ccbig Posted August 7, 2009 Share Posted August 7, 2009 Our family is moving from Minnesota to Indiana this season. Minnesota has had very successful freestyle and greco teams at schoolboy, cadet & junior levels for many years. Because I am not familiar with Indiana wrestling please forgive me if in Indiana you do any of these things already. 1) Have regional training sites for freestyle and greco that are open to all cadets and juniors with a USA card. For example, in Minnesota, Augsburg college was a training site that hosted 3 nights a week of training. 2 nights were for cadets and juniors (with 1 night each for freestyle & greco) and 1 night for schoolboy/schoolgirl (freestyle & greco same night) The cadet & junior training nights were always Mondays & Wednesdays. This let the individual clubs schedule their practices on other nights of the week to allow for maximum opportunity of training days open to wrestlers. The cadet & junior training site at Augsburg had former olympians coaching each style along with the some of the best high school and local Minnesota USA coaches in the state. All those coaches were volunteers (unpaid) for the training sites. Many wrestlers traveled over and hour or more 1 way to get to these regional sites on these training nights because of the quality of coaching and the quality of training partners. 2) Encourage wrestlers to wrestle at regional qualifiers. Wrestlers who finish in the top at regions are considered "freebies" for nationals. This lets a state bring extra wrestlers to nationals. 3) Host a camp for those interested in going to the nationals in Fargo. Minnesota has 1 week long camps for each style (freestyle & greco)(for cadets & juniors). These camps are timed so that wrestlers get on a bus at the end of camp and go straight with their coaches to Fargo. Attending these camps should be mandatory for any wrestlers hoping on going to Fargo because this let's the team coaches see each wrestler right before the tourney and pick the best wrestlers for the teams. 4) Indiana USA wrestling should fund as much as possible the costs of the camp and costs of nationals for all the wrestlers on teams going to Fargo. The cheaper costs are for camp and going to nationals the more wrestlers will be able to afford to attend camp and the more wrestlers who will try to earn a spot on the team. 5) Minnesota has it's USA tourney for cadets and lower ages for freestyle and greco on the same 3/4 day weekend. It is a huge tourney. Junior state freestyle and greco is wrestled on a different weekend. This allowed cadets to wrestle "up" a age group at the junior tourney if they choose. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheAncientElder Posted August 7, 2009 Share Posted August 7, 2009 GrecoCoach, I am crushed. I try to generate a peaceful town hall meeting for you and what do I get? A threat of physical violence? Are you worried that instead of your usual 6 donuts you will only get 3? You will have to make sacrifices for the good of the overflow crowd. TheAncientElder (TAE) The Imperial Potentate and Grand Poobah of Classless wrestling in Indiana. I wear my Fez with pride. www.theancientelder.net Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grecoref Posted August 7, 2009 Share Posted August 7, 2009 Minnesota USAW is funded in part by the sale of "tip books" to local bars and clubs. I am not sure this is legal in Indiana. Part of the funding in Minnesota is used for full-time coaches in freestyle and Greco-Roman. Part of the paid coaches responsibility is to sell the tip books. I would also like the ISWA to consider reestablishing the requirement for the clubs to provide mat and pairing officials. Years ago, when this requirement was in place (and properly administered) we had multiple referees per mat at the State Finals and one year we had 1 referee per mat from Indiana at the Jr/Cadet Nationals on 22 mats. I would be willing to volunteer even more time to help with training, clinics, evaluations, etc... if the clubs were willing to make the commitment of providing volunteers. Although, we do seem to have plenty of rules experts out there...just not many are actually officiating ;D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GrecoCoach Posted August 8, 2009 Author Share Posted August 8, 2009 ccbig, Welcome to Indiana... 1) Have regional training sites for freestyle and greco that are open to all cadets and juniors with a USA card. We have regional training centers spread out across the state that are open to all wrestlers with a USA card. 2) Encourage wrestlers to wrestle at regional qualifiers. Wrestlers who finish in the top at regions are considered "freebies" for nationals. This lets a state bring extra wrestlers to nationals. We do encourage wrestlers to compete at regionals and honor their qualification for nationals without counting against our number limits. We're just finding it difficult to get kids to actually go to regionals because for the past few years it has been on Memorial Day weekend. (You'll soon find out that it is kind of a big deal around here) 3) Host a camp for those interested in going to the nationals in Fargo. Minnesota has 1 week long camps for each style (freestyle & greco)(for cadets & juniors). These camps are timed so that wrestlers get on a bus at the end of camp and go straight with their coaches to Fargo. Attending these camps should be mandatory for any wrestlers hoping on going to Fargo because this let's the team coaches see each wrestler right before the tourney and pick the best wrestlers for the teams. We have always hosted a camp before Fargo, and it is mandatory to attend. Our whole coaching staff is there along with extra clinicians. Some advice, though, don't use the phrase "pick the best wrestlers for the teams." 4) Indiana USA wrestling should fund as much as possible the costs of the camp and costs of nationals for all the wrestlers on teams going to Fargo. The cheaper costs are for camp and going to nationals the more wrestlers will be able to afford to attend camp and the more wrestlers who will try to earn a spot on the team. We already give as much money as our budget allows towards lowering the costs of our trips. 5) Minnesota has it's USA tourney for cadets and lower ages for freestyle and greco on the same 3/4 day weekend. It is a huge tourney. Junior state freestyle and greco is wrestled on a different weekend. This allowed cadets to wrestle "up" a age group at the junior tourney if they choose. For the past few years we have had our Cadets and Juniors competing at state on the same weekend. Before that, they were on different weekends. Next year we are going back to seperate weekends again to give those Cadets that opportunity. I agree that Minnesota has a great wrestling program. The thing that got it all started was kind of interesting... Their state high school athletic association actually made the rules MORE STRICT! They claimed that freestyle was too similar to folkstyle, so high school coaches could not teach folkstyle or freestyle. I don't know if this is still the case. What happened was coaches realized that the only way they could work with their wrestlers was to coach Greco. And, wow, did they ever get good at Greco. The techniques they developed in Greco carried over to freestyle, which in turn carried over to folkstyle. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TripleB Posted August 8, 2009 Share Posted August 8, 2009 Would there be anyway of replacing jr freestyle state with Greco on Sunday? Just thinking of traveling to Indy for 3 straight weekends. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cale Hoover Posted August 8, 2009 Share Posted August 8, 2009 Greco state will be held on Sunday after freestyle state in 2010. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TripleB Posted August 9, 2009 Share Posted August 9, 2009 Nice! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
STARSMAN Posted August 11, 2009 Share Posted August 11, 2009 Greco state will be held on Sunday after freestyle state in 2010. WOWWW!!! I love it! ;D ;D ;D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Infolady Posted August 12, 2009 Share Posted August 12, 2009 State Tournament Dates March 6 Bantam/Midget/Girls Folkstyle State Finals March 7 Pee-Wee/Novice Folkstyle State Finals March 13 Cadet/Junior Folkstyle State Finals (Juniors will finish on Saturday) March 14 Schoolboy Folkstyle State Finals & Cadet Final Matches May 1 Kids/Cadet/Girls Freestyle State Finals May 2 Greco-Roman State Finals May 8 Junior/University/Senior/Veteran Freestyle State Finals Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Y2CJ41 Posted August 12, 2009 Share Posted August 12, 2009 Thanks for the dates, I'm glad Junior state is a week later so it doesn't affect kids(and coaches) that want to go to FILA Cadets. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cewrestlingfan Posted August 12, 2009 Share Posted August 12, 2009 Does this mean that Greco State will be at the fairgrounds? Where will junior Freestyle State be held? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GrecoCoach Posted August 12, 2009 Author Share Posted August 12, 2009 Correct - Greco State will be at the Fairgrounds on that Sunday. Junior State will be at Lawrence North. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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