Will, 24/7, Windjammer, my12floz, and others have made a number of excellent points, but 'my 6U in going to get a D1 scholarship' crowd do not listen. I understand. I am not really trying to insult anyone, but, please read what you are saying. What I am proposing is that this issue is actually looked at from a research type point of view, instead of just through emotions. As such, to actually help get this going in the right direction, let looks at it through a study. All kids get a USA Number. I would assume this information is in a data base. Lets encourage our state officers to propose the state do a study that tracts when a kid starts and when he quits kids club wrestling. Right now if you compare the numbers of 6U to 12U there is over a 700 kid drop-out rate. But, that is actually higher as a lot of the 12U started after they were 6. For instance, my son started when he was 8. So if we could actually see what the dropout rate was for kids who start at say age 5, and so forth, we could then see what the optimal age is for kids to start wrestling. And, I know, not each kid is the same, and not each family handles it the same. However, to me, if we know that x% of kids who started at 5 dropped wrestling by, say 8, then we could see why that was. In other words, in this study a sampling of parents/kids who have quite wrestling could be interviewed to see the reason why. I am not saying we would use that information to enhance or eliminate 6U wrestling, but it would be helpful to parents and clubs to see how they should manage their 6U kids. And to be clear, we have a new grandson, an I cannot wait to have him on the mat. But, I think 3 or 4 novice tournaments at the age of 6 would be more than enough. Remember if you start your child at 4 he/she can wrestle for 12 years.
