Positive Experiences - worked with an estimated 1,750 - 2,000
young wrestlers grade school, HS, and College. The kids who won their very first match or did not get pinned for the first time stick with me the most. All the funny things kids say - hundreds or many many stories. The wrestlers who will have many W's in their career you can pick out in their very first practice - the sooner you can get the importance of grades in all these kids heads - the better off they will be. If they apply their selves in the class room as much as coaches expect them to give effort on the mat - they will have hundreds of more opportunities if the do well in the classroom and on the mat. All the great friends, other coaches, parents, officials - to many to count and name. Watching the next generation of coaches and kids coming in is encouraging - it is their turn to carry the torch.

What are these participation numbers from? I figured it out.

"Particpation numbers in 1969/70 226,681
Participation numbers in 2016/17 259,391"


There are an estimated 124,000,000 more people in the good old USA
since 1970 - that is over a third of the current population. I would need to find the ages 5-17 date for both years to do a quick review.
The last decade decline is what needs to be looked into. There is an estimated 28,500,000 more kids ages 5-17 since 1970 - using US census data.



Sean - smokeycabin

Another thing besides the population growth that contributed to the change of the numbers from 69/70 226,681 to 16/17 of 259,391 is the change in the number of schools that have teams. The same statistics show that there were only 6,870 schools that had teams in 69/70 so that is an average of almost 33 wrestlers per school in 69/70. Many schools did not have wrestling teams in 69/70. I know my school Rockhurst High School first year for a wrestling team was my senior year in the 68/69 season. I was looking at the 2014/2015 statistics and it showed a similar number of boy wrestlers 258,208 to the 16/17 number and the number of schools at a significant growth of teams at 10,597 which only makes for an average per school of little over 24, so that drop per team from 33 to 24 per team is a little over a 27% drop of wrestlers per team from 69/70 to 2014/2015. I did also notice that in the 1974 year there were 9,130 teams and 319,048 boy wrestlers at just under 35 wrestlers per team. I am not sure if that was the peak year for the number of boy wrestlers, but there has been a significant drop in both the number of high school boy wrestlers both in total numbers and average wrestlers per school team since 1974.

https://www.flowrestling.org/articles/5067286-you-do-the-math-high-school-participation-numbers

According to flo there are only 12 less wrestlers in KS in similar time period. So who is correct? Flo certainly seems like a credible source to me.

3 new D1 programs added wrestling in last 3 years.
Countless smaller college divisions have added wrestling also.
Largest crowd ever at D1 this year.

What we do need is more wrestling teachers in the schools at all levels. This area seems like a big fail right now.

flowrestling is getting those numbers from the National Federation of State High School Association (NFHS)participation statistics. The 5,008 is from the 2015-16 year, also showing 218 teams or an average of 22.97 wrestlers per team, the 5,020 comes from the 06-07 year which shows 199 teams for an average of 25.23 wrestlers per team so there was about a 9% drop in the wrestlers per team between the two years. Also if you go to the next reporting year 2016-2017 the most current one showing by NFHS it shows for Kansas only 4,749 wrestlers at 216 schools or 21.99 wrestlers per team which is almost a 13% drop in per team members from the 06-07 year. In the 1999-2000 year it was showing 5,143 wrestlers in Kansas on 179 teams or 28.73 wrestlers per team.

I think this gradual dropping of the wrestlers per team in Kansas is a concerning number and reflective of a gradually declining per team participation trend. But maybe I am incorrect in this assessment. I would say some long time Kansas high school coaches could say whether they are noticing a gradual decline in the number of high school wrestlers per team. I know it would not hold true for all teams but if these numbers from NFHS are correct I would think our long time state coaches would be noticing this trend.

Bump