Regional Training Centers

[Coach Peck]

What do you think about the ISWA Regional Training Center Program?      Suggestions?

[MattM]

I like the RTC. I think it really helps give an extra night a week of practice to wrestlers that use it.  Many clubs only run once or twice a week and sometimes do not offer much variety to wrestlers.  If an RTC is close enough to be worth going to then that give those type of wrestlers the extra mat time and variety they need.  I think its valuable to hear from another coach occasionally and like to hear what the RTC kids did at our next club practice if I did not attend that RTC with them.  Its great to see some areas have been hosting occasional special guest clinics in the past few years and hope to see more of that in the future.   My only negative is that I wish, in our area at least, the RTC would be utalize more by middle school and high school wrestlers from a variety of schools.

[wildcatcountry97]

They were good years ago when they were only a couple in the entire state. This way, each room had a ton of talent. It was greatly diluted by adding TOO MANY RTC's, and the evolution of training facilities like like CIA has hurt it as well.

To make them much better, you need to cut down on how many there are.

[MattM]

Just to devils advocate that one wildcat,

You cut down the # of RTC, make people drive over an hour to them, I would guess less people will want to travel to them.  I would hope most people are 45 min or less from an RTC as it is.    Yeah you might be left with the best talent, but many who need to extra work to be better for themselves and their team may not attend the RTC if they are farther away.  I would rather see the  RTCs that are relitively close try to have their session on different days if at all possible.  That would allow good wrestlers to attend both RTCs if they want instead of having to pick between them.  Thus bringing more talent to the room each practice.

[indyt]

I grew up with RTC's so to speak.  When I was a young coach, many moons ago, I took my kids to RTC and then actually became RTC director.  RTC's were run different back then when I was just a pup and was learning the ropes from some of the founding fathers.  RTC has a packet that each coach was given.  There was a purpose, plan, weekly practice schedule which was the same around the state.  It was based upon the theory that each kid would be working on the drills, techniques and strategy that would be presented at Team Indiana Camp so that when we got to camp there was a system in place. 

I have seen the many posts on the ways to improve our nationals teams.  I have much to say here but much has been said in the past and much has been lost.  Incentives to win all 3 styles, incentives to go to RTC's, local tournaments.  Use of subs in team dual situations, picking of teams, a challenge tournament with the state champs getting the bye to finals, sunday team indiana practices in which I had kids come from Mater Dei and Portage(both sides of the world so to speak) with 40-60 kids from Team Indiana in the room.  I could go on and on.  These thing were in place, can still be or have been presented. 

If we want to improve we must do some of these things.  I have many other suggestions and offers that would improve.  Many are being presented on the board now and are great ideas.  Hope we can get some of these things in place for the good of Indiana wrestling.

[grecoref]

Indyt,

This sounds alot like a system. The Russians have been using something similar to this for decades.  Based on their performance in the 08 Olympic Games, 3 golds, 1 silver, 2 bronze 1 guy got 7th (and he hasn't been seen or heard from since ) and the 07 World Championships  6 golds 1 bronze (yep, they lost one match). You just might be on to something here.

Seriously, we need a system.  This is a huge task as it requires many people to work together. The end result would be better performances at national competitions and our athletes getting more recognition and offers to compete after high school.

 I, for one, hope your plan is implemented.

[STARSMAN]

I think that they are great for the kids that want different competition and to learn from many different coaches. I attended tham all over the state when I was in high school and now I encourage my kids to go to them when they get the chance. One can pick up a lot of things from wrestling new opponents when it is not in a match situation and also get a different point of biew as far as coaching goes. I would love for there to be more of these in the south central part of the state because these are the ones that tend to be hard to find that arent an hour away...

[wildcatcountry97]

Indy T, there is somthing to that, I like it.

However, this ties in with MattM - You have to cut the number of RTC's down. Even though some may have to drive 45mins, I assure you they will, and did, when you have the opportunity to practice with 4 or 5 state champions in one practice room. By adding so many rooms, there just is not that level of talent.  Where this ties in with IndyT, is that there simply are not that many good coaches. (I know, send your emails...)
 You have to only have a couple of RTC's that are intense, with a very high level of competition, and teach an agreed upon system. Also, by having this much talent in one room, guys learn things from each other, that they picked up across the country as well.