[Anonymous]

Now, did you guys really think you could start a new forum without me to stir the pot? Honestly, it looks even more dead than the last one. I mean, the only one on this forum who seems willing to stir the pot is Undergroundchamp and frankly after reading his post, I can’t tell if he’s dumber than he is soft. So I’m here, for you guys (not because things get sad after high school and I’m living vicariously through teenagers), because this looks like a job for me so everybody just follow me cause we need a little controversy. In lieu of the trigger warning I know some of you soft individuals need, I’m just going to say I hope this offends you and I take nothing back. I’ll start with some well-earned congratulations.

First thing’s first congratulations to the best team in the state PERIOD (Yeah, really) Camden County. It’s amazing to see how far this program has come. Four state dual titles in a row means there isn’t a kid on that team who has experienced a loss at the state duals. I remember a time when there wasn’t a kid on that team who had experienced a win at state duals. What Wilder has done there is simply amazing. He went into the desert and built an oasis that became the envy of the cities.

Secondly, and this one will seem a bit unorthodox but there’s been too much bad blood in this uneven rivalry so I’d like to try to bury the hatchet, congratulations to Woodland, Cartersville. I know what you’re thinking. They didn’t even qualify for the state dual tournament. Of the 88 spots available, they couldn’t even claim one, truly abysmal.* But now that the journey’s over and you guys have passed your peak, it’s all downhill from here, we can finally take in the great accomplishment that was your numerous runner-up finishes. Everyone wants to talk about how great Camden is, but I urge you all to take a step back and look at the facts. Camden, in the entire history of their program, has only taken second 3 times. Woodland did it six times in a row!… and then didn’t qualify for the state tournament. I can say with the utmost sincerity that Camden could never do that.

I would also like to congratulate Buford and Commerce on their state titles. I say those teams because if we grouped classes in a sensible manner and had a reasonable number of classes (no more than 3), I think they’d win titles (Jefferson’s close, and better than Commerce but I feel like they’d get grouped in with Buford and lose a dual that would actually be fun for fans to watch). The others ain’t state champs in my book because the only reason they have a state title is because the ridiculous number of classes we’re stuck with. You get no respect from me if you need seven classes to win a state title (sorry North Hall).

If you think I’m being mean to North Hall, Social Circle, and Richmond Hill, ask yourself a few questions. How would they do against Camden? Does a team that would lose that badly deserve to be called a state champ? Is wrestling a sport that should coddle its athletes and their feelings? How many classes do you think Georgia should have? So you agree there are teams, and come season’s end there will be individuals, who have not earned, do not deserve that distinction? When did Richmond Hill get good? Who even is North Hall?

You might think I’m being disrespectful, and I am (relatively at least. I’d argue that I’m simply not giving them undue respect), but it’s disrespectful to me to see these mediocre teams honored as if they accomplished something. They haven’t. You want me to call these frauds state champs? Absolutely not. I’ll concede they won a tournament… In mid-January… Featuring exclusively Georgia competition, but I cannot call any of the three aforementioned teams state champs when, if there was an all-class dual tourney, they don’t make the podium.

So in conclusion Richmond Hill, North Hall, and Social Circle, I do not recognize your state titles. You do not deserve the title of “State Champion.” I have seen decoder rings in the bottom of cereal boxes that were more hard-earned than your state titles.** Prove me wrong. Schedule the teams I talked about and beat them. That is how you earn respect in this sport. Until then, go sit at the kids table and stare at your shiny, meaningless rings.

Finally, seven classes have absolutely ruined this tournament. Back when I was competing, this was my favorite event of the year. Now, it’s a joke with the winners all but decided after the teams weigh-in. Near as I can tell from many states away, of the 14 semi-final matches 2 of them appear to have not been decided going into the final match. I think four of the 14 were decided by single digits. Which isn’t even that bad compared to the state finals where NONE of these matches were decided by single digits, not a damn one. The closest was Richmond Hill’s 11 point win, followed by Social Circle’s 14 point win, and Jefferson’s 17 point win. The others were massacres. That’s not interesting. That’s not fun to watch.

This is a problem. We need to fix this. It’s only going to get worse. Five classes was too many. This is abysmal. This is us awarding titles to teams and kids who have not earned them (and yes, it is very possible to work really hard and still not earn the thing you want. If little Johnny isn’t the best wrestler in the state, or at least within striking distance of that, he does not deserve to call himself a state champ). Now every time our laughable number of classifications is brought up, it gets the same response: “GHSA only cares about football” So I’ll close with a question, if the GHSA truly does only care about football, why the **** would they care about what we do on our own?

* Although personally, they are my pick for the 89th best team in the state.

** I understand this is criminally hyperbolic, but I’m leaving it in because I thought it was funny.

[knarkill]

Bahahahahaha.

Good to see you on here, Whitey. To add to your complaint about classifications, I hear we’re going to 8 next year. I neither know if this is true, or how it will affect wrestling.

[Anonymous]

I guess my reply is simply this….Social Circle, Richmond Hill , North Hall ( I am singling them out since YOU did ) have zero input or say so in the matter. All they can do is BEAT who is put in front of them. Sure it may be fun to live in the WHAT IF world but at the moment we are over loaded with too many classifications and it is what it is.
On this same note…..I think attendance was down…..only from MY observation not necessarily facts. I remember going to watch Collins Hill years ago and the place was fairly full….not just with CH fans but just in general. I wonder if this tourney has been so diluted that the outsiders who may be just wrestling fans have stopped coming ????

Any event…….5 straight for my Black & Gold !

ps…..it was absolutely FUN to watch the Richmond Hill fans. All to quickly is it easy for ALL OF US to lose sight of that special special feeling when you win it for the first time ! Congrats RH and keep it going !

[Anonymous]

No doubt that the divisions have gotten watered down by making it 7. However, those teams who fielded full fundamentally sound lineups this weekend were the ones that came out on top. You may not see an individual state champion even come out of those lineups in 4 weeks back in Macon. A testament to depth and commitment within those programs. Congratulations to Richmond Hill, Social Circle and North Hall. They are all working on building sustainable programs. Kudos to those coaches, athletes, parents and staff! You can only wrestle who steps on the mat in front of you.

[Anonymous]

For all those complaining about too many GHSA divisions… Can somebody…. anybody with any experience at all organizing and running a tournament of any kind just organize an annual folk style tournament in late Feb or early March right after GHSA state?? One division of any 8th-12th graders that want to participate from any school (public, private, home, charter, whatever) as long as they are GA residents. Use high school season scratch weights. Call it GA HS State Championship or whatever you want. Use any sanctioning body you want. Some guy from Vidalia did the AAU championships late April 2017 and I thought it was a great tournament. Small but good. This Definitely would grow to be a really big and bad tournament if held consistently right after GHSA individual state every year. This would be waaaaaay easier than trying to find who to talk to at GHSA about anything much less thinking they would listen or care (In any sport for that matter). I’ve never organized a tournament but would be more than happy to be a table worker or whatever. Or everybody can just keep complaining about too many divisions. When we have 8 next year it should really be fun to listen to.

[knarkill]

We do.

We’ve had the tournament every May…

[Anonymous]

This was done about 5 years ago in conjunction with the Kids State Tournament at the Georgia Dome.

Turnout was very low.

[Anonymous]

I would have to disagree with some of this. I’ve seen all of the schools wrestle before the tournament except ( Richmond Hill and North Hall). Out of all the schools that won, you cant take anything away from any of them except maybe those two above and Commerce. They have not wrestled in one big tournament or just a dual at home or away in YEARS. Do they have some talent over there? yes they do but their schedule does not back any of that up and 1A is a cake walk and will be as long as they are 1A.

[Anonymous]

It’s an easy thing to say “I don’t recognize your schools state titles”. The wrestlers coaches, parents, and fans don’t get to control the fact that GHSA has implemented so many classifications. Agreed, too many by far. However, saying those schools don’t seek competition shows that you don’t know who they are. Commerce, big tournaments, Bradley Central Invitational and “The Clash”, not too shabby I’d say. North Hall, Buford Inv. and McCallie. They don’t wrestle in their areas often because they do get out and seek competition. North Hall has head to head wins this year against Archer, Mt View, Bradley Central, Cass and West Laurens. Only loss if I recall was to Buford in a close one. I cant speak on behalf of Richmond Hill because this weekend was the 1st time I’ve seen them, but they did their job. Say what you will about a watered down tournament and we will agree, it is; but all a school can do when it comes to state is compete where they are. If you can redesign the wheel and defeat all the bureaucracy to decrease the number of classifications, I’m sure fans of the sport would be ecstatic, go for it. You have my support.

[Anonymous]

Okay, Whitey. I’ll come out of venting semi-retirement to play on this one.

“Who even is North Hall?”

For starters, it’s generally not an effective debate tactic to admit ignorance on a topic, and then proceed to give your opinion on said topic.

And secondly, no argument that there are too many classifications.

But that aside, let’s answer your question to cure at least a little bit of that ignorance.

If you had been around Georgia wrestling for the past few years, you would have a pretty good idea about who North Hall is. The youth feeder program has developed into arguably the best in the state, regardless of classification. Given its size and success over the past decade, and certainly over the past 4-5 years, I would hazard that most people who are familiar with such things expected North Hall to start winning state titles with regularity (though given the youth of our varsity team, most of us thought the breakthrough wouldn’t happen until next year).

But you probably don’t care to hear about the youth program. You just want to talk about high school, right? Fine.

It’s not like the high school team came out of nowhere. Two years ago in AAAA, we placed 3rd in Duals (behind Gilmer and Buford) and 2nd in Traditional (behind Gilmer). We might have been able to knock off Gilmer and Buford in both if we hadn’t been required to replace two returning starters (one a state qualifier from the year before and the other a state placer) with freshmen, because the starters managed to elevate teenage boy stupidity to a sufficiently criminal level to earn an expulsion from school. (We lost the state dual semis to Gilmer 40-30; IIRC one of those substitute freshmen got pinned in the last match.)

Unfortunately, that team was dominated by seniors, especially in the middle and upper weights (2X state champ at 160, state champ at 170, state runner-up at 182, state placers at 195 & 220). And we didn’t have much depth at the upper and middle weights behind them. So last year backed up a little with a lineup that was over half freshmen.

But you probably don’t care to hear about the past years. You just want to hear about this year, right? Fine.

Let’s start with this year’s duals record. Here’s (I think) every team we wrestled in a dual this year, in alphabetical order, with the result (sorry, I don’t have all of the scores but posted every one that I have), and a note or two about the opponent.

Archer (2018 AAAAAAA State Duals Runner-Up) W (48-23)
Bradley Central, TN (2016 & 2017 TSSAA AAA duals state champion) W (?,?)
Brookwood (1-2 at 2018 AAAAAAA state duals) W (?,?)
Bremen (2018 AAA State Duals Runner-Up) W (42-22)
Buford (2018 AAAAA State Champ) L (35-38)
Cass (2018 AAAAA State Duals 3rd Place) W (?,?)
Fannin County W (82-0)
Franklin County W (69-6)
Jackson County (2018 AAA Duals 4th Place) W (45-16)
Mill Creek W (?,?)
Mountain View (2018 AAAAAAA State Duals 4th Place) W (39,32), W (?,?)
Pierce County (top 8 at 2018 AAA state duals) W (60-3)
Rockdale County (top 8 at 2018 AAAAAAA state duals) W (?,?)
South Paulding (1-2 at 2018 AAAAAA state duals) W (45-26)
Sonoraville (2018 AAA State Duals 3rd Place) W (47-26)
Tift County (1-2 at 2018 AAAAAAA state duals) W (53-13)
Vestavia Hills, AL (2016 & 2017 AHSAA AAAAAAA state champs) W (?,?), W (?,?)
West Laurens (2018 AAAA Duals 3rd Place) W (45-24)
Woodland (I think you’ve covered them) W (?,?)

So if I’ve added that up right, that’s:
• An overall dual record of 20-1
• 2 wins over 2X defending state champs in the highest classification from neighboring states
• 3 wins over AAAAAAA state duals placers
• 2 wins over state duals placers from higher classifications
• 4 wins over state duals qualifiers from higher classifications

Yes, the one loss was to Buford, one of the teams you praised. Hold that thought. We’ll come back to that one.

“…if there was an all-class dual tourney, they don’t make the podium.”

Still want to go with that? Who would you put above us?

Camden obviously.

Buford probably – but we only lost to them by 3 in a dual that was decided in the last match, so if they’re your number 2 we’re at least a threat for the podium.

Jefferson? West Laurens is the only common point of comparison. They won 50-24. We won 45-24. Hardly a decisive difference given the both were 20+ point wins.

Commerce? Our only common duals opponent was Tift County, who we beat by 40 and they beat by 38; again, blowout margins are pretty worthless as comparison points. But they did lose to Locust Grove at Kyle Maynard. And Buford smoked Locust Grove. Commerce also lost to some Alabama team at the Clash. And we beat the best team in Alabama twice.

Who else?

Nobody in AAAAAAA since we beat the runner-up pretty decisively and the 4th place team twice. Apparently nobody from AAAAAA or AA since you trashed Richmond Hill and Social Circle so thoroughly as well. In AAAAA Ola and Locust Grove both got thrashed by Buford, and we beat Cass straight up. Gilmer? Lost to Commerce.

Seriously, if there was an all-classification dual, which four teams would keep us off the podium?

And if Commerce, Jefferson, or anyone else wants to settle this, last I heard we were still looking for another team or two to turn our Senior Night/Alumni Night/Youth Night/Coach Paul White Night dual tomorrow into a Tri or a Quad.

“How would they do against Camden? Does a team that would lose that badly deserve to be called a state champ?”

Full disclosure, we wrestled in a dual against Camden, and got smoked. But there’s a reason you don’t see it on the list above. Because it happened in the first round of the championship bracket at the Jazz Town Duals in New Orleans last summer. (Camden finished 3rd FWIW.) Should we count a summer dual result like that as valid?

Careful here Whitey…

Because if you do count it as a valid result, then to be consistent you would have to count our 41-37 win the consolation bracket finals to claim 9th place in the 30 team field.

Why is that even relevant? Because the team we beat was Buford (41-37). I warned you we’d come back to them. (But you thought I was just going to bitch about transfers and the like, didn’t you?)

Bottom line of this is whether you’ve heard of us or not, as a duals team we’re not the paper champions you’ve convinced yourself we are.

Could we beat Camden right now? I wouldn’t bet on it.

But, as I said, our train wasn’t scheduled to arrive until 2019. There’s a reason for that. Of all the state duals champions this year, I would bet we were EASILY the youngest. If I’ve counted right, we used 17 different wrestlers in our 6 matches at Area Duals and State Duals (3 only wrestled once, 12 were in the lineup for all 6 matches). Here’s the breakdown by class of those 17:

Seniors – 1
Juniors – 3
Sophomores – 9
Freshmen – 4

And FWIW, 3 of the freshmen were among the 12 that wrestled every match.

Not only that, except for one dual when we bumped up a junior 152 to 160, in all those duals every spot in our lineup in the 6 heaviest weight classes (160 – 285) was filled by a sophomore, many of whom were actually wrestling up from their natural weight class. The physical difference between our 15-16 year old SOFTmores and opponents’ chiseled, muscular 17-18 year old seniors was at times pretty stark.

So maybe we wouldn’t beat Camden this year. But next year or the year after….???

Obviously, our youth at the heavier weights is going to hinder us a bit at Traditional State this year. But those guys are going to continue to mature and improve over the next two years. So don’t look for us to go away, even with Jefferson moving down to AAA next year.

“What Wilder has done there is simply amazing. He went into the desert and built an oasis that became the envy of the cities.”

Here’s the great irony of your post… if there’s a team that you should admire because of the similarities to your alma mater’s program’s rise, it’s North Hall.

We’re just a little rural school situated between the two main forks on the north end of Lake Lanier. We’re about half way between I-985 and GA 400, but not particularly convenient to either since you can’t get to either without crossing the lake or going around it – and there are only so many ways across it. So while we are somewhat a bedroom community for nearby Gainesville, we’re not a high growth area for move-ins or an easy access location for out-of-district students.

13 years ago, our wrestling program had fallen into such poor shape that it was mathematically impossible for North Hall to win ANY dual because we could fill out at most 6 weight classes. We were forfeiting more points than we could possibly win.

No joke – our HS coach at the time had more children than he had varsity wrestlers. (I swear I’m not exaggerating.) Unfortunately, the oldest of his (then) 8 kids was in 7th grade. (He eventually stopped at 10.)

So naturally, he started a youth program.

That coach left a couple of years later. We’re actually on the 4th head coach since then. But every coach saw the future value of the youth program, and kept investing in it. And the community bought into it. And it grew. And its success grew.

Fast forward to now, and of those 17 kids that participated in Area or State Duals, at least 13 of them came up through the Jr. Trojan program 6 or more years ago. (Some of them I think are in their 9th or 10 years with the program. I’m getting too old to remember exactly.) Three more are locals that either started Jr. Trojans later or started wrestling in middle school or high school, but I’m not exactly sure when. The 17th moved in from Forsyth County this year. But that is rare. We don’t get many move-ins because we’re kind of off the beaten path, as detailed above.

The youth program is still flourishing. The youth program director told me earlier this year “we’re loaded down to 6U.” Even though we keep cycling through youth coaches and volunteers, it’s become quite a machine, truly beyond what we envisioned for a community our size.

Given our location in the sticks, we knew we were probably never going to have a state champion contender ever move in to wrestle for us like Buford and Jefferson have. So we had to figure out a way to develop wrestlers like Nick & Jackson Whitmire, John & Jacob Pedraza, Matt Glenn and Mike Carew from within our community instead. (For the record, I wholeheartedly support any parent’s decision to place their child in whatever school they think is best for them for any reason they deem appropriate. I’m not casting any aspersions whatsoever on parents that exercise that option or the programs they chose for their kids. I came very close to doing it myself. So don’t @ me and don’t take this thread down that rabbit hole.)

Like Wilder at Camden, we’ve developed a program for the kids of our community, using kids from our community. To borrow from Fretwell, we set out to build an empire, not a kingdom. So it’s a program with deep foundations, designed from the beginning for long-term success, without relying on move-ins, out-of-district kids, etc.

That’s who North Hall is, Whitey.

[Anonymous]

Very very glad to see you out of retirement old friend. We need you here.

To Clarify- Commerce did not lose to the Alabama team of reference….we won in a close one.

[Anonymous]

Sorry my friend. Just looked at it wrong. My bad.

Time for stronger reading glasses, I guess.

[Anonymous]

That North Hall thing has been growing and anybody paying attention saw it coming. Congrats to Coach Whitmere and coach Mullins and the whole team wicked bunch. Well done men.

[Anonymous]

Well then….(Mic Drop)

[Anonymous]

I just with Bum would do a little research before he posts based off pure emotion…..eyeroll…..it’s good to see someone counter with facts….hard to argue those

[Author]

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