In your opinion how many of you think that an open should count as a win. I know there are some teams that do use these as a win while there are others that dont.

A forfeit in a dual is different from a bye in a tournament. A forfeit in a dual should count towards a win on your record because you are scoring team points and using a meet point. A bye should not count.

I disagree. Why should a wrestler be able to count an open as an individual win? They didn’t actually compete against another wrestler. As a coach I’m not willing to give up a seed in a tournment to a wrestler who has a better record based on opens counted in their record. We don’t count competition points on an individual basis, they are counted as a team.

Participation points aren't decided as a team, they are decided individually for each wrestler. You can hold a kid out of a dual or tourney and that doesn't count toward his points or send a struggling varsity kid to a JV of novice tourney as lond as he doesn't exceed his participation points. Right???? That is why a dual forfeit should count as a win and record isn't the most important criteria in most seeding meetings anyway.

Randy
You are right an individual can be held out of a competition and not lose the point, but the point is being counted in a team aspect. If the points were truly meant as individual competition points then look at how many wrestlers would be over their allotted 30 points.
Also, if records are not one of the most important criteria in a seeding meeting then tell me why Payne was seeded over Baylor at the Bobcat Classic this year, even though Baylor was the returning champion of the tournament? Remember you ran the seeding meeting.

coach neil is right a open doesnt make you better so why should it count to making your record better

In a dual, a wrestler that receives a bye should be able to count it as a win. There are many times when an opposing coach will bump a wrestler up a weight because he feels his wrestler might get pinned by the other guy at his weight. If a coach feels that his wrestler will get pinned at his original weight, but might only lose by a decision if he bumps him up, shouldn't the wrestler who receives the forfeit get credit for scaring the other guy off? (This makes a lot more sense in my head than it does in black & white!)

Coach Neil--Sorry, but they are INDIVIDUAL
competition points; from the KSHSAA Wrestling Manual; page 45, Sect. 2, Article 6: "No STUDENT (caps added for emphasis) representing a member high school shall participate in more than 18 events and in no more than 30 competition points during a season, exclusive of the state championship series."

Point 2: making someone who was "running" the seeding meeting defend the seeding of a wrestler is unfair. We have all been in seeding meetings and some of us have run them and we all know that sometimes decisions are made that may or may not adhere strictly to the criterion at hand--many times decisions come as a result of "group think" (aka Coach's Consensus).

El Gato Grande

I know what the rule says about competition points, but you are not seeing the picture here. Look at the individual records of different wrestlers. Many of the wresters throughout the state have competed in over 30 individual matches. Every time a person steps on the mat and wrestles it is a competition. If each match wrestled isn’t an individual competition then explain to me what the heck they are. Example: If you go to a two day Dual team tournament you could conceivably wrestle 10 times, but only 4 competition points would be accounted for. How the heck are these individual points? My point is that the rule may state individual points, but the team concept is implied (expressed indirectly). It is just a case of a poorly written rule. I think there are a number rules that need to be rewritten because they are pretty hazy to interpret.

Point 2: You don’t really need to worry yourself about what I say to Randy Westfahl concerning the seeding meeting at the Bobcat Classic. I doubt that you were there so you probably don’t know the circumstances, but I do, I was there. Randy happens to be a good friend of mine and if I want to jab him in the ribs a little I will. You should probably limit your comments to what you know instead of what you don’t know.

Obviously, it is possible to wrestle more matches than total points--most wrestlers have more than 30 matches in a season--what's your point? Most schools schedule to get the maximum number of matches possible for their points.

Teams of wrestlers are entered in the competitions BUT the wrestlers accumulate the points. Bottom line, the points are kept for each individual wrestler, not the team. The point to this thread, originally, was: "should forfeits count as wins since a wrestler who receives a forfeit is giving up one of his/her limited participation points?"

Secondly, I was not attempting to chastise you about the seeding thing; however, if you are going to make private jokes or comments that no one else on this PUBLIC forum are to comment on, make that clear, please.

I'm not Randy!

I'm Rick Williams---- One of the Assistant Wrestling Coaches at Colby High School.

my opinion is an open in a duel should count as a win because a lot of times the other team does have somebody at that weight that they wrestle jv unless the other team is open there also, then they send hime out to pick up the points. if they sent the kid out to wrestle most likely it would be a win anyways.

Whats up Randy Williams!!

Coach Neil at the risk of starting a huge debate, I don't believe Payne should have been seeded over Baylor. I'm not sure if you agree. Payne had an undefeated record at the time while Baylor had 1 lose I believe.They were both returning state champs, no commons. There last meeting was the year before and Baylor had beaten Payne. Baylor was the returning champ from that tourney at the weight class below. Some how record was taken over that. I thought it was a mistake. I still contend that record should be the very last seperator in seeding criteria. You just don't know who people have wrestled especially that early in the year.I think you should consider deemphasising(sp?) that criteria for your tournament next year.

Mamasawn;
I am Randy by the way lol. I did run that meeting and that was a very tough call to be sure. The fact is you have to start somewhere and record is as good a place as any to start that. When you are dealing with two wrestlers who are both state champs in a weight where you have four state champs, there is probably as many ways to see that deal as there are coaches sitting in the room. You have to seperate them though and the fact is, it is the 2003 tourney and the record from 2003 has to be a relavent factor. One very very close six minute match a year ago in a different weight does not really mean any more than a lot of other factors. We couldn't sit there all day at an impasse though, we had to decide on something. The fact of it is that one of those four state champs had managed to get to that day unbeaten, that year, and when you factored in all the criteria not just that one or the ones convienient to each coach, it made sense. The wrestlers settled it on the mat though and it came out the way that you thought it should so in affect it worked, they were seperated on the bracket, they met in the finals, and it was a great match. The fact of it is, it worked and I don't think, save for a few bruised egos in the coaches room, that whether they were as they were or flipped it really made a nats eyebrow worth of difference and we didn't spend the next four hours in the room arguing which is where we were headed. It was a very tough weight to seed and we did the best we could for them. Somebody had to come away from that weight feeling gypped, I realize that and would have if I had been in that position no doubt (and have been many many times).

Oh by the way, we did know exactly who each wrestler had wrestled and each came from a top flight program (Columbus and Paola) who had wrestled very good competition. Heck Flory who beat Payne just last week got beat out of that tourney the next day. It was just rough and could have gone a lot of ways.

I think that a forfeit in a dual should count as a win. When you wrestle smaller schools a lot of times they dont have wrestlers. If your wrestler goes to 4 or five duals and does not get to wrestle but still has to count those 4 or five points toward their 30 this is not fair. Also the wreslter is scoring points for the team so they should be rewarded for this. Like you said in many seeding meetings the record are not that important anyway. My 20-10 kid got beat by a 5-12 kid this weekend to go to state so the best wrestlers will rise to the top in tournaments anyway.

I don't think it should count. The purpose of a seeding meeting is to seperate wrestlers on a bracket. Going out and having your hand raised for nothing does nothing for determining seperation. How can that be a factor in a seeding meeting? You lost me there.

Randy you make some good points and I know it was a tough bracket to seperate. I understand your thinking and at that point you were going by the criteria that was agreed upon and at that point it was probably the way to go. Even in quality programs like Paola and Columbus schedules can differ. It becomes even more complicated when teams from a different state come in as at the Bobcat. Who can really decide how tough a teams schedule is. Some teams wrestle tough schedules early and some late in the season. Some teams may wrestle tough teams from Oklahoma or Iowa and some teams may wrestle at the tuna invitational and the barely ready for varsity classic. There are alot of factors that can lead to a real good record or a not so good record. I just don't feel it is a good indicator of how talented a wrestler is. It is just my opion that head to head competition is always more important than a kids record. If you have no other commons I think you should go to head to head first, even if the win was from a previous year. This topic is a perfect example of why. Some coaches are counting wins against invisable opponents and Johnny Bye and others are not.