IHSA

IHSA Advisory Committee Meeting Minutes - 2005-06

Boys Wrestling Advisory Committee

April 5, 2006

The IHSA Boys Wrestling Advisory Committee met at the IHSA Office, Bloomington, Illinois, on Wednesday, April 5, 2006, beginning at 10:00 a.m. Committee members present were: Peter Alber, Dakota; Corey Christenson, Pontiac; Dan Cliffe, Burlington (Central); Mark Gervais, Chicago (Marist); Mark Ruettiger, New Lenox (Lincoln-Way Central); and Ron Ryan, Mt. Olive. IHSA Assistant Executive Director Dave Gannaway was also in attendance. Committee member Tim Dodge of Lindenhurst was unable to attend.

TERMS AND CONDITIONS RECOMMENDATIONS:

1. Item VII. Advancement of Winners, A. Individual Advancements: (Note 1):

Add to the Terms and Conditions under Note 1 the following information regarding alternates:

Recommendation: Alternates (the fourth place finisher) will be allowed to have skin and grooming checks on Thursday along with all other qualifiers. A list of alternates will be at the Pass Gate on Friday morning at 6:00 a.m. to allow the alternate and coach into the Assembly Hall for the weigh ins. Alternates that are in the building will be sent to the weigh in area along with all qualifiers. When the weigh in is called for each weight class the alternates will remain in the bleacher seat until weigh ins for that weight class have been completed. If an alternate is needed, the weigh master will come to the weigh in area and get the designated alternate and take them to the weigh in area to be entered into the state tournament. Once the wrestler has been entered in the tournament, the proper passes will be given to the participant and the coach, if the coach does not already have a qualifier. All other alternates that do not get entered must purchase a ticket for the tournament.

Rationale: This clarifies the procedure used to get the alternates entered in the tournament.

Approved Item 1

2. Item XI. Officials, A. Individuals:

Recommendation: The sectional semi-final matches will be officiated with two (2) officials.

Rationale: These matches are the most critical matches as they decide who qualifies for state and which wrestlers get back into the wrestle-backs for a chance to qualify for state.

Item 2 Died for Lack of Motion

3. Item XI. Officials, A. Individuals:

Recommendation: Five (5) officials to be assigned to all sectionals.

Rationale: The Friday night session is a very long night where the officials go from approximately 5:30 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. with no break or with only one short break. The wrestling is at a very intense level and by rotating officials they would stay fresher the entire night. It would allow for Saturday to have two (2) officials on every semi-final match and one official available to do any preliminary wrestle back matches. The cost would be 12 more officials for a total of $2,460.00.

Item 3 Died for Lack of Motion

ITEMS OF GENERAL DISCUSSION:

1. The Committee recommended that the Board review the classification policy to allow for sports that do not have at least one-third of the participating schools in Class A by the 55/45 % split, to have the Class A field adjusted to include one-third of the participating schools in that sport.
This will allow the Class A tournament to have enough schools to conduct a quality tournament without having Regionals that only have four (4) teams in them in Class A and some Class AA Regionals having 10 or 11 schools in theirs. When you only have approximately 28% of the participating schools in one of the tournaments, you have created quite an imbalance in participation equity in that sport.

2. The Committee reviewed the new NFHS Wrestling rule changes for the 2006-07 school year.

3. There was discussion by the Committee on the weight classification proposals that were submitted for rule changes to the NFHS. The Committee members were updated with the information that will be collected for future review by the National Rules Committee on whether to cut from 14 to 13 weights, readjustment of weight class, whether there are 13 or 14 and whether there should be minimum weight requirements for certain weight classes, i.e., 103, 215 and 275.

4. Discussion occurred on seeding of wrestlers at the Individual State Final tournament and it was decided to gather more information from the coaches at the Regional seed meeting for future discussion.
There was also discussion on “walk-overs” and it was decided to keep the “walk-overs” in the state tournament series.

5. Discussion occurred on the 4th place finishers being allowed to qualify for the next level in the IHSA Individual tournament and/or going to a double elimination tournament. No recommendation came out of the discussion.

6. The Committee discussed the Dual Team Tournament and decided to take to the Regional seed meeting a concept of allowing schools to enter the Dual Team Tournament and set up the Dual Team Tournament like other sports do as a sectional complex tournament. They would get feedback for future discussion on this concept.