FREDERICK — Every plant needs to be seeded before it can grow.
Over the years, the participation numbers of girls in Colorado high school wrestling has only grown. There are questions as to what it would take for the numbers to reach the point that girls wrestling can become it’s own sport.
And as with any new venture, there are concerns of the reception of the idea and how much early success will play a role into its growth.
If the overall support that the first girls-specific wrestling tournament is any indication, something special may have just been planted at Frederick High School.
The Warrior Invite featured seven girls only brackets consisting of 80 wrestlers representing 42 schools. Athletic director Ernie Derrera didn’t host the tournament to gain recognition. As the chairman of the CHSAA wrestling committee, he had to be willing to do what we he was asking of others.
“One of the things I felt as chair of the committee was that if I was going to ask somebody else to do it, it was probably right for me to be able to step up and do it,” Derrera said. “We have the facility, we have great volunteers who help us do this and we had a tournament that we were running anyway. So it made sense for us to be able to carry two of them up and get it done.”
Hosting is only part of the battle though.
Participation numbers for girls wrestlers have only increased with each year. It’s not uncommon anymore to see a girl wrestling on the floor at Pepsi Center in the state tournament.
But if girls wrestling is to become its own sanctioned sport, there has to be support from multiple sides.
“In the past, if you see a girl wrestling in a boys tournament you hear the chatter in the stands of, ‘Hey, she’s pretty good for a girl,’” Golden assistant coach Brooke Sauer said. “They don’t mean anything negative by it, but (the girls) out of their element when they aren’t given the same opportunity as the guys are.”
Sauer knows what she’s talking about. A 2006 graduate from Golden, she is the first girl in Colorado history to qualify for the state tournament. Now, just over a decade later she’s coaching in the sport in which she excelled and to see it grow to the point that girls are able to compete in their own tournament is mind-blowing.
“Today, to hear how much positive talk there was, it took the (inequality) out of the equation,” she said. “To see that speed planted, that girls can wrestle girls and that there’s this big of a turnout, is huge.”
Holyoke’s Jessica Mosqueda received the honor of being the first girl to win an all-girls championship with a fall victory over Liberty’s Naliah Rosales in the 101-pound final.
The overall feeling may not have sunk in yet in the moments following her win, but the impact of that victory did not escape her.
“It’s amazing,” Mosqueda said. “Wrestling girls, we know that we can do more and it just feels really special right now.”
Even with seven girls brackets in the tournament, there were still girls who felt more comfortable competing against the guys and opted for that route. It paid off for Roosevelt’s Angel Rios who came away with the 106 championship. There was no boy that could stop her on Saturday.
(Dan Mohrmann/CHSAANow.com)
“When I first started, I was 3-years-old and there weren’t many girls,” Rios said. “I basically grew up wrestling boys my whole life. It feels more like home.”
Her first-place victory was a unique feat either as she had come away with a championship in the Roosevelt Invitational back on Dec. 10.
Saucer was quick to point out her accomplishment and acknowledge that she anticipates seeing Rios at Pepsi Center in February.
But for now, based on the results and turnout of the Warrior Invite, the idea of girls wrestling is not as far-fetched as it was even a month ago.
“I’ve had several coaches come up to me and say, ‘Hey, what’s next? Are you starting a girls team,’” Sauer said. “I think that’s huge to have the support from everybody here.”
She also pointed out that Derrera, Frederick and CHSAA took a huge leap of faith by moving forward with the tournament. But they all simply planted the seed. Only time will tell what will sprout as a result.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Opinions in this Mailbag do not reflect an official viewpoint of CHSAA.
In this installment of the CHSAANow.com Mailbag, we tackle questions about co-ops in small schools, football’s alignment, football’s playoff hosting rule, and girls wrestling. Oh, and RPI.
How are two schools allowed to combine for 6-man football and end up with 25 kids on the team? Both schools had plenty of kids to field a team.
— Robert, Fleming
I’m going to go out on a limb and guess you’re referring to the situation that played out with Hi-Plains and Flagler this season.
Here’s what happened, as I understand it:
Flagler decided to drop its program just prior to the season.
The point at which they decided to drop it came too late to form a co-op, mostly because a team can’t change classifications in the same month the season begins.
As their school no longer fielded a program, the kids at Flagler who still wished to play football had the chance to continue playing for the closest program in their district of attendance or district of residence.
For many of the Flagler students, that program ended up being Hi-Plains.
This is allowed under state law, and is actually out of CHSAA’s hands.
This state law is very beneficial for kids in a lot of circumstances, and helps ensure they can participate. But, according to CHSAA commissioner Paul Angelico, “There are a lot of unintended consequences to the state law, which we weren’t asked to provide any input on.”
Now, this entire situation has really drawn some scrutiny — and I do think that’s understandable. Probably the biggest reason is that if the two schools were to have formed a co-op program, they would have combined their enrollment of 82 students (Hi-Plains has 38 students; Flagler has 44). That combined total would have moved the hypothetical co-op team from the 6-man division to 8-man.
Before we dive into this, let’s get something straight: No ill will or anger should be directed toward the students, nor should their championship run be minimized. They earned their title, and they absolutely deserve it.
Secondly, this situation is not limited to Hi-Plains and Flagler. “It’s more widespread than just these two schools,” Angelico said. Again, the championship run simply provided the microscope which everyone is now viewing this through.
That said: I do believe there were some missteps in how this whole situation was handled. Most glaring is that the Hi-Plains program — and it was the Hi-Plains program, not Flagler’s — had a tendency to act like a co-op at times:
Home games were held, or planned to be held, at both schools.
Players were being bussed from Flagler to Hi-Plains.
Multiple attempts were made to have the program referred to as Hi-Plains/Flagler. In fact, the Arriba-Flagler School District currently has that exact reference on its website, congratulating the program.
There were, and continue to be, hard feelings because of examples like this (and others).
I tend to believe the truth of what happened is somewhere more in the middle, as is usually the case in situations such as this.
I believe the Flagler merely is proud of its kids, and has sought during and after the season to support them. I believe that dropping a program is not something any school takes lightly, especially a small school, because of the implications that can mean for the small town that surrounds it.
And, as Angelico said, simply dropping a program is never a good thing.
“Every time this happens,” he said, “we’ve cut the opportunities for kids to complete in half. If there are two basketball programs, there are 10 kids who start. If you drop one program, suddenly that becomes five.”
But I also believe that the adults involved with the decision-making process are aware of the fact that dropping the program just prior to the season gave them an advantage that other programs did not have. And that probably should be addressed so that it doesn’t happen in the future.
In fact, it is being looked into already. At the football committee meeting, CHSAA assistant commissioner Harry Waterman noted that, “It’s on our radar.”
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(Ryan Casey/CHSAANow.com)
Now that we’re out of the regular season and into the playoffs, is it safe to say that the creation of football leagues in 4A and especially 5A using the “waterfall” method was an unmitigated disaster?
Leagues were uncompetitive. Crowds were non-existent. No rivalries. There was zero buzz in the last half of the season. It needs to be scrapped and redone.
— C.J., Denver
Unmitigated disaster? No. This isn’t some geopolitical catastrophe. Let’s keep some perspective — this is high school football.
To your point, yes, I would say that the current alignment is unsuccessful in 5A, and (more relevant) others — decision-makers whose opinions actually matter — agree with that. But I do not think the same is true in 4A. I think how 4A structured their waterfall to play out geographically was a good inbetween step that sought some balance to the leagues, but also keep teams relatively close together. That allowed for certain rivalries to continue in league play.
The first thing to remember with this is that the proposal to move to the waterfall alignment was nearly entirely driven by 5A coaches. That fact has really been forgotten, especially by some 5A coaches.
As you might guess, the waterfall alignment was also discussed at football committee last week.
“This was an idea that came from the membership, a lot of coaches primarily,” committee chair Mike Krueger said. “We wanted equal leagues. This committee did that.”
If certain rivalries didn’t continue, it wasn’t because schools didn’t have the opportunity to play the game. They had five weeks of non-league schedule where they could try and schedule whoever they wanted. So if rivalries didn’t continue, it was because one (or both) schools opted to not schedule that rivalry game during non-league. (The counter argument here is that some opted to not schedule the game out of fear for what it would do to their RPI rating.)
This is not to say that say that the current alignment has been good for all schools. As I wrote, I believe it was unsuccessful in its first year. Rivalry games probably shouldn’t be in the early part of the year, because of the financial implications for schools you mention, but also because they mean more later in the season.
Beyond everything else, as Krueger pointed out, the waterfall has “really highlighted the disparity in 5A football.” The attention is turning to saving programs in 5A.
Said Krueger: “I sit here, as the chair of this committee, extremely concerned about the schools on the lower end of 5A that may or may not be able to retain their programs because they haven’t been able to compete at the highest level.”
So where to from here? For starters, the current alignment will be in place again for the 2017 season — barring something crazy happening at Legislative Council next month or in April.
Behind the scenes, it looks like we may be headed for some type of new classification structure, possibly in 2020. That should be designed to address many of the issues behind the waterfall’s intent, especially competitive equity.
So that means the football committee will essentially be looking for some kind of a two-year bridge between this current alignment in 5A and the new classification system. And I’ll bet they take a close look at what 4A did with its geographic waterfall.
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(Matt Mathewes/MVPSportsPics.com)
Why is it that a No. 1-seeded team will be at home for one round of the playoffs and on the road for the next round? In Wyoming, the higher seed always hosts with the exception of the state championship games in Laramie.
I think that makes more sense to have the higher seed host all the way through the playoffs.
— Jim, Greeley
I tend to agree with you. I’m a fan of high seeds hosting, period.
But the majority of schools don’t agree, and that’s what matters. They’ve long had this rule in place in order to spread out the cost of travel, but also to give different communities the opportunity to host a playoff game, which doesn’t come around too often in many places.
This one is like the Sunday contact rule. It’s often brought up as the target of change, but that wave of change never succeeds.
Perhaps one day it will. It may happen incrementally, meaning, for example, it may take root at the 5A level before it does in 1A. 3A has already taken a small step, guaranteeing that the high seed will host its championship game.
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(Ryan Casey/CHSAANow.com)
Would you feel good about working for a company that based your merit on 25 percent of your performance and the other 75 percent performance out of your control. I wouldn’t and I wouldn’t work for that company.
That’s the way our kids feel about RPI. Why work hard because whether you make playoffs or not depend on opposing teams and teams you don’t even play? Come On Man that’s not fair.
— Tim, Lone Tree
A few sports committees are starting to agree with this line of thinking. Baseball, soccer and football have all recently made tweaks to their RPI percentages. Others, like softball and volleyball, opted not to change.
Here’s what I’ll say about this argument: Teams, for the most part, can control who they schedule. So that’s actually 75 percent of components they can control.
Yes, they can’t actually foresee an opponent’s exact record, but they typically can have an idea of how good an opponent will be. And granted, there are instances where it makes it tough to have a good strength of schedule. However, by-and-large, the strength of schedule is in the hands of the team doing the scheduling.
Recently, when someone argues that they can’t “control” components used by the RPI, I have started to interpret that as them saying they can’t manipulate it. And honestly? Good. You shouldn’t be able to control all aspects of a computer ranking system that’s seeking to objectively evaluate your team.
To me, that’s what makes the third column in the RPI — the winning percentage of your opponents’ opponents (OOWP) — so valuable. It judges how good your opponents really are.
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(Kai Casey/CHSAANow.com)
I am really excited to see how this girls wrestling thing plays out! Do you think it has a shot of moving forward? I think it would be really great for girls to have this chance.
The response to that news has kind of shocked me. I thought it would be positive, but it really has been overwhelmingly positive, including from surrounding states. This really looks like it would be a great step for the sport in Colorado.
Here’s hoping that the trial run goes really well, and we can begin to talk seriously about sanctioning girls wrestling.
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What does a CHSAA suspension mean and how is it enforced? Specifically, if a school is under “suspension” how are they able to participate in the postseason for any of their sports?
— Janice, Littleton
There are two specific kinds of punishments that are handed out to schools and coaches/admins: probation, and restriction. What you are referring to is known as restriction, which bars a team or coach from participating in the postseason.
I can’t think of a situation where a team has actually been barred from the postseason (though there may be), and the reason for that is that the CHSAA office really tries to not punish kids if at all possible. Coaches, on the other hand, are barred from the postseason (as a whole, or a single game) from time-to-time.
Typically what happens is a school or program will be placed on restriction and then have to submit an improvement plan which specifically details how they will fix the issue that caused the restriction. And typically, that team or school will be removed from restriction at that point. At the same time, coaches may be left on restriction.
Girls wrestling is getting a trial run this season.
A few girls-only tournaments have been set up as pilots as the possibility of adding girls wrestling continues to be explored. The idea was spawned out of a wrestling subcommittee which met on Nov. 15.
They will help in determining if “there are enough girls in the state that are interested in wrestling to make it feasible to add girls wrestling as a sanction sport,” according a letter from wrestling committee chair Ernie Derrera.
“We’re really in an exploratory phase right now,” said CHSAA assistant commissioner Harry Waterman, who is in charge of wrestling. “We’re trying to gather more information, and this will help in that.”
The first girls-only tournament will be held at Frederick High School on Jan. 14 in conjunction with the Warrior Invitational. Three-to-four others are tentative.
It’s possible that other girls-only tournaments will be held this season if the idea gains steam. Derrera’s letter to all wrestling schools was seeking teams willing to host other events.
The girls-only tournaments will use the following guidelines:
Any girls seeking to compete must be a current member of her high school team, and meet all eligibility requirements of student-athletes.
They tournaments will use seven of the 14 weight classes in place in California: 101, 111, 121, 131, 143, 160 and 189.
Girls who wrestle in a girls-only event cannot be “double-bracketed” into both the girls-only tournament and the concurring event.
Matches in girls-only events will not count towards season records, and they may not be used for postseason seeding purposes.
The girls-only tournaments will not count toward a team’s 28-point limit.
If the pilots are successful, it follows that the possibility of adding girls wrestling would become increasingly likely.
Any data gathered at these tournaments will be used by the wrestling committee as it continues to weigh if (and how) to sanction the addition of girls.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Opinions in this Mailbag do not reflect an official viewpoint of CHSAA.
In this installment of the CHSAANow.com Mailbag, we tackle the question of kneeling for the national anthem, football championship sites, RPI queries, and girls wrestling.
I am curious as to why CHSAA isn’t doing anything about the Aurora football players that are kneeling at the football games when the National Anthem is being played? When I asked I was told it was a local call. Well then why do you care about if a student wears a shirt at a game and paints their chest with their schools colors or uses a cowbell?
I think this is more unsportsmanlike and distracting than that! I have seen you come into schools and lose your mind over newspapers being held up and other things so why not this?
— Tamatha E., Alamosa
I really can only reinforce what you were told: It is a local issue, and the schools need to be the ones involved in it. Because, first and foremost, it is an educational opportunity, and the coaches, administrators and adults at those schools need to be approaching it that way. The CHSAA office is not going to tell schools how they need to handle this.
I had a conversation with our commissioner, Paul Angelico, about this very topic earlier this week. He and I often have long talks about societal issues, politics, or whatever else, and I really enjoy them.
Here’s some of what he had to say:
“We are not in a position to say that they do not have the freedom of speech to protest. People died for their right to do this,” Angelico said. “But this is a situation that has to be dealt with educationally. This is a learning opportunity.
“I think it’s important that these students know the specifics of what they are protesting about and why. And the same goes for their teammates, who may not be protesting. Are there other outlets which can make a positive difference to the issues they are protesting? Could a student get involved in community activities that can make a real change in their neighborhood rather than just kneel down at the game?
“All of these things can only be answered at the local level between a coach and a student. This organization is not in a position to judge if any or all of this is happening. What I really hope for is that whatever a school, district or coach does it can be done in such a way to unite us, not to further divide us.”
As for the other part of your question, those instances deal with sportsmanship, which is directly related to fair play, crowd control, and belittling the other team.
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(Ryan Casey/CHSAANow.com)
Why doesn’t 3A, 2A, 1A, 8-man and 6-man football teams play at the same venue (Mike High Stadium) for their State Championship game? I have heard many state high school activity associations host all their football championship games at the same venue. Is there talk about changing the current format?
— Joe W., Thornton
Many of these classes have held their state championship games at neutral venues in the past. In fact, 3A just moved from Legacy Stadium in Aurora to a neutral site in 2013.
Still, this topic is discussed pretty regularly at times within the football committee. Because, on one hand, it would be awesome to play all seven championship games at one site. But, according to assistant commissioner Harry Waterman, who oversees football, there is not have an option for more than two championship games at Mile High.
So you start from there and look at other options. What about holding 3A, 2A, 1A, 8-man and 6-man at one site, like Legacy Stadium?
Well, surveys conducted by the CHSAA office indicate that those classes simply do not want to have both teams travel to neutral sites.
“They want to remain in their own backyards,” Waterman said.
Like I mentioned, 3A did have a neutral site for a few cycles prior to 2013. The attendance was incredibly diminished at those games, because (for the most part) those classifications are so spread out geographically, and not many people travel to the neutral sites.
Having been to a championship game at a host site, the atmosphere is just special. There’s nothing like a 6-man championship game with a cattle trailer positioned as a wind break on a 5-degree day. You know that old saying that the best time to rob a bank in a small town is during a football game? No, the best time is during a championship football game — because everyone from the town is there, and they bring everyone they know from nearby towns.
This is even true for a city like Pueblo. They filled Dutch Clark Stadium to capacity for the past two 3A title games.
Sports like basketball and volleyball do have neutral sites for 3A, 2A and 1A, but that works for a variety of reasons. The most important: they are playing multiple games over the span of a few days.
I really don’t see these football championship games moving back to a neutral site unless something really special happens in terms of a neutral host site.
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I get the need for using something like the RPI to have equity when determining who is worthy of qualifying for regionals/playoffs/seeding etc., however I do think it needs to be tweaked.
There are times when two teams have played each other (twice) and one team has won both. However, the two teams is question have identical records but the team that won the head to head match up has a lower RPI. The head to head matchup has to be worth more.
Scheduling is part of the answer but modifying the RPI needs to be considered. Is CHSAA looking at this?
— Doug E., Montrose
Good question. This is something that is touched on a lot, especially at committee meetings.
The head-to-head factor is tough in RPI because of the following scenario:
Team A beats Team B
Team B beats Team C
Team C beats Team A
There is no way to accurately give more weight to Team A’s win over Team B without also screwing up how Team C’s victory over Team A is viewed, given that Team C lost to Team B.
In reality, there are not usually just three teams involved in this example scenario. It’s more like six or seven. And that’s why you can’t directly weight head-to-head.
RPI is designed to look at the strength of an entire schedule, not an individual game. Its purpose is to look at teams and compare their relative strength given all factors, including a team’s own winning percentage as it relates to the overall schedule it played.
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(Ryan Casey/CHSAANow.com)
With the rise in women’s wrestling and the recent success of our women’s Olympic team does CHSAA have any plans to start a girls wrestling division? Other states currently offer this and more colleges are adding women’s programs. If not, how do we get that conversation started?
— Brandon C., La Junta
This is actively being discussed, so the conversation is already in the works.
There is a subcommittee formed out of the wrestling committee exploring this. They will report their findings at the next wrestling committee meeting, which is Feb. 28, 2017.
“They’re digging into info, and researching how other states administer girls wrestling,” said Harry Waterman, who also is in charge of wrestling in the CHSAA office.
There are a lot of questions to answer: Would girls wrestling be a separate sport? Or part of the existing sport, with two-to-three classifications for girls?
We’ll know more in February, including if the conversation about girls wrestling will move forward from there.
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