GUTWRENCH1, some of what you say is true but much of what you say is true in Kansas but not in other states. In Kansas, basketball is king and not wrestling. Wrestling in Kansas, other than Wichita, was born and grew up in the small western towns. The bigger schools, particularly Kansas City and Topeka and now even more Wichita than in the past did not and do not care about wrestling. In some cases, the kids that are wrestling (as bad as this may sound) are wrestling because they are not athletically suited to make the basketball team. That is not the case in the smaller schools. Many are wrestling because of the tradition of their family or the program. Those smaller schools have always been good and their tradition carries forth today. That is why small, particularly Western, schools in Kansas like Norton, St. Francis, etc. are able to compete with the "big boys". In some cases, wrestling is just now taking hold in the bigger schools as they become more serious. As a result, the bigger schools are closing the gap and in some cases have closed the gap. As these larger schools continue to emphasize wrestling, if they do, the trend will continue and they will pass the smaller schools by. Just look at schools like Manhattan, Aquinas, Carroll and Turner. That is what has happened in some other states like Oklahoma where Perry used to be the supreme king but cannot compete any longer with the bigger schools. And you are wrong if you believe there is no correlation between size of school and team quality. Maybe not in Kansas for the reasons that I mentioned in this post and the previous posts. But in most other states, where wrestling is king and not basketball or in states where the bigger schools have competed as long in wrestling as the smaller schools there is a correlation. Just look at Oklahoma. Perry, which has won more state titles in wrestling than any other school in the country, won 2A last year. Cushing which also has its share of titles won 3A. Both would be destroyed, and I mean destroyed, by El Reno the 4A champ and Ponca City the 5A champ (there is no 6A) and it has been that way for a long time. I know this because I lived it. I coached in Oklahoma for ten years.
Also, your commment about Sanderson is ridiculous because that is what I was just saying in my post to prove your comment wrong and now you bring him up to back your comments. You said that number of classifications affects recruitment and you brought up Utah as an ugly exception because it had MORE classes than Kansas. I was showing that Sanderson still got recruited even though he went to Utah. I also brought up Erisman to show that number of classes is not what gets someone recruited but more, what have they done outside of their own backyard. Erisman, who has won no state titles even in 4A let alone a "grand state" state title, is heavily recruited, not because of his state or class but because he has competed across the country against other states. Yes, duh, that is the same reason that Sanderson was recruited not because the state or class or number of state titles.
You crack me up, and I am dying to know who this "hall of famer" is that knows everything, especially how crappy Kansas coaches are because they are in Kansas and how crappy Kansas wrestlers are because Kansas has too many classes.
