Lets not get into a debate about the fairness of 8th vs 9th or 9th vs seniors or anything else for that matter. Lets all join hands and raise our voting cards when asked to pass this CHANGE. The CHANGE has to be ratified “AS IS” for the coming season or it will get sent back to the board for discussion, study and revision that may lead to its death! One thing that cannot be argued is that it gives a greater number of wrestlers the opportunity to compete in the state tournament series. A good measure of the success will be the numbers in the HS division at subs versus the 16U numbers from 2009. Another good measure will be the number of USA Cards sold to those above 16U. I am willing to be big money that you will see a significant increase in both of these numbers.
To me this opens up the door for even more opportunities in the future. USA Wrestling has a Cadet and Junior division at Folkstyle Nationals. We should create these divisions in our state tournament. Lets support the most significant, positive change in years to our state tournament series and see how it works before we pass judgment based on negative speculation. Try it this year and we will get some data to work with.
