I had a pretty good high school wrestling career. I set a bunch of school records. I sat high in the state rankings most of my last two seasons. I won a bunch of tournaments.
However, I can’t say that I won a state championship. That’s not for lack of trying. I literally could not even compete for a state title.
I grew up in Maryland where the state tournaments are restricted to public schools by state law. The private schools have a state championship now, but that didn’t exist until long after 1986 when I graduated.
I think of this now as the annual complaining about separating public and private schools in post-season competition heats up in Pennsylvania. One thing comes to mind when I hear about this idea.
It’s stupid.
Looking back on my high school athletic career, nothing wrankles me more than not knowing how I would have stacked up against the public school wrestlers.
I kind of know who I could and couldn’t beat, but all of that happened in out-of-season competition, which doesn’t count in many official eyes.
I have no doubt that I would have rather wrestled in a state tournament and lost to Greg Day or Keith Burgess (the state champs in 1986 at my weight) than have the situation where public and private school athletes competed separately.
As it stood, I won the Maryland Scholastic Association title, a league comprised of Baltimore City public schools (who chose to compete outside the state championships) and Baltimore area private schools. The MSA title was prestigious, but there is still that question: could I beat Greg or Keith?
I didn’t even have a senior all-star match that would have let me at least wrestle Greg. (Keith was an underclassman.) He probably would have handily won the match, but Maryland didn’t begin their senior all-star match until a year or two later.
And I know I would have beaten Jeff Klapka, who was named Second Team All-Metro ahead of me by the Baltimore Sun that year. Not that I am bitter more than 30 years later or anything. I beat him that summer and took out my frustration on the paper’s bad decision and the stupid split system on him.
Never knowing who will win a competition should wrankle people more than whether a private school recruits. Let the kids compete. The parents are the ones always ruining things. Don’t let them ruin this further by segregating high school sports even more.