If/when Wink Charles wins his 100th career match, he will get his own page in the record books.
Or rather, share a page with his father.
For at that moment, David “Wink” Charles and his dad, Willard “Wink’ Charles, will become the first-ever L-L League father and son to post 100 career wins.
In a career from 1981-84, Wink’s dad became the second-ever L-L wrestler to win 100 matches, finishing his career with 102 wins
More as it develops.
With 96 career wins, young Wink is four victories away. Six of those victories have come at the expense of Manheim Township’s Smith twins, the most recent a 10-7 win over Alex Smith for the L-L 132-pound championship.
Wink is 4-1 lifetime over Alex Smith, with Alex’s only win in the 2011 Sectional championship match.
Adam Smith has fared better, splitting four matches, 2-2, but Wink has prevailed in back-to-back Mule Classic championship matches.

Seven L-L wrestlers have joined the 100-win club thus far this season.
Pequea Valley’s Mitchell Ball was the first, achieving the honor at the Mule Classic on the first weekend of the season.
December passed quietly until Solanco’s Joe Welk and Columbia’s Jordon Halter notched career win 100, both on the 29th: Welk at the PowerAde Holiday Tournament and Halter at the Snack Town Duals.
Cedar Crest’s Sean Hughes joined the club at the Blue Mt. Tournament in early January; E-town’s Troy Ernest a week later in a dual meet at Donegal.
This past weekend, at the L-L League tournament, Northern Lebanon’s Ryan Daub won No. 100 on Friday, followed by Hempfield’s Dakota Minnich on Saturday.
There are seven more wrestlers who are in the 90s as this is written. Three – Solanco’s Wink Charles, E-town’s Owen Bradley and Pequea Valley’s Drew Jackson – are on the precipice, Charles and Bradley with 96 wins, Jackson with 94.
With Solanco set to take part in the Tom Hecker Memorial Duals at Garden Spot this weekend, Charles could well be a century-clubber by nightfall.
Bradley’s wait might be longer, as he suffered a hand injury in the L-Ls and will be sidelined, likely until sectionals.

Talking with colleague Dustin Leed, hockey writer and fan, about my taking in the Flyers-Islanders game the following night and he told me if the Flyers lost, it would be my fault, given that the Flyers had not lost to the Isles in like five years, more so on the friendly WFC ice.
You guessed it, in a dull display and duller effort, the Fly guys went skates up. When I saw Dustin the next night, I owned up to jinxing the home team, saying I’d Andy Mussered them.
Which drew some puzzled looks from the younger members of the sports staff, who were likely wearing drool bibs when the erstwhile Phillies announcer signed off the airwaves in 2001.
Andy Musser was a very good play-by-play announcer for the Phillies, as well as the 76ers and other Philly-area teams, for well over three decades.
He was also known, at least in the circles I inhabited, for black-catting the Phillies seemingly every time he opened his mouth.
It often seemed that every time Andy would make an observation about a Phillies player, disaster would strike.
“Well fans,” he would say, “Steve Carlton takes the mound here in the seventh and has not allowed a hit. Tim Raines steps in and there’s a base hit to center field!”
You get the picture.
It’s likely that, over 162 games a year, over 25 seasons, something like this really did happen, at least once. It just seemed like it happened every game.
A Lemoyne native, Andy Musser got the announcing bug when he was a high-schooler and, following his armed forces commitment, he set off on a career that spanned from the early 1960s through his retirement.
Most of that career was spent in Philadelphia where he was a sports anchor at WCAU-TV 10 before joining the Phillies broadcast team when By Saam retired in 1975. Side note: Andy’s path and mine likely crossed, often, at ‘CAU when I worked there in 1970. Can’t seem to remember him though.
Now, if you have an inkling of Phillies history, you will realize that, far from being a black cat, Andy could easily be seen as a talisman. His arrival in the booth coincided with the Phillies rise to the top of the NL East – five titles in eight years – and their first World Series championship!
Andy was part of a golden era and a golden announcing team, along with Harry Kalas and Rich “Whitey” Ashburn.
He also had outside interests: long-distance running, and beer.
He turned that fondness of beer into a second, late-stage career when he stepped out of the Phillies broadcast booth to become a regional representative for San Francisco-based Anchor Steam beer.
Sadly, he passed away Sunday at the age of 74.
But I’m sure he’s calling a heavenly game today, up in the booth with Whitey and Harry and By.
I can almost hear it now: Don Drysdale pitching, bottom of the 9th, two out, two on, Johnny Callison stepping to the plate.
“By,” Andy will say, “Callison has Drysdale’s number. He hits him better than anybody in the league.”
“There’s a high fly ball,” says Saam, who vision was notoriously bad in his waning years. “It’s deep, and the shortstop settles under it on the infield grass to end the game.”

As of today, there are seven unbeaten wrestlers in the L-L League.

Leading the way is Solanco’s returning state champion, sophomore Thomas Haines, 19-0 at 220 pounds.

Likewise 19-0 is Elco’s Dylan Hickernell, the main man at 182.

Warwick’s Tom Devenney is 15-0 at 285; Annville-Cleona’s Cody Beattie is 17-0 at 152.

Unbeaten in fewer matches, but unbeaten nonetheless, are Manheim Township’s Alex Smith, 11-0 at 132, Ephrata’s Mike Lammer, 10-0 at 145 and Garden Spot’s Dakoda Leid, 6-0 at 160 coming off a football injury.

… I’m back in the saddle.

In case you had not noticed.

When it comes to teams, the L-L League is a pretty barren area this wrestling season.

You’ve got Solanco.

Um hmmm, and then you’ve got Solanco.

Shoot, one is hard pressed to find many full, 14-man lineups in the L-L this year.

No, the best teams in District Three this year, in terms of dual meet competition, reside in the Mid-Penn Conference.

Surprise!

Mechanicsburg, Big Spring and, oh yeah, Central Dauphin; Governor Mifflin out of the Berks County League; Spring Grove, out of the we-get-no-respect YAIAA.

And Solanco.

There’s you top teams in Class AAA.

Class AA?

Moving on.

The Mules will be able to hold their own with any of the above, yes, even CD, all you haters.

But the L-L will shine in the individual postseason. Up and down the lineup in both Class AAA and AA, L-L kids will more than hold their own.

First of all, there’s Solanco’s returning state champion: Thomas Haines.

He alone is an “E” ticket to the state finals.

He won’t be alone.

… putting together an overview of the field for this weekend’s L-L Tournament. Looking over the best records at each weight, as of today, trying to sort through the top 4 or 5 possibilities at each weight.

I come up with two “worthy” candidates at 182.

And 10 at 138.

How many of those ten do you think would’ve been at 135?

140?

The other shoe has dropped with the long-awaited release of new weight classes from the NFHS Wrestling Rules Committee.

Beginning with the 2011-12 season the fourteen weight classes will look like this: 106, 113, 120, 126, 132, 138, 145, 152, 160, 170, 182, 195, 220 and 285.

Of the fourteen classes, only four remain unmolested: ’45, ’52 ’60 and 285. Ten have been massaged out of previous weights, with apparent homage to different grappling eras. One new weight class has been created at the top end of the lineup, at the expense of a middle weight where three classifications have become two.

In a move that surprised absolutely no one, the 103-pound class was “super-sized” to 106. This long-anticipated action follows a quarter century creep of the entry-level weight class from 98 pounds, which used to be 95.

The rest of the classes follow suit with 112 – a traditional weight since Socrates oversaw workouts between Homer and Ulysses – becoming 113; 120 returns after a 39-year absence; 132 legislated in for 1973 and out after 1988, returns, as does 138, a victim of the 1988 upheaval.

Wrestlers who competed at 171 will have to cut an extra pound as the class is now 170. The 189-pound class, which used to be 185, which used to be 180, is now 182, making room between 220 – nee 215 – for the creation of the 195-pound weight class, whose presence signals doom in the middle where 130-135-140 were melded into 132 and 138.

This change will be felt locally as teams with a large upperweight presence – think Solanco – will benefit while teams that are stacked in the middle – think Manheim Township – will be hurt.

“The change in weight classes resulted from a three-to-four year process utilizing data from the National Wrestling Coaches Association (NWCA) Optimal Performance Calculator,” said Dale Pleimann, chair of the NFHS Wrestling Rules Committee and former assistant executive director of the Missouri State High School Activities Association.

“The rules committee was able to analyze data from almost 200,000 wrestlers across the country, with the goal to create weight classes that have approximately seven percent of the wrestlers in each weight class.

“Throughout the process, each state association was kept completely informed and was provided multiple opportunities for input. The results of the last survey of each state association indicated that the majority of states favored a change, and the committee listened and acted accordingly.”

Apparently nobody’s state committee listened to the outcry to leave 103 alone

The weight class changes were tabled by the NFHS last year, but reappeared this year with the encouragement of state governing bodies including the PIAA, which heartily supported the weight class changes.

And speaking of changes, there’s more.

Do you use the Figure 4 hold?

Not any more.

Although previously illegal to use on the body, or on a leg, the Figure 4, when applied to a wrestler’s head, was legal as part of a pinning combination, usually in conjunction with an arm bar. Now, concerned with the risk of injury potential, the committee has moved to outlaw any use of the Figure 4.

In a sop to the proposal submitted last year by our own Bob Derr,  Rule 2-1-3, was modified to make the two-inch wide outer limit of the circle inbounds. Derr had proposed to bring the scholastic rule in line with the collegiate rule, which allows any action that begins inbounds to continue despite crossing the boundary.

While Derr’s idea died, judged too dangerous to implement in small high school gyms, the recent change will at least open up the pinning possibilities within any part of the 2-inch-wide line which marks the outer limit of in bounds.

Other changes include the consequences of a second injury timeout at the start of the third period of wrestling; the development of rules regarding multi-team dual meets and team-formatted tournaments; officials’ positioning during injury and blood time stoppages and officials’ clerical duties beyond the end of the meet through the completion of any reports required from actions that occurred while the referees had jurisdiction. Also, the language of Rule 6-2-2 was changed from “forfeit” to “disqualification” to reflect correct terminology.

Not being on a first-name basis with 6-2-2, we can only assume this is a harmless change.

Finally, points of emphasis adopted by the committee for 2011-12 include communicable diseases, injury time-outs, coach/referee conferences, and concussion recognition and management.

That last note regarding concussions, while a laudable idea, will be a contentious issue, mark my words.

My friend and colleague, Rod Frisco, recently attended the meeting of the PIAA wrestling steering committee.

Lots of stuff happening … better he should tell you than I.

You can find it here: