I have read all of the arguments for and against 6 and under participating at Topeka's State Championship. Some of the comments have been extremely harsh and VERY narrowminded. I was offended at the attacks to the Wrestling Moms. My family has been involved with wrestling for many years and I've attended four straight State Championships. I have a son who will be in 16 and under next year and had one in 6 and under this year. So I can empathize with the emotions behind both age groups. I have also had experience with another equally competitive sport, Premier Soccer. In both sports, indvidual excellence is the ultimate goal( You know what I'm saying...that high school Varsity spot or College scholarship!). ALOT of time and money on the parent's part is spent and the children are prodded sometimes willingly and sometimes not along the way. Similar to wrestling, those "first in the sport" parent's assume that because their child is very good and on a great team at an early age then their son is the next Freddie Adu. But over time, other's skills improve and puberty kicks in! The playing field levels significantly at around age 12. And as SmokeyCabin has said to my own sons, when you get to this age group everyone is tough because the average wrestlers have quit. You'll still see some of those once amazing 6 year olds at age 14 competing and then there will be a whole list of others that you say, "whatever happened to?" I do know that my 7th grader drove SmokeyCabin crazy at age six running around the wrestling room and climbed on Smokey's back more that he practiced those first two years. He placed at Novice tournaments and there wasn't a 6 and under Championship back then(if there was I didn't know about it).
But you know, I know he isn't looking back lamenting over if only he had gone to State at six, how great he would have been. If we are all honest with ourselves, at age six Gameboy and Hotwheels rank higher and the honor of a State Championship is short lived and it's more important to the parents in bragging rights. I could have taken my Kindergartner this year to the 6 and Under Championship, but you know wrestling season is long enough for all of us and the other two did fine without it. By the way my seventh grader got second at State this year, it was a long 7 year trip to the Championship, but it was well worth the wait! On the other side my other son placed too and he's moving up next year to 16 and Under so it will be the last hurrah, so to speak. I know IT IS IMPORTANT to a 15 or 16 year old (compared to a six year-old or parent of one) to place at State. Those Championship memories will be much more engrained in those wrestler's minds when they look back when they are adults than of those memories from when they were five or six. I do believe that the State Championship is more VALUABLE when it is kept as a PERSONAL goal or achievement. When it is something that a wrestler strive's for, it is kept special. So now that I've honored Vince Nowak by writing a book, I will finish by saying let's keep it the way it is, it works well. It is an honor to make it to State whether you are a six year-old competing at 8 and Under or a sixteen year old for the last time and let's keep it sacred. And for those out there who want to argue that it is their six year old wrestler who wants it most of all, that's great that your child loves the sport. However, it is alot easier to keep a child competitive striving towards a goal than to have to push them along after the disappointment of losing something they've already attained. Those are some of the ones that have burned out that we look back on and say "what ever happened to so and so, remember when you thought you could never beat him?" There's always an exception, but the pattern hasn't changed in my experience with wrestling, soccer, baseball, football and the list goes on.