Kansas Wrestling Forums General Discussion High School Middle School Wrestling

Will, this is my primary reason why I think the programs are good for high school wrestling in Kansas. I think anything we can do to stimulate more participation is great and I believe these programs would get some kids started who might otherwise not get involved until high school. By that time I would agree with Travius that it is getting to be a little too late for most of them and it would be better to keep them involved in high school to have them start earlier in 6 thru 8th grade rather than waiting to start as a freshman. I think the Shawnee Mission, Blue Valley and Olathe school districts could really benefit in their high school wrestling programs if they would start getting more middle school kids introduced to the sport.



I know my son did experience a similiar situation as a freshman in high school because due to the competitiveness of the Aquinas wrestling room he had to wrestle JV for most of his freshman year. Most of the matches were of the nature that you described and it was very much like wrestling novice for him. He did have a practice advantage to the middle school situation that you described in that he was able to practice his freshmen year with the Aquinas varsity. Although he did not benefit much from all those less than 1 minute pin matches his freshman year and it was difficult for us as parents to watch, I will have to say that he really did enjoy the season. The reason he did was because he was spending his Saturdays with other freshmen at the JV meets and he was relating very well to his new classmates. He really was happy being part of that JV team as a freshmen. That was more important to him as a freshman than progressing to the fullest extent as a wrestler in his freshman year. He had no aspirations beyond high school wrestling as a freshman and it was more about fun and being a teammate with kids he liked. I know from that experience that if he had gone to a public middle school with a wrestling team or if there was a CYO wrestling league option at the grade school that he attended that he would have made the choice to be part of that team. I agree with you though that I wish the middle school kids who have a lot of experience also had the option to practice and maybe even occassionally wrestle outside the middle school competition as long as it did not conflict with the school schedule of competition. If Jacob had been part of a middle school or CYO team, we would have gone that route (if it had been allowed by the governing bodies of each organization) but during the season we would have encouraged him to give the middle school schedule preference if there were conflicts. In fact we would have insisted on it before we would have allowed him to work with both teams.