[Anonymous]

Can anyone decipher Don Corr’s email?

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Coaches:

The Wrestling Advisory Committee met with the GHSA Executive Director, Dr. Robin Hines and Associate Director in charge of Wrestling, Don Corr. Many items were discussed including Reclassification, GHSA Duals Tournament, GHSA Sectional Tournaments and GHSA State Traditional Tournament. The committee spent six (6) hours of beneficial discussion of all items and below is a synopsis of what transpired.

Reclassification

· The Office determined that classifications 4A-7A qualify for Region status.
· Classifications 3A, 2A, 1A Public and 1A Private would be divided into three (3) Area classifications.
· Classifications 3A, 2A Public and 1A Public would be divided equally into two (2) classification (approximately 62-65 schools) and 1A-2A Private ( approximately 34 schools) would be a classification.
· The three (3) Area classifications would be divided into eight (8) Areas in each classification.
GHSA State Duals Tournament

· All classifications would determine the four (4) Dual Teams from each Region/Area that qualify for the Dual State Tournament prior to January 9, 2021.
· Each classification would have 32 teams advance to the Dual State Tournament.
· All four (4) teams from the same Region/Area could qualify for the Dual State Championship.
· The GHSA will have predetermined 32 team brackets, each Region/Area Champion will host the #2, #3 and #4 in their assigned bracket on January 16, 2021.
· The #1 will wrestle the #4 and #2 will wrestle the #3 in the bracket.
The two losers will wrestle but not advance.
· The two winners will wrestle to determine the team qualifying for the Dual State Championship.
· The GHSA seeding committee will seed the eight (8) qualifying teams in each classification for the Dual State Championship the Sunday prior to the Championship.
· The Dual State Championship will consist of seven (7) classifications with eight (8) team brackets on January 22-23, 2021.
· Other items discussed:

Utilize the above-mentioned format but advance the winner of the four (4) team bracket in the bracket and allow the loser of the last match to advance into the wrestle backs at the State Championship. All believed that advancing the loser into the wrestle backs was problematic and didn’t think this format was viable.

· Also discussed was having eight (8) teams advance to one site and wrestle until a champion and a true second was determined. Both would advance to the eight (8) team Dual State Championship. This format would have one team from each Region/Area of the State traveling to the predetermined #1 host. The committee thought travel and true second would be problematic. Also, determining which #1 would host each year caused issues with the committee.

GHSA Sectional Tournament

· The 2020 Sectionals had 202 spots in the brackets that went unfilled.
· At least one bracket did not have a Region/Area’s #1, #2, #3 and #4 in a weight class.
· The sectional brackets had 407 byes in the brackets.
· This points to the fact that we don’t have enough wrestlers to fill brackets for seven (7) classifications.
· The sectional format will be utilized since it is the best way to determine the wrestlers who should qualify for the State Championship.
· The GHSA will try to schedule two sectional sites (12 mats per site) for 2021 with each site hosting half of the boy’s and a girl’s sectional.
· The committee discussed ways to assure less spots go unfilled in sectionals.
· After much discussion the committee settled on a proposal for four (4) public school classifications and a small size private school classification which would eliminate as many byes as possible. One (1)
girl’s classification would continue. Under this plan the four public school divisions would be closely divided into approximately 80 schools per classification. Each Area would consist approximately 9-11
schools. This would allow us to maintain 16-man brackets for the state tournament. (This will be a proposal to the GHSA Executive Committee and requires a vote to pass)
· Wrestlers comparison between current system and proposed system:
Sectionals
Present Format: 2632 boys and all girl wrestlers qualify
Proposed five (5) Class Format: 2240 boys and all girl wrestlers qualify
Discussed six (6) Class Format: 2688 boys and all girl wrestlers qualify
State Championship
Present Format: 1400 boys and 160 girl wrestlers qualify
Proposed five (5) Class Format: 1120 boys and 160 girl wrestlers qualify
Discussed six (6) Class Format: 672 boys and 160 girl wrestlers
Other items discussed:

· Utilized the new proposed Dual Region/Areas to keep the sectional qualifiers and State Traditional the same with seven state champions per weight classes but the number of wrestlers in each sectional qualifying for the State Championship would be cut from eight (8) per sectional (16 man brackets) to four (4) per sectional (8 man brackets). The committee did not like this possibility.

· Also discussed was a proposal for five (5) public school classifications and a small size private school classification which would eliminate some of the byes but not as many as possible. The committee discussed and determined that it would help some but would not solve the sectional bye issue.

GHSA State Traditional Championship

The committee discussed eliminating the following: “A wrestler who cannot wrestle (for any reason) at the State Tournament may be replaced by an alternate (from the same Sectional) at the time of
weigh-in. (A proposal to remove this from the Wrestling Section of the By Laws will be a proposed to the GHSA Executive Committee and requires a vote to remove)
—
Don Corr
Associate Director

[Anonymous]

That is going to be an enormous State Duals Tournament.
I’m not necessarily against going to 32 team brackets. However, I am against splitting the private schools into their own “Classification.” By my count only 8 1A private schools even came close to filling a 14 man team last season (Mt De Sales, Holy Innocents, Mt Pisgah, St Anne Pacelli, Landmark, Riverside, George Walton, Athens Christian) However, now we’re going to make it so practically every private school will make the state tournament. How does that make sense? What happens when teams show up to a State Duals Tournament match with only 6 wrestlers? It’s bound to happen now.
Also, the pre-Championship 4 team mini-tournaments will cause significant travel problems. As a fan who supports a serious program at a large school, I don’t personally care. However, some smaller programs could face a serious financial strain from this setup. Camden and Richmond Hill are basically locks to be the #1 teams in their regions. Both schools are overnight trips for every team in their respective classifications besides the teams in their own regions. Furthermore the #2-#4 teams in Camden and Richmond Hill’s regions will also be taking 3+ hour one-way trips to their host schools. The problem could be even worse in the lower classifications. Imagine if MCA or Charlton County are drawn into a bracket hosted by Gordon Lee. That is a lot more teams travelling overnight than in the previous 16 team Macon bracket.
Again, I like the 32 team duals bracket….spread the love! I just think there will be a lot of unintended consequences.

As for the Traditional format…
I am 100% against having fewer “classifications” for the traditional tournament than for the duals tournament. Frankly it’s ridiculous. If that were this case this past season, Richmond Hill (which has a natural 7A student body and plays in 6A due to the isolation rule) would almost certainly have been bumped into the highest classification for the traditional championship. Camden and Richmond Hill would have both won state dual titles, but then only one would be able to win a state traditional title. I assume that the areas/regions will also be different for traditionals than for duals. In that case Richmond Hill would probably be in the same traditionals region as Camden, Colquitt, Lowndes and Tift. This region would probably have some other teams too, possibly really good teams like Brunswick or Valdosta. That would be an absolutely killer region. Maybe those teams beat up on eachother so much at the region and sectional tournaments that neither Camden nor Richmond Hill wins the state traditional tournament and instead Collins Hill sneaks an undeserved state title.
If we think there is a problem with all the byes in the sectional brackets (I think we all see that as a problem), then why are we allowing 30-something private schools to have their own traditionals classification? There will be tons of byes in those brackets, probably some double byes at sectionals and some byes at the state tourney as well.
The best way to eliminate byes is to handout wildcard births to kids who placed 5th at region. If a given region only has 3 106 wrestlers, then all the regions that had 5+ 106 wrestlers get thrown into a hat and one region gets selected to send their 5th place wrestler to sectionals.
If we’re concerned about giving teams an unfair scoring boost at states by allowing them a second chance to advance a mediocre wrestler, then we can treat the Wildcard as a universality slot: advance the 5th place wrestler from the school with the fewest wrestlers who advanced to Sectionals in the top 4 of their region. For example:
-region 1 only has 3 106s. Region 2-4 have 5 106s. Regions 5-8 all have exactly 4 106s so they’re irrelevant to this theoretical exercise. Because sectionals will be missing a 106 from region 1, we will replace that missing wrestler with a 5th place wrestler from one of regions 2-4.
–Region 2’s 5th place wrestler came from a school that already advanced 13 wrestlers to sectionals. We don’t want to advance that kid cause that school may be a state title contender and we don’t want to give them an unearned advantage.
–Region 3’s 5th place wrestler comes from a school that already advanced 10 wrestlers to sectionals…probably not a state title contender, but maybe they’re a Buford that can ride 5 studs into 2nd/3rd place. A couple points from a marginal wrestler who squeaked into states with a 5th place in regions and an 8th place in sectionals could make the difference. We don’t want to give that school an advantage either.
–Region 4’s 5th place 106 comes from a school that only advanced 4 wrestlers to sectionals. That school gets the 5th place universality/wildcard birth. Clearly they aren’t a contender now, but taking some extra kids could help that school build a program longterm.

Anyways, just my thoughts.

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