Last night at the US Army Metro they took a break to thank the US Army for their sponsorship. As part of the proceedings, they introduced those attending who had or were serving out Country!

A big thank you goes to all our men and women but a special hand surrounds those of you in service away from home!!

May the Big Guy watch over you all!

My son did (12) 6u tournaments and (6) 8u tournaments and (4) national tournaments. And still not done he has freestyle&Greco And USA Nationals in Iowa. And will do Purler every Monday

T-Dog,

I promise you - your son - AT SOME TIME will say I had enough if you keep him wrestling in 22 tournaments a year. Just free advice - I think that is to many matches for a youngster. The body needs time to recover and develop. I have been at this game for 20 plus years coaching and 12 years competing. I am not saying he'll burn out but he will wear out. 66-88 matches unless it is a 2 man round robin and wins both in a 2 out of 3 = 44. 44 matches is still a bunch for a 6 year old.

T-Dog,

I agree with smokeycabin. Too many tournaments, too many matches. I caught a post on the Missouri wrestling website from a Dad/Coach of a kid I saw wrestle a couple of years back (U10). This kid was a State Champ/National Placer back then, and I believe he won State in Folkstyle and Freestyle last year in Missouri as well. The post said that he practices a lot to improve but he would only wrestling about 8 tournaments this year.

Well I really don't see that in him being a natural at the sport. It's him wanting to do it not me. He does other stuff aswell. But wrestling is his main sport. If that day comes i'll still be supportive in whatever he does. He did alot of tournaments cause 6u wasn't tough enough for him that is why he did that many. He himself even told me at a couple of tournaments that he just wanted to do 8u cause in 6u there wasn't anybody for him to compete with
Tom

T-Dog

This article relates to growth plates in 11 and 12 year old pitchers. Wrestling involves similar repeated moves to knee joints, elbows, backs, ankles, etc. Just some information for you. I know it is him wanting to wrestle - but I doubt if he reads medical reports on youth and the affects of to much work/strain on a young body. So here it is for everybody's information that thinks it is OK to wrestle 60-100 matches a year.

How much is too much for young arms? - Source USA Today
Updated 8/18/2006 7:12 PM ET E-mail | Save | Print | Reprints & Permissions |

Increasingly, ace 11- and 12-year-old hurlers are developing overuse injuries — most noticeably in their growth plates, a soft tissue area between the shoulder and arm.

YOUNG PITCHERS RISK INJURY


GETTING PARENTS INVOLVED



There are three necessities for a youth pitcher to stay healthy, according to former major league pitcher and coach Tom House.

"The only hope a young pitcher has is to make sure you match up his workload - which is pitch totals - with functional strength and sound mechanics," says House, who has produced books, videos and DVDs on the topic.

The easiest task for a parent is monitoring pitch count. A $10 tally counter works fine, though there are more expensive digital models.

"Every mom and dad should have a pitch counter and follow the guidelines that are pretty standard for different age groups," House says. "It takes no talent, no coaching experience or knowledge of mechanics to count pitches."

Two other topics that can be important:
Mound construction. The mound should drop 1 inch for every foot. The steeper the mound, the more stress on the arm. "Some drop 11 inches in 4 feet. It's a joke," House says.
The curveball. "I'd say the jury is out on whether curveballs are dangerous," says Glenn Fleisig, a biomechanical expert at the American Sports Medicine Institute. "They may be minimally dangerous or very dangerous. It's not known yet. We're studying it. It's not a risk that needs to be taken."
By Dick Patrick


LITTLE LEAGUE WORLD SERIES

Championship: Columbus, Ga., outlasts Japan 2-1 for Little League title


Photos: Go inside all the action from South Williamsport, Pa.


Full coverage: LLWS index and schedule/results


Gary Thorne: Positives at Little League World Series drown out the negatives



Little League addresses arms problem | Pitch count limit approved


Fences at Little League stadium moved back


Little League World Series history: All-time champs | All-time records


By Johnnie Whitehead and Dick Patrick, USA TODAY
When pitchers take the mound for the Little League Baseball World Series, starting today in Williamsport, Pa., something of greater value than a championship could be on the line: their arms.
Increasingly, ace 11- and 12-year-old hurlers are developing overuse injuries — most noticeably in their growth plates, a soft tissue area between the shoulder and arm.
While Little League rules limit the number of innings a player can pitch to six a week during the regular season, those rules are relaxed during postseason play.
That might change soon. Little League's 22-member board of directors will meet Aug. 25 and could vote on new limits that would be based on the number of pitches thrown and could apply in all games, beginning next season. A majority of the board must approve the change.
Under a pilot program, pitch-based limits have been used the last two years in a fraction of Little League's roughly 7,000 leagues, encompassing 500,000 players, around the world eligible for Williamsport. Anecdotal reports from those leagues have some of the board's most notable members saying those limits should be adopted.
"I think we want to get it in as soon as we can," New York Yankees star pitcher Mike Mussina says. "I'm probably the most experienced board member as far as playing the game. I understand the stress of the pitching and what it takes. ... I'm in my mid-30s, and we're asking kids 11-, 12- and 13-year-olds to do the same amount of throwing with the same size ball? ... It hurts (major league pitchers) after a while."
Says Tim Hughes, board chairman the last two years: "The evidence that seems to be coming forward from the medical establishment is (that) something needs to be done. ... Oftentimes, what Little League baseball does, the other youth baseball leagues in the nation do. They look to us for the leadership role, and we take that very seriously."
Last year, two pitchers for the team from Vista, Calif., that reached the Little League World Series' U.S. championship game suffered fractures in their pitching arms. Neither Nathan Lewis nor Royce Copeland, then 12 years old, had experienced any symptoms until the latter stages of regional qualifying tournaments, say their fathers.
Lewis had pitched six innings in the West Region final but felt a pop in his left arm during the fourth. Two mornings later, while showering before the team's flight to Williamsport, he tossed a towel over a railing and felt excruciating pain. He had to comb his hair right-handed.
"I was trying to do as little as possible with my left arm," Lewis says. "I thought it was like a regular sore arm and that if I iced it and took some Advil and stuff, it would go away. After maybe a week of hurting, I realized that there was probably something wrong."
According to his father, Jim Lewis, even the team's trainers weren't aware of the nature of the injury. When he arrived in Williamsport to watch his son play, Nathan had been lifting weights to "strengthen" the arm. When Nathan practiced, he was playing first base and was tossing the ball underhanded.
Lewis, who pitched once in the World Series, when Vista lost to Hawaii in the U.S. title game, had fractured and dislocated the growth plate in the shoulder, injuries discovered in magnetic resonance imaging taken when he returned home. His story is in the soon-to-be released Little League, Big Dreams, by Charles Euchner, about the 2005 World Series.
"When the pitcher finishes (the follow-through), the arm really throws itself out," Jim Lewis says. "Nathan couldn't finish. He was just trying to locate the pitch. He was never the same after the Western Region championship game."
Copeland, whose right arm deteriorated gradually, saw his pitches lose velocity.
"It happened over time. There was no one moment when the injury occurred," says Don Copeland, whose son showed signs of discomfort and was diagnosed after the tournament, too. "He complained the arm wasn't 100%. It didn't feel right."
The experience has been eye-opening for Jim Lewis, who would rather his son play somewhere else in the field. Nathan, however, still is determined to pitch. The 13-year-old, 5-8 and 135 pounds, has played this summer with two club teams in which he has seen limited action on the mound. He threw for two innings last weekend and encountered soreness. Jim Lewis doesn't think it's serious, but he's taking him to a doctor anyway.
"If I had to do it over again, my kid wouldn't be a pitcher," Jim Lewis says. "But he loves being up on the mound and challenging people. I don't know if he's going to hold up."
Pilot program tested
Under the current rules for the players competing for spots in Williamsport, players cannot pitch more than six innings in any game. During the regular season, players are limited to six innings pitched a week, with a three-day rest from pitching required after four or more innings pitched in one outing. In the postseason, pitchers can throw as many as 18 innings in a week: They can throw a maximum of six innings an outing. If they throw four innings or more in an outing, they cannot pitch for at least two days and cannot pitch in consecutive games, even if those games are more than two days apart.
Under the pilot program's pitch-count rules, players cannot throw more than 85 pitches in one outing, regardless of the number of innings (they can stay in the game at another position). A player who throws 61 pitches or more in one outing cannot pitch again for at least four days.
In Little League's recently concluded eight U.S. regional tournaments, there were 119 games played. In 92 of the 238 starting pitching outings (39%), a pitcher threw more than 85 pitches, according to a USA TODAY analysis of box scores posted on Little League's website. Those 92 outings lasted an average of nearly 99 pitches.
Those 238 starting pitching outings were spread among 153 players. Of those 153 players, 61 (40%) threw more than six innings over the course of the tournament in their starts. Of those 61 players, 59 pitched those innings in a seven-day period, averaging nearly 12 innings in that period.
"None of this makes any sense," John Pinkman, a youth pitching coach in the Washington, D.C., area, said before the regional tournaments. "If it was unsafe to throw more than six innings in one week of the regular season, why would it be safe to throw 12 innings or more at the end of the season when a kid's arm is at the weakest?"
The Northwest Region tournament provided a microcosm of how this works. Last weekend, Murrayhill (Beaverton, Ore.) advanced to the Little League World Series with a 5-4 victory against Dimond-West (Anchorage) in the region final Aug. 13. The starting pitchers in that game helped carry their teams throughout what became a 10-day, six-game event, doing so with workloads beyond what is allowed in the regular season under the current rules and what would be allowed under the pilot program's rules.
Murrayhill's Jace Fry pitched three games (the maximum 18 innings), throwing 86 pitches on Aug. 4, 103 on Aug. 8 and 99 on Aug. 13. Dimond-West's Kyle Kornegay totaled 17 2/3 innings in three regional games, throwing 102 pitches on Aug. 6, 81 on Aug. 9 and 120 on Aug. 13.
Steve Fry, Jace's father, disputes the accuracy of the posted pitch counts. He said Wednesday that he counted his son's pitches and has totals of 72, 92 and 95.
"I would say (his son's pitch totals, as he counted them) would be bad," Steve Fry said, "but he's a pitcher of knowledge. He pitches to the talent of the batter. It's different with my son."
The elder Fry adds that when the World Series ends, his son will not start playing for another team — he will take a break from baseball. "The kid may not see the mound for a while," Steve Fry said.
Kent Kornegay, Kyle's father, said this week when told of his son's pitch count in the region final: "Ooh, that's a little high. Kyle's a strong kid. ... We iced him down at least three times after each game. I was hoping he wouldn't have gone over 100. I was amazed we didn't pitch more players because we had a couple others, but we didn't have the caliber we needed to win."
Injuries can show up later
Typically, growth plate injuries don't require surgery and heal with rest — Lewis and Copeland wore slings and couldn't throw for four months — because tissue in youth players is still pliable and not prone to tearing. Still, such injuries can be a precursor to more serious problems such as rotator cuff and elbow ligament tears that are common in older players.
Research by the Birmingham, Ala.-based American Sports Medicine Institute, run by noted orthopedic surgeon James Andrews, who has treated a who's who of amateur and professional athletes, sparked interest from Little League. Andrews concluded that the sixfold increase he has seen in arm injuries that required surgery had roots in youth baseball.
"The statistics all point to the amount (of pitches) as the No. 1 factor," said Glenn Fleisig, research director at Andrews' institute. "A lot of arm injuries are showing up in teenagers and 20-year-olds. We're seeing the number of overuses per game, per year ... add up to injury down the road."
Little League considered banning curveballs and other breaking pitches — which might put even more stress on arms because of the torque required to create ball movement — but chose not to because there weren't any data available. Little League has partnered with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for a five-year study to determine if those pitches exacerbate arm injuries in youth.
Little League has partnered with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for a five-year study to determine if those pitches exacerbate arm injuries in youth.
Up to coaches, parents
Little League can't force other leagues, such as Babe Ruth, Pony, Dixie and countless club teams, to abide by its rules. So even with a pitch-count rule, there's no guarantee kids will be protected.
That responsibility will fall more with the parents and coaches.
Rick Hale wrestled with a guilty conscience last year when his Owensboro, Ky., team advanced to Williamsport.
"I knew I was pitching kids more than they ought to be pitched," he says. "(But) how many times is a guy like me going to get to the World Series? The kids, too. The moms and dads. Everybody wants to go. So you send your No..1 (pitcher) out there against every tough team and hope for the best."
Medical experts and Little League board members say among the ways parents and coaches can offset the lack of uniformity in rules between all the different leagues and the pressure to win are:
Limiting the number of leagues in which kids pitch. Some kids pitch at school, or for travel, club and AAU teams and a Little League team.
"My advice," Mussina says, "would be to pick one league, let them play in one league, and when the season is over, let your kid do what other kids do in the summer — go to the pool, go to the beach and rest instead of playing baseball all the time."
Developing more players who can pitch.
"From the pilot results I have seen, people found this wasn't a difficult thing to implement, and they understood the reason for it," says Barry Goldberg, a Little League board member who has been a primary care physician for 18 years and chairs the medical safety committee for USA Baseball, the sport's national governing body.
Leagues that have participated in the pilot program talk about the positive results of pitch limits.
"You can't ride two guys all season," says Ernie Strehlow, president of Sunrise Little League, outside of Sacramento. "Managers are trying to develop more pitchers. That's a good thing, part of the Little League philosophy of getting everyone to be part of the game."
Goldberg says it also should be part of the Little League rules.
"It's very important to vote on this," Goldberg says. "I think it will go through. I don't think any parent wants to expose their kid to a practice that could eliminate their ability to continue pitching."
***

man my eyes hurt after reading that book, but great post smokeycabin