This week’s “Behind the Mic” blog is written by long time RCN personality Scott Barr. He has covered a wide range of sports, including kick boxing, track and field, lacrosse, soccer, volleyball, football, and baseball. Most of our viewers, of course, will know him for his work with District XI wrestling. Fans across the valley have heard him call “Give him six!” after a pin, while working with three legends of Lehigh Valley sports—Gary Laubach, Ray Nunamaker, and Jim Best. Outside of RCN, Scott helps small businesses set up retirement plans for their employees, and lives in Macungie with his wife, Melissa, and their four children.
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There can be no doubt, if there ever was, that the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference is the nation’s toughest wrestling league. In the coal-stoked furnace that is PA High School wrestling, our own little geography is feared from here to the banks of the Youghiogheny River. Our wrestlers are tough, talented, and fierce. Our teams are packed with blue chippers who always win, and peppered with scrappers who always fight. The dual meet season, outsiders must think, is a complete meat grinder of one terrific matchup after another.
But it’s not.
The past two seasons have “featured” long drives on school nights to see horrible mismatches, and a near complete absence of headline matchups between elite programs. Packed gymnasiums, once a hallmark across District XI, have become an endangered species. Saturday night marquee events were an excuse for all-day, armchair coaching by devout fans. These, too, have nearly disappeared.
It’s hard to find any supporters of the newly aligned schedule of dual meets. In private, coaches, wrestlers, and even referees have complained about the lack of intensity, the absence of close dual meets, and driving “up north” for a 72-0 dual meet punctuated by five or more forfeits. Fans also complain, but not privately. I hear, often, that the current offering is “killing wrestling”. That’s an exaggeration, but it’s definitely not helping, either.
Selfishly, I want to broadcast two great dual meets every week. Unfortunately, the past two years, I’ve only pointed to one or two great matchups in our entire broadcast season. RCN is committed to bringing you the best that high school wrestling has to offer, but none of us wants to show a blowout. Several times, I’ve said, “There has to be something better,” on a particular night. Usually, there is not.
The good news is that a correction is pretty simple. The alignment of the conference would have to change, but this would receive almost no resistance. The coaches want it, and so do the fans. So here is my off-season gift to you: Scott’s Super Scheduler
- Division Rohrbach—Named for the first four-time champion in DXI history, Russ Rohrbach: Beca, Northampton, Parkland, Nazareth, Liberty, and Easton
- Division Oliver—Named for @that_dude_JO, Jordan Oliver: Freedom, Emmaus, Whitehall, Stroudsburg, ES South, and Pleasant Valley
- Division Nunamaker—For Nunny: Dieruff, PM West, ES North, PM East, Allen, and Central Catholic
Wrestle five dual meets within your division, plus anyone else you want. At the end of the year, the last- place team from Rohrbach drops down to Oliver, and the top Oliver team moves up to Rohrbach. Same between Oliver and Nunamaker. This keeps the divisions aligned by strength, which is what we all want to see.
This gives us, without exception, the most competitive dual meets we can have, every single year, every single week. If you want to have an EPC Championship day, with the #1 and #2 from each division, that’s fantastic.
Nobody wins when we have the need for a long caravan of parents driving to Swiftwater, PA to watch their son receive a forfeit, and getting home after 11:00 p.m. My schedule fixes that.
Teams don’t chew up “points” on their schedule for mismatches that don’t even qualify as a decent workout. We aren’t paying officials for 30 minutes of hand-raising. We aren’t wasting money on staff for gymnasiums that are devoid of fans.
It works, and it’s simple. It doesn’t cure everything, but it’s on the right track. My final fix is to get us down to 10 or 11 weight classes. Next time Laubach gives up his blog, I’ll let you in on that one. . .
