In a word, yes! While their team is competing their place is with that team.


It is whatever the individual wrestler makes of it. If they get their grades up then it's been successful. If they learn about being a good team member then again, I would say it's a success.


Will do! I am allowing each club the freedom to tell these kids to get lost until the school season is over.



My club doesn't need "assets" and I would certainly never look at a kid as one just because he wins. All the kids are "assets" win or lose. The kid that wins all the time has no more value to me than the one who never wins and frankly needs the club more than the superstar. Under the conditions which you and others envision the only loser is the idea of a team concept. I'll take the team, you can have the rest!

I still think it is a question with no answer that is right for everyone. As I said before, we elected to do middle school wrestling. If our son was a potential trinity award winner, with opportunities to earn D 1 Scholarships and had dedicated his life to becoming one of the best wrestlers in the nation, I would have to consider long and hard whether or not I would encourage him to give all this up for the 9 duals and a league championship. Even though our son is not a national caliber wrestler, this year he again will forego the opportunity to wrestle at the Salina TOC and the Classic. I understand the need to support our middle school programs. Good things happen in middle school wrestling. It is nice to help future teammates improve and to learn team scoring and transition to high school wrestling. In general, I think this is the route to take, but I don't think it is the perfect answer for 2000 different kids from 500 different middle schools.

Lastly, individual advancement is not necessarily a bad thing. Local wrestlers competing at the national level brings interest to the sport and personal reward to some of the hardest working, most dedicated and deserving athletes in the state.

So college recruiters will only look at junior high kids and only pick the ones who win National titles? I know of three kids who won State and placed at national tournaments who are not even wrestling anymore.

If you really want to know what you should do to help your son or daughter get a college sports scholarship then you need to go to your local library and check out the book titled
"High School Athlete's Guide to College Sports: How to market yourself" by College Bound.

Mom4. I said if my son was a potential trinity award winner and a national caliber wrestler, which he's not, that I would question whether to hold him back. Some Kansas wrestlers have that kind of ability, and I'm not sure that them pinning twenty one kids in 30 seconds is the best solution for them, or the kids they wrestle against. I also said that I thought middle school wrestling is the correct approach for most kids. Our son even played Jr. High Basketball in support of that program also. What I am saying is that there are some very special wrestlers in the state that have opportunities to do some great things. Even if they don't attend college on a wrestling scholarship, the opportunity to win the triple crown or trinity award should not be taken away lightly.

How many of you watched Vision Quest? Lowden Swain said it best, "I've got news for you coach, wrestling isn't a team sport!" I absolutely hate the restrictions placed on our kids by the KSHSAA. It, much like most of our public schools and policies, is a socialistic organization that strives to achieve mediocrity and inhibit excellence. We should be doing something about this but it will take time and money.

The point of kids fed is to learn.I think all kids in high school should wrestle for their respected schools, junior high is another thing there is alot better competion at national tounrments and for the kids that are good enough that kid that should do it so when they get into high school they give themselves a better chance to win state championships and get a schlorship or just wrestle in college. If you get a state medal you can wrestle in college doesnt mean its gonna be D1. We have guys on our college team who arent even sq and their real good wrestlers

My son was a victim of KSHAA policy as a 7th grader. And after a long drawed out protest with the KSHAA, and along with the middle school AD. We all in some way agreed that the policy was more geared toward HS, how ever middle schools and Junior Highs unfortunately fall with in these guides lines in which I will say I still disagree. It was not who's got the tougher, better program. It was a kid who wanted to improve on his skill, and by doing so wanted to wrestle. The middle school schedule like many others, was wrestle wait 10 days wrestle again you got the picture. What allot of it comes down to is money the school programs in middle school are going to take a back seat to the high school programs, so there won't be allot of travel, and only a couple of tournements at best, and any one who had wreslte in kids clubs, most of the time will be wrestling kids they have competed against for years within a rock throw of each other. My biggest problem is that if you play basketball in school (even while school wrestling is taking place), you can participate in wrestling tournements through kids clubs, and so on. The rule pertains to same sport only. Also , in Kansas the eastern part of the state I believe (correct me if I'm wrong) start middle school / Jr. High wrestling even before HS starts, than switches to basketball half way through the HS season, and Western half is the complete oppisite. My belief is that there is no State tournements for middle school sprots, what does it hert if a kid does both. It's not like he's putting a HS program in jepordy of a disqualification. I have seen my son progress through the years, and I give most the credit to his determination to better himself, the Summer Wrestling programs (Summer wrestlers make Winter Champions is the saying I believe)and wrestling against good quality compitition by going to the National tournements, and as a youngster wrestling against the Cotton Romero's, Scott Elliot's, Dereck Heckel's, and James Sparks, and along with GOOD quality coaching (I mean the ones who are in it for the love of the sport and not just their kid) to mention a few. And these are the reason's that he is now a ranked HS athlete in 5A at 215 as a Sopomore. And a quick statement about "Little League" Haven't never seen 10,000 + attendance at a HS State finals like I did at the so called little league in Topeka last year, and I would be safe to say, that no other little league sport can come close either.

So a simple solution would be to petition your school and the your league to change the middle school wrestling season. There are many leagues where the middle school kids wrestle the first part of the season, earlier than high school, and then starts the basketball season. Our league (Chapman, Abilene, Concordia, Marysville, Wamego, Clay Center) has this arrangement as does the other schools around here. It lets the middle school wrestlers join the kids program during December. We never went more than one week between duels and tournaments during junior high wrestling. AND, by our sons participating in our Jr. High wrestling program, it made it stronger as we all know that AD's and school administrator's look at numbers when it comes to sports programs (low numbers means low support / big numbers means more support).

Instead of trying to change the KSHAA rules, try to change your league rules. It may be easier.

I can honestly see both sides of this problem. What we do with our club is we encourage the kids to participate in the middle school programs but ultimately leave it up to the parents and the wrestler.

Personally, I disagree with those who think wrestling is not a team sport. I think it is one of the best team sports because it is the individual effort combined with that of his teammates that build the success for the team. You can't blame the defense/offense, you can't blame the dropped pass, etc. The individual aspect of wrestling and the success you have is directly proportional to the work you put in. From the team perspective this helps motivate other team members. Because of the tough nature of our sport, I feel the bonds formed by teammates in wrestling are closer than almost any other sport I have ever been associated with.

WRESTLING IS A TEAM SPORT at the Middles School, High School, and Collegiate level. In my opinion, it is the greatest team sport because of the reasons above.

I also think one of the factors that contributes to the challenge we face with middle school wrestlers choosing club vice school teams is the rule about high school coaches not being able to coach their kids in the off season. I don't understand that rule. My high school coach was our kids coach and he took us to the tournaments in the summers, etc. This all helped with the team concept and helped eliminate the controversy of doing club vice middle school wrestling. As a wrestler the practices were the same and the technique we were learning were an extension of the club program.

I think this could help alleviate some of the issues. Just my thoughts.

Shawn Budke

thanks everybody for some of the feed back on this topic. Hopefully this will help our club as well as others.please keep the feedback coming its seems to be a hot topic for many clubs and seems to me that the school boards need to do a better job of finding a way to make middle school wrestling a little more competitive.And some need to find more qualified coaching.

i would also like to add that im in strong belief that kids get better in the practice room rather than the competition they wrestle even though competition is the basis of every sport.

It's been a great thread and discussion.
I'm sure you'll figure out a solution to your predicament. The only sad thing is that it still sounds to me like you have a one person issue that will not allow this youngster to associate with your club. You should check your by-laws or club constitution to see if anything like that applies, just as a suggestion. Good Luck!!

We have middle school wrestling before basketball and it works out great for everybody! Our middle school program is over by the beginning of December, and then these kids jump right into kids with not much time lost. This is great because they still got to support the school program and get lots of mat time from kids. Some of the kids even play middle school basketball and kids wrestling. I think that maybe you should try to get your school district to do the same. It works out great and everyone is happy this way! In fact our kids club even picked up a few pretty good middle school wrestlers who didn't even know kid wrestling existed!