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Really appreciate your perspective and insight. You make great points towards the importance of it being imperative for coaches to try to work together for the good of their perspective programs.....but even more so for the good of the student athlete. Fortunately, I have open dialogue with our football coach, he's aware of Silas' future on the mat, and listens to the concerns of the parents and other coaches closely. He's a real good dude, simply stated. He won't want to lose Silas, and I'm sure would be agreeable to him just playing defense.....as well as potentially sitting out certain games when not necessarily needed. The biggest challenge I see is the allotment of time away for certain tournaments. Most notably Super 32, and to support our own wrestling family at IHPO. Im all for multi-sport athletes. It trains them into well rounded young men/women athletically......and most importantly in my opinion, helps them deal with different types of athletic adversity. However.....I also take the stance that there comes a certain time when your future in athletics unfolds. And if a young athlete is fortunate enough for that to happen. They need to make some tough choices. This is also part of the mental adversity they'll face in life regarding decision making. So in my opinion, regardless of the sport.......if an athlete has been given indication by their performance, high school/college coaches and or scouts/recruiters, that they have a forseeable future in a perspective sport.....it's likely time to begin putting added emphasis on that direction of your life if it's something they're passionate about and align with their personal goals. Especially when factoring in being only 2 yrs away from an "official" college choice. I find it almost contradictory, that so often we as parents and coaches are wanting/telling our kids to grow up and make more adult choices.......then when they are face to face with decisions that can directly affect their lives as adults, we resort back to "just be a kid and play". Let's face it.....as it pertains to early recruiting, the sophomore year is a valuable one. Junior year.....imperative. No athlete whose serious about taking their craft to the next level wants to go into their senior season without a definitive gameplan, and pretty good idea about the narrowed down list of schools he/she is going to sign with. Again......I must stress, everything I've voiced is just my opinion. I don't have all the answers, and I've found many of everyone's input very helpful in gaining added perspective to both sides of Silas' decision making. As well as my own. I was reluctant to share this final bit of info....but I feel it's pertinent and may help give us all more clarity. Silas was blessed to be able to hear from Olympic Champ and defending NCAA Nat Champ Kyle Snider yesterday about this very topic. Incredibly humble young man to say the least. Ironically, he was faced with the same decision Silas' is now entertaining at the exact same time in his life. He chose to just wrestle because it outweighed the thoughts of memories on the football field, even though it was a sport he had played his whole life. Ultimately.....he chose his "future". This obviously was the right decision FOR HIM. He voiced much of what all of us have, and much of what others who care for and train Silas has echoed......It's his choice. No decision is the wrong one. But to continue to realize that with wrestling as his future......proper rest for his body, smart choices to stay healthy and continued development on the mat is absolutely necessary. At this point.....I'm having Silas put any and all thoughts of making a choice FAR behind him. Right now....he just needs to focus on getting healthy to return to the mat, and chasing his personal goals this year in-state, as well as nationally. He has plenty of time to process all the info and advice that's been given him, reflect, internalize, pray on things......then do what he feels is best for him. Thanks to everyone again for all the great feedback. Rest assured, I'll support my sons decision regardless. But as for now......it's wrestling season!!! .

Sometimes a love of one sport can outweigh the other especially if it's pertaining to ones collegiate future.

From the school or administrative perspective, I grew up at a small school and have coached at small, medium sized, and large schools and I can say without a doubt that trying to convince any kid to pick one sport over another is a dangerous precedent to set. Obviously for some, you could say it is the right move and I am not saying Silas should play football or not, but I know that if you take the wrestlers off the football team at most small schools, you start a war that you may not win. If one wrestling team tells their kids they need to focus on wrestling and pull even just one key cog off of the football team, suddenly the football coach no longer wants to work with the wrestling coach and he starts convincing his kids not to wrestle because of "the weight cutting" or "skin conditions". You do NOT want to make an enemy with a football program, because they can decimate a wrestling team by pulling key upper weight wrestlers out of your lineup and hurting the team aspect of the sport. Picture this scenario: A 195 pounder that is a stud middle linebacker and state qualifier for wrestling is on the team. You also have football players filling 160, 170, 182, 220, and 285 with very little behind them because you are a small school with limited athletic options. The Middle Linebacker shows a lot of promise and somebody convinces him to focus on wrestling. That takes a key piece away from a football coach that may lose his job if he doesn't win ballgames (a harsh reality in football and basketball). Some coaches, the greats, I'm sure, would rise above and nothing would come of it. The 195 pounder may go on and be state champ and get a college scholarship. But oftentimes, the football coach resents the wrestling program for that and you start to see that key 8th graders that were going to fill holes in your lineup the next year decide they want to play football and focus on that. A couple upperclassmen come to you and say "I just don't think it's for me any more" or "I wanna focus on lifting in the winter." Suddenly a small school that may have had a full lineup starts seeing holes in the upper weights. And make no mistake, this happens at large schools too. In program building, we unfortunately are in the sport that does not attract the large numbers of athletes. Many kids see Friday Night the whole lives growing up and dream about playing on that field in front of the crowd. If we force kids to choose, we may not like what they choose. Obviously, this bears little over Silas' decision as you have to do what's best for your child and this does not account for possible injuries (those certainly happen in football), but I just wanted to throw my two cents out there.

No Mason is 220

To add onto other points being made, one I’ve not seen brought up would be the weight factor. Typically I’d say kids want to “beef” up for football season then transition straight to wrestling making their first weight cuts more difficult. Feel confident to say we’ve all seen some of the outcomes of weight cutting in mma recently. Maintaining is obviously key in that aspect and rapid cutting is not healthy at any age.

I understand the anxiety you feel about your son participating in a collision sport like football. About a third of my wrestling team plays football. All season long I am like a worried mother for every game. BUT, we have to always remind ourselves that no matter how much time and effort we put into these kids, we don't own them or their non-wrestling time. Some of Indiana's best wrestlers from out state (David Palmer, David Locke, Randall Hayes at Delta; Spero Karas, Joel Stubblefield, Ben McKenney, Donny Sands at PH to name two schools) played football. But like Danny Struck and others have argued, if we want football coaches to encourage their players to wrestle we need to be willing to make it a two-way street and encourage our wrestlers to play if that is what they want to do. And yes, I have lost my share of wrestlers during the football season. It IS heartbreaking and very hard to take and my selfish instincts tell me to influence the kids to save themselves for wrestling but is the right thing to do for the kids? By the way, thinking this doesn't make a you a bad person, just a concerned parent, coach or both. Dave Cloud

So you guys would be okay telling a kid, if you have serious aspirations of playing college football, you shouldn't wrestle because you might get hurt after your season is over? Or if you are serious about playing college baseball, you shouldn't wrestle because you will come in to the season beat up. I'm just not a huge fan of telling kids to quit other sports and focus on one sport. I love what a kid like Mason Parris is doing. One of the top football players in Indiana and a Division 1 wrestling recruit. I loved watching a kid like Gelen Robinson dominate in so many sports. Maybe these guys are the exception. I've never met him and I don't want to speak for him, but I'm guessing Mason wouldn't give back these past couple of football seasons (state runner up last year, 11-1 this year) with his brothers to go to more national tournaments and maybe be a little fresher once wrestling starts.

I did watch it as I was grading papers yesterday and I thought the first stall was warranted (in the first period) as Streck backed up a lot and really made no attempt to get back in bounds, but the last 2 in the third period, you could argue that Coon was not allowing Streck back in. Coon would bully Streck to the line, then post hard as Streck tried to push back in. As big as Streck is, Coon made him look small and easily pushed him out of bounds. The official was consistent, calling it stalling every time, but Coon was not trying to score, he was just driving Streck out and it cost Streck a point in Unsportsmanlike too as he looked to have told the official what he thought about his stall penalties in the third. Long way to go, but promising start for him and a lot of Purdue's Varsity Lineup.

At regionals he had a noise maker.....it quickly got taken away. Its been a pretty funny listing to him over the past 4 weeks. Needless to say the man is pretty passionate about the Giants!