it seems to me the overall style in kansas is not as aggressive from the neutral position as other states. in big matches the best wrestler on his feet wins almost every time, because you get to a level where its very hard to ride anybody and almost no one gets turned.
i agree with everyone that kids need to have a good set of fundamentals and often they get away without that early on and it eventually catches up.

If you score the first takedown, you will win that match, 85% of the time!

The predominant situation throughout the state is that coaches don't want to spend the extra time outside of the season to make a significant impact. There are definitely exceptions and we all know who they are. They are the same coaches who help kids regardless of the stupid KSHSAA restrictions. If all coaches would, in mass, stand up and push back by helping with youth programs and attending events outside of the high school season what choice would the KSHSAA have? Are they going to suspend a major percentage of the coaches and/or programs? Are AD's all over the state going to fire their wrestling coaches because they worked too hard to improve their wrestler's abilities? I have always beleieved these rules are in place because the majority of coaches and AD's do not want to invest additional time and resources to make their communitie's programs better (not just in wrestling but other sports as well.)

What urks me even more than the KSHSAA restrictions are the schools that will not give access to their wrestling rooms or they charge excessively high fees to clubs to use the facilities and charge the clubs rent for use during a fund raising tournaments. Didn't our tax dollars build these facilities? Don't our tax dollars pay the utilities, custodians, and maintenance?

Each year more obstacles confront our sport and I think it is time we spend some of the USA funds to lobby for less restrictive rules and more opportunities. Why shouldn't our wrestlers be allowed to travel more than 400 miles to compete against the best in the country? Why can't middle school wrestlers compete in USA tournaments if their team is not competing that weekend? What is wrong with wrestling 60 or 70 matches during a high school wrestling season? So what if a coach somewhere in the state wants to devote everything to make his team the best of the best by coaching practices year round, taking kids all over, and coaching them in independent tournaments.

Improvement is needed but I don't know if the focus should be at the kids level. For example:
I know a program where the combined varsity records for individuals was something like 25-125. I invited this coach, his staff, and the middle school coaching staff to attend practices conducted by Tony Purler and Eric Akin. They never did. I invited these same coaches to the Fall Brawl to see what other kids were doing. None of them showed up. The barn is open to anyone but I have seen only a handfull of HS coaches show up.

I agree that all of us can learn and become better coaches but I don't think I am going to buy into the kids programs are hurting the high school fundamentals until I see high school coaches GIVING their time like the dads and volunteer kids coaches. The kids programs are the farm systems. The middle school programs are the farm systems. The JV programs are the farm systems. Summer programs are the farm systems. We need more kids in all of these programs. We need more coaching, more facilities, more opportunities and more funds to fuel all of these areas.

I think a lot of our better athletes in Kansas do not even come out for wrestling. I see it in football and now I am seeing it in rugby. Most of these athletes are heavier athletes but I have also seen some real good ligher athletes in cross country, track and basketball and many of these lighter kids would be very good wrestlers too.

We really do not attract enough of the heavier football athletes. I started the topic about whether we need more weight classes for the heavier wrestlers (those wrestlers over 160)in reaction to comments I saw in the topic about the greatest heavyweight in Kansas history. A couple of posters commented that the quality of our heavyweight class is down this year. I had just noticed at a couple of my son's meets that two senior football players who had signed with Division I schools were attending our meets. These two guys are great athletes and would have been great heavyweight wrestlers. I really feel that they would have had my sophomore son on the JV for another year if they had been out for wrestling. The thing is our football team is loaded with good athletes from 160 up who could be very good wrestlers. I saw a very good sophomore 180 pound linebacker playing rugby last Saturday on the Aquinas team. This guy is a very physical athletic rugby player and would be a great wrestler. I told him so and I encouraged him to go out next year. He said he might since he did not make the sophomore basketball team this year. I guess he had a decent 3 point shot but it is just a shame he did not start wrestling in grade school because he would have been a terror on the mat.

I believe we can start getting more of these heavier athletes by adding weight classes for the heavier wrestlers. I believe this would help getting football coaches more supportive of having their players wrestle in the winter months. I have advocated in the other topic changing weight classes to have the middle weight class change from 140 to 150 and for the weight classes change at that point to 158, 167, 178, 190, 210, 230 and 285 from our current system of 160, 171, 189, 215 and 285. I am going to petition the national governing body for this. I think Kansas could take a lead though by adding one weight class right now for heavier wrestlers. Texas has done that by adding a 180 pound division. If Kansas were to add one division, I would suggest it drop 189 to 185 and add a 200 pound division. If that was done I think 215 could be bumped up to 225 or 230. Kids are getting taller and heavier. Strength training is being done earlier and methods have improved. I am convinced the 50% median weight is significantly higher today than it was when high school's current wrestling weight classes were established. Eventually high school wrestling needs to recognize this increased size in high school students. Wrestling will be losing more good athletes over 160, if it does not make some changes in these high school weight classes. Kansas should take the lead in making this happen by adding one class for heavier wrestlers now.

I think in our Wyandotte and Johnson County area more kids lighter and heavier would give wrestling a try if we had more middle school wrestling. CYO wrestling would probably be a difficult thing to start in Wyandotte and Johnson County but that would be helpful too in getting more kids introduced to the sport in Kansas.

Will, I agree with a lot of points u made. However, I do believe that there are some dynamic kids club wrestlers who move on to high school and never even place at state. As incredibly hard of a tournament high school state is if you walk into high school with 5 years under of wrestling on your resume than placing in the top 6 out of 16 isn’t such a hard thing.

I do believe that a lot of club coaches do a few things wrong. Keep in mind I don’t go around into everyone’s practice room to rate or judge them.

1) Club coaches teach too many moves. Yeah I know this sounds funny but I was very guilty of this my first few years as well. Honestly, in wrestling at the higher levels will u be able to perform the 350 wrestling maneuvers and techniques u learned in the 3 month kids club season?

2) Club coaches teach to win.
I had a kid in my club who came to my club from another club. He was real good at this move called the twister because he was naturally strong however he lacked any other moves. He wouldn’t shoot and didn’t know any top positions moves etc... I could NOT un-teach this move because the kid won matches with it but he always fell one match short or qualifying for state.

3) Too much pressure to win. Its simple when a kid comes off the mat it should be hard to tell if he/she was the winner or the loser. Coaches and parents focusing their ambitions on kids who ultimately just want to wrestle. After a kids win..."Good Job John way to work hard in the match. In the second period you had an opportunity to get the cradle but it slipped out because you didn’t have the arm. We will work on that in practice. I am proud of you." After they lose..."Way to work John, you continued to fight the entire match. Here are some things we need to work on in practice this week. Keep your head up and we will get them next time." There is no reason to wrestle 70 matches a year if u doesn’t learn anything from any of them. The rest of this is continued in (4)



4) The 6 & Under to High School Pyramid

If you really want high school programs to be better than let’s see what we can do about this.

6 & Under 1,857
7 & 8 1,609
9 & 10 1,428
11 & 12 1,241
13 & 14 1,135
15 & 16 651

If u don’t think the pressure to win from coaches and parents are burning kids out of EVERY SPORT then u are hiding under the pillow. Kids almost ALWAYS reflect the attitudes of the coaches and parents around them.

I coach wrestling for one reason only… To provide an experience. One of my kids went to the middle school duals and from his words and the many on the talk forum that the experience was so positive that win or lose the kids would want to come back for more.

One of my greatest high school experiences was being a member of the Schlalge marching band. It was when the band was first starting to gain it reputation. We started traveling to St.Louis MO, Indianapolis IN, Nashville TN, Houston TX and many other places like Disney Land, and Los Angeles. Only about 40% of the band would go off to college and play but ALL of them have the experience of being in the band that we will remember forever.

Allow your wrestlers to have the experience and win or lose they will come back for more. Wrestling is NOT fun. It’s hard, challenging, mentally and physically tough. But the experience is very enjoyable if the School/Club, parents, and coaches all have the right attitude about winning.



P.S. I love to use Marcus Walker as an example. Marcus started wrestling when he was 10. He did NOT qualify for kids state until his 9th grade year and didnt qualify for high school state until his 10th grade year. Marcus used to be very ROUND kid should I say. He was 4'11 120lbs all baby fat. Marcus was NOT a natural athlete and he only wrestled because I knew his older brother. Through his younger days of wrestling Marcus would win 10 out of 40 matches and placed 3rd or 4th at some tournaments. He had such a great attitude about wrestling along with the coaches and his mom that he always looked forward to wrestling. Wrestling was his sport and something he had pride in.



Point is you never know how kids are going to turn out. Keep working with them, there are plenty of diamonds in the rough. Keep winning and losing in prospective and provide them a life long experience. Like Randy said the are a lot of good wrestlers in Kansas but there is such a large gap between the the great wrestlers and the others, a gap that if we use our CURRENT resources we should have quality kids from top to bottom (with of course those few outstanding kids).

I believe if this is done there will be a lot more Marcus' moving from the lower tier to the high tier. If didn't have the proper mix of good supportive parents, coaching, and wrestling environment its very possible he would have quit well before getting his 115 high school victories and breaking the school record in takedowns 3 years in a row.

I can only speak from my experience. All 9 middle school in KCKPS have school wrestling. I coach wrestling at Coronado Middle School. It is maybe the greatest experience to have a team full of kids who have never wrestled or seen wrestling before but know that because they go to Coronado they have a tradition of uphold and they got to wrestle.

I coach at the smallest middle school in KCK. Only 7th and 8th graders can wrestle and each grade has about 110 students total. On an average year I will get 40 kids out for wrestling and on great years 50 kids. In the past 8 year the school has a Dual record of 55-9. I actually think starting kids to wrestling around the 5th-6th grade is a great time to get them. To some degree at that point in time wrestling could be something they want to do as opposed to being forced to wrestle at age 4-5-6.

There have been years where we practiced in the cafeteria and used two full mats or more for practice. Kids especially at the middle school age naturally love to wrestle.

There are two problems with wrestling in KCK (I dont personally like to use the terms Johnson County or Wyandotte County but thats a whole other topic).

1) Not enough competent middle School coaches. Kids can always tell if u dont know what u are talkin about. they will find that one little crack in your scheme to convince them that your a wrestling genius when you really dont know how to tie your wrestling shoes.

2) Not enough Kids Club. I would be wrong but there are only 3 kids clubs that practice in KCK WYCO (N 59th Street) and Piper (N 110th Street) and Turner (S 55th Street) << Bonner Spring is also in the county on approx. 136th Street>> there 4 clubs service a population of 158,000 people.

There are 4 clubs in the county and 4 school districts.

Turner - Turner
WYCO - KCK
Piper - Piper
Bonner Springs - Bonner Spring


As much as i love coaching kids. I have been coaching at the high school level for 3 years now. Because of this it is very hard for me to do very much at all with the WYCO program (notice you dont see us at any tournaments anymore). So take us out the loop and there are no true full time clubs in KCK. So our high school wrestling programs are full of kids with no prior wreslting experience.

Look at this years Schlagle team. Can you point out the kids with kids club experience... Marcus Walker state runner-up, Freddie Drone SQ and 5A Topeka West Regional Wrestler of the year, and Elijah Ming SQ. If you look at Harmon, Turner, Piper (Derrick Weller for example), and Bonner they are all similar in the fact that they are lead by quality wrestlers with club experience and we don't have enough opportunities in KCK.


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I had more to say but I'm tired of typing...

Excellent posts by Travius!!

... and actually, by all!

But a topic I've mentioned and was expand on by Travius is coaches allowing wrestlers to get away with sloppy technique.

Technique is kind of a strange animal, the proper way to shoot a double leg may be open to debate. Whether you take an inside or outside penetration on ones hi-crotch can be argued! But I feel there are certain fundamentals that are absolute.

Two that come to mind are: shooting without a setup and shooting a far leg!

Others might be: finishing on your knees, shooting straight in to your opponent, and tying up ear-to-ear.

If the HS coach makes a choice not to be involved ... then a kids club is really hampered.

Travius mentioned, a "lack of qualified coaches!" I think Reds' suggestion is a good one! Maybe our Bronze clinics need to pay more attention to technique!

Great discussion ... keep your thoughts coming!

I still would like to see a list of essential wrestling techniques that we would expect a kid to know before high school. I know if a kids know the basics teaching all the other techniques are so much easier.

I don't like the fact that some of you think that the HS coaches are lazy if they don't cheat, according to KSHSAA guidelines. I am offended by that. In most districts coaches are fired if they knowingly violate KSHSAA's rules and regulations. If they unknowingly violate KSHSAA policy, they are reprimanded for not understanding the regulations. The school is required to report the violation, and the school is sometimes written up as well. I am beginning to find this thread upsetting....and I say that in a very politically correct way.

I don't blame you one bit for being offended. As a fan, I am offended for the coaches by such a suggestion.

Shelstin- I don't think the coaches are lazy, I think they are hamstrung by KSHAA. My son and I have practiced in Missouri this year and have watched what the Missouri high school coaches are allowed to do compared to Kansas coaches. I really wish we could make the changes in KSHAA policy to allow high school coaches the opportunity to work with their kids more. This is somthing that would have to be a grass roots movement. There was some discussion of changing this when a bill in one of the Kansas Houses last year. I don't know if the bill made it to a vote though.

Yeah, but like i said in my previous post, there are plenty of way to improve wrestling within the KSHSAA guideline. I find it a waste of energy to try to fight them, however maybe we should provide assistance to the kids club coaches. You cant tell me that all the high school coaches are highly qualified and all the kids club coaches are under qualified.

Just like teachers have in-services maybe we can make a way to train coaches who want to advance their skills. There is so much to coaching and it is much more than just teaching wrestling and the learning curve can take years. If we want to improve wrestling in KS maybe we should do what we can to lower the learning curve.

I found out that a lot of coaches do not like to share information to younger coaches. They are so competitive that maybe if they help out a neighboring school or club they might become better because of it... (and maybe so)

Good posts on this topic guys.

I had my eyes opened when I moved out of Kansas to Nebraska 9 yrs ago. In Omaha, we joined KWAA wrestling. There they had an extremely organized club program with a novice and varsity program, did duals, lots of hands on work with their coaches and had an excellent relationship with Brad Hildebrandt of Omaha Skutt who ran practices a few times a month. It was an awesome situation and a lot of our club kids are going on to be part of the Skutt dynasty up there. 8 yrs and counting i believe. Also there, emphasis was starting to be placed on freestyle and greco, no long kids state series there, right in to freestyle and greco. It gave us a full month over Kansas at that time. Numbers problems are similar in the participation in the freestyle and greco seasons but i think that is due to population issues for the most part.

A subsequent move to Southern California exposed us to even more emphasis to the freestyle and greco--which was wrestled during the kids season in a blended style as a opposed to folkstyle. High School coaches there in San Diego county had been encouraging the olympic styles and skills to be taught at the younger level. They felt that this made for better overall wrestlers. The heavy olympic style influence stemmed directly from the Olympic Training Center in Chula Vista, which drew a lot of talented international coaches and wrestlers to the area.
There was a great deal of sharing of technique and coaching styles and it bled over in to the community.

I love Kansas Wrestling and still say we have some of the best wrestling in the nation. I do think we are at times very short sighted in promoting the sport, keeping parents and kids excited and thinking outside of the box on how we do things.

Ok so back to the original intent of this post, and I am sorry if anyone thought that I am blaming KSHSAA. Everyone has rules they have to live by, and ours are not as strict as some-at least we don't have the weigh-in and body fat testing of other states!

I would like to see a list of basic moves that ALL youth wrestlers should know. I started wrestling late in life and now that I have two little boys I want to know what I should teach them. I know the moves I want my Middle and High School kids to be able to do. We follow the K.I.S. method(keep it simple).

Neutral:STANCE-Close the Gap-Lead with the Head
Outside-step double
Outside-step single
Duck Under
High-C to a Dbl

Set-ups:
Pop/Chop
Drag

Bottom:Toes-tucked, Arched Back, Head-up
Stand Ups
Switches
Sit-out series

Top:Control, Western Hook, Split ride
Spiral
bar and half
chiken wing series
tilts

CONDTION-CONDTION-CONDTION-and then life some weights!

Just some thoughts, I know some coaches do not like to share but I am not giving up any secrets that anyone doesn't already know. And yes I know I did not address defense or other facets of the crazy sport we all love.

Coach Brown

This is what I like...

Takedowns... takedowns ... takedowns

Its more of a coaches philosophy thing but if u can take an oponent down pretty easy and get a 2-0 lead then way not get a 6-2 lead with three takedowns in the first period. (of course this isnt gonna work for every opponent.)

I love takedowns where u finish to the outside. Learning the Peak out technique is a good way to help finish.

Top.. control hips there are lots of drill to help stay back on the hips. I teach to stay on your toes and hips even or above your opponents on most moves.

I'm not always a fan of picking bottom when we receive choice in a period. There are so many more moves to do on top then bottom.

I enjoy picking neutral in he third...mentally I believe it breaks an opponent. Thats why I say conditon-conditon-conditon. Also never walk back to the circle. Just a few more nuggets, and I agree on your feet is where it is at!
Coach Brown

You stole my BOOK Jason... you must have listened in class! I tend to disagree with bottom position... Stand up get away. Score on your feet! Two many people tend not to create enough distance on sit out's or switches. Always fight the hands! You control the hands you control your opponent! If you can do these things properly then the game is pretty simple and you will have a lot of success from six to sixty!

But red who taught you?

i tend to agree with not picking bottom if its not a real high level match. however, once you get deep into big tournaments and if you know your tough to turn, you need to go down and try to get 1. sometimes points are hard to come by.

Mrs. Miller!!!!!