Kansas Wrestling Forums General Discussion Kids Folkstyle An inconvenient truth about our sport

I have a concern which I have noticed this year that I hope we can get a grasp of. One of the things bothering me this year as I observe kids wrestling is the cancellation of tournaments.

Has anyone else noticed this? How can this be good for our sport?

I know many have expressed concern about this tournament, or that tournament and many have quit going to certain tournaments because of their concerns. I don’t know who to blame, or if there is blame needed but the bottom line, is we need as many opportunities on the weekends, or through the week, (thanks Coach Knox for the Duals starting up) as we can get.

There are a couple of reasons I think this is happening, and the main one crosses many groups. The primary word is respect.

Tournaments, respect your wrestlers, coaches, and your refs. Do everything possible to start on time, provide a quality setting and a quality tournament. Above all else, treat the wrestlers special, good officials, good clubs, and good parents will notice this. I also think a part of this process is making sure that table workers are trained, they may be volunteers, just as others helping with the tournament are volunteers, that doesn't change the fact they have the responsibility to act professionally and take their role seriously.

Parents and I say this as a parent who had to learn as well, but learn the rules and get away from the edge of the mat. If you aren’t coaching stay in the stands, the truth is, all of the yelling and screaming does more to harm your kid than it does to help. I would recommend that if coaching, it should be mandatory with your club to have a Bronze card. It should also be mandatory that you are in the corner and quite while you let another coach, coach your kid. If you yell, you only yell what the coach is yelling. As a parent, and a coach, I will tell you one of my old adages, you can’t teach your kid anything new while they are wrestling. I really believe that. Teach in the practice room; let them wrestle on the mat what they already know, let their own instincts take over. Sure watch the clock, ask about a rules interpretation, even question a call in the appropriate way, but let the kid wrestle. My personal recommendation to any parent though, if going to coach, read the thread on parents coaching, it is a great one with a lot of good insight.

Clubs have to stop this, you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours mentality. I understand it, know why it happens, but I question if it is good for the sport when tournaments have to cancel because they don’t have enough wrestlers helping out. At some point, clubs and others, have to look at what is happening and do what they can to help out. I saw this trend happening last year in freestyle/Greco and will tell you it was not good for our wrestlers. We have to see to it that we provide opportunity. I would also suggest that the club control out of control parents, and coaches. They do exist. Each club is dependent on wrestlers; the wrestlers join the clubs at the expense of parents. Parents, expect, and demand, professional behavior from the clubs, when the clubs are demanding that and the parents are out of line, there is a problem with the parents, and ultimately the kids the clubs coach. I guess a part of what I am saying here is there has to be mutual respect, but…, the bottom line of authority lies with the club. If you don’t want a parent or someone else mat side, don’t let them there. Establish your guidelines, and keep them.

Officials, I started officiating a couple of years ago now. There are a few things I have learned that are imperative. Find a good mentor to teach you. I have three and value others. The three I have, have been there to give me good advice and help me out. There are others that are developing and I make certain that they know I appreciate them. The fact is though; I know I am personally still learning. Try to approach the coaches, table workers and wrestlers with respect. When needing to stand firm, stand firm, when making a mistake, do what you can to make things right. Then understand that those mistakes are going to happen. Now on this note, coaches have to be patient; I also know we are running away new officials. If you think that the officiating is bad now, wait until we get to the place where people out of the stands are being pulled mat side to officiate. I will tell you there have been tournaments I have been to that we were not far from that happening. I’ll also say this about officials, don’t jump the gun and officiate at a level you shouldn’t too soon. I know there is a need, but learn first, I admit, I am still learning, still making mistakes, but most importantly, still learning.

Truth is, some take a I don’t give a darn attitude and criticize, complain, and everything else without stepping back and thinking about if they are hurting our sport or not. Some get involved when in reality they are involved more for themselves than they are about doing something FOR the kids. I know this to be true when I see their actions hurting the sport more than helping it. Bottom line though, the clubs, tournament, and state organization has a responsibility to build the sport, not tear it down. I for one have to wonder, when we see tournaments canceling, for whatever reason, I wonder if we are all doing what we need to do to really provide the best environment and opportunities for the kids and the sport. I know most are, and thank you from one who has fallen in love with this sport. But for the others, please read Randy Hinderliter’s signature, “Are you making a POSITIVE difference in the life of kids?” If in relation to this sport, you are not, you need to either need to readjust or get out. Some will say they are, while at the same time trying to run good people out of the sport because what they think isn’t in agreement with what the majority of others think. In those situations it is likely the view of the one person which is wrong. Remember the old saying, “if it looks like it, smells like it, it probably is.” There are some among us, even me at times, who needs to start looking in the mirror, and smelling what we are acting like. If we can’t see how nasty we have become, and no one else has the power to take the actions needed, God help our sport, because until we start cleaning up the garbage, we will be doing more harm for our sport and kids than we are doing good.

Again, in closing, I realize as I point one finger out, I have three more pointing back at myself on this issue, but it is time we address the problem of less and less opportunities or our sport is in trouble.

Mike,

I always enjoy your posts and appreciate your efforts to make the sport better.

I guess I'm not aware of the cancellation problem. I see that Haysville was cancelled and Hoxie has cancelled for this week due to severe weather. Have there been others?

I knew of those two, possibly others, and did see the post about the Salina South Open this morning. Weather is understandable, low numbers of wrestlers such as at Salina South and Haysville should not be. It is possible local clubs need to interact more but we shouldn't have a single cancelation due to low numbers. Thanks as well for the kind words, appreciated.

This is probably the worst thing about our sport and i couldn't agree with you more. Very good post Furches.

Good post Mike. I think sometimes we here in God's country get stuck in a rut from time to time.

I am embarassed to say that this season we could not get enough involved parents to step up and help out enough to keep our club running in the kids season. It was very disheartening.

On tournaments, one of the few good things that came out of my Southern California kids wrestling experience was getting insight in their shared tournament organization and respect for officials.

We had a huge geographical area in San Diego and Imperial counties to cover. The SDICWA kids organization did an awesome job of tournament training and organization, we had a trailer that went tourney to tourney that had all the materials needed minus the mats and people. Some of the people and all of the officials (who were not paid a dime) traveled tourney to tourney to assist with organization. I believe each club coming had to supply an official as well. No bs was tolerated by coaches, kids or spectators. I was coaching "Kansas style" and hovered out of my seat my first match there. I immediately recieved a nice punch hole on my coaches card by a friendly official. One more and i would have been done for the season. I admit i did not like it at first, but tournaments were well run, respectful, fast and efficient.

No one seems to want to go anywhere to wrestle. This year I have 60 kids for our novice tournament at Chaparral on Jan 7. People seem to think that we live an eternity away, when it is only a 40 min drive from Towne West Mall. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the teams that come, it is usually the same ones every year. Most are not from our district, which I don't understand. We hand out trophies for novice wrestlers 1-4, and medals for 5-8th. Also it is the only tournament that wrestles on full size mats. If you have any suggestions that might help next year on attracting more wrestlers I am all ears.

I also have noticed a huge upswing on parents/wrestlers within the club that don't want to travel very far. Local tournaments are great and most local tournaments are not a far drive for most clubs within a district. I don't know where to put my finger on for this lack of enthusiasm from parents to even go to local tournaments. We have never told parents that to be in the club you MUST go to the tournaments the club is going to, nor have we forced parents to make their kids wrestle in any tournaments at all. At the start of the year with our parent meeting we handed out calendars with a tentative schedule of all the tournaments that the club was planning to go to throughout the year, yet with over 100 carded wrestlers (open, novice, and scholastic athletes) I believe we have about a 50% participation in local tournaments. This may seem like a large number but when you really stop to think about it with our club it seems more like a large number not wanting to go anywhere or do anything on the weekend. This number drops significantly when talking about large National tournaments such as USJO and Tulsa Nationals. I know that some people may say it is getting cost prohibitive to travel all of the time, but I say that is a bunch of mularkey. Fuel costs will still be the same if you drive 300 miles all over town as opposed to 150 miles to and 150 miles from a tournament.
Back to my point, I had several wrestlers whose first tournament was our own tournament. That is what a month into wrestling and getting their first taste of a tournament? Also, a lot of new parents don't like to go to a tournament on Sundays and I appreciate clubs that do both an open and a novice or an Open with D bracketing tournament on Saturdays. This is a part of the wrestling culture that clubs need to start to try to change.

There are also issues of same district clubs hosting tournaments on the same weekend. This needs to be worked out within the district with the district leadership. In a larger district such as D4 this would not be as much of a problem if 2 tournaments had the same date if one was North and one was South, but in D2 the clubs are forced to choose a few times which clubs tournament to go to on a certain date due to having both tournaments scheduled on the same date and the hosts are only 15 miles from each other.

Mike, I too was dissappointed this summer seeing several tournaments being canceled during Freestyle/Greco season and Cindy and myself got together to work out a tournament hosted at Derby for a good chance for the kids to have the opportunity to wrestle before the State tournament. It's for the kids, and i think everyody needs to understand that.

Another issue that has been brought out with this issue is the fact that gym space is getting limited by the school districts. I called our school district at the first of the year to get my dates for our tournaments that we planned on having and was able to get the dates I wanted luckily. Had we bid on getting Sub's or Districts hosted, I don't believe we could have had the venue for those weekends. This issue with traveling still gets my goat since i sent out invitations to our tournament to several Oklahoma clubs and they travelled up to come to our tournament.

I also have to say that I think that the planned District 2 Duals is also a great opportunity for the kids and parents alike to become more involved with the sport, club, and community.

Okay i have rambled long enough.

Craig Gash
Derby Wrestling Club
Tournament Director

I can't speak for everyone but I can speak for my family. We do not go to every tournament and are one of those families who like to only go to tournaments that are close to where we live. Why? Because of three things: cost, commitments, and burn-out.

Cost:
When we started, most tournament fees where only 8 dollars. That was affordable when you added in cost for gas and concession stands. Now, not only has the tournament fees increased to 12-15.00 but the cost of concessions and gas has risen as well. It doesn't sound like that much until you start to multiply that by the number of kids you have in your family. Basically, we can't afford to go every weekend. (and I am sorry but when gas is over 2.00 a gallon, there IS a difference between traveling 30 miles versus 60-100). Forget going to National Tournaments. We can't even afford to go on a family vacation.

Commitments: If we only had one child and that child was totally committed to wrestling than we would spend all of our time doing so. However, I have four kids. One in high school who wrestles and has his own tournaments on Saturdays...a junior high girl who has basketball games...and then my two young boys in kids federation. On top of that, we have church obligations, social commitments, family life and other school events that we try to squeeze in as well (on top of two very demanding jobs). It is easier if we only have to travel 30 minutes because we can probably fit one or two things in together but to give up a whole day every weekend-forget it.

Burn-out: I have been involved in Kids Wrestling for over 9 years. I am burned out. I have also seen many very talented (and quite a few state champions) who are no longer wrestling because they are burned out and I don't want my kids to feel that way too. The season is too long and seems to start earlier every year....the tournaments are getting longer.....there are more 16-man brackets than before....and I am really getting jealous of those parents whose kids play YMCA basketball with their 8 weeks of one hour games and Saturday's free schedule.

Maybe others feel the same way.

Every family is different, and I respect that. cost in any sport is always a deterrent no matter how big a family or the overall cost of the sport in question. I was just stating that gas is going to cost the same no matter how you put the 300 miles on the vehicle whether it be in town running all over the place during a week or taking a trip that equals 300 miles overall. This was nothing but a comparison, and especially for families who have several kids doing different activities at the same time where those running all over town activities can rack up the miles rather quickly.

Spending all day at a tournament is not the most enjoyable aspect of wrestling for many parents. This is a great reason for split session tournaments. The culture of the sport needs to adapt somewhat for the good of the sport so that more parents new and old alike are able to squeeze in as many of the activities to their schedules for their kids. Parent involvement in their kids' lives should be a priority for everyone involved.

We have all discussed the length of the season for wrestling as being exceptionally long before, especially if you start doing summer Freestyle and Greco-Roman wrestling as well. We have also discussed in earlier topics about the specialization of sports and how some sports seem to be going to a year round activity (year-round baseball, soccer, basketball and so on). This can lead to burn-out for whatever sport the kids are involved.

Mom4, you bring out some good points and things that we all need to look at and discuss further.

Mike,
I've noticed that there seem to be a lot less tournaments to choose from this year, as opposed to past years. I hate to see a tournament cancelled due to lack of help from club members, or whatever the reason may be. Weather definitely can be a factor, and living in Kansas, you have to respect that.
As a team that is getting ready to host a tournament, I know that we cannot pull this off without the help of others. But to do so, the team also has to be willing to help others with their tournament. (working tables, offering assistance in any way possible)
We have to remember that this is for the kids, and we want the best possible things for them. Having good tournaments that are available for them to wrestle in is important, whether they are local or longer distances.
The season may be long, and sometimes rather costly, but I know when my daughter played softball, and basketball year round, it cost a lot of money too. Most of that cost was up front, and smaller expenses throughout the year. Wrestling tends to be a costly sport if you really want to commit to it, and it seems to be an ongoing expense, but I truly feel it is worth every dime I spend on it. I understamd fully that some people can't afford this, and I would like to see something done for the kids to help off-set these costs (team fundraising, scholarships, etc.) One thing that might help some people that think the season is too long might be starting the season for their child after Christmas. Another could be going to only 2 tournaments a month. This gives a kid a break from every weekend, and also eases up a little on the pocketbook. (food for thought.)
As one that is expecting another addition to our family, I for sure know that money is always an issue. But, I wouldn't trade those special times with my son on those long Saturdays for anything in the world. I love the wrestling season!! When we are in the off-season, I can hardly wait for wrestling to begin again. Something else that has helped us prevent burn-out has been allowing our son to participate in the sport of the season. (summer-baseball, fall-football, winter-wrestling)

Agreed on the tournament day time commitment, especially with multiple kid families. This is compounded for large tournaments.

Weigh-ins:
It is also helpful when tournaments have a Friday night weigh-in option (when the travel time makes it worthwhile). For us this helps with cutting down on the additional things/considerations for tournament day. Friday nights dinner is much easier to deal with and breakfast on tournament day is also not a concern (assuming btw, that ones kid made his weight on Friday night).

I think it might be helpful in speeding up the weigh-in process if the various clubs would help get their wrestlers nails cut ahead of time, thus making the nail inspection time and subsequent cutting/grooming essentially nothing.

Organization:
Tournaments that are WELL ORGANIZED are greatly appreciated. Although Derby is a great tournament (pretty much a must attend) from the wrestlers standpoint, for a parent, it is one of my least favorite due to the vast numbers of bodies. Also, there is only ONE bathroom available and runs into supply issues. With over 900+ wrestlers, and accompanying parents, coaches, etc..., it makes for a long difficult day. I didn't run into any parents who enjoyed anything outside of watching their wrestlers. And btw, Derby, for the number of wrestlers, is a good organized situation, but could be improved (IMO).

Separating Novice/Open:
Perhaps separating days for Novice and Open might help (but then we'd have more of the trophy/medal hunting parents trying to double-dip...those kids who are Open kids also participating in Novice when they are in clear violation of the guidelines for Novice...which is another thread/can-of-worms for sure). Separating a tournament into separate days for Novice and Open obviously would incur additional expense for the operators, etc... but would help on the congestion, especially with large tourneys.

Alot of truth on this topic for sure. I really just wanted to add what I have seen over the past years in our some town.

I know the small town I live in use to be one that had a good kids program and it has gone south in a hurry. One problem in this area is the school boards and community not understanding. When we lose a wrestling coach or any coach for that matter- we struggle to find anyone. I know our district employees alot of rule 10 coaches and they work hard to help out- but they are not able to give what a teacher/coach can. Sports are hurting in our area because we can not get coaches/teachers to apply for positions here. Maybe it is school board and maybe it is teachers- but I do know it is tough. If your school is behind the sport it seemslike they are very helpfully and when they are not then it is very difficult to keep it running. As of right now if you want the gym on a weekend you better be calling a year ahead of time. It is hard to get the moving forward when the school district isn't their to support you.

Scooby, if you are from where I think you are then I can say it is the school board and ADMINISTRATION.

I agree that Split Format tournaments would really help. I loved going to the split tournaments in Nebraska. It was such a joy to leave a well-run tournament after only spending 3-4 hours in a gym. It also made watching so much more enjoyable because when you sat in the stands, you could see all of the action (they would run it like some of the high school tournaments - 4 mats, same age group at a time, different weights at different mats). The announcers would tell you what age group and what weight was next. The coaches loved it as it wasn't as hectic trying to be there for everyone and watching 8 or more mats for numbers. Lot's of fun and good memories.

I have not noticed that there are less tournaments to go to. I also have not experienced a scheduled tournament cancelling except due to weather (which is understandable) so it may be a regional issue. I have seen some of the smaller tournaments (like Lincoln ) not being there this year. I really don't know why.

I was talking to some of the people from our hometown. I thought it was interesting that for their club, they actually limit the amount of tournaments a beginner can do. For example: a first year wrestler usually only competes in two tournaments that year but goes to all of the practices where they only work on technique. The second year wrestler goes to four. After that, they can go to as many as they want. I also believe that they don't start practices until later in the season as well. What they have found is that their numbers have increased, parent support has increased, they have more kids returning from year to year and they are not having the trouble with burn-out that some of the other clubs are having. Maybe they are on to something.