How to Ruin a Growing Sport

[AgSurfer]

Fyi - I just got off the phone with a friend in CA and he told me something that pushes the limits of stupidity. According to my friend, a bunch of CA public school administrators passed a rule beginning this year that forbids CA public school wrestlers from competing against any opponent that attends a school that does not compete in the public school state tournament in their state. In other words, this rule makes it impossible for teams like Buchanan and Clovis to go to tournaments like Ironman, Beast of the East and Powerade where schools like Blair and Wyoming Seminary are always represented. He's concerned that other states are going to be pressured to follow suit.

If anyone here has heard differently, please feel free to refute my post. I can't think of anything more stupid. Something like this would ruin the competitveness of the big HS level tournaments.

 

[PABulldogs]

Fyi - I just got off the phone with a friend in CA and he told me something that pushes the limits of stupidity. According to my friend, a bunch of CA public school administrators passed a rule beginning this year that forbids CA public school wrestlers from competing against any opponent that attends a school that does not compete in the public school state tournament in their state. In other words, this rule makes it impossible for teams like Buchanan and Clovis to go to tournaments like Ironman, Beast of the East and Powerade where schools like Blair and Wyoming Seminary are always represented. He's concerned that other states are going to be pressured to follow suit.

If anyone here has heard differently, please feel free to refute my post. I can't think of anything more stupid. Something like this would ruin the competitveness of the big HS level tournaments.

Yes, you are correct with the latest individual 1 state champion division limiting the entire California school system in not being able to compete in any competition where the individual school does not currently compete in their own public state organization. The rules stem from a blanket CIF rule to include Football and Basketball not allowing for any California team to no longer compete against any none public school team that does not compete in their own public school state organization tournament. Tournaments such as Ohio Ironman, PA Powerade, Del Beast of East along with any team traveling back for any dual that includes Blair, SEM or Malvern all currently ranked 1, 2 and 3 in the nation. Some Longtime high profile Ca wrestling coaches do believe that the current rule will be voted on next year to allow the CA teams to continue to compete against the non public school state competing teams. Last year SEM traveled to Gilroy CA to compete in a dual meet against current state champs Buchanan HS and Gilroy along with Montini Catholic. This year because of the new rule being enforced in the wrestling community SEM was not invited.

 

[Junglekitty]

I believe a few states, the exact ones are escaping me at the moment, but they passed basically a 2 state boundary rule. So basically, a PA team could only compete against teams from bordering states. I forget the ins and outs and if the rule passed, but I know it was atleast proposed. I’m sure someone here could shed better light.

 

[WreslingFan0314]

Indiana has a 300 mile rule. The kicker is,not only can they not travel more than 300 miles, they can't host a school from more than 300, AND they can't compete in a tournament within 300 miles if a team from more than that distance is participating.

 

[Cali_Nittany]

Fyi - I just got off the phone with a friend in CA and he told me something that pushes the limits of stupidity. According to my friend, a bunch of CA public school administrators passed a rule beginning this year that forbids CA public school wrestlers from competing against any opponent that attends a school that does not compete in the public school state tournament in their state. In other words, this rule makes it impossible for teams like Buchanan and Clovis to go to tournaments like Ironman, Beast of the East and Powerade where schools like Blair and Wyoming Seminary are always represented. He's concerned that other states are going to be pressured to follow suit.

If anyone here has heard differently, please feel free to refute my post. I can't think of anything more stupid. Something like this would ruin the competitveness of the big HS level tournaments.

As you know Ag, a lot of very stoopid stuff happens in California.

 

[Wawa Coffee]

I’ve been lurking for years and this topic finally drove me to post.

I think the OP has it completely backwards on what grows the sport. Clovis HS kids getting on a plane and flying to Ohio for a tournament doesn’t do a single thing to grow wrestling. In fact, it might do the opposite. How many kids do we believe are motivated to try the sport because his high school team leaves the state to compete? How many classmates of wrestlers travel to see their friends participate out of state? How many kids’ girlfriends or parents follow the team from California to Ohio to sit in a strange gym for a weekend? If you wanted to introduce someone to wrestling for the first time, would you take them to the Beast of the East, or to a local HS dual meet? Taking the sport away from its base of support (taking wrestling out of the schools) is working against its growth.

I realize these mega-tournaments have been the fashionable trend for many years, but I’d offer that a Wednesday night dual meet under the lights vs. your cross-town rival is what will sell our sport to the casual fan and help it grow. Put another way – more than just the casual fan tuned in to the PSU @ Iowa dual, but it’s the same crew every year that attends the NCAA tournament.

What grows the sport is when we take into consideration how the majority of kids access the sport. Making competition rules based on the needs of the few elite programs in every state certainly gets us to where we are today, with super-teams like Wyoming Seminary for example, that has talent from all across the US that travel around the country entering into HS tournaments. Let’s not pretend that is accessible to anyone but the elite kids who are already participants.

As we’ve gone to this model over the years, have the numbers of participants in wrestling improved? NFHS participation numbers for the last decade show a drop of 4.6% in PA. There have never been more youth wrestlers participating in the sport according to the NWCA, but the number of forfeits at the high school level has never been higher. Having these super teams probably makes for better elite wrestlers, but at what expense? We may end up losing the struggling programs just fighting to keep enough kids interested to survive. The numbers bear that out, too. During the 2009-2010 season, there were 279,024 boys wrestling across the country (9920 in PA alone). That number dropped to 247,441 wrestlers for the 2018-2019 season, and fell to 9460 in PA. The numbers of teams has fallen as well.

So for my first (last?) post on this board, I’m arguing that to actually grow the sport the decision makers in the sport of wrestling should start taking the majority of the sports participants into account, or we’ll continue to see this decline in the sport we all love.

Finally, here's John Smith making that point about growing wrestling at the NCAA level.

 

[El-Jefe]

Denying access to the best competition does not help the participants.

Your dream is to be the best in the world? Good luck with that, someone else decided for you that you can't be the best outside your area code.

 

[82bordeaux]

I’ve been lurking for years and this topic finally drove me to post.

I think the OP has it completely backwards on what grows the sport. Clovis HS kids getting on a plane and flying to Ohio for a tournament doesn’t do a single thing to grow wrestling. In fact, it might do the opposite. How many kids do we believe are motivated to try the sport because his high school team leaves the state to compete? How many classmates of wrestlers travel to see their friends participate out of state? How many kids’ girlfriends or parents follow the team from California to Ohio to sit in a strange gym for a weekend? If you wanted to introduce someone to wrestling for the first time, would you take them to the Beast of the East, or to a local HS dual meet? Taking the sport away from its base of support (taking wrestling out of the schools) is working against its growth.

I realize these mega-tournaments have been the fashionable trend for many years, but I’d offer that a Wednesday night dual meet under the lights vs. your cross-town rival is what will sell our sport to the casual fan and help it grow. Put another way – more than just the casual fan tuned in to the PSU @ Iowa dual, but it’s the same crew every year that attends the NCAA tournament.

What grows the sport is when we take into consideration how the majority of kids access the sport. Making competition rules based on the needs of the few elite programs in every state certainly gets us to where we are today, with super-teams like Wyoming Seminary for example, that has talent from all across the US that travel around the country entering into HS tournaments. Let’s not pretend that is accessible to anyone but the elite kids who are already participants.

As we’ve gone to this model over the years, have the numbers of participants in wrestling improved? NFHS participation numbers for the last decade show a drop of 4.6% in PA. There have never been more youth wrestlers participating in the sport according to the NWCA, but the number of forfeits at the high school level has never been higher. Having these super teams probably makes for better elite wrestlers, but at what expense? We may end up losing the struggling programs just fighting to keep enough kids interested to survive. The numbers bear that out, too. During the 2009-2010 season, there were 279,024 boys wrestling across the country (9920 in PA alone). That number dropped to 247,441 wrestlers for the 2018-2019 season, and fell to 9460 in PA. The numbers of teams has fallen as well.

So for my first (last?) post on this board, I’m arguing that to actually grow the sport the decision makers in the sport of wrestling should start taking the majority of the sports participants into account, or we’ll continue to see this decline in the sport we all love.

Finally, here's John Smith making that point about growing wrestling at the NCAA level.

View embedded media

Thanks for posting. I hope it isn't your last. You make some great points, but the two strategies needn't be mutually exclusive. What we see in lower volume sports is the birth of "super teams" I had water polo players. It was the same thing. There was sparse participation on a local and regional level. There were and are state and national power programs. But it is that power program that produces our collegiate and international success in Water Polo. It is the same with wrestling. I don't have all the answers but states need grass roots efforts based on love of sport to grow the sport locally. Inevitably those efforts will result in elite talent being plucked away. But if it is done right, the exposure from new media outlets will create a following. The following will create heroes. Followers want to emulate their heroes. And so it goes. FLO, Rokfin, trackwrestling aren't going to cover two nationally insignificant high school teams. But the kids wrestling in that gym will be on their phones watching Poweraide, Beast of the East, and Super 32 hoping they get there some day and are on FLO too.
I think we need to look at the local level and the interstate level programs as being symbiotic, not either or.

 

[seeyajohn]

I agree with Wawa. Local school rivalries are where participation in wrestling can grow. High schools should be for general exploration and exposure to a variety of social, educational and athletic opportunities. They should not be factories for developing elites in any sport.

The clubs (Strittmatter, Poulsons, Taylor, Askren) are a better place for the top wrestlers to develop. The club participants tend to be the year-round types intent on competing at national levels. It seems like we are seeing increasing numbers of wrestling clubs throughout the country that can provide those opportunities..

 

[lookleft goright]

I am not sure how having super teams impacts the sport in other people's minds, but I prefer the parity. We have a team in Illinois named Montini, that blows everyone away. They go to a lot of huge national tournaments and it is great to have place for kids to go who live, eat, and sleep wrestling. However does it grow the sport? IMHO It takes the fun out of tournaments when everyone knows who will win and the same for duals. It is the parity that draws other fans to meets. Not watching some power house beating the heck out of everyone. No one gets inspired when their home team gets smashed. Maybe the fans of the power house are inspired, but they are one team and they wrestle 20 other teams in duals. JMHO

 

[PSUer1989]

Fyi - I just got off the phone with a friend in CA and he told me something that pushes the limits of stupidity. According to my friend, a bunch of CA public school administrators passed a rule beginning this year that forbids CA public school wrestlers from competing against any opponent that attends a school that does not compete in the public school state tournament in their state. In other words, this rule makes it impossible for teams like Buchanan and Clovis to go to tournaments like Ironman, Beast of the East and Powerade where schools like Blair and Wyoming Seminary are always represented. He's concerned that other states are going to be pressured to follow suit.

If anyone here has heard differently, please feel free to refute my post. I can't think of anything more stupid. Something like this would ruin the competitveness of the big HS level tournaments.

To clarify, this only means competing with their HS team? So Clovis(for example) may only wrestle in-state schools? But as someone else mentioned, these kids wrestle for clubs that could wrestle out of state. I am not sure how the state can restrict kids from traveling in non-school sponsored activities?

 

[jschrantz]

I’ve been lurking for years and this topic finally drove me to post.

I think the OP has it completely backwards on what grows the sport. Clovis HS kids getting on a plane and flying to Ohio for a tournament doesn’t do a single thing to grow wrestling. In fact, it might do the opposite. How many kids do we believe are motivated to try the sport because his high school team leaves the state to compete? How many classmates of wrestlers travel to see their friends participate out of state? How many kids’ girlfriends or parents follow the team from California to Ohio to sit in a strange gym for a weekend? If you wanted to introduce someone to wrestling for the first time, would you take them to the Beast of the East, or to a local HS dual meet? Taking the sport away from its base of support (taking wrestling out of the schools) is working against its growth.

I realize these mega-tournaments have been the fashionable trend for many years, but I’d offer that a Wednesday night dual meet under the lights vs. your cross-town rival is what will sell our sport to the casual fan and help it grow. Put another way – more than just the casual fan tuned in to the PSU @ Iowa dual, but it’s the same crew every year that attends the NCAA tournament.

What grows the sport is when we take into consideration how the majority of kids access the sport. Making competition rules based on the needs of the few elite programs in every state certainly gets us to where we are today, with super-teams like Wyoming Seminary for example, that has talent from all across the US that travel around the country entering into HS tournaments. Let’s not pretend that is accessible to anyone but the elite kids who are already participants.

As we’ve gone to this model over the years, have the numbers of participants in wrestling improved? NFHS participation numbers for the last decade show a drop of 4.6% in PA. There have never been more youth wrestlers participating in the sport according to the NWCA, but the number of forfeits at the high school level has never been higher. Having these super teams probably makes for better elite wrestlers, but at what expense? We may end up losing the struggling programs just fighting to keep enough kids interested to survive. The numbers bear that out, too. During the 2009-2010 season, there were 279,024 boys wrestling across the country (9920 in PA alone). That number dropped to 247,441 wrestlers for the 2018-2019 season, and fell to 9460 in PA. The numbers of teams has fallen as well.

So for my first (last?) post on this board, I’m arguing that to actually grow the sport the decision makers in the sport of wrestling should start taking the majority of the sports participants into account, or we’ll continue to see this decline in the sport we all love.

Finally, here's John Smith making that point about growing wrestling at the NCAA level.

View embedded media

awesome post and keep doing so. Welcome

 

[CropDuster507]

To clarify, this only means competing with their HS team? So Clovis(for example) may only wrestle in-state schools? But as someone else mentioned, these kids wrestle for clubs that could wrestle out of state. I am not sure how the state can restrict kids from traveling in non-school sponsored activities?

There's no way they could restrict anything outside of HS season.

I go back and forth on this subject, a lot. In MN, the rule is that MN HS teams can't compete against teams that aren't in their state's HS association (preps and the like). We also can't travel to any state that doesn't border us (WI, SD, ND, IA only options). Some might say, "Well that holds MN back!" But there's a billion ways to compete at a higher level outside of the HS season. Fargo, Vegas (now Cadet WTT, old Akron), Age-level Duals, Folk Nats, Super 32, etc. are all opportunities to get those matches. If you want to go get a scholarship or national level competition, it's pretty prevalent and available.

MN Wrestling right now has been bitten by the move-in bug something fierce. And you know what we hear is the purpose of hammers moving to the teams? Competition, both in and out of the room. Simley got 2-3 state level move-ins this year. Kasson got a couple last year. Those two are head and shoulders above everybody else in AA in MN (middle class of 3). They are both in the same qualifying section (Simley beat em semi-handily this last Saturday). But for a while, especially when they first got moved to that section, it was hard for everyone to build support and belief into their dual teams, when they knew KM or Simley was gonna get a transfer or two and throttle everyone by 20 at the end of the year anyway.

Stillwater (home of Gopher families and Hartung is the head coach) got 5 state-caliber move-ins this year. The 5 all came from a school that had a coach get booted. Some believe it was injustice. Whatever. Stillwater and Shakopee are going to be the final and probably won't be touched until then.

Imagine if the MSHSL allowed Stillwater or Simley to go to Beast, Ironman, etc. They'd have an even larger influx of kids leaving programs they grew up in to go wrestle for them, the teams would be even more dominant, and wrestling outside of those areas would suffer. It takes money to go to those tournaments. This would turn MN HS wrestling into a money contest, which might grow the national scene for hardcores like us, but doesn't grow the sport grassroots to new people in a touchable manner.

I'd love to see Simley-Blair, Simley-Seminary, KM-Ed's, etc. Those things can happen at Age level WTT, Duals, Fargo, and Super 32. While I don't think anyone should be held back from their potential, I am of the opinion that MN HS wrestlers can get that competition in outside of the HS season pretty easily. Opening that floodgate would hurt the entire state for the gain of 5 teams.

Maybe I'm way off. That's possibe.

 

[PSUer1989]

There's no way they could restrict anything outside of HS season.

I go back and forth on this subject, a lot. In MN, the rule is that MN HS teams can't compete against teams that aren't in their state's HS association (preps and the like). We also can't travel to any state that doesn't border us (WI, SD, ND, IA only options). Some might say, "Well that holds MN back!" But there's a billion ways to compete at a higher level outside of the HS season. Fargo, Vegas (now Cadet WTT, old Akron), Age-level Duals, Folk Nats, Super 32, etc. are all opportunities to get those matches. If you want to go get a scholarship or national level competition, it's pretty prevalent and available.

MN Wrestling right now has been bitten by the move-in bug something fierce. And you know what we hear is the purpose of hammers moving to the teams? Competition, both in and out of the room. Simley got 2-3 state level move-ins this year. Kasson got a couple last year. Those two are head and shoulders above everybody else in AA in MN (middle class of 3). They are both in the same qualifying section (Simley beat em semi-handily this last Saturday). But for a while, especially when they first got moved to that section, it was hard for everyone to build support and belief into their dual teams, when they knew KM or Simley was gonna get a transfer or two and throttle everyone by 20 at the end of the year anyway.

Stillwater (home of Gopher families and Hartung is the head coach) got 5 state-caliber move-ins this year. The 5 all came from a school that had a coach get booted. Some believe it was injustice. Whatever. Stillwater and Shakopee are going to be the final and probably won't be touched until then.

Imagine if the MSHSL allowed Stillwater or Simley to go to Beast, Ironman, etc. They'd have an even larger influx of kids leaving programs they grew up in to go wrestle for them, the teams would be even more dominant, and wrestling outside of those areas would suffer. It takes money to go to those tournaments. This would turn MN HS wrestling into a money contest, which might grow the national scene for hardcores like us, but doesn't grow the sport grassroots to new people in a touchable manner.

I'd love to see Simley-Blair, Simley-Seminary, KM-Ed's, etc. Those things can happen at Age level WTT, Duals, Fargo, and Super 32. While I don't think anyone should be held back from their potential, I am of the opinion that MN HS wrestlers can get that competition in outside of the HS season pretty easily. Opening that floodgate would hurt the entire state for the gain of 5 teams.

Maybe I'm way off. That's possibe.

This is what I assumed. I am a fan, but don't have background in wrestling clubs etc. However, my daughter played for a state finalist high school and very powerful club team in volleyball. Sounds about the same...her HS played against some out of state (neighboring states) schools but her club played in competitions that drew teams from up and down the East coast, as well as Canada and the Caribbean.

 

[Conewago]

As you know Ag, a lot of very stoopid stuff happens in California.

"June said there'd be some boys from the South here tonight 'cause y'all come out here to California and the damn place is so crazy you've just gotta find something to eat somewhere, don't you?"

- Johnny Cash, live at Folsom Prison

I have little else to say on the subject, but I felt obliged to share this quote.

 

[El-Jefe]

Imagine if the MSHSL allowed Stillwater or Simley to go to Beast, Ironman, etc. They'd have an even larger influx of kids leaving programs they grew up in to go wrestle for them, the teams would be even more dominant, and wrestling outside of those areas would suffer. It takes money to go to those tournaments. This would turn MN HS wrestling into a money contest, which might grow the national scene for hardcores like us, but doesn't grow the sport grassroots to new people in a touchable manner.

To play devil's advocate: would changing these rules have kept Manville in state?

 

[Cali_Nittany]

"June said there'd be some boys from the South here tonight 'cause y'all come out here to California and the damn place is so crazy you've just gotta find something to eat somewhere, don't you?"

- Johnny Cash, live at Folsom Prison

I have little else to say on the subject, but I felt obliged to share this quote.

You cant go wrong quoting Johnny Cash.

I think we need to look at the local level and the interstate level programs as being symbiotic, not either or.

This^^^

There are always going to be super teams in any sport, not just wrestling. Usually putting an artificial cap on something results in the demand finding a way out somewhere else. El Jefe brings up a good example.

 

[1032004]

I think the travel restrictions make sense. But prohibiting other teams traveling to you or prohibiting participating in a tournament where another team happens to be seems excessive.

 

[El-Jefe]

I think the travel restrictions make sense. But prohibiting other teams traveling to you or prohibiting participating in a tournament where another team happens to be seems excessive.

Reasonable people can rationally discuss how far Team A can travel. I prefer freedom, but there are pros and cons to both sides.

Restrictions on which opponents Team A can host is nannyism.

Restricting Team A road events within a proscribed perimeter because out-of-state Team X travels from further away, is oppressive. It does not serve the athletes, coaches, or fans. It imposes useless admin burden for everyone involved. But it probably makes some bureaucrat feel good about himself.

 

[russelscout]

What grows the sport is when we take into consideration how the majority of kids access the sport. Making competition rules based on the needs of the few elite programs in every state certainly gets us to where we are today, with super-teams like Wyoming Seminary for example, that has talent from all across the US that travel around the country entering into HS tournaments. Let’s not pretend that is accessible to anyone but the elite kids who are already participants.

Denying access to the best competition does not help the participants.

Your dream is to be the best in the world? Good luck with that, someone else decided for you that you can't be the best outside your area code.

I agree with Wawa on this one. Making the rich richer actually hurts us Imo. That and the move towards specialization. We need to widen the pool of participants and be more focused on developing local competition.

By insisting all the best teams go to national tourneys, those teams benefit, get transfers and come back to the state even more dominant creating a positive feedback loop that assists in the development and dominance of a few but depleting the competition within the region.

I have been saying this kind of thing has been killing the Iowa high school landscape for years. Great kids leave small towns to open enroll to the local power. The local power travels to get competition. However, those small towns could have been developing a room and getting kids involved that may have started the sport later. Instead specialization has caused only a select few to seriously pursue the sport. This kills local competition. It kills grassroots efforts to build up wrestling. There is something to be said about getting the best competition, but this constant travel and search for greater competition outside of the region has diminishing returns.

Not all great wrestlers start when they are 4, are great when they are freshman, and have been focussed on one sport their entire childhood. When you hear a story of a guy like Jordan Burroughs who developed into a stud much later in his career, we should all wonder if the direction we are going is the right one.

One book you should all read is called "Range" by David Epstein. It offers some great perspective on our approach to skill development. Unrelated his other book called "The Sports Gene" is also excellent.

 

[Conewago]

I agree with Wawa on this one. Making the rich richer actually hurts us Imo. That and the move towards specialization. We need to widen the pool of participants and be more focused on developing local competition.

By insisting all the best teams go to national tourneys, those teams benefit, get transfers and come back to the state even more dominant creating a positive feedback loop that assists in the development and dominance of a few but depleting the competition within the region.

I have been saying this kind of thing has been killing the Iowa high school landscape for years. Great kids leave small towns to open enroll to the local power. The local power travels to get competition. However, those small towns could have been developing a room and getting kids involved that may have started the sport later. Instead specialization has caused only a select few to seriously pursue the sport. This kills local competition. It kills grassroots efforts to build up wrestling. There is something to be said about getting the best competition, but this constant travel and search for greater competition outside of the region has diminishing returns.

Not all great wrestlers start when they are 4, are great when they are freshman, and have been focussed on one sport their entire childhood. When you hear a story of a guy like Jordan Burroughs who developed into a stud much later in his career, we should all wonder if the direction we are going is the right one.

One book you should all read is called "Range" by David Epstein. It offers some great perspective on our approach to skill development. Unrelated his other book called "The Sports Gene" is also excellent.

What sports, if any, did Burroughs participate in before he turned to wrestling?

I seem to recall that Dan Gable started pretty late. He was initially a swimmer, but had to quit that sport because he wasn't long enough (or something like that).

 

[russelscout]

What sports, if any, did Burroughs participate in before he turned to wrestling?

I seem to recall that Dan Gable started pretty late. He was initially a swimmer, but had to quit that sport because he wasn't long enough (or something like that).

Idk what other sports Burroughs participated in, but he was not a guy who came in as a freshman phenom. He didn't need to go to Ironman, Gatorade, or whatever to become and olympic champ. Hell, he was barely a blue chip recruit. I don't know that you need to go through your entire life competing at a high level in order to become an Olympic champ.

 

[Conewago]

Idk what other sports Burroughs participated in, but he was not a guy who came in as a freshman phenom. He didn't need to go to Ironman, Gatorade, or whatever to become and olympic champ. Hell, he was barely a blue chip recruit. I don't know that you need to go through your entire life competing at a high level in order to become an Olympic champ.

Well, I'm pretty sure it helps....

Wrestling is, after all, ridiculously hard, even and especially in comparison to many other sports.

 

[russelscout]

Well, I'm pretty sure it helps....

Wrestling is, after all, ridiculously hard, even and especially in comparison to many other sports.

It helps, but at some point a ton of matches at a young age stops being beneficial. It may help you be a dominant high school wrestler over guys that have no such experience, but once college rolls around people can and do catch up.

Look at Cassar. He won a title against Gable Stevenson. Who do you think has wrestled more high level competition in their life? If constant high level competition as an adolescent is truly the best way to have success, there is absolutely no reason Cassar should ever have beat Gable Stevenson, but he did, twice.

 

[District four]

It helps, but at some point a ton of matches at a young age stops being beneficial. It may help you be a dominant high school wrestler over guys that have no such experience, but once college rolls around people can and do catch up.

Look at Cassar. He won a title against Gable Stevenson. Who do you think has wrestled more high level competition in their life? If constant high level competition as an adolescent is truly the best way to have success, there is absolutely no reason Cassar should ever have beat Gable Stevenson, but he did, twice.

Good point

 

[PD4thespawn]

 

[uncle jim 62]

Duster, there have been teams from Arizona and other states at the xmas tournament and the clash in the past. Is this a new rule?

 

[russelscout]

You say bad for the sport, I say an insatiable commitment to winning.

 

[CropDuster507]

Duster, there have been teams from Arizona and other states at the xmas tournament and the clash in the past. Is this a new rule?

They can come to us (which is why getting into Clash/Xmas is a big deal for MN teams). We just can't come to them. Or, I think one of the Ohio or Oklahoma teams was in the Cheesehead tournament. Again, they can be AT the tournament they're attending, we just can't travel outside of bordering states. If the tournament is in that bordering state or home state area, and the teams are all a part of their HS association, we can wrestle 'em.

The one time this got lifted was for a one-off was when Valley went out east to wrestle Blair WAYYYYYY back in the day.

 

[PABulldogs]

My .2¢ worth. I haves coached in 3 different state’s. CA, AZ and PA. Bottom line is that parents want the best education/athletics for the lowest price at the high school level. When it comes to getting into college there are rules for all divisions. D1, D2, D3, NAIA, NJuco and Ca Juco. The issue is trying to create a level playing field at the HS level is a very difficult task... separate divisions based on enrollment population. Competing against out of state dual or tournament competition. Either way the average High School season competes from Nov-Mar. If any HS student chooses to continue on as an athlete in college they will have to be able to gain enrollment acceptance, pay for tuition/dorms regardless how much aid is available, pass classes and compete against out state programs for National titles. Not every HS student will be able to compete in college at any division regardless how may new wrestlers are created. Regardless of wrestling elite schools or not. Wrestling is one of the toughest sports to compete in and coach. Especially when we have our very own style of wrestling called folkstyle created especially for our school system. In closing I am of the opinion of if the goal is to go to PSU then hopefully our recruits can beat other kids from different states before they come to Rec Hall.

 

[STAND with PRIDE]

Desanto plays soccer too??

 

[fkkkjm]

I’ve been lurking for years and this topic finally drove me to post.

I think the OP has it completely backwards on what grows the sport. Clovis HS kids getting on a plane and flying to Ohio for a tournament doesn’t do a single thing to grow wrestling. In fact, it might do the opposite. How many kids do we believe are motivated to try the sport because his high school team leaves the state to compete? How many classmates of wrestlers travel to see their friends participate out of state? How many kids’ girlfriends or parents follow the team from California to Ohio to sit in a strange gym for a weekend? If you wanted to introduce someone to wrestling for the first time, would you take them to the Beast of the East, or to a local HS dual meet? Taking the sport away from its base of support (taking wrestling out of the schools) is working against its growth.

I realize these mega-tournaments have been the fashionable trend for many years, but I’d offer that a Wednesday night dual meet under the lights vs. your cross-town rival is what will sell our sport to the casual fan and help it grow. Put another way – more than just the casual fan tuned in to the PSU @ Iowa dual, but it’s the same crew every year that attends the NCAA tournament.

What grows the sport is when we take into consideration how the majority of kids access the sport. Making competition rules based on the needs of the few elite programs in every state certainly gets us to where we are today, with super-teams like Wyoming Seminary for example, that has talent from all across the US that travel around the country entering into HS tournaments. Let’s not pretend that is accessible to anyone but the elite kids who are already participants.

As we’ve gone to this model over the years, have the numbers of participants in wrestling improved? NFHS participation numbers for the last decade show a drop of 4.6% in PA. There have never been more youth wrestlers participating in the sport according to the NWCA, but the number of forfeits at the high school level has never been higher. Having these super teams probably makes for better elite wrestlers, but at what expense? We may end up losing the struggling programs just fighting to keep enough kids interested to survive. The numbers bear that out, too. During the 2009-2010 season, there were 279,024 boys wrestling across the country (9920 in PA alone). That number dropped to 247,441 wrestlers for the 2018-2019 season, and fell to 9460 in PA. The numbers of teams has fallen as well.

So for my first (last?) post on this board, I’m arguing that to actually grow the sport the decision makers in the sport of wrestling should start taking the majority of the sports participants into account, or we’ll continue to see this decline in the sport we all love.

Finally, here's John Smith making that point about growing wrestling at the NCAA level.

View embedded media

Nice first post buddy

 

[dropster45]

I agree with a good many points on here. There is such a thing as too early specialization. It shows up in the form of injuries, burnout, less interest amongst the newbees trying the sport for the first time, and some really nutty parents!

But here’s what I really wanted to say:
Wrestlers moving to all-star teams almost always do so with the reasoning that they can “wrestle up”. Their parents parrot, “you have to wrestle up to get better”, never realizing that their own kid did exactly just that - started at the bottom of the program, wrestled (up) someone better than them, and improved.

So now it’s time to return the favor, right? After all, it’s logistically impossible for EVERYONE to wrestle up. Someone has to wrestle DOWN to make that happen.

No mistake, this is teaching the, “I made it to the top and am pulling up the ladder” mentality. Wrestling programs are symbiotic systems and parents (and their kids) should understand that there’s what you get from it, but there’s also what you give back.