Building a great wrestling program

[DocWrestling]

I have coached a travel baseball team age group from 8U to now 14U with 24 players.  I have seen a ton of changes in these athletes.  The best players at certain skills at age 10 or 12 are not the best now at age 14.  It all changes as they grow, learn, and mature.

The one difference is we have made it fun and at least they are still playing.  Not one player that started out at 8U is no longer playing.  That will change next year as some will have to choose between track and baseball at the high school level.

The point being is our retention in one grade is extremely high.  This needs to be a priority in wrestling.

This is why I feel guilty coaching our K-2 wrestling program.  We make it as fun as we can but wrestling inherently turns off some at that age and gets others quite excited.  For every kid that does not like it I always wonder if they would like it differently if they tried and and started as a 5th grader.  Most do not give it another try.

Some want youth wrestling to start as soon as possible to keep kids away from hockey or basketball.  I honestly think that if we had no youth wrestling until 5th grade we would have much higher numbers at the high school level.  The trade off would be that this system would hurt the kids that truly love the sport from a very young age.

[MNbadger]

Mark, If fewer and fewer people are going into education and wrestlers are a small portion of them, why would you expect different results?
If any other industry is not getting workers, usually the assumption is that they are not being paid enough.  This is not a stretch.  
You likely have opportunities to talk with college coaches too.  Ask them how many education majors they have right now and how many they have had for the last 10-15 years. I know how many there were in my competition era compared to more recent years.

"Your example of having none to one to two was broken in your own example.  4 students.  Not sure if it is statistically significant but even I know it is more than none or one."

I don't know what you are saying here... please explain.  I thought I was very clear.  

Oil: "76% of education majors are female, is that Walkers fault too?"

Mark, I agree with much of what you say about increased demands over time from the sport.
I do disagree with you about numbers of potential candidates.  It is your opinion that there is a good number of education majors.  I disagree.  I have numbers to support my view however in that there are fewer and fewer education majors.  We are talking about less and less teacher/coaches.  Numbers are numbers.  If you think individuals don't consider salary/pay when choosing a career you are mistaken to be sure.

http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_wi.htm#00-0000

The percentage of females is irrelevant, in fact, there are more male education majors now that in years past.  Besides, it doesn't matter, I am counting males as they are the ones wrestling in high school and college as the majority.  We are drawing from wrestlers and a vast minority are choosing education as a career.  

Where did I mention Walker?

And yes, the economy is doing well and has been for some time (one of the best stretches since Clinton).  This has the effect of people choosing more lucrative careers than teaching.

By broken I mean this.   When 10% of the graduates of a wrestling program are going into teaching that is a significant number.  When 4 students out of 40 go into teaching that is significant.   Really, there are how many majors on a campus?   Ten percent of a group going into the same major has to be pretty significant.  Then if it is true 70+ percent of all education majors are female and you have a group of males who have 10%  that is significant.  There are around 200 majors at UW-Madison.  30 of them are department of Education Majors.  so you have about 170 non education related majors plus lots of variations.   It is just natural that people have different interests and money often doesn't have a lot to do with it.  Many of the listed majors are making less than teachers.   Many of them make more.   Again I will say that 10% of a group of 40 men choosing teaching is significant when you consider most teachers are women.   Is it less than years past, I don't know.   But there are factors beyond pay that are a work as well.  I can't tell you how many ex wrestlers who are teachers who are not coaching wrestling.  I can point to them right now.  All great guys.  They are trying to raise a family and wrestling every weekend in a tournament is killing them.   I'm going to say it but when I wrestled in the 80's we had less than 30 matches.   We had few weekend tournaments.   It was a lot easier on the coaches and families involved.   The specialization of the sport toward a commitment level of time has not helped secure more refs, coaches, athletes.   Think about it.   We have less refs, coaches and athletes.  Do you think that maybe the schedule is driving people away?  It is driving away the "seasonal" athletes as Doc has called them.  In the past year I've seen teachers who WERE coaches step down to be with their growing families.  They have been replaced by non-teachers.   When every weekend there is a tournament, refs, coaches, athletes and fans have more going on than wrestling.  I know it pains us to think that but it is true.   Something that was to be extracurricular and fun has become all-consuming.   I think there are too many matches.   I don't think full programs are going to be built with so many matches. 

I also agree with Handles, youth wrestling as great as it could be has prematurely created the pecking order and kids realize their potential and drop out.   We all know prematurely. 

 

[bigG]

Badgers??
I was referring to Ben Askren coaching Freestyle and Dennis Hall coaching Greco for the state team so the WWF executive team could focus on bigger issues. It would seem we need a coaches program and referee program to help keep the sport alive and strong in WI.

Sorry. I just now a mess of Bucky fans who would love Ben to be our coach. I'd be included. I want him to coach the Badgers and our Freestylers. Not many thought he could roll as he sdid in FS, with all his funk. He rolled!!

[MNbadger]

Mark, I agree with much of what you say about increased demands over time from the sport.
I do disagree with you about numbers of potential candidates.  It is your opinion that there is a good number of education majors.  I disagree.  I have numbers to support my view however in that there are fewer and fewer education majors.  We are talking about less and less teacher/coaches.  Numbers are numbers.  If you think individuals don't consider salary/pay when choosing a career you are mistaken to be sure.

http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_wi.htm#00-0000

[Handles II]

I like that you call them "dual style events". I believe that wording, and what it could and should mean is much better than "dual meets" or "dual tournaments".

Matching the kids up a bit more relative to ability level rather than weight (as is done on JV) is one of the best ways to have a positive experience for the kids, be they win or lose. I don't think team score is at all important, but it can be a motivator for some kids.

I'd agree that if in this type of format, a youth club could have 4 coaches working with kids in a team-type seating arrangement, that they would have the potential for more/better pre and post match discussions with the kids.

Great point on getting parents in the stands. We could almost eliminate the feeding frenzy at matside, and in doing so, might we perhaps have a better environment if we have H.S. wrestlers as refs, or assistant refs? Maybe this could help encourage more to go into officiating?

[bigG]

Love your thought process. Really do. But to subsidize and internship for a $1800 a year job is a little "stretchy."

I do appreciate your outside the box thinking, and don't think the internship idea needs to be scrapped; just refined. Better than any of my ideas. 

[Coach Q]

In many ways that is currently being done. The WWCA sponsors a workshop for officials at our Fall clinic. Free of charge any official can come and have 4-5 hours of hands on training on rules, situations, techniques, etc. and more than 100 have shown up each of the last few years. Every year officials are required to take a rules test and watch a video. Most belong to local associations that have monthly meetings that they can learn from as well.
As far as coaching interns that should be going on as well too. I am proud that more than a dozen asst. coaches and former wrestlers since I have been here have gone on to lead or help coach other programs. Most head coaches are always teaching their younger assistants lessons to take on with them to make kids, schools, and the sport better. Little bits of information advice, running a practice, showing moves, dealing with administrators and officials, tips on running a program, etc. etc. there are daily things that a head coach teaches younger (19-27year old) assistants when they have them. They don't do it for additional money or because they have an "intern" they do it for the love of the sport and a duty to pass things on. I love it when an asst. has been hired as a head coach somewhere else. Sad to see them go but very happy that they could better themselves. Head coaches are teaching their younger assistants all the time.

[Ghetto]

Coach Q,
I understand that programs work with young coaches and help them become coaches, what I am asking is do our top tear programs do that? The top programs in the area I live in tend to blackball young coaches that leave there programs.
We have a lot of wonderful people helping out in the local programs with no aspiration of leaving that program do to various reasons. Most of the time they are Alumni or have kids in the program or they are family to the head coach. I know of a few football coaches that are brothers and enjoy coaching together so they stick with that program even though all 4 of them would be great head coaches. And with that said no young coaches are going into there system to learn because that dynamic program doesn't want anymore help.  I would be curious to track the top assistant head coaches to see how often they leave a program to build one on there own. How many schools would give them a chance over the coaches that they have if they are not teachers?

I am not sure if the top tier programs do or not. I can't think of too many coming from Rapids or Kaukauna. I am sure there are some. I don't understand being blackballed if you leave a program, so I can't speak to that. I am sure there is disappointment that they aren't going to stay in their own program after being groomed, but it's something we have to get over.

I get your point, getyourpoints. And I have said this as well. How often do successful programs share what they've done with the rest of the state? It's very infrequent.

I would say that in regards to wrestling coaches, schools just want the right guy. It's not a prerequisite to be a teacher at all. In fact a lot of schools don't want teachers to be coaches. That has shifted in the past few years.

[CLC FAN]

I get your point, getyourpoints.

... saw what you did there.

[Ghetto]

I get your point, getyourpoints.

... saw what you did there.