For the record, I am not bashing the Kansas Young Guns. I spoke with their Head Coach and he was genuinely trying to help a kid wrestle. I have no problem with that, and applaud it. The problems I have are with a kid wrestling as an 8th grader when it benefits them and then stating they are in 9th grade to benefit them another way. I also do not think we should be jumping District lines for qualifying tournaments.

Just to make this clear I was not questioning any clubs ethics. My post would have been the same no matter what club. With every family comes baggage good or bad. We have to make sure that baggage doesn't cause trouble for all. We have to be thoughtful of not just one wrestler but the needs of all and not let one bring down the all.

I grew up in Ohio, and wrestling is huge there. Wrestling only takes a backseat to football in Ohio as far as all sports go. The one thing I loved about it was that every kids club was a feeder club for a certain high school. They didn't let kids come join their club if they believed he would be wrestling some day for another high school. And when that did happen things got very bitter. Even the private high schools who did recruit, had there own feeder programs. Kids grew up together in those wrestling rooms and continued that all the way through high school. Of course people actually do move and that is something you can not control. Personally I believe that is the way it should be. A lot of schools don't have wrestling or clubs to attend in their area so you have to do what you have to do. The super clubs where half the kids don't even know the other kids on their team is silly to me. Just a personal opinion. Super clubs were only summer time clubs for freestyle and Greco where all the best kids came together because they were the only ones dedicated during the summer. Taking as many kids you can to win a kids state title because you out number everyone else 2 to 1, 3 to 1, 4 to 1 really isn't a title at all any way. When your high school wins a team title with the boys you fed into the program, who are all great students and upstanding kids in the community then you really accomplished something as a coach. Only a personal opinion and I know others won't agree, so please do not bash to each their own.

There is two ways to look at it.One is your way.If you are stuck with a sucky club run by a dictator,live with it.The 2nd is if you would like to get better and branch out find a club you fit in and get good.As a family we wanted to get better.

It is just fact. If a club sucks they will loose kids every year till they change things. If a club is good they will get bigger every year till they change things.I know every one knows a club that was good and now is not. Dew to what ever reasons.

John,

I like what you posted. There will be times that things don't start out that way but hopefully shake out well by time a high school team comes together.

When my son started at the age of 6 there was one club in town. By the time the next season rolled around that club had fractured into three clubs. We stayed with the original club, a club that I had been a volunteer coach for three years while I was attending college. It pretty much stayed a Novice caliber club the next two years, continued to go downhill and the best partners my son had to wrestle with quit. We made a choice to wrestle for another club that was 30 minutes away because they had eight or nine good to very good wrestlers that were near my son's age and weight.

After practicing and wrestling tournaments for this club for 5 years (including a year I was deployed and my wife had to take our 5 and almost 1 year old along to practices), Junior High started. Garrett's team in Junior High wrestled for four Kids' clubs in the area, along with your traditional wrestlers that just picked the sport up in Junior High. They came together and were city champions both years. We had to make a very tough choice to join a local club that many of his Junior High teammates joined after the 7th grade season because we knew that these were the guys that he would be teammates with through High School. They stayed together through thick and thin and during his High School career finished in the top 10 all four years including a 3rd place finish at State his sophomore year (the best finish an LHS team ever had).

To this day, we are grateful that we had the opportunity to wrestle those five years with a great club. The team that came together from those four Kids' programs were blood brothers on and for the most part off the mat. Sometimes things happen for a reason and in the end turn out very well.