Originally posted by ltrain:
However, last year on my JH team I had a young man who was very talented on the track, but wasn't able to maintain the academic standards to remain elgible. I did allow him to participate in my summer program, he qualified for the AAU nationals in New Orleans. Because of that experience, he has put forth his best effort in the classroom this year, and I am happy to say he has made the honor roll in two of the three nine-week quarters. So I believe my answer to your question is yes, I do believe that a child deserves a chance to wrestle club, regardless of their academic progress. Who knows? It might be the one bright spot in a young persons life, and who are you or I to take that away from them?
The situation you describe is a bit different than what we would have in wrestling. Wrestling of course runs concurrently in both middle schools and clubs. Our club has a policy that if the middle school season is in progress our wrestlers must be attached to the school team. This prevents not only ineligible wrestlers but those who might have differences with a coach, from being involved with the club until such time as the middle school season ends.
As to your example of how your policy worked in this one particular case I would simply ask you, why then do we have academic eligibilty requirements at all in the schools?
