Early I made a suggestion that the coaches request that KSHSAA add up to 8 competition points that could only be used for single duals conducted on Monday thru Thursday night. This would promote wrestling in a big way. It would be an event that would attract students and parents as they would be done in under two hours. I invision packed gyms and rowdy crowds cheering and developing some healthy rivalries. Several have posted that we get enough matches with the current point system. I say BS to those comments.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/scorecard/faces/2010/02/22/

This Michigan wrestler just won his 222nd match. Many states have wrestler regularl logging 200 regualar season matches. These additional points have no downside. There are 9 weeks in the reqular season so this would allow a team to have a dual a week with a week off and still attend 8 weekend tournaments. Talk to your coach, have you AD write up a proposal. Start a petition. Lets make this happen.

I think Will has something here. We should also think of some kind of Holiday Tournament. I know there will be lots of resistance, but maybe two or three mega tourneys on New Years or the day after might get everyone into the mood. I know it's rough to get parents in the spirit after a 3 week layoff.

Here's a different way to look at it. I think kids compete way too much these days. It leads to injuries and lack of time for technique. Honestly, I think the number of competition days needs to be cut back and bring more of a focus to training and preparing for competition. I see more injuries now than before. It's very hard for the body to wrestle so many matches.

On the same note, it's even worse at the youth level. We focus on competing too much, which leads to burnout, injuries, etc. Top Level college and open level competition compete quite a bit less than our youth and high school. A lot of those kids that wrestle so many matches never end up reaching the next level.

Gonz Medina

I understand your point, Gonz and it is certainly worth considering. My real problem with it is that there seems to be a dearth of coaches both at the Youth and High School level who can and/or DO coach a lot of technique. How many clean single legs have you seen this year?

Gonz:

I agree with you 100%. I believe there is too much emphasis put on competing in more tournaments after the high school season, and very little focus on improving technique.

Agree with Gonz and Bill. Too much emphasis on getting 'more' rarely equates into getting 'better'. You wouldn't, and don't, expect a boxer to fight more than a handufl of times a year. Football players? Once a week. It's not a matter of just getting competition in, it's training for the competitions that coaches (I believe most) are more concerned about.
I too am worried about what our many of our youth programs focus on - many just want to crank out matches with little regard to truly teaching the fundamentals from the ground up - just count the number of 'miracle moves' from headlocks on that the kids enter highschool with...that last about 5 minutes in the practice room.
Last point - as a teacher and a future administrator, I would caution that highschools are not simply Triple A farm clubs for wrestling. Curiously enough, the primary emphasis is on education and not sports. More competition during the week is counter-intuitive for education.

Tim

Will is right, the sport has to develop a broader fan base. Right now it is perty much limited to parents, some students and the hard core. I would imagine the ticket sales to a few of the 5/6A regionals barely made it work collecting the gate. If something doesn't change wrestling will see a consolidation of the classes in a few years. Some of the regionals in the larger classes already are a joke. More duals would be something that would build the fan base. High school sports are a real entertainment value which can really compete in a bad economy. But, fans do not have the time to spend all day on Saturday at a tournament 50 miles or more away.

In terms of injuries I believe Gonz is somewhat right. Yes, the more you do something the better the chance something will go wrong, whether it is sports or driving. But, after watching my son do kids for 6 season and almost a full year of High School I believe injuries come mainly from being out of position and moving up weight classes to 'help the team'. I do not see any proposals to set a minimum weight to wrestle a class. Yes, better drilling should reduce the 'out of position' injuries - so lets get rid of dead week and start the season earlier - so more drilling can occur. Also, injuries happen just as often in practice as in matches. Do you want to eliminate live wrestling in practice?

I also believe the increase in injuries is probably related to the fact few kids today have any meaningful physical work to do around the house. The only physical labor they perform is in sports and the weight room. Workouts in the weight room frequently focus on what the football coach wants - and normally runs YEAR LONG where they mainly do bench and squats, ignoring full body type of workouts such as the new workouts out today based on the idea of combat fitness like crossfit. I believe these kids are much more subject to injuries. In other words, we are not building a proper foundation for our kids before we put them in a physically demanding activity.

If there has been an increase in injuries, I would ask that we look for the root causes and not just blame it on the competition.

Finally, on Will's proposal - as stated it would not really work for many small programs - who would invite a school with only 3 - 6 kids out. It would work best if just a total number of matches (maybe 12) was set for the use of these points and then let the schools work it out themselves.

Finally, Tim please support your contention that competition during the week will harm the student. The other sport is frequently scheduled for week nights. And, when I was in High School (in the late 70's) almost all of our matches were on Tuesday and Thursday nights - do kids get better grades today then they did back then.

When are kids suppose to practice when they have a match on Tuesday, a match on Thursday, and then a tournament on Friday and Saturday? I personally think that schools attend too many weekend tournaments.

Will proposed 8 additional points - not every Tuesday or Thursday. Even 4 additional points would allow for 2 extra home duals for the fans.

And having single duals, where there are two teams, many of which are not even close to being full teams, is a complete waste of time. Tri and Quadrangulars are at least worth the time. You wonder why we don't get many fans in the stands? Charge someone $4 to watch 4 or 5 matches in a single dual. Bring in several schools so it is worth the time and money.

I guarantee there are some coaches out there that would schedule every tuesday and every thursday.

I remember in the good ole days, Ark City went to Perry, Derby and Newton tournaments. We had a dual every Thursday. We ended up with about 30 matches a year. Plenty of time to practice, no burn out, and alot of success.

Amen Beeson.

I bet Clay Center and Abliene did not have a bunch of opens and an empty gym at their dual this year.

I wrestled back in the early 80's in KC. We were not a very good team. But, we still packed them in, at least once a week for a dual (often two duals per week - one at home/one away and then a tourney on Saturdays). Or, maybe it (the packed gym at home) was an overflow crowd of Blue Springs, Park Hill and Oak Park fans (the power house teams back then in the KC area) coming over and sitting with the lowly Truman High School fans! ;-) Go Patriots! We tried hard! We had one state champ!

I would think the kids would want to kill him if they had to make weight on Tues and Thurs, tehn again on Saturday...........

Actually the ADs do the scheduling, and they don't understand how much discipline it takes to maintain weight during the season.

It just made keeping weight off easier for most of us because we knew we couldn't get stupid and balloon up and then have a full week to get it off.

The schools/leagues that want weekday duals already have the option of having those right now. Just because others choose to use their points in a different manner, we need to add more points? If coaches/leagues are truely concerned about building the fanbase and believe that more duals are the answer, then simply schedule them and drop a tournament. It works pretty good in the AVCTL.

We had one dual this year with multiple teams. I didn't bother going to ANY of the single duals. I don't go just to watch my team, I like to watch wrestling period. And I won't waste my time and money going to a single dual. Skipping the kid program practice isn't worth it. Multiple duals would give a legitimate reason to take the kids' program over to watch as well.

Maybe the LEAGUE should set the league schedule, all in 3 or 4 team duals. Rotate the location each year.

If kids are doing it right, they don't balloon up anyway.......For a lot, maybe most, kids to have to make 3 times in a week would be real rough. Your body has to rehydrate and refuel, or you will be doing damage to it. That doesn't mean ballooning to 10-15 lbs overweight.

Do you see what I am saying?

Yep.

Here's one perspective of looking at it, Cale Sanderson and his brothers all wrestled on average 100 matches a year in various forms of wrestling. Cale is the most decorated wrestle in recent US history, so I think added mat time has its advantages in producing quality wrestlers.

Here's another perspective, with all of the state budget cuts in funding who wants to waste money on a single match per week that may not even be guaranteed. It takes a money to pay for bus drivers, fuel, electricity, staff, and various other segments that go into a weekday dual.

I like where the competition points are at right now. If you want more use out of your competition points go the route that teams like Valley Center and Hoxie are and wrestle in multiple dual tournaments. On average they have more than 45 plus matches going into state. This could give a Kansas wrestler nearly 200 matches if they can avoid injury and sickness throughout their career.