September 24th, 2009

Dear Coaches,

   I would like to welcome you to another year in the gym. I hope you are as excited about this coming season as I am. Last year was a banner year for our sport. We established the Coach's' Association, established a credible line of communication with the people involved in our sport, and had an outstanding hospitality room for the coaches at the State tournament.

  We have some things in the works right now that I think will make our sport even better. We are working on having a challenge dual between our State champions and the State champions from Arkansas. We have also already worked out the details for the hospitality room. We will also be nominating our first ever Hall of Fame inductees.

  There are some things that I would like for you guys to do for me. Please send any updated info to Martin Muller. He will be creating a coaches' contact page for us to stay in better contact with each other. If you do not want the info posted, let him know and he will not post it. Also, please send in your schedule to Martin so he can create a Master Schedule.

I hope this season starts off well for you. I look forward to seeing all of you very soon.

Patrick Mahoney

President, LHSWCA

Hello Coaches,

I hope your season is going well so far. We have an important issue that we need to address in the next couple of weeks. Our principals will be meeting in January and we need them to bring our decision on the "Divide by 3" rule to the executive committee for us.

If you do not remember what the "Divide by 3" rule entails, I will explain it:

Every year ending in an odd number, 2008-09, a school census is taken. The following year, any adjustment to a school's classification is made and that is where a school's sports programs compete. However, there a couple of sports that have designed their own classification systems I call it the "Divide By 3 Rule". All schools that compete in a certain sport are listed from largest population to smallest population. The total number of participating schools are divided by 3. The third with the largest populations form Division I. The third that has the next largest populations form Division II. The third of schools with the smallest populations form Division III. So let's apply that to wrestling. I believe there were 81 schools with wrestling listed as a sport. We would divide 81 by 3, which gives us 3 groups with 27 teams apiece. The 27 largest schools form Division I, the next 27 form Division II, and the 27 schools with the smallest populations form Division III.

We need you to consider what is best for your team and sport, then go to the voting page [which needs to be built by MGM, but will be], and cast your vote for or against the "Divide By 3 Rule" for wrestling. This needs to happen by December 10. 

Please get involved with making our great sport the best it can be. Good luck and see you soon.

Patrick Mahoney, Sr.

November 20th, 2008

Good Day Coaches,

I hope your season is off to a good start. I am looking forward to another season in the gym. I had a long talk with Mr. BJ today and there were some concerns about the lack of procedures being followed by our coaches. Mostly, his concerns were directed to the hydration tests. He explained to me that coaches were showing up not knowing the procedures, not having the correct money or no money at all, and that some regions were sending the information in an untimely fashion.

Please understand that having our own regional testing staff is a privilege that the LHSAA allows us to have as a convenience to us...abusing the privilege or not taking care of your coaching responsibilities can result in that privilege being taken away. We need to make sure that as coaches we are professionals, not only when dealing with young people, but when it comes to taking care of our administrative duties. There really is no excuse for not knowing the rules and procedures. The LHSAA put everything online for us to have access at anytime to all pertinent information relating to our sport. Please make sure that you are ready too with rosters and funds when going to a hydration tests. As for our testers, please make sure you send the information to Roberto Furtado ASAP. It is frustrating when these coaches cannot access their guys info a full week after they have tested.

Coaches...do we expect anything short of 100% from our wrestlers? Then why is that we try to give less than all we have? Our sport is a great sport, the best in the world, if you ask me my opinion. I want our sport to grow and flourish but it needs your best effort. I do not want to get to a point where we have head-butting contests with anyone over our sport...the only people who lose in those situations are the kids. Lets make this sport and our association the very best it can be...IT BEGINS WITH YOU!

Good Luck this season and God's speed.

Patrick Mahoney

LHSWCA, President

Here we go Coaches!

It was good to see so many of my friends this past weekend. There was a charge in the air I have not felt for sometime. Everyone that I spoke with was excited and positive about their team...and about wrestling in general. I saw some awesome wrestling and the refereeing was exceptional. Overall, a great start to the season.

I wanted to mention some things that we have going on.

We are still working on the hospitality room for the State Tournament. It is looking very good. I am leaning towards the Hilton Garden Inn, which is right next door the Pontchartrain Center, to host it. I would love to have it in the P.C., and Mr. B.J. even offered to give us the room, but the food and prices are not favorable.

I encourage all of you to join the association. Not simply for the hospitality room but to show the LHSAA that we are consolidated and strong when it comes to the betterment of our great sport. The more of you we have signed up the better of our chances to make the changes we feel are need in Louisiana High School Wrestling.

Martin had some shirts created for the association. We are working on getting a price list where the coaches can purchase a shirt to show their support for the association.

If you have not been contacted by your regional rep, please find out who he is and make yourself known to him. Let him know what your issues are and any suggestions you have to correct those concerns.

Coaches, I hope you are as excited as I am about the upcoming season and the possibilities that lay before us. Take care and good luck!

Patrick Mahoney

LHSWCA, President

August 22nd, 2008

    One of the ideas being discussed by some of the coaches is restructuring how our three divisions are determined. I am not sure about what the technical term used for it is, but I will simply refer to it as the "Divide by 3 rule."  I will explain.

    Currently, the LHSAA does a school census every school year ending in an odd number. Once the population of every school is determined, each school is placed in a classification representative of its student population size. Every even year, the schools are required to compete in the classification assigned to it by the LHSAA, determined by the census.

    Example: A school is determined to have a population of 3000 students. That puts its classification at 5A. All of that school's athletics will compete in the 5A classification. If that school was a lower classification the prior year, it will be required to move up the next year.

    What the "divide by 3 rule" will allow us to do is take the population of all the schools that participate in wrestling, put them in order according to their school population, and separate those schools into 3 equal divisions.

    As of now DI, 5A schools only, have 32 teams. DII, 4A schools only, have 21 teams, and DIII, 3A schools and below, have 21. If we were to vote on the "Divide by 3 rule", DI would have 25, DII 25, and DIII would have 24.

    What advantages would that give school and how does that help wrestling?

    Some believe that it would allow the smaller schools to be more competitive. Some believe that it is splitting hairs and there will always be teams on the bubble of one division or the other.

    This will be topic being passed around and, I am sure, be voted on by our association. We will have to vote on this by December so we can have it presented to the principals for January.

Thank you for your time.

Patrick Mahoney, Sr.

President - LHSWCA