That is one thing I have always told my kids, you learn from losing.

I am happy for those young men that are getting to 150 wins, but I think that soon 175 will be the bench mark. I also understand that some of you don't like your guys to have goals for undefeated seasons, but why not? Every kid should aim to be the best there is as Zach and Bo did. I do congradulate those, but I was just asking a question to get opinions, not to make anybody upset.

I went 125-21 in high school.

I believe there is the potential to learn more from losing a match than winning one. I also feel that if you are going after the toughest competition you can find, having a goal of going undefeated is OK. But having that goal can inherently drive you away from tough competition. What’s the old saying; If you are undefeated you probably haven’t traveled far enough.

I was disheartened to hear any derogatory comments with regard to this topic and the 100/150 win accomplishment.

100 wins in a high school career is great, 150 is almost amazing.

Winning 100 matches usually means you wrestled varsity 4 years and that is a big accomplishment at some schools. My son's freshman year he had to beat a ranked kid who was an upper classman just to make varsity. My son's sophomore year he went up in weight and the ranked kid who was JV the previous year won state. Winning a 100 matches means you scored a lot of points for your team over 4 years and everyone should be proud of you and your efforts.

Yes, the mark is certainly a "moving target" but it is still a great accomplishment. Yes, when I wrestled in the late 70's and early 80's we went to only 3 pre state tournaments, regional, state and had about 8-10 duals per year so you were lucky if you even wrestled a 100 matches in your career, let alone win 100. I finished in the top 6 in state 4 years in a row and ended up with only 85 wins. Yes, there were fewer opportunities to win matches then but there were also fewer opportunities to lose matches and my son's schedule was a lot tougher than mine. Top teams today have some dang tough schedules, I know my son's team certainly does.

My son won't make 150 wins. It looks like he will have about 135 but he has still had a great accomplished career so I am obviously offended by any comment suggesting otherwise. Yes, my son is no Roberson or Mayne. He is no Cokeley, Moeder, Gentzler, Bontz, Seybold or Pursel, but he will end his high school career 3rd on the all time career wins list at his school behind Tyler Caldwell and Mitchell Means and I am dang proud of that and dang proud of him. That is quite an accomplishment, especially at a school with such a great tradition and history of wrestlers.

We should certainly celebrate the accomplishments of anyone that wins 100, 125 or 150 wins. And in the future we can celebrate those that win 175.

Very well stated.

Well said X-Man! I wrestled about the same time you did and under the same conditions. However, the comparison has to stop there. Problem? I wasn't any good. Ha.

I wish I could say that I "only won 85 matches." Well, not exactly. I am who I am. Even with the few wins I had, I am still glad that I enjoyed the sport then and continue to enjoy it now (I have not missed a state HS finals match in at least 15 years and ALWAYS attend the finals of at least one HS tourney a year.)

Congrats to you and your son and any one brave enough to step on a mat in front of of potential gym full of people and go 'man' vs. 'man'. One on one. That in itself takes a lot of guts.

So . . . I wasn't any good. But, I still fun and learned a ton of good virtues that have served me well to this day.

Dean Welsh

i didn't take travis24 statement as derogatory at all. guys when stats are kept, and competition changes, stats can become skewed.

roberson beat everyone he wrestled in high school, i don't feel that mr. bontz or cokeley were trying to take away from that with the "old sayings". i mean after all no one is trying to say he was "shying away" from competition while at ISU.

whether they had an opportunity to wrestle 80 matches or 180 matches these wrestlers competed in "their time". stats are soooo important in baseball, let's keep it that way. Celebrate the accomplishments and move on, don't try to make it more or less that what it is.

Are you kidding?

"Has the 100 and 150 win marks lost their luster?" How can this be taken any other way but derogatory? It is totally derogatory. He wasn't really even asking a question. It was a totally rhetorical question that totally took away from the accomplishments that the thread was trying to celebrate. There was no need to even bring up Roberson, that in itself took "luster" away from the accomplishments of those we were celebrating this season. Everyone knows who Roberson is and how great he was. No one needed a history leasson. The thread was totally hijacked.

"Stats can be skewed", what the heck are you saying? Are you saying that some of these kids, or their coaches or parents lied? Now you have made a derogatory comment insinuating foul play and that certainly takes "luster" from the accomplishments the thread was intending to celebrate.

Nobody said that Mr. Bontz or Mr. Cokeley were being derogatory, I certainly didn't. Their comments and any comments with regard to Roberson and going undefeated were a seperate issue that I was not even concerned with or compelled to respond to.

And we were trying to celebrate the accomplishments and move on. But a couple of people made some knuckle headed comments that needed to be addressed. If you leave it at that we can continue to celebrate and move on. Otherwise there will be more rebuttal.

i think you're drinkin' the wrong coffee again.

the statement "skewed stats" in no-way shape or form makes someone a liar. and in NO WAY did i intend that. thanks for "skewing" my comments into something and making your own derogatory statements.

stats can be skewed and interpreted, "skewed", viewed, in many ways. Barry Bonds vs Hank Aaron, Barry Sanders vs Jim Brown, Zach Roberson vs Ryne Cokeley......we can debate the accomplishments many different ways, I assure you without any doubt that we will not see their total careers the same. I would never hold that against you, or anyone else.

my point was to not read more into wins and losses other than to celebrate those mile stones. not sure if you just woke up on the wrong side of the bed or what. please understand that trying to make it look like i was calling someone a liar, isn't going to fly. send all the rebuttals you want. have a nice day.

travis24's comment could be taken a number of ways

cokeley's comment could be taken a number of ways

my statement was obviously taken differently than intended

your statement could be taken as antagonizing

i just meant that 150 wins is 150 wins, no matter how you look at it.

Well then....this is really not a rebuttal, it is more like a defense.

Don't know what "wrong" coffee is. I only know of one kind, the kind that contains caffeine. I guess I can thank doug747 for making the silly left-handed coffee comment earlier that you apparently took serious because you don't know me. Thanks Doug.

Don't know about the "liar" thing but I do know what skew means. Skew does not mean "viewed in many ways". It means "twist or distort from true value". So I can logically see that if someone did skew intentionally, that would be lying. And if you knew what skew means you would indeed be calling someone a liar. Your athlete analogies have nothing to do with "skewing". That's called comparing apples and oranges which was what we would be talking about if we were indeed comparing Roberson to Cokeley as far as number of wins. Perhaps you were looking for a different word. I did not skew your comment to come up with my own derogatory comment. I only took your comment "skewed" at face value. I of course struggle saying these things to you because they could be considered derogatory but you are really breaking my back over this and now I have to defend myself. I am not the bad guy. I was trying to honor and support the kids that have worked so hard to get 100 or 150 wins because the comments about "luster" did indeed take "luster" away from those accomplishments. I really don't see it any other way.

Don't know about the "wrong side" of the bed. I wake up on the same side of the bed every day, the "right side". I am always happy to get up and go to work because even on my "worst" day, I still get paid and I can still pay my bills and provide for my family. But thanks for being concerned and asking.

I don't think anyone was trying to "read more into wins and losses", I certainly wasn't. We were trying to recognize kids that had reached "milestones". Certainly no one ever said that any particular kid was better than some great wrestler from the past because they had more wins. Most were just saying hey, "this kid has reached this "win milestone", congratulations to him".

But this discussion should not be about skewing, or coffee or the bed. It should be about the kids that reached 150 wins or even 125 or 100 wins this season and about recognizing those kids and celebrating their accomplishments. It should never have been about Roberson or what ever else came up. That's what I am saying.

I know that this is long winded, but I am just addressing everything that has been brought up against me.

And now....

travis24's comment can only be taken one way as I see it, the way it was said. It was a rhetorical statement and the "luster" comment made it clear what he was saying. At least that is how I saw it. Apparently others did as well. To me it was like saying well.... 150 wins is not that big of an accomplishment now because kids wrestle more matches and by the way how many losses do they have", like that really even matters.
Maybe I should have just said "yes right Travis, 153-0 is more impressive than 150-10 but we are trying to celebrate kids that reached 150 right now and not concerned with how many losses they have so let's not get off track". So I guess that's on me for "opening up a can of worms" huh.

I do not understand why you keep bringing up Cokeley. I am not sure how many "numbers of ways" any of his comments could be taken because I really didn't even get into that component of this discussion because that was a seperate issue and the comments did nothing to detract from the 150 win celebration. It seems it was more about the undefeated aspect, good or bad. I have no issue there.

If you tell me that your statement was taken differently than intended, then I accept that and can say sorry, my bad.

I am sure that my comment was taken as "antagonizing" by you because it contradicted you I guess. But I am also sure the kids that took pride in their 100, 125, 150 win accomplishments didn't take it that way. They were probably glad to hear that not everyone thought that their accomplishments had lost "luster".

And now I better go get some more coffee because I am really feeling "run down", or should I say "run over".

i see a badminton match on the horizon

You will have to pick something else because I am not into anything Ping Pong ish in nature.

I agree with X. The post was meant to celebrate achieving wins. A purely positive thing. It was frustrating to me that some had to twist the positive by basically saying "Winning now is easier than winning back in the day..." or "It doesn't matter how many wins you have, lets look at losses..." We can spin an undefeated record too by saying well those guys started at 103 (or whatever the lowest weight was) so that is much different than those who started their careers at a weight with far more upper classmen competition.

Lets focus on the W's and start a different post like "Travis thinks losses are more important than wins..." or something like that....


Congrats to all who win and especially those who win, 100, 125, 150, or even 175. I hope we get the chance to say 200 someday!

I just want to congratulate my son on his first victory over his 8 yr old sister. Great job buddy, hope to see many more of them. And don't let any of these guys on here get you down over your 1-64 record against her.

Alright, alright, I was just asking a question for what people thought...some took my questions the wrong way. I ask the same questions about all sports, like the undefeated dolphins. Is their 16-0 record as good as the patriots going 18-1? The patriots won 2 more games before they lost. I was just literally asking what people thought when the ultimate wins achievement would move to 175 or 200. When I wrestled 100 was good, 125 was better, and 140 or more was outstanding. Sorry for the misunderstanding.

I will say it again that I am not taking anything away from those kids that have achieved the 100 and 150 milestones. I hang my hat on the fact that I won 125 matches. I think that 150 wins is an amazing accomplishment. I guess my philisophical side got away from me.

X you got the defenition right, but still don't see how some of the statement could be misunderstood or how some of the statements could be skewed or DISTORTED. to distort doesn't quite mean to "lie", but then again this isn't an english forum, and you're not XGHSET. i didn't see the knucklehead comment as antagonistic, more like a compliment, but some could distort/skew that into picking a fight.

back to the celebration of an awesome accomplishment.

soooo if i would have used the word SPIN, we could have avoided this whole thing??? Will you're so good with words. just swell.

What, no apologies over the coffee comment. That's it, we are no longer buddies but congratulations to your son. Hope the apple fell far from the tree. No just kidding, that was derogatory.



True that I am not XGHSET, but I am XGHSST and CurrentWSEHSST which is even better and of course the best of all is XGHSWC.

No apologies from me. At first I thought your fancy smancy writing was induced by some sort of "active" ingredient, possibly left handed, that you were putting in your coffee. But actually the more I read your postings, the more I realize you are way too smart for me to communicate with, and I am jealous, and soon will be starting a new class warfare (similar to the Have and Have Not war that the Liberals wage), but it is smart versus dumbs. Or Have Smarts (you) and Have Not Smarts (me)

Unless you agree to quit using words longer than 6 letters, I will begin this campaign immediately. And we can be buddies again if you start using words that I communicate best with, which is 4 letter words.........