WOW
Much better and glad someone posted it online as it wasn't on NJSIAA site. Thanks!
Even more back in the day when I wrestled, districts were concentrated locally and ours included Randolph, Roxbury, West Morris, Morris Hills, etc. I know we wrestled Mt. Olive in duals but I dont remember if they were in our district.
Randolph wasn't in the district (I remember coach suk) but they were in our conference. My son graduated over 15 years ago, but none of the old rivalries are there anymore.
Delbarton in any district competing with public schools is completely ridiculous.
Why? The state wrestles to one state champ, whether you get the Delbarton kid in the districts or states, what’s the difference? In my opinion the biggest issue is all the number of kids that are re-classing for wrestling. You could have 14 year olds wrestling 19 year olds.
There’s no way around it but most of the private school kids that are generally dominant will compete in a district where their home school doesn’t wrestle. The overwhelming majority of wrestlers don’t have a realistic goal of winning a state title so winning a district title is a huge accomplishment. Delbarton and whatever other schools compile a roster of kids from all over the state and essentially eliminate the chance of anyone in that district winning a title.
Don't forget Catholic schools get kids from out of state too (see above from @SCNJ ) ..that's not NJ competition and they aren't taking any slouches if they are from out of state. But my beef is more of the team accolades. Districts, counties, duals etc. There's a huge difference when teams recruit/load up from the very teams they are competing against then turn around and kick the crap out of those same teams. I've said it before, but it I thought was very ironic when Delbarton moaned and groaned as the NJSIAA forced them to compete against parochials (who do exactly the same thing) in football instead of allowing them to continue beating up on their local neighbors. I think they either threatened to or actually sat out of the playoffs in protest. Go figure.
