In my Johnson County area, I have to give a shout to the clubs that my son has wrestled for:
1) STA (St. Thomas Aquinas Kids Club) - Sean McCarthy runs a very tough challenging practice room. He has high level college wrestling and coaching experience and he gets his kids ready to compete and times them well to peak at State). He has a very capable staff including Mark Roos, Barry Anstine, Bob Henes, Joe Cisper (who now still finds time to coach with the kids in between his committments with son's high school team) and some others who have just moved up with their kids from the novice division. If I missed mentioning anyone please accept my apology. Sean has also added to his staff an incredible addition in Rob Tannebaum who had been with East Kansas.
2. KC Rebels, Ray Nichols- Ray in my opinion is a great coach for novice wrestlers just starting a wrestling program. He loves coaching beginning kids and I can't think of anyone who does it better. It is this first coach that can make a kid a wrestler for life. Ray has successfully done that with a number of very good wrestlers and he has a pretty good crew of new ones again this year.
In our area, if you also want to consider wrestling beyond the normal kids folkstyle season, I would vote for two options:
East Kansas Freestyle & Greco-Roman (which I believe will continue even though Kevin Klemm is now coaching college)
Tony Purler's (Purler Wrestling Academy: Tony is a former NCAA Division 1 National Champion who runs a year around wrestling academy and he really knows how to teach kids some advanced wrestling.
