By Rob Sherrill, WIN High School Editor

In this issue of WIN, you’ll find the selections to one of high school wrestling’s most elite and most discussed teams: the ASICS All-America Wrestling Team.

            It’s hard to believe that the team has now been around for 24 seasons — longer than anybody under consideration for the squad — has been alive. It’s special not just because ASICS, one of wrestling’s legacy companies, sponsors it. It’s because it’s the only national all-star team for which wrestlers enrolled in all four high-school grades are eligible.

            I’m for

tunate to have been a member…and just a member…of the selection committee for all but one of those 24 seasons. Most of us have been a part of it for some time now…and all of us take the responsibility for selecting the most representative team possible very seriously.

            As fair and impartial as we try to be, though, it’s difficult to overlook the current predominance of wrestlers from the Northeast on this year’s team.

            It’s something I’ve been writing about for several columns now. Like every sport, wrestling has its ebbs and flows. Right now, the balance of power is east of the Mississippi. That’s just how things are these days.

            Look at the 14 first-team members. All but two are from the Eastern time zone and 10 of the 14 come from just three states: Ohio and Pennsylvania (with four selections each) and New Jersey, which has two.             Seven of the record eight underclassmen on the first team come from those three states as well. The eighth also comes from the East: Devin Carter (112) of Christiansburg (Va.) High.

            This is not provincialism. This is fact. Based on their performance in national events, virtually any informed observer from anywhere in the nation would accede to the credentials of this group of first-team members.

            Pennsylvania led all states with 19 overall selections, including eight on the top three teams. Ohio’s 10 top-three selections topped all states and Ohio and New Jersey each had 14 overall selections. Throw in fourth-place New York’s eight selections and just under half the team — 55 of the 112 overall selections — hail from just four Northeastern states.

            It’s not a complete regional whitewash, however. More than half the states (29) placed at least one wrestler on the team. That’s because one of USA Wrestling’s signature events, the Cadet and Junior Nationals, continues to be relevant in the face of significant obstacles.

            Maybe excuses would be more accurate. Despite the growing differences between the scholastic and international rules, the expense involved in getting to Fargo, the two-and-out format and state-team qualifying issues, Fargo remains the “Great Equalizer.”

            It’s where states like Missouri, Oklahoma, Illinois, Florida and Minnesota continue to take their places alongside wrestling’s Northeastern elite and battle for individual and state supremacy.

            Fargo is still a place where reputations are made.

            Eight first-team members have been Cadet or Junior finalists. Five — Ohioans Logan Stieber (125) and David Taylor (135), Pennsylvanians Andrew (140) and Dylan Alton (145) and Oklahoman Chris Perry (189) — have won Junior championships. None would deny those USA Wrestling stop signs are cornerstones on their respective resumes.

            It’s also where we got to know some new faces. Fargo made Missourians like Ryan Mango, Nick and Matt Lester, and Mac Bailey household names.

            Thanks to their Fargo success, twins Jade and Valyen Rauser are as recognizable on the Montana landscape as Glacier National Park.

            And by coming up big at Fargo on more than one occasion, an Illinois wrestler who never advanced past the state tournament quarterfinals during his career gained some national notoriety of his own.

            His name: Ellis Coleman.

            Some point to the Disney Duals, held at the Walt Disney World Sports Complex in Orlando, Fla., later this month, as the off-season event of choice. It’s easy to see why. Orlando is a popular vacation spot. It’s a scholastic-style event, contested in a pool format.

That’s a common format not only in wrestling tournaments — Wisconsin’s Cheesehead Tournament is a well-known example — but in volleyball as well. When you wrestle everyone in your pool, as well as bracket matches, team members get plenty of matches … and that’s an enticing prospect. (Of course, USA Wrestling’s Cadet and Junior National Duals employ a similar structure.)

            But is it really a national event? That’s debatable. Although most states do send at least one team, nearly 40 per cent of the teams in last year’s tournament came from two states: Pennsylvania and Ohio.

            And in dual meets, when the priority becomes winning, great match-ups are often avoided. And when you lose, it’s like baseball; you come back and get ‘em the next round.

            That’s nothing compared to the pressure that a wrestler with a loss faces at Fargo. Those are the story-within-a-story battles that often go unnoticed; except by college coaches and analysts like us.

            It’s just one of those things that makes Fargo unique and one of the reasons we’ll be watching the brackets.

            (Rob Sherrill is one of the top high school wrestling analysts in the country and a long-time columnist of W.I.N. He also publishes the “American High School Wrestling Yearbook”. To order a copy, e-mail him at centermatpress@hotmail.com.)