Best HS State

This actually begs a fair question:

All else being equal, is a high school senior wrestler better off taking an offer from the best school or from the best wrestling program offered? Wrestling offers little professional opportunity post college. But, the competitive nature of the top guys probably draws most to the best programs. Personally, I turned down a scholarship offer from a top D1 state school program in lieu of a top academically recognized private school because I recognized that I had a better shot of seeing a unicorn than playing pro football.

Lol I'm fully aware of the Ivy League athletic restrictions and I'm even more aware of how they get around them.

John Gartiser:

I agree with everything you wrote except for (1) point:
I think college coaches are fully aware of NY restrictions and appear to discount national rankings for NYS high school wrestlers. The top dogs in NY get plenty of the best D1 scholarships. For example (and I could give you hundreds): I'd bet nobody outside of NY has heard of Dan Choi (195 Syosett NYS D1 Champ). He's going to Cornell on a full 4 year ride and I wouldn't be surprised if he's a NCAA qualifier right out of the bag. Kid is an absolute hammer.

something that must be said about NY wrestling is the fact that the rules set up for hs wrestling in the state of NY do not allow wrestlers to compete in the big time tournaments. about 10 years ago they use to allow teams to compete in the big tournaments like beast of the east, etc... since that time and shortly there after, this was about the time troy nickerson graduated, NYS hs athletic association banned hs from competing in such tournaments. Many of the reason has to do with competing against teams like blair that have a post graduated program... yes i know the post grads don't wrestle in the HS tournaments but for some reason NYS banned hs from competing in these high level tournaments... this is one of the main reasons our better guys (i coach and competed in NYS) do not get the credit they deserve bc they can not compete against the high level guys around the country at tournaments like beast, ironman, powerade, etc.... of course this does not count offseason competitions... a prime example of this is seen with former NY wrestler Jose Rodriguez... Jose placed 2nd in NYS as a freshman last year and then moved his sopre year to OH. With his new team at masillon perry he was able to compete in beast and ironman... he placed very high in both... and is now ranked 4th in the USA by Flo... if he stayed in NY this year and won the state tournament... theres a good chance he would not even be ranked in the top 20 in the USA because of the lack of exposure bc of the rule that NYS instituted about 6 years back. This completely limits our wrestlers in NYS and the exposure at the national level... its very unfortunate... our only true test for the rankings is in offseason competitions like Flonationals, fargo, super 32 ... this is an unfortunate rule that needs to be changed in NYS and it seriously limits young athletes potential of scholarships and college looks from bigger d1 programs

2 things

1) i forget where i had Dake ranked in the All Class. i was working for TheOpenMat at the time, and in my Top Prospects, which is akin to my Big Boards here on Flo, i had Dake #1 at 141. but that's a more subjective ranking. (my recruiting rankings are always 'my opinion' of who is prepared for better future success. So in others' defense, a lower ranking for Dake at the time might have been fair. i don't quite remember the situation.
2) i feel your pain about NY kids. but here's the thing, if they don't have the head-to-heads, how do you know how good they are (objectively) ? rankings can't go by the eyeball test. it has to be a fair process. thats why picc was so low to begin with. NY guys might be low across the board by all rankers, because we all work within a process that insists on results against other known commodities. let's just say for a moment that picc didn't go to s32 or flo. he would still be as good as he is, we (the nation) wouldn't have anything to base it off of.

I'd say NY is 3rd to 5th in folkstyle and probably not worth arguing about if you say 7th or 8th. My general point is that NYS is always under represented in high school rankings to the point where people actually get mad, angry and insulted if the top NY guy at whatever weight even shows up in the rankings. Lets just say that it's frustrating for all involved that NY wrestlers are prevented from participating in certain national events.

Willie - good work with Dake. I remember that all of your competitors had him ranked 6th or7th as a high school senior.

for the record, i had Dake ranked as the #1 141 lb prospect in the country coming out of hs.

a lot of people always say dake was under ranked in hs. they must have been looking at other rankings.

Wouldn't it be simple to find out the number of HS wrestlers in each state by USAW competition cards issued for each state?

I am working on a statistical formula that could go a long way to settle the "State debate". If someone has access to the exact number of team points (placement, advanceent, bonus) that each individual wrestler generated at the 2013 NCAA's, I could crank it out quickly.

No one is talking about an important factor: state population. PA has 4 times the population as Iowa. That has to be figured in.
Dan S

Mr Fondacerro: it's difficult to read all caps plus it makes you come off like you're yelling. I don't know you well enough or I'd tell you it makes you seem like a raving lunatic. Perhaps I can comfortably cross that line if I get to know you better?

New York doesn't produce as many wrestlers as you think. Over half the population of the state lives in the biggest city in North America and New York City has almost no wrestling to speak of.
The best high school team in New York City is Monsignor Farrell. The 2nd best team is Brooklyn Tech which only started wrestling (4) years ago...lol. Just to give you some reference.
Athough I can report with some confidence that NYC will begin to produce nationally ranked wrestlers because Beat the Streets had really organized the sport the last few years.
There's a 220 guy named Rich Sisti out of Farrell who was the first NYC kid to win D1 states in decades. He'll be nationally ranked next season, I'd bet on it.

IF NY WANTS CREDIT FOR BEING A STRONG WRESTLING STATE THEN THEY NEED TO GET OUT THERE AND PRODUCE AT THE NATIONAL LEVEL LOOK AT THE FARGO RESULTS WHAT A SECOND A COUPLE 4TH PLACES WELL THAT DONT CUT IT SON!

NY produced the 2nd most NCAA qualifiers last season. All this means is that current high school rankings aren't a reliable future indicator of wrestling success at the college level. For instance: If i remember right, Kyle Dake was only the 6th or 7th ranked wrestler at his Senior weight. Maybe I'm wrong but i think I'm right. Another example: NY has beat NJ (3) years in a row at an end of season charity dual meet. Last year, NY sent (3) state champs and NJ sent like (7) or (9). NY still won.
It's difficult to rank NY wrestlers because of out of state wrestling rules. PA is the clear #1 state in every metric. It gets a little more difficult to figure things out after that.

The best metric for determining the best high school wrestling state should be the rate of success at the next level in college. In this case, PA is the run away winner with surprisingly, NYS coming in 2nd.

So, PA #1, NY 2nd.

Ohio boys took care of business today at DD Classic...3-0.
Can't say the same for Jersey.

what about them va boys we need some respect to