Well said Will, I'm not sure either. Seems very silly at best, and potentially disengaging to a solid man and very valuable (non-coach) leader in Kansas wrestling.

I guess my question is why are we not being told what happened? Why are names not being provided? PM me, I will be happy to ask these coaches by name publicly what they were thinking, and how they think they can do a better job. Obviously as of right now their Rankings are not as accurate as Chief's. So how is this better?

I am the 4A representative for the KWCA. The KWCA board voted to have a group of coaches do the rankings this year. It has caused some hard feelings, but I believe a system is now in place to accurately report the rankings. Eric does an excellent job with rankings, and I appreciate your last post so we can move on.

Brandon Jobe
jobeb@usd204.net

In the spirit of full disclosure, could we see the voter's names and their votes? Again, why would any coaches WANT to be involved in ranking? There will be obvious bias. Did all of those, including you, ask for and receive permission from your AD to put yourself in such a place of potential controversy? One of those "in your system" made it clear that he doesn't like rankings as he has "challenged his wrestlers to not read the talk forum or rankings", another said he doesn't want his wrestler ranked #1 because he doesn't want him to get a big head, another said he likes to use his wrestlers not being ranked as a motivational tool and YOU are on record stating you WANT NOTHING TO DO WITH RANKINGS yet you voted to take them over from Eric. YOU even stated that it was not professional to engage in a discussion on the forum yet you just posted this. And finally, "hard feelings"...YOU have attacked Eric's character and lectured him on professionalism, some have challenged Eric's credibility, claimed that he had "St. James bias" (I still haven't figured that one out since you guys are voting for the 4A rankings and SJA is in 5A), another member appears to have lied about sending an email notification to Eric and then threatened him with physical violence (a clear case of cyber bullying), and you pass this off as "hard feelings", WOW.

Lets be clear folks, the KWCA is a LAME duck organization. Not even one half of the HS coaches in Kansas are members (I pay $25 to belong and any of you can as well, it is NOT limited to HS coaches) and the number present to discuss and vote on this topic many not have even been 25% of the total number of HS head coaches. In my opinion it is obvious we need to work on the quality of wrestling and improving wrestling as coaches. We have a great asset in Eric Johnson as he invests HOURS of his time making calls, sending and receiving email, answering posts, taking phone calls and takes the high road on every occasion even when some of the wrestling dads have their pride bruised a little and lash out. These claims of bias are outright heresy and those who made them should publicly apologize. If you look at his top 10 senior list for this year you will NOT find my son or any other SJA wrestler but you will find several small school and western KS kids on this list because he put HIS list together and stood by it. Eric is a gift and few coaches who have NO CLUE how to do rankings decided they wanted to do it. We have asked them WHY and this is the answer:

Gentleman,

Let me try to clear this up. I sent an email last night stating the system that myself and the 3 other coaches have in place for this year’s 4A rankings. This system was just developed yesterday, so the accuracy of the 1st rankings is not perfect. I also stated that I believe this system is allow for accurate rankings in the future. I then gave my thoughts on your rankings Eric, which is no different than what I have told you both. I think you do a great job, you put many hours into them, and I have never had a problem with them. The biggest drawback to having you do the rankings is sometimes you are willing to argue with people on the talk forum. I believe a professional organization such as the KWCA should act professionally, and let the general public do the debating. A ranker should take all the information at hand, make their best guess, and then make changes as the season unfolds. I do not believe they should be involved with the arguments. Eric, you are closely tied to Will. Will, I have told you before that there are people who just flat out don’t like you, and will immediately disregard what you are saying, whether you are right or wrong. For example, some people will not attend Southern Plains camp with you running it. You like to stir things up, which is probably not the most professional approach. I personally have no problem with either of you, I think you both do great things for Kansas Wrestling, as I have told you face to face. I do not hide things from either of you.

The KWCA board made the decision for 4A coaches to do the rankings. I simply gave them the information I have, and let them vote. I do not have a personal vendetta against either of you.

I hope we can move forward from here.


Brandon Jobe
Bonner Springs High School
Clark Middle School
Physical Education/Weight Training/ Head Wrestling Coach
www.bonnerspringswrestling.com
@bravewrestling


Everyone can draw their own conclusion from this email and if you would like to see the others feel free to request them and I will "unprofessionally" post them on this forum. Obviously Mr. Jobe has a different standard in mind as well as a double standard.

Matt Simms - Colby
James Stout - Abilene
Andy Albright - Chanute
Brandon Jobe - Bonner Springs

Speaking of bias...
The KWCA annually awards HS Coach of the year in each classification:

http://www.kansaswrestling.org/images/docs/KWCA12/kwcawinner2013.pdf

6A – Carlos Prieto - Garden City STATE CHAMPS
5A – Brian Shelton - Valley Center 5th Place
4A – Cullen Jackson - Holton STATE CHAMPS
321A – Bill Johnson - Norton STATE CHAMPS

Coach Buckbee was the 5A state champion coach but had won the award the previous year which disqualifies him? I have never seen this rule published, only heard that it was in place. Greg was named, deservedly so, the NWCA Coach of the Year (I don't understand why you can't be coach of the year in consecutive years because if you are, you are??) You have to be a member of KWCA to be coach of the year but lets take a closer look at 5A.

2nd Place Mike Medina St. James Academy
3rd Place Loren Parkes St. Thomas Aquinas

Hmmmm Looks like maybe we could make a claim that the KWCA has a private school bias. The same organization that votes to oust Eric Johnson because he associated to Will Cokeley and has St. James bias appears to be the pot calling the kettle black.

Just calling it like I see it. Dang, you are not supposed to do that on the forum. It is not professional to post facts and then draw conclusions from them. You are supposed to just post facts and let everyone go at it from there. That's professional.

I know Chief has a very specific criteria for ranking. What is the criteria of the new group of rankers?

I think I pretty much speak for everyone when I say, Cokeley shut up! No one wants to hear about your Love affair with chief. If they have a private school bias it's because of you.

No I don't think you pretty much speak for everybody. Cokeley brings up some very valid points. If you think Chief is biased, just wait till these coaches start. I guarantee that these coaches will be so busy with their wrestling teams that they will not put in the time and energy that Chief does into the rankings. I hate how often Chief changes his rankings, but they are as up to date and as accurate as they ever were before or will be after. The KWCA has taken a HUGE step backward in the betterment of Kansas Wrestling.

Remember it is the 4A coaches that are wanting their class divided into 2 groups so there will be more state championships. Every body can be a winner in 4A. It is the 4A coaches that want Chief out. Why are the 4A coaches wanting to make it so easy for the kids? Why are the 4A coaches wanting to make it so easy for themselves? Does a State Championship mean as much if you water it down? Doesn't it take away if everybody is a winner? What a JOKE!!!

Were the rankings not accurate before? It looks like to me they were a hell of a lot more accurate than they are right now.

If Eric does an excellent job, why would you want a group that is doing a bad job to take his place?

Lastly, do you really appreciate my last post? If so why?

First off I wouldn't know Chief if I bumped into him a tournament. All I know are his posts and ranking on this forum and the KWCA. From what I can tell from this year and the past few years he does a pretty good job with the rankings and keeps it professional with the discussions on here.
Second, ksuwrestling2 sure does not speak for more in regards to Cokeley! I am neither a supporter or detractor of Cokeley. I have maybe spoken 20 words to him in the past 10 years I have been involved with Kansas wrestling. I agree with him sometimes and disagree other times. I think he is entertaining, informative and GOOD for Kansas wrestling.
Third, to say the new 4A ranking system "a system is now in place to accurately report the rankings" is a joke! I don't know all about all the wrestlers in 4A but I do know that the rankers have not talked to all the coach's. With my limited knowledge they have at least a handful at wrong complete wrong weights. Something they would have caught if they had taken the time to actually talk to other coaches.
Question is, why fix it if it is not broke?

Will, did you post an e-mail to the forum that was written to you and Chief? That's not cool.

Whats the problem with posting info that may help us uninformed fans understand where the informed folks are coming from? I appreciate it. Thank you.

I agree with redstorm completely

Correct me if I am wrong. Chief is not doing the rankings because he respectfully defends (argues) his decisions on ranking wrestlers. This is exactly what the new ranker is doing here. Respectfully explaining his position? How can you judge Chief when your doing the same thing?

And I thought people got mad in 3A when I did the rankings!

Unfortunately this became an emotionally packed issue. It might be wrong in some minds for me to have posted the email. In retrospect I should have handled that differently. It may not be a reasonable defense but I felt there had been so much lost in translation that it would be easiest to post the email to protect my integrity. I apologize to Brandon and those of you who were offended by this action. We don't want to litter our forum with email so in the future I will paraphrase and report instead of posting an email. My honesty will have to stand on its own. I have not changed my opinion or reaction or position on the rankings topic and I think it is clear. This will be the last I post on this topic.

I finally read thru this entire thread. It is embarassing!!!! Eric asked that we move forward and was ignored. The attacks in thread are an embarssment to Kansas wrestling. Brandon, like Eric, is one of the best people in Kansas wresling. He spends countless hours in gyms not just during High School Wrestling, but also in the summer. Over the last few years he has spent numerous hours working with my son and other Kansas wrestlers (at a free club, try to find another one of them in this part of Kansas in the summer) while the rest of us are doing something a lot more fun than sitting in a hot wrestling room. He is one of the Fargo coaches and does an excellent job. If we were debating his qualifications, he would be easy to defend given his extensive involvement in Kansas summer wrestling. In the private message I read on this forum, all he did was state his opinions....wouldn't you rather know what he is really thinking and get some honesty then have someone blow smoke up your *ss.

This summer my son had a good greco run at Fargo. Brandon and the others at Bonner get alot of the credit along with another young coach named Ryan, who helped to calm my son down after a close loss. I hope both families can put this behind them!!!!!!!

1st off ty Cokeley for putting the email on here.If some one says some thing they should stand behind it.
Ranking will and all ways should have some debate.
Where did the ranking start? I am guessing the coaches got together at one of the meetings and started it up?

From every thing I have read Chief took this job to hart.I do not think there is any way ANY of the coaches will take the job any where close to the way Chief took it.

Chief you took this way better than I would have.You are more than just a good ranker :}

For got my tag.


CHARLES BRADFORD