My 2 cents:
1. I truly miss dual meets. In the good old days out west we wrestled a lot more duals and they were just flat out more fun. Listening to my athletes talk- most of whom begin wrestling in middle school (if I'm lucky) or in high school (most regularly)- they love duals and dual tournaments. Even my 2 state finalists 2 seasons ago that wrestled for a very long time at a high level around the nation preferred the dual meet format. They all enjoy the team aspect of it more.
2. I was blown away by these big time Pennsylvania coaches advocating for a 2 tournament limit to the season. While I personally think that is extreme, I do think reducing the number of tournaments during the season- and giving kids, families, and friends some weekends together and coaches some weekends to be with their families would be a positive step for the sport. I think this would increase the retention of athletes and coaches.
3. Bringing fans to competitions is an important part of growing the sport. I could care less if we wrestle in front of anyone, but the kids care. They see the crowds for other sports like baseball, basketball, and football and compare those with the crowds for wrestling, swimming, cross country, track, golf, etc. What is more important? If a kid is going to choose where to invest their limited time and energy what should they choose? I have kids that quit wrestling that would probably end up being varsity wrestlers to focus on other sports that they will likely never be a starter in. This has at least something to do with the social importance we place on these different sports. So the question is- how do we bring fans? I think there are a couple of changes that NEED to be made to make the sport more appealing to the general public.
a. College out of bounds rules- that are actually called like college out of bounds rules are written. It is so much more exciting to see wrestling continuing.
b. Increase consistency of stalling calls, and call them early and often. High school wrestling, except at the highest levels, is often a very slow paced/boring sport because kids are not working to score like they should. Low scoring does not mean boring, but kids standing and staring at eachother is incredibly boring.
c. Increase number of dual meets, focusing on single duals with home/home scheduling like other TEAM sports. This provides athletes a chance to compete at home, where possibly their friends will come watch and support them. It is very unlikely that many will travel on a saturday to sit in a gym all day to watch their buddies wrestle 3-4 times over 8+ hours.
d. Increase the IMPORTANCE of duals. Right now the dual meets we wrestle are purely for bragging rights. While most of us are uber competitive and we don't need any more motivation to compete other than the chance to compete- the fans we are trying to attract are not us. In the scheme of things who really cares if Blue Valley High School beats (insert what ever school here) except for the coaches/athletes/parents of those teams? I proposed 3 years ago for the EKL to do away with the individual league tournament at the end of the year and instead replace the tournament with a season long dual series. The dual placing results would be used to determine the league champions- just like football games, basketball games, and baseball games. This means that there are regularly scheduled duals during the season, teams will wrestle at home numerous times, and the dual results carry an importance for the school as a whole.
Unfortunately this was not supported by all the league schools. Here is a link to the proposal if anyone is interested in how it would work:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/k5iqu3ecd579560/EKL%20DUAL%20League%20Championship%20Proposal.pdf?dl=0Maybe that was more than 2 cents worth.
