Frequently asked questions
Getting started
- What is SimplWrestling?
A searchable archive of California high school wrestling results, and a set of leaderboards computed from them.
Every rating traces back to real matches you can open and check, and the formula is published. There are no coach polls and no reputation bonus — the same math runs for every wrestler.
- Do I need an account to look someone up?
No. You can look up any wrestler on the leaderboard and see their row — rank, rating, record, and badges — without an account, whatever their rank.
Signed out you also see the top 3 of any weight class, and a wrestler link someone sends you opens without an account.
Explore is free too: search and filter every match, placing and roster in the archive without signing in — including one wrestler's whole season, by filtering the Bouts tab to them. An account is only for following wrestlers so their results are waiting for you next time.
- Which states and seasons are covered?
California high school wrestling, boys and girls. The archive covers the current season and a growing set of past seasons.
It is still filling in. If a tournament you expect is missing, it most likely has not been ingested yet — tell us and we will look at it.
- Is this run by CIF or an official CIF site?
No. SimplWrestling is independent and has no affiliation with CIF or any of its sections.
Results are compiled from published tournament data. CIF section and state events are labeled as such because that is what the results are, not because CIF is involved here.
The leaderboard
- Why is my wrestler not on the leaderboard?
Usually one of three reasons. They have fewer than 3 counted matches this season, so they are rated and listed but do not hold a numbered spot yet. Their results have not been ingested yet. Or the matches they wrestled were not at the varsity level.
A preseason board is also a normal sight early on: before anyone has wrestled, the board ranks returning wrestlers on last season and most of the field has no current-season row at all.
- How is the rating calculated?
From match results and the strength of the opponents beaten, with bonuses for how a win was earned and for postseason placement. One formula, applied identically to everyone.
The full explanation, with the actual point values and a calculator you can try, is on the how-it-works page.
- Do JV and freshman matches count?
Not toward ratings, ranks or records — only varsity counts there.
They do count toward the season milestones on a wrestler’s panel: pins, win streaks, tournaments placed at. A JV wrestler’s five pins are five pins.
That is why a wrestler with a busy JV season can still show few or no counted matches next to their record.
- How often does the leaderboard update?
The board is saved once a week. Weeks run Sunday through Saturday, so a tournament never lands half in one week and half in the next.
The arrow next to a wrestler is their movement since the previous week. New results appear as soon as that tournament is ingested and the board is recomputed.
The data
- Where does the data come from?
Published tournament results — brackets and placings as the events themselves reported them — plus results entered directly by event operators.
Nothing is estimated or filled in by hand to make a board look complete. If a match is not in a published result, it is not here.
- A result is wrong, or a match is missing. How do I fix it?
Sign in, find the row in Explore, and click the warning icon on it to report the issue. That attaches the exact row to your report, which makes it much faster to fix than an email describing it.
Reports are reviewed by hand. If a whole tournament is missing rather than a single row, or you would rather not make an account, email us instead.
- Why does my wrestler show 0-0 when they have wrestled?
Almost always an identity problem: the matches are in the archive, but they came in under a name or school spelling that has not been linked to the right wrestler yet.
Common causes are a transfer, a school listed under a different official name, or a misspelling in the source results. Report one of the affected rows so we can look at merging them.
- There are two entries for the same wrestler.
Same cause as above — one wrestler split across two name or school spellings. Report either row and we will look at it. Where we do merge two entries, the full match history is kept.
- I think a ranking is wrong. What can I do?
Tell us, and say why. A rating is one formula reading the results it has — it does not know who wrestled hurt, who moved up a weight, or whose season turned around in February. It can be wrong, and a rule we cannot defend is a rule worth changing.
Start by checking the bouts behind the number: if a result is missing or wrong, that is usually the real problem and it is fixable. If you think the formula itself weighs something badly, make the case to us directly.
What we ask is that the argument stays with us and with the data, never with a wrestler over their number. Most of them are minors.
- Someone is using this site to harass a wrestler.
Send it to us with whatever you have — what happened, where, screenshots or links. We read these ourselves and we will tell you what we did about it.
Harassment, threats, and anything aimed at a minor cost an account its access, permanently and without a refund. If a wrestler is in immediate danger, contact local law enforcement first.
Paying
- What is free, and what does the season pass buy?
Looking up any one wrestler is free, whatever their rank. You get their row, their record, their badges and how far the next line is, without paying.
The pass buys the board: the ordered field, every wrestler in a weight class with who is above and below whom. Signed out you see the top 3 plus whoever you looked up.
The season pass covers one season. It is a one-time payment, not a subscription.
Past seasons are a free archive. Nothing there is behind the pass.
- What is the giveback?
A share of every season pass is set aside for the wrestling community. The beneficiary and the share are published when passes go on sale.
- What else does the pass unlock?
The full leaderboard, the Following tab in Explore for tracking your wrestlers and teams across the season, and Seeding — the tool for seeding a tournament from the archive, weight by weight.
- I paid but I do not have access.
Access is granted automatically once the payment confirms, which is usually a few seconds. Reload the page first.
If it still has not appeared after a few minutes, email us from the address you paid with and we will sort it out.