This is only week #2 of the Tuesday Morning Takedowns, so we are just getting the word out, but reminder you can send your questions in to us via email: associatedwrestlingpress@gmail.com. Or you can tweet us or DM us on twitter @michgrappler
If you dont want your name on the question, request it to be anoynomous, we are cool with that. Steveand I get a lot of hard-hitting questions throughout the year, but rarely have had an appropriate opportunity to respond, and this is it, so let us know what you are thinking!
Great question - I have heard random updates on Ben's status all year and like most Michigan wrestling fans, I have been desperately hoping that we will see him back on the mat soon.
The latest I have heard is that Ben just finished up a solid year at Elmhurst College where he put a ton of work in academically to get himself into position where he will be tranferring to The University of Illinois next fall and will be immediately eligible to compete. He is going to be coming home to Michigan for the summer where he will continue training with Andy Simmons, Logan Massa and the St Johns crew, and it appears that he will exploding back onto the wrestling scene next year.
As of now, I would project him to be 141, a weight class where the Illini have a returning NCAA Qualifier in Steven Rodrigues. The last time Ben competed was in Vegas last Spring when he put on a show en route to winning the FILA Junior title (pictured to right). If he is still wrestling at this level (and all signs point that he is), then he should have no trouble becoming the main-stay starter for Illinois at 141 immediately and he should be a Top 15 type guy right away, and in my opinion capable of competeting for an NCAA title in his first year.
Love him or hate him - Ben Whitford is hands down the most exciting Michigan high school wrestler I have ever seen and you have to love the fact that he is coming back!
This is a topic that can go off a lot of different tangents, so I will attempt to stick to the basics of answering it directly, but bear with me as I may get off track. First off, the real people to ask this to would be those at the MHSAA because they make these decisions, but I can definitely give you my take on it.
I think that they do not keep score at the Individual Finals because the intention is for events at the Palace to be focused on the individuals, not the teams. We (the state of Michigan), or they (the MHSAA) crown our Team Champions a week earlier in Battle Creek using a Dual-Meet format, and I would guess that the MHSAA does not want to take anything away from the Team Champions by keeping score at the Individual Finals just for kicks.
I do not disagree with your feelings about the intrigue of keeping score at the Individual State Finals. I think that a lot of the intrigue of the NCAA Wrestling Tournament comes from following the team race. I spent a season coaching in Georgia and the GHSA crowns two State Champions, one Dual Meet Champ and one "Traditional Tournament Champion", which is the highest point scoring team from their individual finals. I thought it was really cool to follow the standings throughout the tournament and I think it would be really cool to follow in the MHSAA tournament as well. It is not just interesting and fun for the teams that are hunting for titles, but also cool for the teams that finish in the top 10, or the top 20, or the top 30. I think it would be cool to say, hey we got beat out of team regionals this year, but we finished 6th in the state. Or, "our program has been Top 10 in the state every year the last 5 years", and things like that which are not possible with the Team State format.
Our Dual Meet format that we use in Michigan has a ton of positives, however, what it lacks is a measuring stick for the teams that do not win State Titles. Many times in the past the two best teams did not make the finals, a problem which has been relatively fixed with seeding the top 8 teams in Battle Creek. However, it is still absolutely impossibel to get the Top 8 teams separated throughout the District/Regional breakdown, therefore, we never really know the true "Top 8" teams in the state. Having a team score at Individual States would give a measuring stick to see who the Top 8 are, or who Top 10 are, or who the Top 20 are, and so on.
Now, the negative of keeping a team score at states is this - do we crown another state champion based on the team score at the Palace? Before you quickly reply "Heck Yes!", think about it for a second. We already crown 4 Team State Champions, and 4 Individual State Champions at each weight class which leads to a whole lot of people titled "State Champion". While I think the idea of following a team score at the Palace would be sweet, I am not a huge fan of divying out even more State Championship trophies.
So then next chapter of this conversation would lead to the controversial topic that gets kicked around every year between College coaches and officials - do we crown our "STATE CHAMPION" from a Dual Meet format or from a Individual Format? This is done differently from state-to-state at the high school level, and at the college level the NCAA Champs are crowned based on points scored at the NCAA Indivdual Tournament. As you can tell from my extensive response to this question, I see the positives of each format. However, I think at the High School level it is best to name the best team in the state from the result of Dual Meet wrestling. Dual Meet wrestling brings out elements of lineup moves, strategic coaching, strategic wrestling, and community support that is hard to duplicate in an individual tournament format. In my opinion there is no experience in wrestling that can compare to wrestling in Battle Creek with a hugh crowd of your community, parents, and students in the stands cheering you on. No matter what, it is impossible to duplicate this environment at the Individual State Tournament. Therefore, I think that we keep the format we have. I think we should always crown our State Champion via Dual Meet Wrestling.
Do I like the idea of keeping score at The Palace? Yes I do, but if we do it then it would have to just be for funsies. Maybe I can put a word into the MHSAA and see if they will let MI Grappler run a quick Team Score report on TrackWrestling next year when the Individual Finals are over, and we can release it on Michigan Grappler, just for kicks.
FILA CADET/UNIVERSITY NATIONALS
This weekend will be absolutely nuts with FILA Cadet Nationals and University Nationals going down in Ohio. Many of the best high school wrestlers in Michigan and the country will be in attendance at FILA Cadets with a spot on the Cadet Freestyle/Greco World Teams on the line. In addition, a good number of the top collegiates from across the country will battle in the Olympic styles, giving a glimpse of the future Olympians to watch for. All the action will be live on Flo, and if you havent followed their live coverage before, it is pretty freaking cool so check it out.
Steve will be putting together a mega-Fila Cadet preview this week for the Associated Wrestling Press, so be sure to check back later in the week to see who's who.
NHSCA DUALS IN VIRGINIA BEACH
I dont have exact numbers, but I am pretty sure that we have a couple hundred Michigan kids are making the trip south to VA Beach this weekend for the NHSCA National Duals. This event continues to grow and grow, and should be some great competetion this weekend. We will have a breakdown of the Michigan teams coming out this week and will do our best to provide coverage and results, however, the NHSCA has been a little pre-historic with their result reporting in the past, making it really hard for us to provide good coverage. So if you don't get lots of publicity from wrestling this weekend, its not because we don't love and respect you, its because the tournament folks havent discovered TrackWrestling yet (hopefully the make the plunge and run this year's event with Track!).
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Do you need permission from MHSAA to run a team score on the ind. finals? I understand asking them but couldn't you just run the software and put up the results?
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Your right you don't need permission to run team scores but it would make it really easy to have the MHSAA do it for us because they have everything already entered in track so it would be as simple as clicking a button and running the ream score reports
I thought ben whitford was going to michigan?
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