PA High Schools vs Clubs

[AgSurfer]

I had an interesting discussion with a friend and I'm curious to know what is everyone's take on the subject.

He grew up in CA and did all of his wrestling there in both HS and college. He said that in CA, there are some pretty intense HS rivalries and the kids at the best schools don't have any interaction except for direct HS competition. His impression of PA is that the clubs have a lot of influence on a lot of kids development and that they aren't as tightly bound to their own schools program like the kids are in CA.

I told him that I don't really know how things are in PA these days because I haven't lived there for a long time. When I was in school, there were some pretty intense HS rivalries, but since so many colleges had wrestling programs, it wasn't unusual for guys who came from rival high schools to end up becoming good friends in college. I suspect that is still true today. But what about the clubs? What effect do they have with regards to the high school programs? Any thoughts here?

 

[Jkos11]

Here in D7 we have YG hi @YoungGunsWC, Waller, Nauman, Abe, and Quest as big hitters that have their kids but they keep a lot of their school affiliation in all state sponsored things. Having a club helps you see and familiarize yourself with top level guys not in your room and guys you may see on the scholastic circuit.

Location, price point, personal preference can lead you one way or another but it’s helped grow the sport even in a wrestling centric area such as this.

 

[dropster45]

Here in D7 we have YG hi @YoungGunsWC, Waller, Nauman, Abe, and Quest as big hitters that have their kids but they keep a lot of their school affiliation in all state sponsored things. Having a club helps you see and familiarize yourself with top level guys not in your room and guys you may see on the scholastic circuit.

Location, price point, personal preference can lead you one way or another but it’s helped grow the sport even in a wrestling centric area such as this.

Just curious - how has it helped grow the sport and what metrics are you looking at? I’m not disagreeing with you, just wondering how that works?

 

[Jkos11]

Just curious - how has it helped grow the sport and what metrics are you looking at? I’m not disagreeing with you, just wondering how that works?

While I have no empirical data to back this up when I was in the age bracket 12-15 pre HS we had two real club or camp opportunities Chertow Camps that came around and one week a summer at Penn State or Pitt which all could overlap. Now you have so many more opportunities to roll with guys that are high level save those one to two times a year you aren’t in your room.

 

[dropster45]

Oh ok, but how it is growing the sport? Do you mean more participants or something different? What kinda growth?

 

[El-Jefe]

His impression of PA is that the clubs have a lot of influence on a lot of kids development and that they aren't as tightly bound to their own schools program like the kids are in CA.

His first point is correct. The 2nd one hard to judge without knowing the CA scene, but the answer probably isn't what he thinks.

PA has a lot of clubs, and a lot of clubs with geographical overlap. A lot of wrestlers practice with clubs from youth through high school, year round, including during wrestling season (after hours). No question that the wrestlers are better developed in high school today than in the past (perhaps this is what was meant by "development").

One of my best friends is a HS swimming coach in PA, and that sport's club model is very similar. In many ways it makes his life easier, because he can focus on the kids without college and Olympic aspirations -- and the star kids' parents mostly leave him alone.

I would downplay the "not as tightly bound to their own school programs." They all still wear their school's singlets during the season. (Obviously can't during offseason events.) The rivalries have been more important to the adults than to the kids for a long time. Even back in my day, well before clubs, we wanted to beat our rivals, but we all knew each other off the mat, and it was mostly over after the final whistle.

 

[donboy6499]

Here in D7 we have YG hi @YoungGunsWC, Waller, Nauman, Abe, and Quest as big hitters that have their kids but they keep a lot of their school affiliation in all state sponsored things. Having a club helps you see and familiarize yourself with top level guys not in your room and guys you may see on the scholastic circuit.

Location, price point, personal preference can lead you one way or another but it’s helped grow the sport even in a wrestling centric area such as this.

Great post. Add Bad Karma in there (northeast Ohio/northwest Pa).

 

[PSUcup1]

IMO the “overall” impact of the club teams is that it’s a negative one for the growth of the sport.

It’s great for the highest level kids. They are better than ever and more prepared to make early impacts on the high school and college levels.

But for the other kids, it’s bad. The gap between the elite and the good right now is larger than ever. It’s damn near impossible to win tournaments these days unless you are doing the sport year round. Kids get discouraged and in my experience don’t continue with sport.

While there are obviously exceptions. My observation the last few years from coaching is that The kids who don’t go to clubs or compete all year round get burned out from getting their ass kicked. The kid who wrestles year round gets burned out from constantly competing after 4-5 years

The growth of clubs was/is inevitable but I’m not sure it’s been good for the sport (and it’s not unique to wrestling)

 

[nerfstate]

IMO the “overall” impact of the club teams is that it’s a negative one for the growth of the sport.

It’s great for the highest level kids. They are better than ever and more prepared to make early impacts on the high school and college levels.

But for the other kids, it’s bad. The gap between the elite and the good right now is larger than ever. It’s damn near impossible to win tournaments these days unless you are doing the sport year round. Kids get discouraged and in my experience don’t continue with sport.

While there are obviously exceptions. My observation the last few years from coaching is that The kids who don’t go to clubs or compete all year round get burned out from getting their ass kicked. The kid who wrestles year round gets burned out from constantly competing after 4-5 years

The growth of clubs was/is inevitable but I’m not sure it’s been good for the sport (and it’s not unique to wrestling)

Important take. Our elite athletes are better than ever, earlier than ever. But sports for fun, or sports as a personal growth environment for average kids is suffering a lot these days, IMO.

 

[SJP80]

Just curious - how has it helped grow the sport and what metrics are you looking at? I’m not disagreeing with you, just wondering how that works?

I believe the club teams help introduce the sport to kids earlier. Therefore a better chance they wrestle at a later age. My son saw the local club sign at 5 and asked if he could give it a try. It was great, he wrestled but still played FB and BB. By middle school, when there was a school team, he was aware of the sport and the unknown did not make his hesitant like many of his friends. He wrestled in middle school and the rest of the way thru college

 

[dropster45]

I believe the club teams help introduce the sport to kids earlier. Therefore a better chance they wrestle at a later age. My son saw the local club sign at 5 and asked if he could give it a try. It was great, he wrestled but still played FB and BB. By middle school, when there was a school team, he was aware of the sport and the unknown did not make his hesitant like many of his friends. He wrestled in middle school and the rest of the way thru college

It seems like the town clubs do indeed encourage kids to try it. If not for that they’re relegated to their living room. That said, the original post that I asked about was talking about elite clubs and whether they grow the sport or not. IOW, does it have the tendency to wash out the late bloomers or multi-sport athletes early who might have otherwise peaked higher than the year round kids? And would we have ended up with more participants using other models? I’m just asking from a what’s best for the sport overall perspective, so if there’s an agenda that would be the extent of it and I hope one that we are all on board with. It’s a good discussion to have, I believe.

 

[PSUcup1]

I believe the club teams help introduce the sport to kids earlier. Therefore a better chance they wrestle at a later age. My son saw the local club sign at 5 and asked if he could give it a try. It was great, he wrestled but still played FB and BB. By middle school, when there was a school team, he was aware of the sport and the unknown did not make his hesitant like many of his friends. He wrestled in middle school and the rest of the way thru college

Are you referring to your local township youth program? If so, I agree. But that’s not what’s being talked about with the “club teams”.

 

[chalkstream1]

Club sports take effort from parents. I wrestled for a couple years in high school and my parents never attended a match or drove me to practice. Angry Fish days but I wasn’t aware of any wrestling club practices going on in the new castle area nor were my parents interested in finding any. These days I drive my son to club practices an hour away 3 days a week. High level wrestling technique is more widely available. The Clubs are great for the kids whose parents have made the commitment. They are not as great for parents who assume the school program is giving their kids the same opportunity for success. Some schools are exceptions and its the reason kids transfer. Anyone that hasn’t wished their school program was more like their club program goes to one of a dozen schools and that may be generous

 

[chalkstream1]

Ok more than a dozen...

 

[johnstownsteel]

I graduated hs in 1990 but back in those days, you didnt have any clubs in the cambria/somerset county area. We didnt know much about our opponents aside from maybe wins and losses. Our rivalries were intense and at the time school spirit seemed as if could never be matched in the future.

It seems all the kids from everywhere know each other personally because of club wrestling so maybe in my day, we "hated" our opponents a bit more. Funny, the only kids I knew anything about off the mat went to my schools biggest rivalry. I only knew them because I had a cousin that went there and was friends with so we started hanging out, drinking beer and chasing girls together. Lol. It was a weird situation, one night I'm laying on the mat with a 2 point lead, and a mother is literally screaming at top of her lungs that I'm stalling and yelling some nasty things. To be fair to her you bet your damn ass I was stalling... she took it so seriously but had absolutely no idea that the next night I'd be popping beer cans open with her boy. Lol. I think parents take sports to heart more than their kids at times. That next night I spent it ripping on my opponent about his crazy mother lol