the Blue Valley school district could be accused of the same thing, but on a smaller scale. We know who the 'Football School' is in our district. We also know who the 'CC School' is and the 'Tennis School' is, etc... But I don't hear a lot of accusations about recruiting because I think it is rare. At least I have no first hand knowledge of it. Wouldn't football players see the success a school has over time (due to great coaching and systems) and maybe just entertain the thought that they would like to go to school X because they are considered the football school? Success in our district is it's own recruiter. If our wrestling coach is doing his best to promote and teach youth wrestling, we should be able to build a strong program (I think he is doing a good job at it, too). Then maybe we become the 'Wrestling School' in our area and wrestlers will choose to wrestle for that school, not out of any sense of recruiting, but because they want to wrestle for that proven coach.

It just seems to me that we should be looking at the success of some schools with more complex criteria than if a private school succeeds, it is because they did something unethical to poach talent. I am not saying that recruiting doesn't happen in either private or public schools. But I have yet to have knowledge of even one instance where it happened. It seems to me that kids and families make their own decisions based on what is best for them. I guess I am too much of a libertarian to think otherwise.