I think something that a high school public or private can take from this is that if you are interested in developing a long term successful wrestling program that you need to have a successful kids club as the foundation which Aquinas has. It can happen the same for a public school. I know Manhattan and Turner have successful kids clubs. I am sure you can go across the State to Wichita, Hutchinson, Columbus, Salina, Topeka, Abilene, etc. and find examples of both public and private schools with successful kids programs that have fed the high school programs. Not all private schools have successful wrestling programs. My guess is that the ones that are not successful both private and public do not have a strong kids program.

Here is a list of STA kids on the current Aquinas lineup that I know of: 112 Phillip Henes, 119 Skyler Scott, 135 Scott Markey, 140 Andy Hurla, 145 Paul Markey, 152 Joe Ibarra, 189 Neil Cisper, 215 Mike Hammer. There have been at least three other STA Kids wrestlers, Connor McCarthy 103, Brian Sullivan 119 and EJ Walter 160, who have wrestled some varsity this year for Aquinas and I believe these will all letter. I know Tom Greer is having an outstanding freshman/JV season and will also contribute in future years. I apologize if I left anyone out. These 12 kids each have several years of development in the STA kids program. Several of them have younger brothers still in the program. Several outstanding graduated wrestlers like Nolan Cisper and Drew Ibarra have STA Kids experience and high school State titles.

This is probably a good thing for the Kansas City Kansas wrestling. Strong programs like Turner and Aquinas can only help in the annual Metro Classic. I think we would like to regain those bragging rights. I think some other area schools like Mill Valley, Olate East, North and South are developing some strong kids programs and their high school programs should benefit from it.

So I think the focus should be not if a private school has inherent advantages but more on what kind of kids program is out there to feed our high school program. It is not built in a short period of time (like Smokeycabin has described) but it can be done.