There is a familiar name creeping up the list.
And at his current pace Cael Sanderson should be at the top of that list, too, in 7 to 10 years.
All-Time Leading Coaches by AA's
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There is a familiar name creeping up the list.
And at his current pace Cael Sanderson should be at the top of that list, too, in 7 to 10 years.
It will only take 10 straight years of 10 AA's to pass Gable percentage-wise. Are you doubting?
One more stat for you thanks to @PSU Mike
On that list only Sanderson and Gable have more than half of their AA's come from finalists.
On that list only Sanderson and Gable have more than half of their AA's come from finalists.
One more stat for you thanks to @PSU Mike
On that list only Sanderson and Gable have more than half of their AA's come from finalists.
And a common theme for the top 3 coaches, their wrestlers ending on a win, 1st, 3rd, 5th, 7th.
It is taking the number of AA's the coach earned and dividing it by the number of AA's that were awarded those years.
The reason I did that is because over time both the number of weight classes and the number of AA's per weight class varied. For example, in the early years of Harold Nichols' career there were only 8 weight classes with 4 AA's per weight, for a total of 32 AA's per year. Now, with 10 weight classes and 8 AA's per weight, there are 80 AA's every year. So a modern coach has more opportunities per year to accumulate AA's than Nichols did.
If all you did was look at the number of years (37) Nichols took to accumulate his 156 AA's you would be tempted to think he did it at a slower pace than Sanderson is currently doing it in his tenure (17), but Nichols did it at a slightly faster clip once you recognize the relative scarcity of AA's during his time.
This stat has a modest impact on Gable and Bobby Douglas, as well. During Nichols career there were an average of 56 AA's per year. During Gable's career there were an average of 79. During Douglas' career there were an average of 79.5. Everyone else listed coached in the 80 AA era.
So the years during Gable’s career when AA was only through 6th place, he gets credit for any guys who lost in the blood round because they finished in the top 8 of the weight class…? That makes sense. Thanks for the explanation and mucho gracias for taking the time and effort to research and present these cool stats!
Close, but not quite. Rather than give him credit for things that did not happen (adding extra AAs for blood round losses), I am not penalizing him for things that did not happen (7th or 8th place in certain years). By dividing by the total AA's that did happen we can compare better across eras.
It is not perfect, because both weight classes and AAs per weight change. For example, if you get an AA in every weight in the 8 weights/ 4 AAs era, you have 25% of the AAs that year. If you do that in th 10/8 era, you have 12.5% of the AAs.
But, I think it is still a better way than just counting. At a minimum it adds context to the conversation.
