'25 Ironman Tournament (12/12-14) thread

LB99

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Not saying anything one way or another about kids repeating grades, which to me is beyond idiotic unless done because of academic concerns.
Depending on birthdays 7th grade 13 year-olds combined with 8th grade 13 and 14 year olds and 9th grade 14 year-olds would be the general makeup of of PJW 13-14 year-old brackets.
A million years ago I turned 15 in April of 9th grade, I wrestled. Two teammates turned 15 in February and didn't wrestle. We were on two different sides of the line.
Many kids are repeating 8th grade before entering their 9th grade year, usually at a private school. Some, apparently, repeat a middle school year twice. It is to gain an athletic advantage. It has nothing to do with academics. I don’t think there are many 14 yr old 9th graders anymore. FWIW, when I graduated I was only 17. I turned 18 less than one month before I started PSU. The down side to that is, I wasn’t 21 until senior year at PSU. Everyone else was going out well before I was old enough, but such is life. I graduated grad school at a very young age and started my a career early also.
 
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Fred Bachmann did not even wrestle
 

BaccaFarmer

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Many kids are repeating 8th grade before entering their 9th grade year, usually at a private school. Some, apparently, repeat a middle school year twice. It is to gain an athletic advantage. It has nothing to do with academics. I don’t think there are many 14 yr old 9th graders anymore. FWIW, when I graduated I was only 17. I turned 18 less than one month before I started PSU. The down side to that is, I wasn’t 21 until senior year at PSU. Everyone else was going out well before I was old enough, but such is life. I graduated grad school at a very young age and started my a career early also.
Same deal. Entered PSU at age 17. Played Lacrosse. First year I was neither fast enough or strong enough. By my junior year I leveled up with game action . . . but, alas . . I was never fast enough. Met my coach at a game some 40 years later and he introduced me thusly: “this JohnnieMac. He played for me years ago, but, what I remember is that he was so slow that grass grew slower on his north side. True enough. My sister was held back two grades and ended up a captain in two
Sports at PSU (one of the first dozen women to get a full ride to PSU).
 

RockySmith

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Bachmann's dad is going to have to develop some thick skin. He was all bent out of shape over some comments Mineo made about his son's performance that would be run off the mill on Iowa's forum after one of their guys takes a bad loss.
I believe Mineo is alleged to have said things like, “Bo broke him” and “Bachmann didn’t come to wrestle.”

Thats not wrong. Bachmann wasn’t trying to win the match, he was holding on for dear life to try not to get majored. And he did it really poorly. The ref could have stalled him out for pushing Bassett off the mat so many times.
 
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El_Jefe

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Bachmann's dad is going to have to develop some thick skin. He was all bent out of shape over some comments Mineo made about his son's performance that would be run off the mill on Iowa's forum after one of their guys takes a bad loss.
Those were ski bunny jokes, you wouldn't understand.
 
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El_Jefe

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I believe Mineo is alleged to have said things like, “Bo broke him” and “Bachmann didn’t come to wrestle.”

Thats not wrong. Bachmann wasn’t trying to win the match, he was holding on for dear life to try not to get majored. And he did it really poorly. The ref could have stalled him out for pushing Bassett off the mat so many times.
I don't belong to the FB group and didn't see anything there.

On the tweeter, Pat did say that only one guy came to wrestle and Bassett's pace makes very good wrestlers give up. He did not say Bassett broke Bachmann, one of the replies did.

Bachmann's father didn't respond to any of that, so assuming his blowup was on FB.
 
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No.
I have no idea where the birthday cutoffs are anymore, but when I wrestled and when I was involved with coaching it was quite possible for 9th, 8th and 7th graders to compete against each other in the 13-14 year-old brackets.
June 30th is the age cut off for PIAA. Cannot turn 20 before 6/30 of your graduating year. Everyone who competes is at most 19 years old.
 
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o_BruceK-PSU83

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Fred Bachmann did not even wrestle
Well, according to one genius Iowa "fan" on HR, Freddy Bachmann (yes, Freddy) wrestled Bo Bassett in the 150 lb Ironman final. In the process of a major decision loss, Bachmann "slowed Bassett down considerably" and "exposed Bo quite a bit".

The poster conveniently ignored that the slow downs were primarily due to two injury timeouts for Bachmann and a few referee timeouts to review Bachmann illegal holds.

HR seldom fails to provide entertainment value.
 
Jan 28, 2019
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Well, according to one genius Iowa "fan" on HR, Freddy Bachmann (yes, Freddy) wrestled Bo Bassett in the 150 lb Ironman final. In the process of a major decision loss, Bachmann "slowed Bassett down considerably" and "exposed Bo quite a bit".

The poster conveniently ignored that the slow downs were primarily due to two injury timeouts for Bachmann and a few referee timeouts to review Bachmann illegal holds.

HR seldom fails to provide entertainment value.
They also claimed he was a 144 that wrestled up to take on Turi last weekend at SEM. However, the week before he wrestled 152 at a dual and then 150 at Ironman. There’s no evidence he wrestled anywhere this year at 144 and, in an interview at Ironman, he says he’s cutting to make 150.
 
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HOA242n!

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Oh I’m aware that it is common, especially with the private schools. My buddy’s son was a wrestler at a pretty high profile private HS and he was grade appropriate for his age. Going into his Jr year, they were bringing in freshman the same age as him. It’s wild and I can’t for the life of me figure why the kids would want to repeat middle school years at least once, sometimes twice. It seems like it is to appease the dads more than the kids and is something that I wish the PIAA would address along with the privates competing against the public schools for in the PIAA postseason.

Same deal. Entered PSU at age 17. Played Lacrosse. First year I was neither fast enough or strong enough. By my junior year I leveled up with game action . . . but, alas . . I was never fast enough. Met my coach at a game some 40 years later and he introduced me thusly: “this JohnnieMac. He played for me years ago, but, what I remember is that he was so slow that grass grew slower on his north side. True enough. My sister was held back two grades and ended up a captain in two
Sports at PSU (one of the first dozen women to get a full ride to PSU).

I was already young for my grade, then skipped 3rd grade and graduated high school early to play spring football in college. I was still 16 when I strapped on a helmet for my first college football game. But, I was one of those early developers, done growing in my mid-teens. I was 6' 210 at 11, at 44 I'm 6'1" 180-ish. Another year or two in high school would have made no difference physically for me. I got a little stronger in a structured college S&C program, but otherwise was closer to my physical peak playing football at 16 than most of my 18-20yr old teammates - then they kept growing well after I was done.

We started my older son (just turned 10, now in 5th grade) in kindergarten when he was still 4. A few of his teachers have since thrown out the idea of skipping him a grade. Intellectually he's kind of bored so we work with him at home with more advanced stuff, but he's already really young for his grade and although physically bigger than average, nobody is yet questioning why a grown man is trick-or-treating (which was the case for me in elementary school). Also, most of his neighborhood friends are a grade below him (but his age, if not older), a separation of two grades from his buddies would suck for him. Sports aren't even a consideration. He's always done combat sports (BJJ and Muay thai) and now runs track, giving him some competitive advantage where a scholarship isn't really up for grabs is pointless. We'll have to make a similar decision with my youngest, he could still be 4 when he starts school and he is tracking to be bigger than his brother.

IMO, I'm glad I was able to get done with school and start life earlier than most of my peers - I think I was ready at 20 to be on my own in the real world - but it is different for everybody. It's not like I was age-group world class in some sport like several of these wrestlers, which made the decision easier.
 
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dicemen99

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Bachmann's dad is going to have to develop some thick skin. He was all bent out of shape over some comments Mineo made about his son's performance that would be run off the mill on Iowa's forum after one of their guys takes a bad loss.
Fred (Sr.) wrestled in HS (intermittently, when not suspended, lol) with my youngest brother. Thick skin is not in the cards. Was a top boxer, more so than a wrestler, as a kid which didn't help things occasionally as well.

He is a very good guy from my interactions with him and from what he does for other wrestlers as well. My brother liked him as well during their time as teammates. But he's not the type of guy who is going to ignore that kind of stuff. No matter how good of a career his kids can have at Iowa, there is going to be some comments on that board over there from time to time and it will not end well if he's monitoring the stuff people post on message boards and twitter.

When your kid becomes a public figure, which is what happens now with FLO and the message boards, they end up catching strays all the time and it's best for parents to remove themselves from that no-win situation.

EDIT: Sheesh, I just looked at the Facebook stuff and that's going to be tough to recover from. I'm guessing (hoping) someone will convince him that it's his last post on social media until his kids' careers are over.
 
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Psalm 1 guy

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They also claimed he was a 144 that wrestled up to take on Turi last weekend at SEM. However, the week before he wrestled 152 at a dual and then 150 at Ironman. There’s no evidence he wrestled anywhere this year at 144 and, in an interview at Ironman, he says he’s cutting to make 150.
Four and a half months ago James wrestled 71kg (156.2 lb.) at the U17 World Championships and now he is wrestling at 165. I wonder what his walking around weight is?
 
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LB99

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Fred (Sr.) wrestled in HS (intermittently, when not suspended, lol) with my youngest brother. Thick skin is not in the cards. Was a top boxer, more so than a wrestler, as a kid which didn't help things occasionally as well.

He is a very good guy from my interactions with him and from what he does for other wrestlers as well. My brother liked him as well during their time as teammates. But he's not the type of guy who is going to ignore that kind of stuff. No matter how good of a career his kids can have at Iowa, there is going to be some comments on that board over there from time to time and it will not end well if he's monitoring the stuff people post on message boards and twitter.

When your kid becomes a public figure, which is what happens now with FLO and the message boards, they end up catching strays all the time and it's best for parents to remove themselves from that no-win situation.

EDIT: Sheesh, I just looked at the Facebook stuff and that's going to be tough to recover from. I'm guessing (hoping) someone will convince him that it's his last post on social media until his kids' careers are over.
Care to elaborate for those of us without Facebook?
 

McScoreley

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Four and a half months ago James wrestled 71kg (156.2 lb.) at the U17 World Championships and now he is wrestling at 165. I wonder what his walking around weight is?
He mentioned he just wrestles whatever he is walking around at. 71 was the exception since the next weight up was 176 and it was a very small cut from there so I'm guessing he's 160-165 but he's 100% going to grow again.

He's very young for his grade (younger than Miller) and he's basically the same frame as his older brother who is 210 (ND RB)