The statistics tend to show that national and state organized group activities - not just sports - for youth are ALL down. Youth civic and social organizations such as scouts and 4-H continue to suffer a decline in numbers along with athletics. It's tempting to blame driven parents and specialization, but they've always been around to some degree (even when numbers were higher) and aren't really the cause of a decline in numbers. In my opinion we're competing for numbers against Xbox, PS2, and Nintendo, and social media. Frankly, wrestling is hard, and most kids would rather play a video game of themselves wrestling than actually wrestle the match themselves, and it's basically only the people who are participating in this forum who are motivated enough to encourage their kids to get off the couch. I think this trend will likely continue with the advent of VR games and more engaging technology, and there's not much we can do about it. The better question is - how does the organization best support and promote the kids and parents who ARE interested in participating?
