Dave Post looks across the river with a bit of envy these days.
As the PIAA considers a proposal to cut the number of wrestling weight classes from 14 to 13 (which will get a second reading at a meeting June 15), the Phillipsburg head wrestling coach would like New Jersey to join in.
“We’ve been in favor of 13 classes for a while,” said Post of he and his staff.
That might be a surprising position for a Stateliner head coach to take. Numbers are never an issue at Phillipsburg. It’s hard to remember the last forfeit in a Stateliner dual that wasn’t purely tactical.
Indeed, on available evidence, P’burg might be a place that could handle 15 weight classes fairly easily.
But Post says it’s not that simple. He says dropping an upper weight, as the PIAA proposal does (replacing the current 170-182-195-220 progression with 172-189-215), makes a lot of sense.
“Even for us, at a bigger school, with a bigger program, it would be easier to manage the weights,” he said.
What Post means is that, even at strong programs such as Philllipsburg, not everybody is always at an ideal weight class.
“We see it all over the state, bumping kids up to fill weight classes,” said Post, who is secretary of the state wrestling coaches association. “Even when we had Drew Horun and Robert Melise as freshmen, they were really 170, 182-pounders; we had to weigh them in at 195 and be ready to run them up to heavyweight. Many times we have filled 14 classes, but with kids who are fear undersized. You see that even in the postseason with power teams at states.”
It’s certainly true that when the 14th class was added in 2011, many Hunterdon/Warren coaches were not in favor. ”They keep adding weights where I don’t have wrestlers,” said one of them at the time.
Post has another reason for going to 13 classes.
“It would eliminate matches being decided by the stupid (tiebreaking) criteria,” he said.
Anybody who has sat around and watched as scorekeepers, coaches and officials try and figure out who’s won a tied match in the last nine years would certainly agree. There was, memorably, a Delaware Valley-Franklin match that decided a division title that came down to the eighth criteria -- most first-points scored.
WIth 13 classes, in 99.9 percent of the cases, the tiebreaker would be matches won. 7-6, 8-5, done, easy.
For these reasons, largely (and for cutting down on forfeits), Post said a solid majority of state coaches would be in favor of following the PIAA’s lead to 13 classes.
So, what are the chances the NJSIAA will do so?
“Zero-point-zero,” said Post in his best Dean Vernon Wormer voice.
The National Federation (NFHS), in a non-decision that provoked near-universal surprise in the sport, decided against recommending dropping from its current 14.
13 is, as Post said, the only realistic alternative.
“If you go to 12, you have the same issue with criteria that you have 14,” Post said. “And 11 is far too few.”
And there seems a consensus -- not universal, to be certain -- that the upper weights are where the trim should come.
“We had already gone from 98 to 103 to 106 for the lighter weights,” Post said, “I don’t think we can mess with the lower weights.”
What Post would be curious about is just where the bodies lie, so to speak.
“What the NWCA did (the;last time the weights changed, 2011) was, with 14 classes, to divide all the athletes (by weight-ins in one season) by 7 percent, 14 times 7 being 98, which is almost all your kids, and the way they did it was the first percentile was the first weight class, the second percentile was the second, and they literally went up 7 percent of the kids. The weights are not uniformly distributed -- most are in the middle, which is why 145, 152, 160 have been weight classes forever. I have never seen that breakdown again, and I’d love to see it again now.”
It may well be different, meaning perhaps the basic weight structure should change.
But, for now, with the NFHS (and most states) standing pat while the PIAA forges ahead, next season (assuming there is one, but that’s another story), there will be some changes coming for any interstate activity.
PIAA teams wrestling in New Jersey, or anywhere else, will have to wrestle 14 classes (Easton, for example, visits Phillipsburg for their annual dual). Anybody that comes into Pennsylvania will have to wrestle 13 classes (such as P’burg at the Bethlehem Holiday Wrestling Classic).
This is not an unprecedented situation -- in the late 90’s New Jersey had 14 classes, Pennsylvania 13 -- but, as Post notes, the situation is different now.
“The big difference now is that in 1997, we didn’t have all these descent programs,” Post said. “We’re going to have to keep a close eye on those descent programs to not screw them up. And we’ll have to decide which varsity wrestler isn’t competing (in Pennsylvania.).”
The PIAA’s pioneering move will be closely tracked by everybody in the sport, that much is certain.
“We’ll be watching very closely to see what happens, did (going to 13) really reduce forfeits in duals,” Post said. “The whole country will be watching Pennsylvania.”
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Brad Wilson may be reached at bwilson@lehighvalleylive.com.
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