(with thoughts to this thread as well as the "hand-wringing" thread)
Kudo's to Coach Church on an excellent post!
The facts are, that we only had 3 Freestyle All-Americans! One each in Cadet and Juniors and of course, our National Champion; Krista Revelle!
7 out of 14 of our total All-Americans were in Cadet Greco, arguably the division that is not as complete as other divisions. That is not to take anything away from these 7 warriors!!
There are many excuses and a few legitimate reasons, why we failed to score where anticipated. The fact remains, we didn't!
(the team scores are a testament to this)
I agree with Coach Church wholeheartedly! Our successes and our failures have a lot to do with our mindset! We have a few that are just happy to be (in Fargo) and others that are only after the gear. We have to have the attitude of preparing the best we can to wrestle our best!
We need greater buy in by our HS coaches. That means, buy your USAW card, get your Bronze card, attend a Silver College ... do everything you can to make yourself a better coach! Several top rated coaches can attest, you will improve your folkstyle game by learning FS/GR.
In a quick cursory examination of the top HS programs in the Nation, most have involvement of both their coaches and athletes, in Summer programs! I know that KSHSAA hampers us but other State find ways to get it done.
There are some thoughts that next year USAWKS will require wrestlers to attend the regional training centers. While Fargo is a great place to get schooled it is not a great place to learn!
I will say this, overall, we have a great group of well-behaved, hard-working individuals! The parents of these youngsters should be proud of what the future has in store!
... more later.
