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Great Time of Year 1/23/08 If you’re a fan of youth wrestling, especially IKWF wrestling fan, you have to love this time of year. It seems like after the holidays, things start rocking in Illinois. The Midwest Classic just finished. Tulsa National is over. Jon Davis IKWF Kids Open was completed and the world famous ilwrestling.com midseason rankings are done. Let’s don’t forget we crowned two athletes for ilwrestling.com’s Midseason Triple Crown winners too. AND! not to mention the IKWF Senior Duals are coming up in just days. Yes, it’s a great time of year.
Iowa Bounty Hunters are Classic… The Iowa Bounty Hunters came from the great wrestling state of Iowa to participate in this year’s Midwest Classic. The Iowa boys ran away with the team race this year. They finished with 314 points way ahead of second place Team CIA (Indiana) who had 192.5 points. Bounty Hunters were lead by three champions (Kory Clark-89lbs, Brandon Sorenson-95lbs and Ethan Lara-147lbs). Gomez WA was the top team from Illinois finishing in third place with 168 points. Tinley Park does a nice job yet again as tournament host. Next year will be even better.
Jon Davis Kids Open… The name may have changed slightly but, the tournament was the same. The major fund raiser for the federation was a huge success this year. As always, the tournament seems to be a preview of Rockford. In honor of long time South Sectional Director, Jon Davis (1942-2007), the IKWF Kids Open is now a memorial tournament. This is very classy move by the board and federation. Mr. Davis’ name should live on for a long, long time.
Tulsa, Tulsa, Tulsa… The results don’t lie. Illinois looks as if it had a great tournament. Tournament results can be found at: www.worldofwrestling-roller.com
“Rankings” mean…? Not a thing when it comes right down to it. Ilwrestling.com ranks kids who compete at certain tournaments. Tough kids from all over the state will make in impact in Rockford and will never be “ranked” by ilwrestling. Some free advice, if you take IKWF rankings to serious, you’d better get your priorities straight. On the liter side, the rankings are fun for debate. They give fans a list of wrestlers to watch out for. They indicate who wrestles in the top tournaments and have done well. Final rankings will be set Saturday night after the IKWF state finals.
Midseason Triple Crown…(2) Congrats to out to Jonathan Marmolejo (GWA) and Gage Harrah (CLW) for winning the Little Celtic Elite, Midwest Classic and the Jon Davis Kids Open Elite division. This is a great accomplishment by these two young warriors.
Senior Duals, still my favorite… IKWF state series kicks off with the Senior Duals this weekend. Twelve clubs from all parts of the state will battle it out at Willowbrook High School, Villa Park to see who has the best dual team in the state. This is a tough year to predict. Lots of parity at the duals this year. Any one of three, maybe four, teams could win it. Predictions: Round #1 Minooka Little Indians over Granite City Jr. Warriors Force over Richmond WC Central Elite Rebels over Villa/Lombard Edwardsville WC over Martinez Fox Valley Elite I think MFVE has too many FFTs to over come against Edwardsville. The Minooka -Granite City match up will be a good indicator of how deep with talent the South Section has
Round #2 Gomez WA over Minooka Bulls over Force Crystal Lake Wizards over CER Vittum Catz over EDW The best dual of the day could be the Bulls and Force WC.
Round #3 Semis Bulls over Gomez Vittum over Crystal Lake Not an easy round to call. Wow. The Bulls have to battle with another heavy hitter to make the finals. This dual could go either way, but I give the edge to Bulls.
Round #4 Finals- Vittum over the Bulls. If this isn’t a tight dual I will be very surprised. Look for the dual to be decided by the upper weights. This will be worth the price to get in. 3rd- Gomez over Crystal Lake. I wouldn’t be shocked if either one of these two clubs are in the finals.
Is it to early to think about freestyle/greco…? It’s never to early to be thinking freestyle and/or greco-roman wrestling. Schoolboy duals will be here before we know it. We (Morris) are hosting the Land of Lincoln FS duals again this year. Training facilities? Have one yet? Get into one now. It will be here before we know it…
From the edge of the mat…
Tony B ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ilwrestling Gets Ready for New Season Bloggers, calendar new features to web site/forum 9/26/07 I started the web site and message board a few years ago to try and recognize the youth wrestlers and coaches in Illinois. Little did I know what I was getting myself into. Hours and hours of time, cash out of pocket, headaches, and last but not least, lots of enjoyment. Like all projects it started out small but then got bigger and I needed help. My computer wiz, and the brains of this operation, Kip(Collinsville WC) was nice enough to volunteer to take on all web site technical issues. Kip also helps me moderate the ilwrestling message board too. Kip was the one who bailed me out of the mess I had with the old forum. If you remember, the spam/bot problem was out of control and way beyond my abilities to fix. The message board is his baby and I thank him for that. He's done a wonderful job as moderator and programmer. Even with Kip's help the web site is not where I'd like to see it. From an operations stand point the web site is great but I want to improve on the recognition / promotion part. I can only cover so much youth wrestling. My two older boys are well into varsity wrestling and my little guy is a Bantam still. I'm just not "out there"(well, some say I'm way out there but that's another story) in the mix with the kids like I once was. So what we came up with is a section on the web site that will allow people from across the state to write a "blog" for their section. Eight people, one from each section of the state. This will give everyone a chance to read about kids, tournaments, camps, etc. etc. etc. from all over the state. Together we can give these kids and coaches the credit they deserve. Let's face it, wrestling is not the most popular sport out there. I've been saying it for years. The Internet is the best way to cover wrestling. The sport just doesn't get much TV or newspaper coverage, especially at the youth level. If we want the kids and coaches recognized and if we want the sport promoted, WE have to do it. The Internet and this web site are the one of the vehicles to do this. Right now I have the South, Central and West Chicago sections filled for our bloggers. That leaves the West, North, South Chicago, Central Chicago, and North Chicago. If you are interested, please email me. A new feature on the message board will be a calendar. The calendar will be for registered users only. It will be for informational purposes only. Post tournament information, camps, and any information that has to do with wrestling. The calendar is not the forum. Discussion will not be allowed. Moderating the forum is enough work as it is. We don't need two of them. Look for this new feature in the very near future.
National tournaments. 7/19/07 This topic comes up every now and again. The latest Border Wars "National" around Christmas time had me thinking. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2006 Schoolboy Freestyle National Duals
I enjoyed my two years... From "the edge of the mat"... ------------------------------------------------------------------------- IL-USAW Does It Again, Freestyle State 5/10/06 Back-to-back jacks!!! The Cubs can’t do it but, IL-USAW can. For two years in a row now Mr. Reynolds, Mr. Urwin, Coach Johnson and their crew(s) ran a great Illinois Freestyle State Tournament. I passed on a few “thank yous” and “this is really great” to some of the folks running the tournament but not everyone. So I want to say “Thank you” to everyone who helped run this tournament. I, and many others, are very grateful. We all look forward to next year. Rules were made to be broken... The “new” rules. I’m a big proponent of the phrase, “if it ain’t broken, don’t try and fix it.” FILA may have felt freestyle and greco was broken at some level but it wasn’t broken at the Junior age divisions and lower. Speaking with local wrestling fans/parents and reading national message boards, pretty much everyone has the same opinion of the new rules. That opinion is a negative one at best. Some people like a few things FILA changed, a lot of people dislike the changes and most everyone was more happy with the “old” rules. For me... there’s really not one thing I like about the new rules. I was happy with the old ones. I don’t like the three periods. I don’t like the 6-0 tech. I don’t like the lack of par terre wrestling in freestyle. I like the intension of the step out rule but not the 1pt penalty. I don’t like the tie breaker criteria. If it ain’t broke, don’t try and fix it. Baby, we’ve come a long way... Did you see the total number of wrestlers? 610 entries! That’s a big freestyle tournament. Now days, that’s a HUGE freestyle tournament in Illinois. I remember just two years ago, all to well, at Lincoln Way East High School. What was it? 300-350 total wrestlers? Or how about in Rock Island? Fewer than 300? It was just a couple of years ago when IL-USAW was able to run the Freestyle State on Saturday and the Greco State on Sunday. Now it’s a scheduled two day event and freestyle only. I have to believe the overall number of freestylers in Illinois is growing. Overtime has their kids. Top Gun has well over 200 kids(250 I think). Izzy Style Wrestling will do nothing but get bigger and bigger. Illinois Southern Elite, also known as ISE-Man has the Southern wrestlers covered. I hope our state keeps it up. High five for the “kids” divisions... Of the 610 entries how many do you think were in the “kids” divisions? I counted just over 200. 200!!! Let me back track a little and say again, I remember just 2, 3 years ago when the entire Freestyle State tournament was 300-350 wrestlers. That was ALL divisions. Now in 2006 the “kids” have over 200 entries? The event flier said the “kids” would compete on two designated mats. Before the tournament I actual questioned if two mats would be enough. It wasn’t. The “kids” needed 4 mats. Would you believe because of the number of kids, IL-USAW is planning what to do in case the numbers continue to grow. I was privy to a conversation with a few gentlemen running the tournament and spoke with a few others about what IL-USAW should do with the “kids”. The ideas ranged from hosting a “Kids” Freestyle/Greco State on a separate weekend/location, to adding two more mats, to making the kids qualify for state. Could you imagine having to qualify for Freestyle State? In any case, the “kids” division is growing and IL-USAW is going to have to do something in the future. Quality over quantity any day... Even with record numbers in the kids division not all the brackets were full. At this time of year you don’t need 24 kids in a bracket for competitive wrestling. Give me a bracket with 7 tough kids with vertical bracketing and that’s a good day of wrestling. If you noticed in each age division the number of wrestlers increased. Midgets had a small amount, the Novice had decent numbers and the Schoolboys had over 100 wrestlers. In the Novice and Schoolboy there were some very competitive brackets. One of the greatest things about this freestyle/greco biz is this: It’s one organization. Take the IESA kids, the IKWF Novice kids and the IKWF Senior kids and it forces them to all wrestle each other. And although there might only be 5, 6, 7 or 12 kids in the bracket... at this time of year ALL of those kids are into their wrestling. Congratulations to all the “kids division” wrestlers, coaches and parents. YOU are making a difference in the international styles in the state of Illinois. When these little guys hit the Cadet level they will be ready and that is a good thing for Illinois wrestling. Who's ready for Greco State??? From the "edge of the mat"... Tony B ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ USAW Folkstyle Nationals 4/11/06 The Good... The USAW Folkstyle National is a must for the serious wrestler and even the not so serious wrestler. What a great chance to test ones skills against some of the best wrestlers in the country. I hope over the last three years Illinois youth wrestlers have taken advantage of this top notch national. This is suppose to be the last year in Iowa... The folks who ran it did a fantastic job this year too. I love the numbered bout system you get at these national tournaments... The UNI Dome is a good facility and the twenty mats spread out of the football field is cool. I over heard one little wrestler say, “Wrestling on a football field!?! This is the best of both worlds.” How true... It’s always great to see the Illinois kids flock together and root for one another. Illinois head-to-head match ups did occur but for the most part you get the “us against the rest of the country” feeling at these nationals... The Bad... As smooth as the morning session went, when the “kids” showed up for the afternoon session they changed some things around. Mat assignments were changed. The bout number system was changed and was a little confusing... I’m not sure they seeded all the brackets. National placers from last year were supposed to be seeded and I don’t think that happened in all the brackets. They did do a pretty good job of separating kids from the same state tho... All in all there wasn’t much “bad” to this tournament. If I had to pick one thing it would be the lack of stalling calls at a national level event. Just another reason why I prefer watching free over folkstyle The Ugly... Eating at the IHOP Sunday morning instead of watching wrestling, there’s no more ugly feeling in the world(at least at the very moment)... Driving home Sunday morning instead watching wrestling, there’s no more ugly feeling... Talking to, ahh you get the point... Where were the Twisters? I thought for sure we would see a ton of those little guys out there... No top Iowa kids. Yep the AAU MSND drew the top Iowa and Ohio kids. You throw in the top three kids from Iowa and Ohio into each bracket and this tournament goes from tough to “lights out”... This is a good enough reason to pull this national from the Hawkeye state. In my book the Folkstyle season is officially over. I know there are some very good folkstyle tournaments out there but, it’s time for a change. That change is freestyle and greco-roman. It’s like a fresh breath of air not only my guys, but for mom and dad too. What time is it??? Freestyle time!!! From the edge of the mat, Tony B --------------------------------------------------------------- Rockin in Rockford 3/13/06 The double banger... The Sons Of Thunder followed up their IKWF Dual Team State Championship with an impressive team State Championship in Rockford. All the hard work and time the kids/coaches have put in has truly paid off. They finished with 199pts to Fox Valley and Vittum’s 124.5pts. Recording individual state championships for the Sons were Keith Surber(89lbs), Jake Gregerson(108), and Brandon Wilbourn(122). They were tough... congratulations to them. Twisters rip it up in the Novice.
Shock treatment therapy... Rockford style.
This is what Rockford is all about.
Platform dancing... A year like no other...
Who’s ready for freestyle and greco??? Tony B --------------------------------------------------------------- 2006 State Duals 1/31/06 Son of a gun... they did it! The state dual experience... There's none like it. I believe this is the top tournament in the IKWF. If you think the finals in Rockford are intense, you should attend the duals next year in Danville. Every match is huge. It's not just about the elite kids on the club, it's about the entire club working together as a team to earn a state title. The 275lbs first year wrestler is as important as the 84lbs returning state champ with eight years of experience. I saw it with the Scoolboy Freestyle/Greco team and I watched all day long at Bloom Trail HS. Comradery...it's a wonderful thing in youth sports. All these kids, from the Sons Of Thunder to the Villa-Lombard Cougars worked very hard to get to this point. I don't recall seeing any kids giving less then 100% Sunday. You better believe every victory was earned. I realize not all clubs can assemble a dual team and compete at the state duals, but the clubs that can and don't, I believe they are doing their clubs a disservice. After all, when they reach high school it's all about the team and dual meets. No storybook ending here... Who's ready for Rockford??? From the edge of the mat... Tony B ------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Midwest Classic 1/10/06 Chicago Heights is beautiful this time of year...
From the edge of the mat... Tony B ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ January in the IKWF... 1/1/06 The folkstyle season is in full gear here in Illinois. We have a very busy and competitive month ahead of us. Next week, January 8th, the Midwest Classic will be wrestled at Marion Catholic H.S. in Chicago Heights. This tournament gets most of the top talent from all parts of the state. This "elite" style tournament is well worth the trip. The Tinley Park Bulldogs run this tournament as good as it can be ran. This year the team title should be a tight one. Last years Dual Team State Champs(Martinez Fox Valley Elite), Senior division State Champs(Fox Valley) and the Novice division State Champs(Little Celtics) will all be attending. Weight classes I think you should keep an eye on are 74, 79, 84, 95, and 101. All should be loaded with some of Illinois best and some outstanding out of state kids. “The Classic” is truly classic. After the Midwest, almost every club in the IKWF will be represented at the 25th Annual IKWF Kids Open in Peoria, Illinois, January 15th. This is a great tournament in the IKWF. The huge venue, the no coaching thing, the 20 wrestling circles, kids everywhere, is a wrestling nuts dream. This enormous fund raiser is quite an accomplishment. Hats off to the IKWF board and the hundreds of volunteers for making this event run smoothly. Not all clubs enter the IKWF Team Dual State series, but for the ones that do, this should be the weekend, January 22/23, that they qualify for Dual Team State. This is when the competitive juices start flowing with the “mega” clubs in the IKWF. Local rivalries are renewed and team comradery is built instantaneously. These dual meets are great to be a part of. In divisionals, with three teams or less, they will be battling for position in the state bracket. In other divsionals, clubs will be battling just to make it to the state tournament. This is a very exciting weekend for these clubs. At the end of the month is the IKWF Dual Team State Championships. Twelve teams from across the state will dual for the title of “IKWF Dual Team State Champions”. Martinez Fox Valley Elite has ruled this event over the last four years with four consecutive state championships. Can they make it number five or will they be denied? Can the Sons of Thunder win it all and rain on everyone’s parade? Will the Lil’ Celtics make every one green with envy this year? Could the Vittum Catz claw their way into the finals? Will the Orland Park Pioneers blaze their way through the field of twelve? Can Granite City rock our worlds and claim the title? All these questions will be answered January 29, 2006 at Bloom Trail H.S. Chicago Hts, IL. From the edge of the mat... Tony B
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