Originally posted by Shelstin:
... It is easier to maintain a strong feeder program than to start one, I would think. At the high school level, I believe a lot of it comes down to administrative and community support. Do you have enough coaches on staff to allow your JV to wrestle on the same weekends as a varsity tournament? Kids won't stay in if they can't compete. Do you have adequate practice facilities without staggering practices among kids, junior high and high school teams?...
Ah, there's the rub my dear Shelstin. You cannot maintain what does not yet exist, nor can you automatically gain the aforementioned support.
I think what I'm getting at with this whole thread was the idea that you have to start SOMEWHERE. When I started at Imac, we were pulling sophomores out of the hall that finally realized that they weren't going to be basketball stars. When they first started, they didn't know a wrestling mat from a badminton court, and those first couple of years we got whupped up on pretty bad.
But the last couple of years, those same kids became pretty competitive. They went to camps and began to do the things that you needed to do to win. One of my great regrets is that I didn't stick around long enough to keep things going, because we weren't far from creating something there.
It does take all of the things you brought up Shelstin, but it doesn't all happen at once. It's about small steps, a good plan and the right person (as in the head coach) to pull it off.
