Great exchanges on a subject that does need to be addressed (and further clarified). Being around the sport in some capacity for the past 30 years and as the head coach for the Derby novice kids for the past 4 years, I would like to offer some thoughts for consideration as well. I too would love to see Mr. Salyer's comments of "act responsibly" be embraced by those involved today. I would not have $18K in medical bills and kid done for the season (maybe longer) if that were the case. Unfortunately, we've all learned that doing business on just a handshake is dangerous these days (although I would do business that way with Mr. Furches and Coach Ed anyday). I think to make a novice determination on a kid based soley on time is unwise. I say this because of the maturity of some kids, their God given ability, the quality of their coaches, and how fast they pick-up the sport. I have two classic examples this year alone. Mr. Furches already mentioned one. A true first year kid who has been wrestling for about 4 months who we pulled out of novice after his second tournament. Sure we could play the "there's no rule game" and continue to enter him in open and novice tournaments but that would not be a responsible action. I guess for those who would enjoy watching a pitbull maul a poodle, it might be entertaining but in poor taste none-the-less. On the other hand I have a third year novice wrestle who has won (one) match this year wrestling only in novice tournaments. Athough he just hasn't quite figured out the sport yet, I've come to admire his resiliance in making it to practice every night and going to tournaments and getting blasted for three years. He seems to enjoy being around the guys, competing and just having fun. Plus, I keeping thinking about Brandon Slay when he told us he lost every single match his first year solidifying that you never know when a kid is going to break-out. I've coached some kids (of all ages)that were physically ready to make the jump, but not mentally. I've coached some that were mentally there but not physically. Also some both and some neither. My Point is you really have to get to know the kid and make the right decision. Most all of us are trying to grow our programs and retain our kids and nothing will run a kid off faster than three matches lasting a total of thirty seconds by opponents he was NOT ready to face...and shouldn't have had to. We have a few self-imposed rules that we use for novice status. They may not work for everyone (especially the medal mongers) but they work well for our club. 1). If you place in an open tournament (any open tournament) you can't wrestle novice in your second year. The only exception is if the kid placed in the open by default (i.e. went 0-3 and took fourth place in a four man round-robin). 2). We know or have a good idea that he's going to throttle all of his opponents (i.e. our first year kid that won Liberty). He won't see a novice kid again unless one swims into his waters in an open tournament.
3). If a second year kid is just getting destroyed in opens (2 & out every tournament), we might drop them down just to try and get them some confidence back (but only if we know that he won't blast his competition). Lastly, a couple of things we've thought about doing to help encourage the sharks to stay in the opens is to give out ribbons (nice ones not the cheapy kind) instead of medals, or medals that say Novice on them. Most kids wrestling opens don't want to spend Sunday competing for a novice ribbon or novice medal. However, the true novice kids...they're excited about winning anything. Our advanced head coach also gives out certain awards to kids but only if they wrestle in open tournaments. This serves as an added incentive to make that jump, which for some is a big jump. Just some long winded thoughts but I'm close to this one and just don't want to see anyone losing kids because of greed, the smell of blood, or being one medal shy of filling every wall in their trophy room. Thanks for the all the posts and the chance to share.
Coach Morrow
