Kansas Wrestling Forums General Discussion Kids Folkstyle Improving Kansas Wrestling!

I have started a thread on the HS forum that might be of interest or should be of interest to a lot of kids clubs coaches.

The thread are my thoughts on improving wrestling in Kansas and it starts with kids programs. My opinion is that we have far too many "experienced" high school wrestlers that are coming in with some bad habits or a lack of basic skills.

I've called for the high school coaches to become part of the developmental process that should be the goal of kids clubs!

Give me your thoughts!

Randy,

About 5 years ago, I took some kids to the University of Iowa to attend camp. I would go in every day (in between morning and evening fishing times), and watch the campers train.

About the third day, this little bald guy came up to me in the bleachers and started chatting. He ask me where I was from and ask me about my kids program. He then spent the next 10 mins talking to me about the importance of the relationship between club programs and high school programs.

Good mentorship from Coach Gable. We try to include both the Leavenworth and Lansing high coaches on everything from techniques we teach to coordinating summer camp/event schedules. It is an area, however, that we can continue to improve on.

Mike

p.s. Congradulations on now being ranked as the "top 4 poster"

Mike ... It seems to be a problem with a lot of youth coaches though. Often times they do not know proper technique, therefore they let their kids get away with sloppy stuff.

As you know, practice only makes perfect if you practice perfection. Some might feel that I am being too critical. But if you are going to practice for 6 months in my opinion you need to drill perfection 80% of the time.

... and thanks, I think, for the congats!

I agree that the club teams need to work very closely with the high school coaches. I am not a high school coach but I think it would be very frustrating given the rules imposed on them that do not allow them to work with their high school kids after the season is over. With that said, the following is an idea of how we try to work with the high school coaches in the Leavenworth area....

As the head coach for the club, my coaching staff and I make a coaches book for the year. We identify the technique we want to focus on and break it out by age/experience level. We then develop the type of practices we want to conduct and then create a detailed daily practice schedule that helps keep us focused during the season.

The first step in this is that we go and talk with the high school coaches and get their input on the kind of technique they want the kids to learn. We tell them what we are seeing in the kids club and they tell us what they are seeing at the high school level.

Once we get that we develop the plan. Once we get the book done we give it to the high school coaches and ask them to review it and provide feedback. We will then incorporate their input into our practice plans.

This system definately is not perfect but it seems to at least allow us to teach the basics of what the high school coaches want and to keep them in the loop without getting anyone in trouble.

Coach Schmidt and Coach Averill are very good at providing their input and support to our club. We greatly appreciate their efforts and help.

We are also fortunate in that we are able to leverage guys that are stationed at Ft Leavenworth. A lot of these guys have wrestled in college at all the different levels. This not only helps the kids but it helps us teach the dads that want to get involved and learn also.

Just some random thoughts and ideas.

Shawn Budke
Leavenworth County Spartans

The first thing we need to do is get the KSHSAA to relax their restrictions so that high school coaches can get more involved with kids and off season programs. My opinion is that more bad habits are being started by middle school programs than by kid's programs.

Amen to that!

A neighboring HS coach and I are discussing the possibilities of exchanging teams for Freestyle and Greco in April and May! How much sense does that make?

As far as Middle School goes, I'm sure it is not the case everywhere but in a lot of schools the HS coaches are also MS coaches!

I think Randy is on the right track and its a shame that our kids wrestling program in Hiawatha has went so far down the drain, but when the school has lost a great coach like Rod Spellman to retirement and bring in two coachs that were great guys in getting the boys in shape but could not get the wrestlers respect and as you all know you need respect from the kids toward the coach and the coach towards the wrestlers. Now we have a young asst. coach that the kids all respect and the parents want to be the coach and belive it or not our third head coach is comming to town. As a lot of you know we have a great wrestling room but in the summer time when some of our kids would like to be in the room wrestling its our weight room, we are getting a new weight room but it will be at lease a year before its done and in the mean time wrestling is on the back bunner again.
Our asst. coach has been wanting to help with our kids program but from the schools side that not going to happen and in Hiawatha if you don't play basetball our A.D. does not care. He never made one wrestling meet this year outside of Hiawatha not even when the state tournament was going on and we placed two kids.
Again when the kids are on the award stand they did not even have our chear leaders there. Back where Randy is saying yes we need the kids program and the High School wrestling coachs doing the same things and doing it right but first we need to get a head coach that will take time to work with both the high school and the kids and stay there insted of moveing on every two years and leaving the kids hi and dry.
Good luck Randy and I hope your idea works out it sounds like a great idea.