We have a kid in our club that has won the D bracket the last 3 tourneys, his mom will not move him up because he is a first year wrestler. We have considered a team rule, that if you win as a D wrestler twice, you have to move up to at least a C. How do other clubs handle this?

If the kid wants to wrestle D let him. He'll be the only one who pays for it in the long run at subs and state

You let the Parent decide?

In our club the coaches decide what is best for the kid to progress, not the parent.

My 6 year old son won most of the tournaments he entered as a 5 year old in the D brackets. This year, the coach has him in an A bracket. He is having trouble in this bracket this year but we kept telling him that it is only going to make him tougher. I think the coach is now going to put him in a B bracket so that he can have some success so he doesn't get too upset. He really has a problem with losing. We will see how well it goes.

I have a question kind of the same. I don't know where I should rate my little cousin. He is 12 and under 75-80lber and beats some decent kids cause he is faster or stronger, but there are to many kids in his jr. high to learn the basics. He doesn't know what to do from top or bottom very well. and has wrestled in two jr. high duals and one trny. where should I rate him.

I agree with Coachjt. Rankings should be up to the coaches.
unless, a wrestler is struggling or the competition is no longer a challenge. At that point, the parent may want to discuss with the coaches bumping their child either up or down.

WOW, what tournaments do you go to where there are different brackets for A,B,C,D wrestlers?

I have been a coach in Kansas for many years and I have never heard of this.

I know there are ratings, but that is just to seed kids in the same bracket.

I have seen many tournaments where they have an "A" bracket for the experienced wrestlers and a "B" bracket for the novice wrestlers. There are also many novice tournaments in the state that kids can compete in.

My son started wrestling last year, quit mid January because he caught the flu. Our coaches rate him as a "C" wrestler this year because this is his second year. Help me understand, "why he's consistantly placed in the "A" brackets? In the two years of wrestling he's never placed first. He's a consistant third and fourth placer.

You can't build confidence in novice wrestlers if their always stuck in "A" brackets. Don't get me wrong, I've seen a huge improvement in his wrestling but, NO ONE likes to loose all the time!

In my son's case. The reason he is in the A bracket is because he usually only goes to the small tournaments and there are only two brackets. We don't have him go to the bigger tournaments due to too much competition and the cost (our oldest son also wrestles and with entry fees, concessions ect, we can't afford to have both)

Being new to to the wrestling world, I for one would definitely go with what the coach says will improve my son's wrestling skills. What I don't get is... we recently attended a tournament where our son who is a D wrestler was put into an A bracket (there was the option of putting him into the B bracket with other D wrestlers). Is there some sort of rule of filling a bracket completely (16 man)? Just wondering if we need to stick to novice tournaments, where he has placed, or take the risk being hammered in an A bracket?

My question exactly! How does this bracketing process really work? How do "D" wrestlers end up in "A" brackets?
The choice of wrestling novice is really not an option for me, I have an older child that is a third year wrestler and no longer qualifies for novice.

I'm with BigPin22. In all our years, ratings were used for seeding purposes only, with the exception of tournaments that had such huge brackets that they were split, and even then usually into only two brackets, a championship bracket (A,B) and a second bracket (C,D). Who has these tournaments with four brackets?

I tend to disagree, my son (a first year wrestler) is ranked a "C" wrestler only due to the fact that he is in his first year and lacks experience. However, when it comes to filling up an "A" bracket my son is usually taken up to that bracket because his coaches rank him just a slight bit higher than some of the other "C" wrestlers in our club in the same age/weight. At first I was alarmed that my son typically got higher rankings thus taking on tougher kids than the other "C" ranked wrestlers, but, knowing my son's attitude toward wrestling and his determination to improve every week, found that this strategy has forced him to work harder and thus improve his skill while gaining him experience that he needs and desires. Let me give you an example. At Salina TOC, in order to fill the "A" bracket they pulled my son up due to his being slightly ranked (by our coaches) over another kid from our club. At first I was like "This is just not fair putting my first year wrestler in with these State Placers!" However, when he got on the mat these kids did not overwhelm him at all and in both matches he only lost by scores of 9-6 and 9-5 respectively. He was a little bummed about not getting a win, but since he wrestled well and wrestled hard against these tough kids it was worth seeing the improvement made in his wrestling.

The next day we were entered into the Andover novice tournament where he wrestled with the same fire as the day before and took first as I and his coaches expected. In this novice tournament (4 man round robins with 8 wrestlers in his age/weight) he effectively used his skills and determination to get win all three matches
1. Pin in 3rd period score=12-2
2. won by score of 14-4
3. Tech fall in 3rd period 16-0

His coach on the mat at the Andover novice told him at the beginning of the day, "I know you can probably go out there and pin these kids, however, I want you to work your moves and score points on these kids for all your matches." I think that this has been a real turning point in my son's wrestling career, not only because of the way he wrestled and lost at Salina, but then was able to not be discouraged and work hard and improve his skill the next day at the tournament in Andover.

It was also rewarding to watch my son all day at the tournament going around to everyone's mats throughout the day cheering on his fellow teammates. If there was a match going on with a fellow teammate and my son wasn't wrestling at the time I could easily look around the gym and find him matside rooting on his teammates older and younger alike.

And by the way, my son was told by our club's head coach that Andover just might be his LAST novice tournament ever, due to him improving and gaining that experience so rapidly. Also due to a club rule that once a wrestler consistently places in open tournaments and/or takes 1st in a novice tournament, depending on the kids skill level, the kid will no longer be classified as a "novice" wrestler. We already entered him in Valley Center Open and Novice torney, but may have to scratch from the novice tourney upon the coaches wishes. I hate scratches though, so maybe ill let him decide if he wants to wrestle the novice tournament or not.