Whitnall Co-ops with Greendale

[Ghetto]

The likelihood of a Whitnall-Greendale co-op wrestling team moved from probable to virtual certainty Monday night when Greendale's school board voted unanimously to approve the two-year arrangement. The Whitnall board gave its okay a week ago, and Woodland Conference athletic directors had previously voted to permit the union.

The WIAA has the final say, but its approval at this point is considered to be only a formality.

Greendale athletic director Mark Pollex told his school board that there'd been a "vast drop-off" in the number of participants in Greendale's program during the past season. Twenty-six students had signed up for the program, a number that quickly fell to 17, and there were only ten wrestlers involved by season's end. "We anticipate that there will only be between six and ten next year," he said.

"We had some really talented wrestlers, but we'd lose every dual meet because we had to forfeit so many weight classes," Pollex said.

That observation was echoed by wrestling coach Bob La Plante, interviewed by whitwrestle.com after the vote. "Going 24 points down (due to forfeits) at the start of every match really affects the kids' morale," he said, adding that the small number of participants also limited the effectiveness of practices.

La Plante said creation of the co-op was bittersweet for him. Greendale had only four wrestlers when he took over the program. He rebuilt the program, recruiting 25-30 wrestlers each season, only to see the numbers dwindle in the past two seasons. He'll be joining Whitnall coaches on the co-op team but will also focus on Greendale's middle school and youth programs in hopes of regaining numbers when the co-op arrangement expires in two years.

Whitnall coach John Quinlan welcomed La Plante to the co-op coaching staff and said he's looking forward to working with Greendale's wrestlers. "Greendale's got a proud wrestling tradition," he said, noting that its alumni include Olympians and college All-Americans. "When I first started at Whitnall, Greendale had a string of 22 years of sending at least one wrestler to the state tournament," he recalled.

"This will be a good addition to our program, and there'll be a lot more competition in our (practice) room," he said. One likely result is that some upperclassmen won't make the varsity lineup. Anticipating that possibility, Whitnall coaches Quinlan and Craig Austin plan to develop a varsity reserve squad, which will enable the reserves to get matches while preserving room on the junior varsity for freshmen and sophomores to learn and gain match experience. "This will give people the opportunity to get a lot of matches," said Quinlan.

[plainplow]

Did this actually end up happening? Thanks for the great information.

I'm glad La Plante plans to focus on middle school recruiting. That's how I got started in wrestling -- at Greendale Intermediate School.

[Dizzy]

Yes, it has. They are off to a nice start at 7-0.
Last nights meet at Greendale was special. 2x Olympian and Greendale
graduate Jim Gruenwald came up for the meet and gave a great pre-meet talk
to both teams and did the coin toss. He stayed for the whole meet, took photos and signed autographs for the kids club and anyone else that wanted them. A real class act and
true ambassador of the sport.

[plainplow]

So they did -- http://www.whitwrestle.com/?p=344

Thanks for the update.