November 14, 2023 • 57 mins
The episode, titled "Rock ‘N’ Roll High School (Part 1)," features special guest Dr. Jackie Paquette from the NWCA, who will discuss recent trends in high school wrestling participation. The episode will explore the growth in the number of high school wrestlers, with particular attention to the increases in both boys and girls participation.
Key insights from the episode include an examination of the relationship between high school wrestling numbers and various factors, such as state population and the number of NCAA & NAIA wrestling teams. The episode will also address the distinction between boys wrestling as a mature industry and girls wrestling as a growth industry, reflecting the historical and emerging trends in the sport.
Listeners can expect detailed statistical analysis and correlations, exploring how these trends have evolved over the years and what they might indicate for the future of wrestling at the high school level. The episode sets the stage for a comprehensive exploration of high school wrestling's current state, its growth, and its impact on the broader wrestling community.
Full Slideshow: https://www.mattalkonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/matstats26.pdf
Sticker Mule wants to make sure your team, program, company or project is set to go with quality graphics and promotional materials. With custom sizes and styles, let Sticker Mule take care of your brand today. Check out this wrestling-friendly business today at https://www.stickermule.com/custom-stickers
About Mat Stats
Welcome to the NWCA’s latest venture to help our favorite sport. Glenn Gormley, Jason Bryant and Kevin Hazard outline their effort to bring statistical analysis to wrestling. Mat Stats is the NWCA’s attempt to bring wrestling up to speed with so many other sports by incorporating stats. It is the same sport, the wrestlers are just older and better.
Mat Stats by the NWCA is a monthly podcast by the National Wrestling Coaches Association
Apple Podcasts | Spotify | iHeartRadio | Podcast Addict | Castbox | RSS
Key insights from the episode include an examination of the relationship between high school wrestling numbers and various factors, such as state population and the number of NCAA & NAIA wrestling teams. The episode will also address the distinction between boys wrestling as a mature industry and girls wrestling as a growth industry, reflecting the historical and emerging trends in the sport.
Listeners can expect detailed statistical analysis and correlations, exploring how these trends have evolved over the years and what they might indicate for the future of wrestling at the high school level. The episode sets the stage for a comprehensive exploration of high school wrestling's current state, its growth, and its impact on the broader wrestling community.
Full Slideshow: https://www.mattalkonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/matstats26.pdf
Sticker Mule wants to make sure your team, program, company or project is set to go with quality graphics and promotional materials. With custom sizes and styles, let Sticker Mule take care of your brand today. Check out this wrestling-friendly business today at https://www.stickermule.com/custom-stickers
About Mat Stats
Welcome to the NWCA’s latest venture to help our favorite sport. Glenn Gormley, Jason Bryant and Kevin Hazard outline their effort to bring statistical analysis to wrestling. Mat Stats is the NWCA’s attempt to bring wrestling up to speed with so many other sports by incorporating stats. It is the same sport, the wrestlers are just older and better.
Mat Stats by the NWCA is a monthly podcast by the National Wrestling Coaches Association
Apple Podcasts | Spotify | iHeartRadio | Podcast Addict | Castbox | RSS
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:03):
Statistics. They can mean many things. It can be a batting average,
a win percentage, correlations, andstandard deviation. But numbers aren't just for
nerds. In life, decisions needdata. In wrestling decisions, projections and
hypotheticals also need data. Here onMatt's Stats, we take historical data,
(00:28):
theories, and statistics and apply itto the world's oldest and greatest sport.
Now to your trio of numerical nerdballs, Glenn Gormley, Kevin Hazard,
and Jason Bryant, Welcome to episodetwenty six of The Matt Stats Show.
Along with the Grand Poobah of wrestling, Kevin Hazzard, and our resident statistician
(00:49):
Glenn Gormley. I'm Jason Bryant.Today we have a guest on our show.
She is the Deputy director of theNational Wrestling Coaches Association, doctor Jackie
Potcat, been in the role justover a year. A lot of things
she's got on her plate day today and a lot of big news.
And before we even get into themeat of our discussion today, which as
Glenn will pretty much drive the truckon this one, the growth of wrestling
(01:11):
is this part one of a twopart series Jackie, you were just in
Iowa City on Sunday, November twelvefor the Trailblazer Duels, the four Division
one schools that sanction wrestling eighty twoo seven at Carver Hawkeye. You've been
working behind the scenes on emerging sportsstatus, the growth of wrestling at the
high school and the collegiate level.What was it like to just see this
(01:32):
finally unfold? It was amazing,you know, as I said in my
social media post, it was justan amazing day of celebration for a sport.
The women that were out there,you know, to see the Iowa
Hawk guys walk into Carver Hawkeye Arenafor the first time, you know,
hands linked. They use the statementfor HER's that's sort of their driving statement.
(01:55):
Many of the many of the athleteshave a tattooed. They use it
as a hash tag. It's itwas. It was honestly just beautiful.
It was. It was a beautifulcelebration of women's wrestling, celebration of these
four Division one programs who truly areTrailblazers. Uh. The the atmosphere was
amazing. The University of Iowa didan amazing, amazing job, Uh,
(02:17):
bringing these teams together and putting ona truly first class operation, you know,
from the pyrotechnics to you know,dor Mayap on the mic just absolutely
killing it. It was phenomenal.It was just such a well well done
event and it truly sort of seta bigger stage for women's wrestling and what
(02:44):
the stage that these these student athletescan be on and the show they can
put on. You know, Ithink Kylie Welker was on the map for
just over a minute total in threematches. It was just honestly terrific to
see and just really really cool tobe a part of in a really really
cool day to celebrate these women andwhere they've come from, you know,
(03:07):
the work they've done to push Divisionone women's wrestling to where it is in
the four coaches really were amazing andreally did a great job of you know,
you know, showcasing the event andyou know, the stage and really
putting their student athletes out there andletting them realize what the stage was to
(03:28):
It was great. This is,like I guess, a focal point of
this season going into as we're workingon emerging sports status at the NCAA level.
The NAIA has it, but Ijust go back to the convention,
the wonderful event that was hosted atthe NBA MWCA convention. Stickers now floating
around support women in wrestling. It'snot just supporting women's wrestling and supporting women
(03:50):
in wrestling. You mentioned Mayab whoI work with at the NAIA Championships and
various USA Wrestling events. You werethere, You've worked with at the Division
two Championships, going back to yourtime as the Senior Women's Administrator at the
University of Indianapolis and when we firstmet Division two's uh when you were the
SID there. So talk about howthis Trailblazer duels really kind of almost puts
(04:12):
a start of this year and putsa cap on last year. But it's
all kind of one giant timeline.And I look back at that special event
down in Florida and I just Icame away just wowed by it. So
how did all these things tie together? For you? That's what a lot
of what I want to do,the support women in wrestling. That's something
(04:33):
that I've tried uh to do fora long time. As you know you
mentioned Jason, I've been a partof the Division two Men's Championships for over
a decade now, you know,was a chair of the NCAA Division two
Wrestling Committee and this frankly there,you know, you know, you three
gentlemen know there just aren't as manywomen in our sport as there are men.
(04:55):
It's as simple as simple as itis. And it's a big deal
to me to amplify women in oursport as a whole. Like like Jason
said, the logo says support womenin Wrestling. The event was a celebration
of women in wrestling, not justnecessarily women's wrestling, which obviously we love
(05:15):
our women that are competing, ourwomen's coaches, but there are so many
women that are working to amplify thesport in so many different ways. And
I'm just I'm so blessed to befriends with so many of them and to
have relationships with so many of them, and you know, to be able
to help women on in our sportand to be a part of our sport.
(05:39):
And you know, down to that, we have two young female interns
at the end of BCA right nowthrough you know, like you mentioned dor
Mayeb, who announces the events shedoes, right, we have so many
great directors of ops at the divisionone men's level that are women, right.
We have so many athletic trainers,terrific athletic trainers that are at all
(06:00):
levels of our sport, and there'sjust so it's just let's do what we
can to bring more women into oursport, to retain more women in our
sport in all facets. Yeah,and you were somebody that wrestling kind of
just grabbed a hold of you whenyou started working with it, and here
we go. You know, fifteenyears at you Indie and your postgraduate work
(06:23):
had a lot of wrestling to dowith it. I know we've got a
different time to talk about, butthis also shows that where the wrestling fever
catches people, men and women.This has become your life. It has,
and it's so odd. If you'dhave asked me ten fifteen years ago,
like if I thought this could bemy life, I would have laughed
(06:44):
at you and I would have Iwould have never thought that to be the
case. I didn't wrestle. I'mthe least athletic person that there is in
any room I'm in. I promiseyou that. And I just had the
opportunity to work with the sport atthe University of Indianapolis first as a media
contact as a sports information director,and just fell in love with the sport.
(07:06):
Fell in love with just the workand the blue collar and just all
of the strategy and just the beautyof the sport. And it was very
fortunate to have a head coach atthe University of Indianapolis who sort of embraced
me being a huge part of theprogram there, you know, moving into
(07:26):
director of Ops role, you know, encouraging me to get on the NCAA
committee to do the work that Ido with the Division two Men's Championship.
We host the Midwest Classic at Undy, which those who know me well know
is my favorite weekend of the entireyear. We host fifty fifty Division two
teams. It's a men's event,it's a division to only event, and
(07:49):
it's it's a battle. It's anabsolute battle. And you know, last
year we had eighteen of the toptwenty five teams there, more than half
of the ranked wrestlers in the countryin the field. Like it's it's become
this huge thing and it's just oneof my most favorite things to be a
part of. And it's all ofthat sort of rolled into me taking this
(08:13):
job at the NDWCA, Mike Moyercalled me and to initially talk about it.
Didn't even realize he was offering mea job because I never thought that
this could be my job. That'sone hundred percent real, Like, really
didn't even realize he was talking tome about a job. Thought that he
wanted to talk to me to sortof help him out until he hired the
(08:35):
person who he was going to hire. But then he's like, no,
like I want to hire you,and I was like, again, didn't
even didn't even realize it. Sothat was really fun. Mean, wait,
wait, wait, oh wait,oh me wow, yeah, you're
pointing at me. Oh okay,So that, I mean, an amazing
opportunity. And again, for thosewho've known me a long time, like
(08:58):
everybody thought i'd say it, youIndy forever. I love. I love
the University of Indianapolis. I loveour wrestling program over there. Jason Worth
and Bob Brubecker two of my bestfriends in the world. And so to
leave you, Indy was tough,but to be able to influence the sport
on a bigger level was something thatwas very enticing to me. I love
(09:18):
the sport. I have such greatrelationships with so many coaches, student athletes,
former student athletes, officials that youknow, to be able to make
the sport better in even any waythat I can was a really big opportunity
for me. And so I veryvery fortunate, very very fortunate. I
(09:39):
do. I'm sorry. I knowyou asked me about my education too.
I do have. I do havea terminal degree of doctorate and it's in
sports sport management. And my dissertationwas the fluctuation of NCAA Division two men's
wrestling, reasons why and ideas forfuture sustainability of this sport. So that's
(10:03):
I did my I did my doctoratein wrestling. Yes, doctor of wrestling.
Legitimately, I'm not a doctor ofwrestling. I know you're a doctor
wrestling. We're putting it on wax. That's it's it's now. But so
I do. I love the sport, I love the people. I've been
so fortunate to meet so many terrificpeople and build relationships with so many terrific
(10:28):
people through the sport of wrestling,and so I'm just very fortunate that this
gets to be my actual life nowand you get to be on a podcast
with a bunch of us stats nerds. All right, So moving to the
meat of our discussion today, I'mgonna probably dip out some of this.
I'm gonna be again driving the cartfor those of us that are watching on
(10:50):
video. Again, if you're listeningthrough the matt Talk podcast network, there
will be the show notes, theslide show that Glenn Gormley will be reading
across, will be going step bystep through there. So if you're in
your you know you're in your car, don't listen. Listen, but don't
look at your phone with the slideshow, wait until you're there. If
you're driving, sure, go aheadand flip through it. And if you've
got the video at NWCA online oron Mattalk online, you can just follow
(11:13):
along here. So Glenn, I'mgonna switch over, and the first thing
I'm gonna do is I'm not gonnacover up your your your your your plug
here because Glenn likes to throw musicin and music references for those of you
that are older than forty, whichi is older than forty Kevin we're talking
about if he's quite double that.But anyway, rock and roll high school?
(11:33):
Do you remember rock and roll radio? Let's go okay, guys,
thanks a lot, Jason. BeforeI start on the show, I just
wanted to say how fortunate the sportis to have you, doctor Purquette.
I've become a huge fan of viewers. I've only met you in the past
year and all we've all known MikeMoyer for a long long time, and
(11:58):
Mike's made a lot of really gooddecisions, and the hiring of doctor Jackie
Piquette was one of Mike's many greatdecisions. We're we're really fortunate to have
you, doctor, and thank youfor coming on the show too. I
really appreciate getting to know you andeverything you're everything you're doing for our sport
for I know it's been many yearsnow, but we've just met recently.
(12:20):
Okay, So with that being said, doctor Jackie Piquette and Mike Moyer called
me up a little bit ago andasked me to do some research on high
school stats and it made sense becausewe just did the colleges and now the
high school. Okay, So this, like Jason said earlier, is part
one. This is so much avoluminous amount of work to do that you
(12:45):
just can't cram it all in inan hour. Okay, Now, the
first lide he always ass is Ifeel like a number? Okay, the
old Bob Seeger song. Okay,after that, we've had it, eight
six seven, five three oh nine, the most famous phone number in history
of America. Okay, everybody who'sour age, that's that phone number.
Okay, Now, next slide.The opinions expressed on this show do not
(13:09):
necessarily reflect any policies. Blah blahblah. In other words, what loud,
what loud? Moouth? Gormley says, not everybody might agree with Okay.
And one mistake I think I havemade a lot, and I've talked
to Kevin about this recently, isa lot of Kevin I's closest friends think
this is a fully opinioned show.And when I'm showing them with stats,
(13:33):
the number is the number, okay, and they're like, well, I
don't agree with that number. Well, if you ever done any research on
it, shut up, you know. Okay, So all right now we're
going to have this slide, thefirst number slide in every show. Okay.
As of eleven nine twenty three,which was last week, there were
(13:54):
five hundred men and women's wrestling teamsin the NCAA and Naia and His Jackie
and our organization notified me two daysago. We now have five hundred and
one. Okay, but I alreadyput all this show together, so that's
a nice thing that we have evenone more. And as you guys,
I'm sure well aware, it's themost women's teams we've ever had, the
most D two and the doctor ofD two wrestling is on here with us.
(14:18):
Okay, so you can confirm that. Okay. Now on last show,
I have about a year ago predictedby twenty twenty five we will have
more men's wrestlers than ever the yearsthat we've done. NCAA's reported the results.
In nineteen eighty two we dropped downthirty wrestlers, so we're fifth right
(14:39):
now, but we're still in therange to do that. And this is
an interesting thing here, obviously,with thirty people behind last year. But
if anybody is a couple of yearsyounger than me, I happen to graduate
in eighty four. Okay, what'sthat? Yeah, yeah, I happen
(15:01):
to graduate in eighty four. Soif you're a couple of years younger than
me, you cannot go around sayingback when I was in college, there
was a lot more wrestlers than thereare. Now, you're wrong. There's
more NCAA wrestlers right now. Ifyou're any younger than the old man Gormley
and most places I go to,I'm one of the older people. Fortunately
(15:22):
Hazard comes into suite with me,so I'm not the oldest. Okay,
Now, I'd like to start thisoff with you something to say about it.
The state of high school wrestling isstrong right now. You can say
it's rocking and rolling, going fromour title rock and roll high School.
I'm still looking to bring ref Randallon and sing a song, but I
(15:46):
couldn't hunt her down. Okay.This episode is going to say where high
school wrestling is, where it was, and how we got here. Okay,
it needs to be a two partseries because the second part really requires
a deep dive. And just soyou know, doctor Jackie Piquette gave me
(16:06):
all these surveys that I can analyzeand I really appreciate the hard work her
and I know Cassandra, I don'tknow your other interurn, but whatever the
other young lady's name is, Thankyou so much for doing that. Now.
I also want to give a shoutout to Pat Toci and the show
because Pat was doctor J's predecessor,and we all were very fortunate to have
(16:29):
Pat for a long time. Now, I would like Jackie to explain the
OPC and what it is and howthey get those numbers, because I can't
explain that to the will you marrypeople because I don't know enough about it.
Go ahead, Jackie. So theOPC stands for Optimal Performance Calculator.
It is a system with in trackwrestling, which everybody knows, maybe loves,
(16:52):
maybe doesn't love. That is basicallywhat we run all weight management through
for the high school for forty sixstates and all of college wrestling. So
if you're a if you're a coachat the high school level, boys or
girls in many states, you basicallywill sign into the OPC the beginning of
(17:15):
the year, You'll put your rosterin, you'll do weight certification for your
student athletes, and then it willgive you a weight descent plan to which
your student athletes can safe safely descendthroughout the year to await and do that
again say with safety being the key. Safely so they can safely descend to
a weight at which you want themto wrestle if they want to wrestle,
(17:37):
and at which we are science backedsystem says they can safely compete. So
results also a results suppository, youknow, sort of like we have all
the results in in many of ourstates use the OPC results then for their
state tournament seating and for the basicallythe entire administration of their state series.
(18:03):
So again very important that the coachesare keeping up on those results, putting
those results in because when you getto the state series and you have people
like Glenn who want to watch everystate in the country because he's Glenn,
you know you're gonna that's where youcan go and look at all the results,
see all the results. And againthat's where it's easy to spit out
seating for these events. So wedon't have the seating meetings of old where
(18:29):
you're sitting there for four and fivehours and you've only made it through three
weight classes. So just a mucheasier, more streamlined system that we've been
able to provide for again the highschool states as well as the collegiate levels.
Thank you very much. How longhave you been using it, you
o PC or how old is it? It's since since nineteen ninety nine,
(18:52):
two thousand and again, Pat Tossi, he's the one that Pat Tossi is
the one that administered it to me. But that's when it was developed.
It wasn't fully put into use thoughobviously right away, like it was gradually
brought into use at the different statesand levels. And again we have forty
six states. Just two new statesthis year came on board and they'll use
(19:15):
the OPC for the first time thisyear in Kansas and Illinois. So that's
again it's not every single state forever. And so that's part of the that's
part of the difference in the numbers, as I explained to Glenn too,
is it's not every single state.He's used it forever. So Indiana,
(19:36):
for example, does not use theOPC. So Indiana's numbers are not in
the OPC. So we get theirnumbers from the NFHS, from the NFHS
Participation Survey. Yes, and Psycherfor explained that JACKI and Jason has now
put up the first slide we havehere and all these numbers and let's i'd
(20:00):
say, otherwise are done with theOPC. And if the state doesn't do
the OPC, like doctor j said, we've used the NFHS. Now on
this slide, you can see thedifference the amount of wrestlers there are boys
and girls and then total. Okay, the boys are we getting to this
later, are a mature business andthe girls are a growth in the industry.
(20:23):
That doesn't mean boys are physically moremature, mostly more mature. It's
a business term that I learned wayback when in grad school. Okay,
Now, with that being said,since twenty thirteen, there are more boys
high school wrestlers in twenty twenty threethan there have been before that, and
(20:44):
girls, of course obviously are morenow than ever. Okay, there's three
hundred and thirty two thousand high schoolwrestlers. I'd like to put things in
perspective so we can see how bigof anum there is. Three hundred thirty
two thousand. Right, We've beento Saint Louis more than any other city
(21:06):
this century for the men's D one, Okay, the biggest event wrestling has
every year. Okay, Saint Louis, Missouri, who used to have an
NFL team for quite some time,only has two hundred and eighty six thousand
people. There are more high schoolwrestler than there are people in Saint Louis.
Okay, Now, for every thousandpeople in America, there is one
(21:33):
current high school wrestler, which meansHazard and Gormley are not current high school
wrestlers. We might have wrestled inhigh school, but we're clearly not in
high school anymore. Okay. Soto put in perspective, if it's drawn
from an unbiased pool, at thefootball game this weekend in Rocky Top,
(21:55):
there should be one hundred and twocurrent high school wrestlers, Okay. But
sometimes things are skewed. For example, when we go to Nationals in Kansas
City, right across the state fromSaint Louis, Okay, there will be
a hell of a lot more thantwenty current high school wrestlers there because it's
a wrestling tournament. Okay, butthat's how big the numbers are, Guys,
(22:17):
which is really good to think ofsome of our closest friends. We're
debating about what's the biggest sport forboys in high school, Wrestling is now
sixth. Guys, that's a reallynice thing because some of those sports,
you know, football, basketball,baseball three of the top four sports in
(22:37):
America. Soccer is the biggest sportin the world, and outdoor track are
the only ones bigger than us.Where are girls. On the next slide,
you can see girls wrestling is nowfourteenth, and this is a really
wild thing. In my mind,girls wrestling will probably pass girls field hockey
in twenty twenty four. That isjust mind boggling to me. Who's been
(23:02):
around the world where girls always playedfield hockey and girls at wrestle. So
it's really a great sign what's goingon with the sport. Okay, now
the next slide, we can seewhat states have the most boys and girls
wrestling. Okay, California is numberone in both. I don't think anybody's
really surprised with that. You cansee from the boys on a mature industry,
(23:26):
it's basically all the big states inthe area. You see California,
New York, Texas, Florida,which happened to be the four largest population
states, and girls wrestling. Itchanges real quickly after California and Texas.
You know, small states like Iowa, Kansas, and Utah all on the
top ten. Okay, here's anotherthing. I thought that our viewers would
(23:49):
be interested in states with the mostcollege NCAA and NAI teams. Pennsylvania is
buying far and away lead with fiftyfour then you go to Iowa number two
at thirty four. Now it's notsurprising because i has been as good of
a wrestling state as there can besince I've been around, but it is
(24:15):
small population state. Then we godown to twelve. And the only reason
I have Top twelve instead of topten because I wanted to see we're California
racked. California ranks twelve. Soif there's any state with availability to start
college teams, California's almost twenty fourhundred high school wrestlers for college team,
(24:37):
PI only has two. I thinkthere's a caveat there on that one.
Glenn. California operates a little bitdifferently, sort of at the junior college
level where they have the three CTAthat operates its own sort of state junior
college championship, you know, andthey've got twenty I think twenty two men's
teams and they're at six versus thewomen's teams right now, so they're sort
(25:02):
of have their own entire JUCO systemout there too. So I think that
that makes you that a little bitwhere you stand here. Yeah, there's
no question, and I know Californiais big on that. Kansas is right
obviously right above, California is reallybig on college Jucos, and I believe
wrestling jucos too, So it wasjust coincidental. I thought of that when
(25:26):
I put us in there about theJucos, and doctor Piquett is clearly right.
This is just NCAA and NAI teams. Okay, but even so,
California we need more college teams.So but Jackie Piquett is clearly right askewed.
Okay, now let's start or diveinto this now in order to get
(25:48):
to where doctor j and more youwanted me to be, Okay, I
had to start with this part ofthe show. Okay. Could I have
just jumped in to the survey dowt, Yes, I could have, but
I think in order to see whereyou're going from, much like Jackie astutely
pointed out there with the Jucos,there's more than just that couple numbers I
(26:11):
put on there, and I thankJackie for bringing that up again. So
in order to do this, Iwanted to see if there was something that
the surveys did not include. Okay, Now, remember what I've said on
past shows, Correlation does not provecausation, all right, Okay, now
(26:36):
real quick. A nickel tour ofcorrelation. Positive one is the strongest correlation.
It could be zero is no correlation. Negative one is a strong opposite
correlation. Okay, I'll tell youthere. Negative correlation is the hotter it
gets, the less closure wear.As the temperature goes up, the mount
(26:57):
of closure wear goes down. Correlation. Okay, the next slide, I'll
just briefly say that boys is themature industry and girls is the growth industry.
Okay. One way I like tolook at this. If you take
a world class runner, he's reallynot going to improve his five K time
(27:18):
much because he's really near the peakof his performance. He could be at
if you take a Saturday jogger,Yeah, they could really improve their five
k time because they have a lotof room for improvement. And that's the
same thing where women have a lotmore room for getting teams because they didn't
have any until recently. Okay,now the next slide for Kevin's request,
(27:40):
I wanted to show you just soeverybody knows the dip was as a result
of the events due to the eventsin twenty twenty and twenty twenty one.
Okay, with COVID, So boysyou see are fairly consistent. But girls
minds that dip is a nice growthpattern. Okay. Now let's start out
(28:02):
with what correlate with the amount ofhigh school wrestlers. Okay, there's a
very strong correlation between the population ofeach state and the number of wrestlers in
that state. That should not bea surprise to anybody. The California that
we mentioned, the largest state,has more high school wrestlers than Wyoming,
(28:23):
the smallest state. Okay. Next, Okay, there's also a strong correlation
between population and both boys and girlswrestling, okay, which is a neat
thing. So it shows the morepeople that are in that state, the
more they both wrestle. Okay.There's also a strong correlation between the number
(28:48):
of men and women's teams in eachstate NCAA and NAI which that made me
very happy that the states, ifthey have a men's team, they're gonna
have a women's team more likely,and advice versa. Okay, on this,
there's really not a chicken or anegg, because the men's teams by
and larger there before the women's teams. Granted some of them just started together.
(29:12):
Okay, there's a moderate correlation,a moderate means like somewhere in the
middle between no correlation and strong.There's a moderate correlation between the number of
boys or girls wrestling in high schooland the number of men's are women's college
teams in that respective state. Now, before I explain this more, this
(29:34):
is a chicken or an egg.We don't know if it's proof causation,
but if it has, we don'tknow if the college this has cause more
high school people to wrestle, orhigh school people more caused more college programs.
Okay, just some of the numbersI have here, but this is
a nice thing. Okay. There'salso a moderate ca correlation between the state's
(30:00):
population and the number of college teams, which is weird that there's a strong
one in high school but not incollege. And we can go into that
a little bit later. Okay,there's also a moderate correlation between population in
each state and the men's teams atit in thirteen twenty thirteen to twenty three.
(30:26):
And everybody knows where I got thatinformation too. Nobody has done more
work than Jason Bryant on what school'sat it and when. I would not
have been able to do that withoutJason's help on that Okay, so now
we're going to get into things withno correlation. Now I'm going to try
to explain them so the people,even attorneys can understand it. Okay,
(30:49):
there's no correlation between the growth rateof the state's population and the boys' high
school wrestling growth rate. I foundout as a surprise. Okay, there's
no correlation between the rate of thestate's population growth and the boys wrestling growth.
(31:10):
Okay, two of those have none. Okay. State Next flight twenty
six, we show as a tableshowing the randomness of boys' high school growth
rate and the state's population growth rate. Okay, some of these states that
are really growing in population, likeArkansas's number one in that. Okay,
(31:32):
I hope everyone's moving to Arkansas becausethey do have a lot of new college
teams. Okay, but that doesn'tshow the state population growth in high school
and throughout the fifty states, there'salso no correlation between the states population and
the boys high school growth rate.Next one, there is no correlation between
(31:52):
the percentage of growth from high schoolboys and the number of girls wrestling in
each state. I thought when Iwas doing this, there would be,
you know, more of one sexof the other sex based on that.
But this is why you go tograd school and get a graduate degree in
(32:15):
stat so you can learn about thisstuff. Okay. There's no correlation in
the between the increase in boys' highschool wrestlers and the number increase in the
girls high school wrestling to use andI reason increase in numbers and not percentage.
There is because so many states intwenty thirteen had zero girls wrestling,
so that would be an infinity growthrate, So you can't correlate anything with
(32:37):
infinity. Okay. There is nocorrelation between the ten year OPC growth rate
in each state and the number ofNCAA and NAI wrestling teams, which goes
back to one of the other correlationswe showed earlier. There's also no correlation
between the boys high school growth rateand the number of men's teams at it.
(33:00):
Okay. Now there are five onSLY thirty two, there are five
categories for the diatary analyze strong positive, moderate positive, no correlation, moderate
negative, and strong negative. Tosummarize the strong correlation. It's all about
(33:20):
population. From this part of thestudy, we don't know what it's going
to show us on the surveys.Okay, the next one the moderate.
It's basically a population element with anumber of and also the number of high
school wrestlers and college teams are moderatelycorrelated. Okay. One of the things
I've talked to about people is theydon't believe there's enough girls wrestlers in that
(33:45):
state to get into colleges and stufflike that. Well, a lot of
these colleges have women's rowing, greatsport, they should have it. But
we have more high school girls wrestlingthan high school rowers, so it really
defeats a lot of argument. Thenwe have a random selection of no correlation
stuff that we talked about, andthere's really no variables with a moderate or
(34:08):
negative correlation on this, Okay,which is good. Do you find some
negative correlations? Sure? Okay,Now there is surely, like I said,
no correlations of that proof causation onslide thirty eight. We review this,
(34:30):
we can assume the population is whatcauses the wrestling numbers. It's not
the wrestling numbers that cause the population. Okay. Now an example of a
strong correlation and having no causation,Okay, you can go to Tuscaloosa and
(34:51):
somebody's gonna have a roll tied CrimsonTide shirt on Okay, and they're gonna
win on Saturday because they win everyweek. It seems much your great.
Okay, So that's just an exampleof correlation up proved caualisation. Okay,
Kevin and Jackie uh ask some questionshere, jump in. I like to
(35:15):
hear your feedback what you have tosay before we continue on here. I
tell you, one of the thingsthat really struck me and when we were
going through these Glenn was California.It just it seems like it's so it's
(35:35):
so wrestling is so strong on thehigh school level, and as doctor Piquette
said on the juco level, thatit's not. There aren't more uh full
four year college teams. The theother thing that's I thought was really interesting
is it's it's all population. AndI thought there'd be more of a of
(35:59):
a of a correlation when as thegirls got stronger, the boys would start
to get stronger too, and thatdidn't seem to happen. So you question
the numbers. The numbers don't lie. I mean, I think I I
think I certainly agree, and Ido think it's would be interesting too.
(36:21):
And this will tie into sort ofwhat Glenn's going to look at with the
survey data too. It'd be interestingto see how long states have sanctioned,
especially the girls, obviously, becausemany of the boys we know as what
did you call it, Glenn,I they're a mature they're mature what mature
industry? Yeah, they're a matureindustry, whereas the girls right have just
(36:44):
started this growth industry. Yes,there you go. And so I think
it would be interesting to look atthe numbers in the states. Obviously,
we know California has a great populationof young women wrestling in high school.
They've also sanctioned a girls championship waylonger than most other states. So I
(37:05):
think that that's sort of an importantpiece and I'd be interested in that as
well. Yeah, I'm gonna pipein thank you, that's part of it.
Sure. Yeah. So one thingI'm also curious too, and this
goes with I guess maybe looking togo inside baseball a little bit, with
what Jackie and Mike do at theNWCA when there's a when they say a
(37:27):
school is approaching, you got anad or president that calls the office and
that, hey, what are thebenefits of us adding wrestling? These are
numbers when you see these growth numbersthat are definitely beneficial for hey, oh,
let's look well, like, forexample, state of Washington is really
devoid of a lot of next levelof post scholastic wrestling opportunities, and that's
(37:49):
like, well, you can lookand be like, we have this many
students that are not being served.So it also seems like it really supports
the point of where to add newprograms, what are the target programs,
and then when somebody from that statemay inquire, because not everything is always
like we're going to them. Somecoaches. I remember when I was in
that office, geez, fifteen yearsago. You know, we get a
call like, yeah, I gotan ad called from this so and so
(38:10):
looking ad wrestling. So these numbersdefinitely seem to help when you look at
the that population like, well,this this population of students is being underserved
by its community and those small enrollmentdriven schools where the big state schools at
the D one level, like thatschool in Norfolk for example, not serving
its state population, not serving itstax payers. So this is where these
(38:32):
smaller schools can step up and dothat as well, or the you know,
the state schools that hey, youknow what we need some enrollment too,
So I am curious on what typeof discussions usually get usually happen with
this type of data, Jackie,Sure, And that's so anybody who does
call and inquire, Mike does aterrific job. Mike Mario does a terrific
(38:52):
job of sending out a presentation tothem that includes all those numbers that you're
just talking about as well. Wealso sometimes we're and this is where the
things that interests my brain, folkswill ask us for specific numbers. So
we just were speaking with an institutionin an area that has a high Hispanic
population, and so they asked usif we could get data on specifically Hispanic
(39:17):
population currently wrestling in the NCAAA.And so thankfully, thankfully, the NCAA
and their research folks have a greatdatabase that's available to and we were able
to pull those numbers for them,and Mike was able to then include that
in their in the presentation to them. So, yes, those numbers are
(39:37):
certainly something that we lean on andsend out to those institutions that, like
you said, do call and inquire, and then similarly with the institutions that
we sort of target and are lookingat sending information to just because you know,
like you said, they may bein an underserved area, or maybe
there's a conference that is looking reallygood to be able to add the sport
(40:01):
at a championship level. Maybe wejust need one or two more. So
those are the situations when yes,we would, yes, certainly lean on
those numbers in that data, andwe certainly do. Yeah, thank you
for that, answered Jackie. Andyou know, as it says right there
on the slide, there are manyof these schools are roment driven, and
(40:22):
you know, if there's a lotmore wrestlers that they might want to go
to a school, that's a reasonto start men and women's wrestling exactly.
And yes, that school in Noffolkand that school in Williams Bark should have
both teams, should have four ofthem there. Yeah, okay, now
the next slide it sums up uswhat we talked about were doctor Piquett and
(40:45):
the NWCA providing Gorms with all thisdata. Okay, and part two of
this topic just so well, whatpeople's appetite for this what part two is
going to be about doctor Piquette.People, Cassandra and the other people from
nwc A have sent out surveys,okay, and it's going to be a
(41:09):
show very similar to this, onlyanalyzing the survey details. Surveys are a
little bit different. It can betrickier, you know, because yes,
nos not a not a number,right, Okay, so you have to
compare things, but a statistician willfind a way to do that. Okay.
Now, I think this is oneof the most fun topics I've analyzed,
(41:34):
and I'm really looking forward to diveit into the next one because this
is something that can really help thesport guys as much fun as I know,
I can speak for Kevin and Jasonon this as we have of diving
into Jason Bryant's Encyclopedia of wrestling beforethe Division one tournament and relaying it to
people. That's great. That's moreof an informative and a trivia show.
(41:59):
This stuff could really help Doctor jand Mike Moore and anybody else there.
Say this is the reasons okay,and I think we will be able to
find some stuff. Kevin and Jackietalk for a little bit before Kevin wraps
up is Matt notes, his famousMatt notes. So basically the survey I
(42:22):
can just sort of tell you preface, I guess what the survey is looking
at. So survey we sent toall state wrestling State Association wrestling liaisons and
ask them to sort of answer howthey administer the sport. So, do
you host a team state tournament?Do you only host an individual state tournament?
(42:44):
Do you host a dual state tournament? How many dates of competition or
how many matches are wrestlers permitted eachyear? How is that figured? So
basically, then what we've asked Glennto do is to correlate is there any
connection between the states that are doingit one way versus another? And is
(43:07):
there any connection with growth or decreasein growth in those states? So basically,
is there a correlation with how thesport is administered in the state with
the growth or with lack their ofgrowth in their state? Thank thank you.
(43:28):
I think when we talk about itat our next show that we all
I'm hoping that we can go alittle bit past the statistics and we can
talk about some other aspects of thesport that are driven maybe more anecdotal evidence
(43:49):
that maybe we can't prove it.I mean, for example, you know
how much of it is driven byindividuals? I mean I know there are
key individuals that have just a justan outsized effect on wrestling. And one
of the college programs we didn't evengo into today college is the you know,
the N and c w A,and they've had a humongous effect on
(44:14):
wrestling, and it's driven by oneman, by one man. And maybe
we can talk a little bit aboutthat in our next month show too.
Sure. I think that's you know, I think that I'm sorry, Glenn,
I think that's certainly true. Ithink that there are change makers in
each state, right, There arecertainly change makers in the sport in each
(44:37):
state, and in some states morethan others, right, And there are
people behind the scenes that are pushingthe state in different ways that maybe not
everybody, not everybody knows or understands. I think that's a very good point.
Yeah, going back to the wholeRamones thing. They had a song
(44:57):
on that album, I want tobe sedated when I here things that don't
invise stats and numbers. Maybe Ido want to be sedated. But sometimes
you guys are right. Sometimes youcan't put a number on some things.
And you know, you can't puta number on why the NWCA has been
so successful over the past twenty years. Right, you can't put a number
(45:17):
on it's a personality, you know. It's Mike and the people he's brought
along with him. Hi, Kevin, let's set to famous Matt Kevin's notes.
Okay, one, as of elevennine, we had five hundred wrestling
teams, and as doctor Piquette toldus today, it's actually five hundred and
one and that's in the NCAA andthe NAI that's the most ever. Shout
(45:43):
out to Shout out to McDaniel foradding Division three women, which is also
one of the coolest nicknames in allof college sports. They are the Green
Terror Green Terrors. He've only knownas Western Marrigeland, by the way,
but ye changed that name about thatfifteen years ago. I think. Anyway,
(46:04):
continue Kevin, what do you got? Well? The best name ever,
though, is got to be whatthe Banana Slugs? Yeah, but
they don't have wrestling. But youneed to get on the ball here.
Hey, but the Geo Ducks,do you yes? Ever Green? Evergreen?
It's like a claim duck is aclam Okay, that's part of best
(46:27):
nicknames for college teams. Oh,that's a whole show. I can definitely
definitely live up to Let's keep goingnow Number two. Twenty twenty three,
the NCAA men at eighty three hundredand eight wrestlers, the fifth highest ever.
But as we saw, it's kindof kind of on a level,
it's it's it's a mature industry.Three and we've said it before, and
(46:52):
so thankful for doctor Jackie Piquet forhelp on this show. It's been great
having you on. Thank you.Number four. In the past ten years,
except for COVID years, there's beena big jump in girls high school
wrestlers, and the boys had anice jump. In twenty twenty three,
number five, Boys high school wrestlingranks six in participation in all high school
(47:15):
sports. Girls are fourteenth. Thegirls are gonna start jumping up. Number
six. California ranks first number ofboys and girls high school wrestlers. Hazard
quiz, what was the first stateto sanction a girls CHANP tournament? And
I have a bonus there. Youdon't see the bonus, but we'll answer
(47:37):
the first one. Yeah, Iactually answered this quick. Go ahead,
Jackie, do you know I knowthe answer? I know the answer to
Gorms's, I mean to Jason's.Like you said, it's easy. It'll
give itself away. Once you getit, it'll get you. Oh,
why give itself away? It's Hawaii? Why? Why was the interestingly enough
(48:00):
nineteen ninety eight, Texas nineteen ninetynine. So we've had this enormous growth,
but it was it was kind ofincremental for a number of years,
and now it's gone exponentially. It'swonderful to see. And who was the
first chance? She's now at theUniversity of Iowa. Am I correct?
You are correct? Friend of minethat I was very blessed to speak with
(48:21):
yesterday, Clarissa Chun very first.That's it's just almost prophetic that she was
the first one in the first stateand we know what she's doing now.
Ye. I had to have thebonus And when I saw the question,
I was like, we cannot skipthat that thing, especially with last week.
What a great tie in and itwas great. Uh well, I
(48:42):
think all three of us, Jasonand I and and Gorman's were all out
to watch her go into the theNational Wrestling Hall of Fame. That was
yeah, that was a good momenttoo. Number seven, PA has the
most college teams with NCAA, Aand I Wrestling fifty four. California has
(49:05):
the availability to add many more collegeteams. It's twenty four athletes per can
I can I ask a can Iask a bonus question? Because this is
something that I looked up for aspeaking engagement I did earlier this year.
There's only one state, though,that has a women's program at every level,
(49:25):
every collegiate level. Do y'all knowwhat it is? Well, hold
on a second. My original guesthas got to be either Iowa, Rhode
Island, South Carolina, or Connecticut. My guess is Iowa. It is
(49:45):
Iowa. It is Iowa. Irealized I figured that out when I spoke
at their women's wrestling academy this summer. Yeah, one school program at every
level. Number eight girls wrestling ina growth mode. Bose are boys are
a mature sport, but it's hadnice growth in twenty twenty three. Interestingly
(50:08):
enough, Hawaii has had had thefirst AID championship, and you will see
that if you look at their growth, it's more moderate than some of the
states that have that are just juststarting high school wrestling. I'll give you
a little something. When you reachemerging status for women, three to four
(50:31):
times the girls show up the nextyear, and my son's team. My
son's team is a kind of provesit. He had four girls on his
team last year, they had theirfirst Sdiate title. He had sixteen girls
come out for wrestling this year.So it's that's the kind of growth you
see. And what I think we'reat? What forty six teams now that
(50:55):
have at least emerging sports status forgirls states? Yes, yet number nine
there is the strongest correlation we sawwas between state population number of high school
wrestlers and ten Tune in next monthfor the conclusion of this topic, same
(51:17):
Matt channel, same Matt time,and then the last slide of course,
shows what this is. Does anybodyhave anything else to say? Kevin,
Jackie, Jason, Well, one, I love the minutia of the stats.
Now, granted I don't get intothe deepness of like, okay,
well this is statistically significant. KnowI look at it, and you know
(51:38):
a lot of my stats, Ilook as like, well that's interesting,
hmmm, because I always like topull up the stuff where again, where
the causation and correlation, like like, for example, the number of all
Americans at the Division one level,or you know, even place winners or
qualifiers that placed or competed in Fargo, Like, I like that because that
that pitches that whole like summer wrestling, you know, wrestling, cross training
(52:00):
type of thing. But again,looking at numbers about participation is always something
we fight. I mean, it'sgood to have these in your back pocket
because again, the problem is readingthe comments, right. You get bogged
down in the minute of reading theFacebook comments or reading the comments on the
story or the morons on x formallyknown as Twitter. I remember arguing last
(52:22):
week about that school in Harrisonburg,James Madison, which is ranked and bold
and eligible, which is another stupidtopic entirely, but I still have vitriol
for that school for the amount ofsports they dropped about fifteen years ago.
And the point I'm making is islike it was a short sighted decision.
Then yes, they're budget's better now. But at the same point, the
(52:46):
argument was, well, wrestling hasn'tseen a growth rate. I was like,
yes it has, and they goto a Google stat that show that
just random like a QRA one ofthese random stats, Like, no,
here are the numbers, Here arethe numbers USA Wrestling provides. Here are
the numbers. The national Federational highschool state associations provide Like all those things
help our argument, but problem isyou get bogged down with people who don't
(53:07):
care about anything. So that's whereyou're like, you got to pick and
choose your battles with these numbers.And I like how the NWCA we're picking
our battles and not necessarily a confrontationalway, but like, this is where
we're going to fight for a teamhere. We're not going to waste our
energy spending stats on Jim Bobs seventwo three four that might be from Harrisonburg.
So I get tied up and wantingto defend the sport on social media
(53:30):
entirely too much. But these typeof things give me that geek out moment
to where like a preview guide comesaround, like okay, now you know
everybody loved, like the folks inIowa love the per capita, Glenn,
you just gave them so much moreammunition for the per capita debate about what
the best wrestling state is when youlook at all Americans at the Kyles level
and it's just it just all thistype of stuff just leads to some wrestling
(53:52):
geekery, which I just totally livefor good. I'm glad you do,
Jackie, you have anything else tosay, just you know, I agree
with Jason. I come from anarea, though, an area of college
athletics, right where an administration wherewe need to be data driven. So
(54:12):
let's give people the tools to bedata driven in our sport, and not
just the people arguing on social mediaright that they should have a program here,
they should have a program here,but let's give data. Let's give
data and show that. And Ithink that this is a really really good
start at that. And that's that'show my brain works. My brain likes
(54:32):
research, It likes it likes toknow the stats and the silly things like
that the University of Iowa has I'msorry that Iowa has only all of the
women's programs at all levels, right, So let's do it. It's fun.
Yeah, And guys, I justwant to say the level of geekery
that when when Jackie came on board, or maybe it was even before that,
(54:53):
but when the amount of volume ofresearch and documentations she's got for the
Division two world, I'm just like, I need, you know, because
I like documenting stuff, so likethere are gaps and then the library that
She's just like, ah, yeah, we need to, we need to,
we need to talk, because that'sone of those things that when that
like that's another added benefit of Jackie'sbackground, too, is bringing together that
(55:15):
love for things outside of Division one. Because I will, I will,
I will echo this and and bangthis drum until I'm blue in the face.
Is that there is more to lifein wrestling than division one. Now,
we love our divisional programs. It'sthe biggest draw we've got in the
sport. But where again, Isay it, Brent Metcalf's not gonna be
your high school coach. The guythat wrestled at Graceland might be. So
(55:37):
that's that's kind of that that thatpits there that you know, I announced
the d threes and THENI so whenwhen the small college data comes in again,
it's like it's geek moments. Soother shows that can can you know,
draw out of this once we havethis stuff digitized and set to go.
It's just the possibilities of educating ourfan base, not just about the
top twenty teams that they know everyyear, that the possibilities of educating them
(55:59):
about the benefits and oh, Ididn't know this guy russelled D two and
now they're in the Hall of Fame. Those type of things are you know,
can't be understated. Agree with thattoo, and that's why the Division
two Hall of Fame banquet and thefact that I get Tom see that and
that I get to sit in onthose calls. That's one of my most
favorite things in the world is thehistory of the history of the sport,
(56:22):
and the history of D two issort of how I got into that.
You know, Jim Cook and Iwere good friends prior to him passing away
at Parkside, and that's where Igot all those all those records from that
that I used for my dissertation,and then Nate Niles was so gracious as
to give me a space to putthem on the NWCA site prior to me
even working for them, so thatother people can have the history as well.
(56:50):
Perfect, Kevin, what do youhave to say in closing? Yeah,
that's what he just said. Thisgreat show. Really loved it,
and uh, I'm looking forward tonext month. Okay, perfect, and
we'll be half of my fellow cohost, Jason Bryant. Kevin Hazard,
thank you so much for joining us, Doctor Jackie Piquette and same Matt time,
(57:14):
same Matt channel next month. Thisshow is part of the Matt Talk
(57:47):
podcast network, the more excelling podcasts, talk online dot com
Statistics. They can mean many things. It can be a batting average,
a win percentage, correlations, andstandard deviation. But numbers aren't just for
nerds. In life, decisions needdata. In wrestling decisions, projections and
hypotheticals also need data. Here onMatt's Stats, we take historical data,
(00:28):
theories, and statistics and apply itto the world's oldest and greatest sport.
Now to your trio of numerical nerdballs, Glenn Gormley, Kevin Hazard,
and Jason Bryant, Welcome to episodetwenty six of The Matt Stats Show.
Along with the Grand Poobah of wrestling, Kevin Hazzard, and our resident statistician
(00:49):
Glenn Gormley. I'm Jason Bryant.Today we have a guest on our show.
She is the Deputy director of theNational Wrestling Coaches Association, doctor Jackie
Potcat, been in the role justover a year. A lot of things
she's got on her plate day today and a lot of big news.
And before we even get into themeat of our discussion today, which as
Glenn will pretty much drive the truckon this one, the growth of wrestling
(01:11):
is this part one of a twopart series Jackie, you were just in
Iowa City on Sunday, November twelvefor the Trailblazer Duels, the four Division
one schools that sanction wrestling eighty twoo seven at Carver Hawkeye. You've been
working behind the scenes on emerging sportsstatus, the growth of wrestling at the
high school and the collegiate level.What was it like to just see this
(01:32):
finally unfold? It was amazing,you know, as I said in my
social media post, it was justan amazing day of celebration for a sport.
The women that were out there,you know, to see the Iowa
Hawk guys walk into Carver Hawkeye Arenafor the first time, you know,
hands linked. They use the statementfor HER's that's sort of their driving statement.
(01:55):
Many of the many of the athleteshave a tattooed. They use it
as a hash tag. It's itwas. It was honestly just beautiful.
It was. It was a beautifulcelebration of women's wrestling, celebration of these
four Division one programs who truly areTrailblazers. Uh. The the atmosphere was
amazing. The University of Iowa didan amazing, amazing job, Uh,
(02:17):
bringing these teams together and putting ona truly first class operation, you know,
from the pyrotechnics to you know,dor Mayap on the mic just absolutely
killing it. It was phenomenal.It was just such a well well done
event and it truly sort of seta bigger stage for women's wrestling and what
(02:44):
the stage that these these student athletescan be on and the show they can
put on. You know, Ithink Kylie Welker was on the map for
just over a minute total in threematches. It was just honestly terrific to
see and just really really cool tobe a part of in a really really
cool day to celebrate these women andwhere they've come from, you know,
(03:07):
the work they've done to push Divisionone women's wrestling to where it is in
the four coaches really were amazing andreally did a great job of you know,
you know, showcasing the event andyou know, the stage and really
putting their student athletes out there andletting them realize what the stage was to
(03:28):
It was great. This is,like I guess, a focal point of
this season going into as we're workingon emerging sports status at the NCAA level.
The NAIA has it, but Ijust go back to the convention,
the wonderful event that was hosted atthe NBA MWCA convention. Stickers now floating
around support women in wrestling. It'snot just supporting women's wrestling and supporting women
(03:50):
in wrestling. You mentioned Mayab whoI work with at the NAIA Championships and
various USA Wrestling events. You werethere, You've worked with at the Division
two Championships, going back to yourtime as the Senior Women's Administrator at the
University of Indianapolis and when we firstmet Division two's uh when you were the
SID there. So talk about howthis Trailblazer duels really kind of almost puts
(04:12):
a start of this year and putsa cap on last year. But it's
all kind of one giant timeline.And I look back at that special event
down in Florida and I just Icame away just wowed by it. So
how did all these things tie together? For you? That's what a lot
of what I want to do,the support women in wrestling. That's something
(04:33):
that I've tried uh to do fora long time. As you know you
mentioned Jason, I've been a partof the Division two Men's Championships for over
a decade now, you know,was a chair of the NCAA Division two
Wrestling Committee and this frankly there,you know, you know, you three
gentlemen know there just aren't as manywomen in our sport as there are men.
(04:55):
It's as simple as simple as itis. And it's a big deal
to me to amplify women in oursport as a whole. Like like Jason
said, the logo says support womenin Wrestling. The event was a celebration
of women in wrestling, not justnecessarily women's wrestling, which obviously we love
(05:15):
our women that are competing, ourwomen's coaches, but there are so many
women that are working to amplify thesport in so many different ways. And
I'm just I'm so blessed to befriends with so many of them and to
have relationships with so many of them, and you know, to be able
to help women on in our sportand to be a part of our sport.
(05:39):
And you know, down to that, we have two young female interns
at the end of BCA right nowthrough you know, like you mentioned dor
Mayeb, who announces the events shedoes, right, we have so many
great directors of ops at the divisionone men's level that are women, right.
We have so many athletic trainers,terrific athletic trainers that are at all
(06:00):
levels of our sport, and there'sjust so it's just let's do what we
can to bring more women into oursport, to retain more women in our
sport in all facets. Yeah,and you were somebody that wrestling kind of
just grabbed a hold of you whenyou started working with it, and here
we go. You know, fifteenyears at you Indie and your postgraduate work
(06:23):
had a lot of wrestling to dowith it. I know we've got a
different time to talk about, butthis also shows that where the wrestling fever
catches people, men and women.This has become your life. It has,
and it's so odd. If you'dhave asked me ten fifteen years ago,
like if I thought this could bemy life, I would have laughed
(06:44):
at you and I would have Iwould have never thought that to be the
case. I didn't wrestle. I'mthe least athletic person that there is in
any room I'm in. I promiseyou that. And I just had the
opportunity to work with the sport atthe University of Indianapolis first as a media
contact as a sports information director,and just fell in love with the sport.
(07:06):
Fell in love with just the workand the blue collar and just all
of the strategy and just the beautyof the sport. And it was very
fortunate to have a head coach atthe University of Indianapolis who sort of embraced
me being a huge part of theprogram there, you know, moving into
(07:26):
director of Ops role, you know, encouraging me to get on the NCAA
committee to do the work that Ido with the Division two Men's Championship.
We host the Midwest Classic at Undy, which those who know me well know
is my favorite weekend of the entireyear. We host fifty fifty Division two
teams. It's a men's event,it's a division to only event, and
(07:49):
it's it's a battle. It's anabsolute battle. And you know, last
year we had eighteen of the toptwenty five teams there, more than half
of the ranked wrestlers in the countryin the field. Like it's it's become
this huge thing and it's just oneof my most favorite things to be a
part of. And it's all ofthat sort of rolled into me taking this
(08:13):
job at the NDWCA, Mike Moyercalled me and to initially talk about it.
Didn't even realize he was offering mea job because I never thought that
this could be my job. That'sone hundred percent real, Like, really
didn't even realize he was talking tome about a job. Thought that he
wanted to talk to me to sortof help him out until he hired the
(08:35):
person who he was going to hire. But then he's like, no,
like I want to hire you,and I was like, again, didn't
even didn't even realize it. Sothat was really fun. Mean, wait,
wait, wait, oh wait,oh me wow, yeah, you're
pointing at me. Oh okay,So that, I mean, an amazing
opportunity. And again, for thosewho've known me a long time, like
(08:58):
everybody thought i'd say it, youIndy forever. I love. I love
the University of Indianapolis. I loveour wrestling program over there. Jason Worth
and Bob Brubecker two of my bestfriends in the world. And so to
leave you, Indy was tough,but to be able to influence the sport
on a bigger level was something thatwas very enticing to me. I love
(09:18):
the sport. I have such greatrelationships with so many coaches, student athletes,
former student athletes, officials that youknow, to be able to make
the sport better in even any waythat I can was a really big opportunity
for me. And so I veryvery fortunate, very very fortunate. I
(09:39):
do. I'm sorry. I knowyou asked me about my education too.
I do have. I do havea terminal degree of doctorate and it's in
sports sport management. And my dissertationwas the fluctuation of NCAA Division two men's
wrestling, reasons why and ideas forfuture sustainability of this sport. So that's
(10:03):
I did my I did my doctoratein wrestling. Yes, doctor of wrestling.
Legitimately, I'm not a doctor ofwrestling. I know you're a doctor
wrestling. We're putting it on wax. That's it's it's now. But so
I do. I love the sport, I love the people. I've been
so fortunate to meet so many terrificpeople and build relationships with so many terrific
(10:28):
people through the sport of wrestling,and so I'm just very fortunate that this
gets to be my actual life nowand you get to be on a podcast
with a bunch of us stats nerds. All right, So moving to the
meat of our discussion today, I'mgonna probably dip out some of this.
I'm gonna be again driving the cartfor those of us that are watching on
(10:50):
video. Again, if you're listeningthrough the matt Talk podcast network, there
will be the show notes, theslide show that Glenn Gormley will be reading
across, will be going step bystep through there. So if you're in
your you know you're in your car, don't listen. Listen, but don't
look at your phone with the slideshow, wait until you're there. If
you're driving, sure, go aheadand flip through it. And if you've
got the video at NWCA online oron Mattalk online, you can just follow
(11:13):
along here. So Glenn, I'mgonna switch over, and the first thing
I'm gonna do is I'm not gonnacover up your your your your your plug
here because Glenn likes to throw musicin and music references for those of you
that are older than forty, whichi is older than forty Kevin we're talking
about if he's quite double that.But anyway, rock and roll high school?
(11:33):
Do you remember rock and roll radio? Let's go okay, guys,
thanks a lot, Jason. BeforeI start on the show, I just
wanted to say how fortunate the sportis to have you, doctor Purquette.
I've become a huge fan of viewers. I've only met you in the past
year and all we've all known MikeMoyer for a long long time, and
(11:58):
Mike's made a lot of really gooddecisions, and the hiring of doctor Jackie
Piquette was one of Mike's many greatdecisions. We're we're really fortunate to have
you, doctor, and thank youfor coming on the show too. I
really appreciate getting to know you andeverything you're everything you're doing for our sport
for I know it's been many yearsnow, but we've just met recently.
(12:20):
Okay, So with that being said, doctor Jackie Piquette and Mike Moyer called
me up a little bit ago andasked me to do some research on high
school stats and it made sense becausewe just did the colleges and now the
high school. Okay, So this, like Jason said earlier, is part
one. This is so much avoluminous amount of work to do that you
(12:45):
just can't cram it all in inan hour. Okay, Now, the
first lide he always ass is Ifeel like a number? Okay, the
old Bob Seeger song. Okay,after that, we've had it, eight
six seven, five three oh nine, the most famous phone number in history
of America. Okay, everybody who'sour age, that's that phone number.
Okay, Now, next slide.The opinions expressed on this show do not
(13:09):
necessarily reflect any policies. Blah blahblah. In other words, what loud,
what loud? Moouth? Gormley says, not everybody might agree with Okay.
And one mistake I think I havemade a lot, and I've talked
to Kevin about this recently, isa lot of Kevin I's closest friends think
this is a fully opinioned show.And when I'm showing them with stats,
(13:33):
the number is the number, okay, and they're like, well, I
don't agree with that number. Well, if you ever done any research on
it, shut up, you know. Okay, So all right now we're
going to have this slide, thefirst number slide in every show. Okay.
As of eleven nine twenty three,which was last week, there were
(13:54):
five hundred men and women's wrestling teamsin the NCAA and Naia and His Jackie
and our organization notified me two daysago. We now have five hundred and
one. Okay, but I alreadyput all this show together, so that's
a nice thing that we have evenone more. And as you guys,
I'm sure well aware, it's themost women's teams we've ever had, the
most D two and the doctor ofD two wrestling is on here with us.
(14:18):
Okay, so you can confirm that. Okay. Now on last show,
I have about a year ago predictedby twenty twenty five we will have
more men's wrestlers than ever the yearsthat we've done. NCAA's reported the results.
In nineteen eighty two we dropped downthirty wrestlers, so we're fifth right
(14:39):
now, but we're still in therange to do that. And this is
an interesting thing here, obviously,with thirty people behind last year. But
if anybody is a couple of yearsyounger than me, I happen to graduate
in eighty four. Okay, what'sthat? Yeah, yeah, I happen
(15:01):
to graduate in eighty four. Soif you're a couple of years younger than
me, you cannot go around sayingback when I was in college, there
was a lot more wrestlers than thereare. Now, you're wrong. There's
more NCAA wrestlers right now. Ifyou're any younger than the old man Gormley
and most places I go to,I'm one of the older people. Fortunately
(15:22):
Hazard comes into suite with me,so I'm not the oldest. Okay,
Now, I'd like to start thisoff with you something to say about it.
The state of high school wrestling isstrong right now. You can say
it's rocking and rolling, going fromour title rock and roll high School.
I'm still looking to bring ref Randallon and sing a song, but I
(15:46):
couldn't hunt her down. Okay.This episode is going to say where high
school wrestling is, where it was, and how we got here. Okay,
it needs to be a two partseries because the second part really requires
a deep dive. And just soyou know, doctor Jackie Piquette gave me
(16:06):
all these surveys that I can analyzeand I really appreciate the hard work her
and I know Cassandra, I don'tknow your other interurn, but whatever the
other young lady's name is, Thankyou so much for doing that. Now.
I also want to give a shoutout to Pat Toci and the show
because Pat was doctor J's predecessor,and we all were very fortunate to have
(16:29):
Pat for a long time. Now, I would like Jackie to explain the
OPC and what it is and howthey get those numbers, because I can't
explain that to the will you marrypeople because I don't know enough about it.
Go ahead, Jackie. So theOPC stands for Optimal Performance Calculator.
It is a system with in trackwrestling, which everybody knows, maybe loves,
(16:52):
maybe doesn't love. That is basicallywhat we run all weight management through
for the high school for forty sixstates and all of college wrestling. So
if you're a if you're a coachat the high school level, boys or
girls in many states, you basicallywill sign into the OPC the beginning of
(17:15):
the year, You'll put your rosterin, you'll do weight certification for your
student athletes, and then it willgive you a weight descent plan to which
your student athletes can safe safely descendthroughout the year to await and do that
again say with safety being the key. Safely so they can safely descend to
a weight at which you want themto wrestle if they want to wrestle,
(17:37):
and at which we are science backedsystem says they can safely compete. So
results also a results suppository, youknow, sort of like we have all
the results in in many of ourstates use the OPC results then for their
state tournament seating and for the basicallythe entire administration of their state series.
(18:03):
So again very important that the coachesare keeping up on those results, putting
those results in because when you getto the state series and you have people
like Glenn who want to watch everystate in the country because he's Glenn,
you know you're gonna that's where youcan go and look at all the results,
see all the results. And againthat's where it's easy to spit out
seating for these events. So wedon't have the seating meetings of old where
(18:29):
you're sitting there for four and fivehours and you've only made it through three
weight classes. So just a mucheasier, more streamlined system that we've been
able to provide for again the highschool states as well as the collegiate levels.
Thank you very much. How longhave you been using it, you
o PC or how old is it? It's since since nineteen ninety nine,
(18:52):
two thousand and again, Pat Tossi, he's the one that Pat Tossi is
the one that administered it to me. But that's when it was developed.
It wasn't fully put into use thoughobviously right away, like it was gradually
brought into use at the different statesand levels. And again we have forty
six states. Just two new statesthis year came on board and they'll use
(19:15):
the OPC for the first time thisyear in Kansas and Illinois. So that's
again it's not every single state forever. And so that's part of the that's
part of the difference in the numbers, as I explained to Glenn too,
is it's not every single state.He's used it forever. So Indiana,
(19:36):
for example, does not use theOPC. So Indiana's numbers are not in
the OPC. So we get theirnumbers from the NFHS, from the NFHS
Participation Survey. Yes, and Psycherfor explained that JACKI and Jason has now
put up the first slide we havehere and all these numbers and let's i'd
(20:00):
say, otherwise are done with theOPC. And if the state doesn't do
the OPC, like doctor j said, we've used the NFHS. Now on
this slide, you can see thedifference the amount of wrestlers there are boys
and girls and then total. Okay, the boys are we getting to this
later, are a mature business andthe girls are a growth in the industry.
(20:23):
That doesn't mean boys are physically moremature, mostly more mature. It's
a business term that I learned wayback when in grad school. Okay,
Now, with that being said,since twenty thirteen, there are more boys
high school wrestlers in twenty twenty threethan there have been before that, and
(20:44):
girls, of course obviously are morenow than ever. Okay, there's three
hundred and thirty two thousand high schoolwrestlers. I'd like to put things in
perspective so we can see how bigof anum there is. Three hundred thirty
two thousand. Right, We've beento Saint Louis more than any other city
(21:06):
this century for the men's D one, Okay, the biggest event wrestling has
every year. Okay, Saint Louis, Missouri, who used to have an
NFL team for quite some time,only has two hundred and eighty six thousand
people. There are more high schoolwrestler than there are people in Saint Louis.
Okay, Now, for every thousandpeople in America, there is one
(21:33):
current high school wrestler, which meansHazard and Gormley are not current high school
wrestlers. We might have wrestled inhigh school, but we're clearly not in
high school anymore. Okay. Soto put in perspective, if it's drawn
from an unbiased pool, at thefootball game this weekend in Rocky Top,
(21:55):
there should be one hundred and twocurrent high school wrestlers, Okay. But
sometimes things are skewed. For example, when we go to Nationals in Kansas
City, right across the state fromSaint Louis, Okay, there will be
a hell of a lot more thantwenty current high school wrestlers there because it's
a wrestling tournament. Okay, butthat's how big the numbers are, Guys,
(22:17):
which is really good to think ofsome of our closest friends. We're
debating about what's the biggest sport forboys in high school, Wrestling is now
sixth. Guys, that's a reallynice thing because some of those sports,
you know, football, basketball,baseball three of the top four sports in
(22:37):
America. Soccer is the biggest sportin the world, and outdoor track are
the only ones bigger than us.Where are girls. On the next slide,
you can see girls wrestling is nowfourteenth, and this is a really
wild thing. In my mind,girls wrestling will probably pass girls field hockey
in twenty twenty four. That isjust mind boggling to me. Who's been
(23:02):
around the world where girls always playedfield hockey and girls at wrestle. So
it's really a great sign what's goingon with the sport. Okay, now
the next slide, we can seewhat states have the most boys and girls
wrestling. Okay, California is numberone in both. I don't think anybody's
really surprised with that. You cansee from the boys on a mature industry,
(23:26):
it's basically all the big states inthe area. You see California,
New York, Texas, Florida,which happened to be the four largest population
states, and girls wrestling. Itchanges real quickly after California and Texas.
You know, small states like Iowa, Kansas, and Utah all on the
top ten. Okay, here's anotherthing. I thought that our viewers would
(23:49):
be interested in states with the mostcollege NCAA and NAI teams. Pennsylvania is
buying far and away lead with fiftyfour then you go to Iowa number two
at thirty four. Now it's notsurprising because i has been as good of
a wrestling state as there can besince I've been around, but it is
(24:15):
small population state. Then we godown to twelve. And the only reason
I have Top twelve instead of topten because I wanted to see we're California
racked. California ranks twelve. Soif there's any state with availability to start
college teams, California's almost twenty fourhundred high school wrestlers for college team,
(24:37):
PI only has two. I thinkthere's a caveat there on that one.
Glenn. California operates a little bitdifferently, sort of at the junior college
level where they have the three CTAthat operates its own sort of state junior
college championship, you know, andthey've got twenty I think twenty two men's
teams and they're at six versus thewomen's teams right now, so they're sort
(25:02):
of have their own entire JUCO systemout there too. So I think that
that makes you that a little bitwhere you stand here. Yeah, there's
no question, and I know Californiais big on that. Kansas is right
obviously right above, California is reallybig on college Jucos, and I believe
wrestling jucos too, So it wasjust coincidental. I thought of that when
(25:26):
I put us in there about theJucos, and doctor Piquett is clearly right.
This is just NCAA and NAI teams. Okay, but even so,
California we need more college teams.So but Jackie Piquett is clearly right askewed.
Okay, now let's start or diveinto this now in order to get
(25:48):
to where doctor j and more youwanted me to be, Okay, I
had to start with this part ofthe show. Okay. Could I have
just jumped in to the survey dowt, Yes, I could have, but
I think in order to see whereyou're going from, much like Jackie astutely
pointed out there with the Jucos,there's more than just that couple numbers I
(26:11):
put on there, and I thankJackie for bringing that up again. So
in order to do this, Iwanted to see if there was something that
the surveys did not include. Okay, Now, remember what I've said on
past shows, Correlation does not provecausation, all right, Okay, now
(26:36):
real quick. A nickel tour ofcorrelation. Positive one is the strongest correlation.
It could be zero is no correlation. Negative one is a strong opposite
correlation. Okay, I'll tell youthere. Negative correlation is the hotter it
gets, the less closure wear.As the temperature goes up, the mount
(26:57):
of closure wear goes down. Correlation. Okay, the next slide, I'll
just briefly say that boys is themature industry and girls is the growth industry.
Okay. One way I like tolook at this. If you take
a world class runner, he's reallynot going to improve his five K time
(27:18):
much because he's really near the peakof his performance. He could be at
if you take a Saturday jogger,Yeah, they could really improve their five
k time because they have a lotof room for improvement. And that's the
same thing where women have a lotmore room for getting teams because they didn't
have any until recently. Okay,now the next slide for Kevin's request,
(27:40):
I wanted to show you just soeverybody knows the dip was as a result
of the events due to the eventsin twenty twenty and twenty twenty one.
Okay, with COVID, So boysyou see are fairly consistent. But girls
minds that dip is a nice growthpattern. Okay. Now let's start out
(28:02):
with what correlate with the amount ofhigh school wrestlers. Okay, there's a
very strong correlation between the population ofeach state and the number of wrestlers in
that state. That should not bea surprise to anybody. The California that
we mentioned, the largest state,has more high school wrestlers than Wyoming,
(28:23):
the smallest state. Okay. Next, Okay, there's also a strong correlation
between population and both boys and girlswrestling, okay, which is a neat
thing. So it shows the morepeople that are in that state, the
more they both wrestle. Okay.There's also a strong correlation between the number
(28:48):
of men and women's teams in eachstate NCAA and NAI which that made me
very happy that the states, ifthey have a men's team, they're gonna
have a women's team more likely,and advice versa. Okay, on this,
there's really not a chicken or anegg, because the men's teams by
and larger there before the women's teams. Granted some of them just started together.
(29:12):
Okay, there's a moderate correlation,a moderate means like somewhere in the
middle between no correlation and strong.There's a moderate correlation between the number of
boys or girls wrestling in high schooland the number of men's are women's college
teams in that respective state. Now, before I explain this more, this
(29:34):
is a chicken or an egg.We don't know if it's proof causation,
but if it has, we don'tknow if the college this has cause more
high school people to wrestle, orhigh school people more caused more college programs.
Okay, just some of the numbersI have here, but this is
a nice thing. Okay. There'salso a moderate ca correlation between the state's
(30:00):
population and the number of college teams, which is weird that there's a strong
one in high school but not incollege. And we can go into that
a little bit later. Okay,there's also a moderate correlation between population in
each state and the men's teams atit in thirteen twenty thirteen to twenty three.
(30:26):
And everybody knows where I got thatinformation too. Nobody has done more
work than Jason Bryant on what school'sat it and when. I would not
have been able to do that withoutJason's help on that Okay, so now
we're going to get into things withno correlation. Now I'm going to try
to explain them so the people,even attorneys can understand it. Okay,
(30:49):
there's no correlation between the growth rateof the state's population and the boys' high
school wrestling growth rate. I foundout as a surprise. Okay, there's
no correlation between the rate of thestate's population growth and the boys wrestling growth.
(31:10):
Okay, two of those have none. Okay. State Next flight twenty
six, we show as a tableshowing the randomness of boys' high school growth
rate and the state's population growth rate. Okay, some of these states that
are really growing in population, likeArkansas's number one in that. Okay,
(31:32):
I hope everyone's moving to Arkansas becausethey do have a lot of new college
teams. Okay, but that doesn'tshow the state population growth in high school
and throughout the fifty states, there'salso no correlation between the states population and
the boys high school growth rate.Next one, there is no correlation between
(31:52):
the percentage of growth from high schoolboys and the number of girls wrestling in
each state. I thought when Iwas doing this, there would be,
you know, more of one sexof the other sex based on that.
But this is why you go tograd school and get a graduate degree in
(32:15):
stat so you can learn about thisstuff. Okay. There's no correlation in
the between the increase in boys' highschool wrestlers and the number increase in the
girls high school wrestling to use andI reason increase in numbers and not percentage.
There is because so many states intwenty thirteen had zero girls wrestling,
so that would be an infinity growthrate, So you can't correlate anything with
(32:37):
infinity. Okay. There is nocorrelation between the ten year OPC growth rate
in each state and the number ofNCAA and NAI wrestling teams, which goes
back to one of the other correlationswe showed earlier. There's also no correlation
between the boys high school growth rateand the number of men's teams at it.
(33:00):
Okay. Now there are five onSLY thirty two, there are five
categories for the diatary analyze strong positive, moderate positive, no correlation, moderate
negative, and strong negative. Tosummarize the strong correlation. It's all about
(33:20):
population. From this part of thestudy, we don't know what it's going
to show us on the surveys.Okay, the next one the moderate.
It's basically a population element with anumber of and also the number of high
school wrestlers and college teams are moderatelycorrelated. Okay. One of the things
I've talked to about people is theydon't believe there's enough girls wrestlers in that
(33:45):
state to get into colleges and stufflike that. Well, a lot of
these colleges have women's rowing, greatsport, they should have it. But
we have more high school girls wrestlingthan high school rowers, so it really
defeats a lot of argument. Thenwe have a random selection of no correlation
stuff that we talked about, andthere's really no variables with a moderate or
(34:08):
negative correlation on this, Okay,which is good. Do you find some
negative correlations? Sure? Okay,Now there is surely, like I said,
no correlations of that proof causation onslide thirty eight. We review this,
(34:30):
we can assume the population is whatcauses the wrestling numbers. It's not
the wrestling numbers that cause the population. Okay. Now an example of a
strong correlation and having no causation,Okay, you can go to Tuscaloosa and
(34:51):
somebody's gonna have a roll tied CrimsonTide shirt on Okay, and they're gonna
win on Saturday because they win everyweek. It seems much your great.
Okay, So that's just an exampleof correlation up proved caualisation. Okay,
Kevin and Jackie uh ask some questionshere, jump in. I like to
(35:15):
hear your feedback what you have tosay before we continue on here. I
tell you, one of the thingsthat really struck me and when we were
going through these Glenn was California.It just it seems like it's so it's
(35:35):
so wrestling is so strong on thehigh school level, and as doctor Piquette
said on the juco level, thatit's not. There aren't more uh full
four year college teams. The theother thing that's I thought was really interesting
is it's it's all population. AndI thought there'd be more of a of
(35:59):
a of a correlation when as thegirls got stronger, the boys would start
to get stronger too, and thatdidn't seem to happen. So you question
the numbers. The numbers don't lie. I mean, I think I I
think I certainly agree, and Ido think it's would be interesting too.
(36:21):
And this will tie into sort ofwhat Glenn's going to look at with the
survey data too. It'd be interestingto see how long states have sanctioned,
especially the girls, obviously, becausemany of the boys we know as what
did you call it, Glenn,I they're a mature they're mature what mature
industry? Yeah, they're a matureindustry, whereas the girls right have just
(36:44):
started this growth industry. Yes,there you go. And so I think
it would be interesting to look atthe numbers in the states. Obviously,
we know California has a great populationof young women wrestling in high school.
They've also sanctioned a girls championship waylonger than most other states. So I
(37:05):
think that that's sort of an importantpiece and I'd be interested in that as
well. Yeah, I'm gonna pipein thank you, that's part of it.
Sure. Yeah. So one thingI'm also curious too, and this
goes with I guess maybe looking togo inside baseball a little bit, with
what Jackie and Mike do at theNWCA when there's a when they say a
(37:27):
school is approaching, you got anad or president that calls the office and
that, hey, what are thebenefits of us adding wrestling? These are
numbers when you see these growth numbersthat are definitely beneficial for hey, oh,
let's look well, like, forexample, state of Washington is really
devoid of a lot of next levelof post scholastic wrestling opportunities, and that's
(37:49):
like, well, you can lookand be like, we have this many
students that are not being served.So it also seems like it really supports
the point of where to add newprograms, what are the target programs,
and then when somebody from that statemay inquire, because not everything is always
like we're going to them. Somecoaches. I remember when I was in
that office, geez, fifteen yearsago. You know, we get a
call like, yeah, I gotan ad called from this so and so
(38:10):
looking ad wrestling. So these numbersdefinitely seem to help when you look at
the that population like, well,this this population of students is being underserved
by its community and those small enrollmentdriven schools where the big state schools at
the D one level, like thatschool in Norfolk for example, not serving
its state population, not serving itstax payers. So this is where these
(38:32):
smaller schools can step up and dothat as well, or the you know,
the state schools that hey, youknow what we need some enrollment too,
So I am curious on what typeof discussions usually get usually happen with
this type of data, Jackie,Sure, And that's so anybody who does
call and inquire, Mike does aterrific job. Mike Mario does a terrific
(38:52):
job of sending out a presentation tothem that includes all those numbers that you're
just talking about as well. Wealso sometimes we're and this is where the
things that interests my brain, folkswill ask us for specific numbers. So
we just were speaking with an institutionin an area that has a high Hispanic
population, and so they asked usif we could get data on specifically Hispanic
(39:17):
population currently wrestling in the NCAAA.And so thankfully, thankfully, the NCAA
and their research folks have a greatdatabase that's available to and we were able
to pull those numbers for them,and Mike was able to then include that
in their in the presentation to them. So, yes, those numbers are
(39:37):
certainly something that we lean on andsend out to those institutions that, like
you said, do call and inquire, and then similarly with the institutions that
we sort of target and are lookingat sending information to just because you know,
like you said, they may bein an underserved area, or maybe
there's a conference that is looking reallygood to be able to add the sport
(40:01):
at a championship level. Maybe wejust need one or two more. So
those are the situations when yes,we would, yes, certainly lean on
those numbers in that data, andwe certainly do. Yeah, thank you
for that, answered Jackie. Andyou know, as it says right there
on the slide, there are manyof these schools are roment driven, and
(40:22):
you know, if there's a lotmore wrestlers that they might want to go
to a school, that's a reasonto start men and women's wrestling exactly.
And yes, that school in Noffolkand that school in Williams Bark should have
both teams, should have four ofthem there. Yeah, okay, now
the next slide it sums up uswhat we talked about were doctor Piquett and
(40:45):
the NWCA providing Gorms with all thisdata. Okay, and part two of
this topic just so well, whatpeople's appetite for this what part two is
going to be about doctor Piquette.People, Cassandra and the other people from
nwc A have sent out surveys,okay, and it's going to be a
(41:09):
show very similar to this, onlyanalyzing the survey details. Surveys are a
little bit different. It can betrickier, you know, because yes,
nos not a not a number,right, Okay, so you have to
compare things, but a statistician willfind a way to do that. Okay.
Now, I think this is oneof the most fun topics I've analyzed,
(41:34):
and I'm really looking forward to diveit into the next one because this
is something that can really help thesport guys as much fun as I know,
I can speak for Kevin and Jasonon this as we have of diving
into Jason Bryant's Encyclopedia of wrestling beforethe Division one tournament and relaying it to
people. That's great. That's moreof an informative and a trivia show.
(41:59):
This stuff could really help Doctor jand Mike Moore and anybody else there.
Say this is the reasons okay,and I think we will be able to
find some stuff. Kevin and Jackietalk for a little bit before Kevin wraps
up is Matt notes, his famousMatt notes. So basically the survey I
(42:22):
can just sort of tell you preface, I guess what the survey is looking
at. So survey we sent toall state wrestling State Association wrestling liaisons and
ask them to sort of answer howthey administer the sport. So, do
you host a team state tournament?Do you only host an individual state tournament?
(42:44):
Do you host a dual state tournament? How many dates of competition or
how many matches are wrestlers permitted eachyear? How is that figured? So
basically, then what we've asked Glennto do is to correlate is there any
connection between the states that are doingit one way versus another? And is
(43:07):
there any connection with growth or decreasein growth in those states? So basically,
is there a correlation with how thesport is administered in the state with
the growth or with lack their ofgrowth in their state? Thank thank you.
(43:28):
I think when we talk about itat our next show that we all
I'm hoping that we can go alittle bit past the statistics and we can
talk about some other aspects of thesport that are driven maybe more anecdotal evidence
(43:49):
that maybe we can't prove it.I mean, for example, you know
how much of it is driven byindividuals? I mean I know there are
key individuals that have just a justan outsized effect on wrestling. And one
of the college programs we didn't evengo into today college is the you know,
the N and c w A,and they've had a humongous effect on
(44:14):
wrestling, and it's driven by oneman, by one man. And maybe
we can talk a little bit aboutthat in our next month show too.
Sure. I think that's you know, I think that I'm sorry, Glenn,
I think that's certainly true. Ithink that there are change makers in
each state, right, There arecertainly change makers in the sport in each
(44:37):
state, and in some states morethan others, right, And there are
people behind the scenes that are pushingthe state in different ways that maybe not
everybody, not everybody knows or understands. I think that's a very good point.
Yeah, going back to the wholeRamones thing. They had a song
(44:57):
on that album, I want tobe sedated when I here things that don't
invise stats and numbers. Maybe Ido want to be sedated. But sometimes
you guys are right. Sometimes youcan't put a number on some things.
And you know, you can't puta number on why the NWCA has been
so successful over the past twenty years. Right, you can't put a number
(45:17):
on it's a personality, you know. It's Mike and the people he's brought
along with him. Hi, Kevin, let's set to famous Matt Kevin's notes.
Okay, one, as of elevennine, we had five hundred wrestling
teams, and as doctor Piquette toldus today, it's actually five hundred and
one and that's in the NCAA andthe NAI that's the most ever. Shout
(45:43):
out to Shout out to McDaniel foradding Division three women, which is also
one of the coolest nicknames in allof college sports. They are the Green
Terror Green Terrors. He've only knownas Western Marrigeland, by the way,
but ye changed that name about thatfifteen years ago. I think. Anyway,
(46:04):
continue Kevin, what do you got? Well? The best name ever,
though, is got to be whatthe Banana Slugs? Yeah, but
they don't have wrestling. But youneed to get on the ball here.
Hey, but the Geo Ducks,do you yes? Ever Green? Evergreen?
It's like a claim duck is aclam Okay, that's part of best
(46:27):
nicknames for college teams. Oh,that's a whole show. I can definitely
definitely live up to Let's keep goingnow Number two. Twenty twenty three,
the NCAA men at eighty three hundredand eight wrestlers, the fifth highest ever.
But as we saw, it's kindof kind of on a level,
it's it's it's a mature industry.Three and we've said it before, and
(46:52):
so thankful for doctor Jackie Piquet forhelp on this show. It's been great
having you on. Thank you.Number four. In the past ten years,
except for COVID years, there's beena big jump in girls high school
wrestlers, and the boys had anice jump. In twenty twenty three,
number five, Boys high school wrestlingranks six in participation in all high school
(47:15):
sports. Girls are fourteenth. Thegirls are gonna start jumping up. Number
six. California ranks first number ofboys and girls high school wrestlers. Hazard
quiz, what was the first stateto sanction a girls CHANP tournament? And
I have a bonus there. Youdon't see the bonus, but we'll answer
(47:37):
the first one. Yeah, Iactually answered this quick. Go ahead,
Jackie, do you know I knowthe answer? I know the answer to
Gorms's, I mean to Jason's.Like you said, it's easy. It'll
give itself away. Once you getit, it'll get you. Oh,
why give itself away? It's Hawaii? Why? Why was the interestingly enough
(48:00):
nineteen ninety eight, Texas nineteen ninetynine. So we've had this enormous growth,
but it was it was kind ofincremental for a number of years,
and now it's gone exponentially. It'swonderful to see. And who was the
first chance? She's now at theUniversity of Iowa. Am I correct?
You are correct? Friend of minethat I was very blessed to speak with
(48:21):
yesterday, Clarissa Chun very first.That's it's just almost prophetic that she was
the first one in the first stateand we know what she's doing now.
Ye. I had to have thebonus And when I saw the question,
I was like, we cannot skipthat that thing, especially with last week.
What a great tie in and itwas great. Uh well, I
(48:42):
think all three of us, Jasonand I and and Gorman's were all out
to watch her go into the theNational Wrestling Hall of Fame. That was
yeah, that was a good momenttoo. Number seven, PA has the
most college teams with NCAA, Aand I Wrestling fifty four. California has
(49:05):
the availability to add many more collegeteams. It's twenty four athletes per can
I can I ask a can Iask a bonus question? Because this is
something that I looked up for aspeaking engagement I did earlier this year.
There's only one state, though,that has a women's program at every level,
(49:25):
every collegiate level. Do y'all knowwhat it is? Well, hold
on a second. My original guesthas got to be either Iowa, Rhode
Island, South Carolina, or Connecticut. My guess is Iowa. It is
(49:45):
Iowa. It is Iowa. Irealized I figured that out when I spoke
at their women's wrestling academy this summer. Yeah, one school program at every
level. Number eight girls wrestling ina growth mode. Bose are boys are
a mature sport, but it's hadnice growth in twenty twenty three. Interestingly
(50:08):
enough, Hawaii has had had thefirst AID championship, and you will see
that if you look at their growth, it's more moderate than some of the
states that have that are just juststarting high school wrestling. I'll give you
a little something. When you reachemerging status for women, three to four
(50:31):
times the girls show up the nextyear, and my son's team. My
son's team is a kind of provesit. He had four girls on his
team last year, they had theirfirst Sdiate title. He had sixteen girls
come out for wrestling this year.So it's that's the kind of growth you
see. And what I think we'reat? What forty six teams now that
(50:55):
have at least emerging sports status forgirls states? Yes, yet number nine
there is the strongest correlation we sawwas between state population number of high school
wrestlers and ten Tune in next monthfor the conclusion of this topic, same
(51:17):
Matt channel, same Matt time,and then the last slide of course,
shows what this is. Does anybodyhave anything else to say? Kevin,
Jackie, Jason, Well, one, I love the minutia of the stats.
Now, granted I don't get intothe deepness of like, okay,
well this is statistically significant. KnowI look at it, and you know
(51:38):
a lot of my stats, Ilook as like, well that's interesting,
hmmm, because I always like topull up the stuff where again, where
the causation and correlation, like like, for example, the number of all
Americans at the Division one level,or you know, even place winners or
qualifiers that placed or competed in Fargo, Like, I like that because that
that pitches that whole like summer wrestling, you know, wrestling, cross training
(52:00):
type of thing. But again,looking at numbers about participation is always something
we fight. I mean, it'sgood to have these in your back pocket
because again, the problem is readingthe comments, right. You get bogged
down in the minute of reading theFacebook comments or reading the comments on the
story or the morons on x formallyknown as Twitter. I remember arguing last
(52:22):
week about that school in Harrisonburg,James Madison, which is ranked and bold
and eligible, which is another stupidtopic entirely, but I still have vitriol
for that school for the amount ofsports they dropped about fifteen years ago.
And the point I'm making is islike it was a short sighted decision.
Then yes, they're budget's better now. But at the same point, the
(52:46):
argument was, well, wrestling hasn'tseen a growth rate. I was like,
yes it has, and they goto a Google stat that show that
just random like a QRA one ofthese random stats, Like, no,
here are the numbers, Here arethe numbers USA Wrestling provides. Here are
the numbers. The national Federational highschool state associations provide Like all those things
help our argument, but problem isyou get bogged down with people who don't
(53:07):
care about anything. So that's whereyou're like, you got to pick and
choose your battles with these numbers.And I like how the NWCA we're picking
our battles and not necessarily a confrontationalway, but like, this is where
we're going to fight for a teamhere. We're not going to waste our
energy spending stats on Jim Bobs seventwo three four that might be from Harrisonburg.
So I get tied up and wantingto defend the sport on social media
(53:30):
entirely too much. But these typeof things give me that geek out moment
to where like a preview guide comesaround, like okay, now you know
everybody loved, like the folks inIowa love the per capita, Glenn,
you just gave them so much moreammunition for the per capita debate about what
the best wrestling state is when youlook at all Americans at the Kyles level
and it's just it just all thistype of stuff just leads to some wrestling
(53:52):
geekery, which I just totally livefor good. I'm glad you do,
Jackie, you have anything else tosay, just you know, I agree
with Jason. I come from anarea, though, an area of college
athletics, right where an administration wherewe need to be data driven. So
(54:12):
let's give people the tools to bedata driven in our sport, and not
just the people arguing on social mediaright that they should have a program here,
they should have a program here,but let's give data. Let's give
data and show that. And Ithink that this is a really really good
start at that. And that's that'show my brain works. My brain likes
(54:32):
research, It likes it likes toknow the stats and the silly things like
that the University of Iowa has I'msorry that Iowa has only all of the
women's programs at all levels, right, So let's do it. It's fun.
Yeah, And guys, I justwant to say the level of geekery
that when when Jackie came on board, or maybe it was even before that,
(54:53):
but when the amount of volume ofresearch and documentations she's got for the
Division two world, I'm just like, I need, you know, because
I like documenting stuff, so likethere are gaps and then the library that
She's just like, ah, yeah, we need to, we need to,
we need to talk, because that'sone of those things that when that
like that's another added benefit of Jackie'sbackground, too, is bringing together that
(55:15):
love for things outside of Division one. Because I will, I will,
I will echo this and and bangthis drum until I'm blue in the face.
Is that there is more to lifein wrestling than division one. Now,
we love our divisional programs. It'sthe biggest draw we've got in the
sport. But where again, Isay it, Brent Metcalf's not gonna be
your high school coach. The guythat wrestled at Graceland might be. So
(55:37):
that's that's kind of that that thatpits there that you know, I announced
the d threes and THENI so whenwhen the small college data comes in again,
it's like it's geek moments. Soother shows that can can you know,
draw out of this once we havethis stuff digitized and set to go.
It's just the possibilities of educating ourfan base, not just about the
top twenty teams that they know everyyear, that the possibilities of educating them
(55:59):
about the benefits and oh, Ididn't know this guy russelled D two and
now they're in the Hall of Fame. Those type of things are you know,
can't be understated. Agree with thattoo, and that's why the Division
two Hall of Fame banquet and thefact that I get Tom see that and
that I get to sit in onthose calls. That's one of my most
favorite things in the world is thehistory of the history of the sport,
(56:22):
and the history of D two issort of how I got into that.
You know, Jim Cook and Iwere good friends prior to him passing away
at Parkside, and that's where Igot all those all those records from that
that I used for my dissertation,and then Nate Niles was so gracious as
to give me a space to putthem on the NWCA site prior to me
even working for them, so thatother people can have the history as well.
(56:50):
Perfect, Kevin, what do youhave to say in closing? Yeah,
that's what he just said. Thisgreat show. Really loved it,
and uh, I'm looking forward tonext month. Okay, perfect, and
we'll be half of my fellow cohost, Jason Bryant. Kevin Hazard,
thank you so much for joining us, Doctor Jackie Piquette and same Matt time,
(57:14):
same Matt channel next month. Thisshow is part of the Matt Talk
(57:47):
podcast network, the more excelling podcasts, talk online dot com
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