base Posted November 8, 2011 Share Posted November 8, 2011 Why does the northern part of the state begin their season so much earlier than the middle/southern portion of the state? Should the central/southern portion move their season up to coincide with the northern schools? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GMSCoach Posted November 17, 2011 Share Posted November 17, 2011 I don't know why that is...the even more frustrating part is that not all of the start early up here. My season ends December 9th (don't even get me started on THAT) but a lot of the better programs wrestle well into January. For me it works out fine for my middle school program because of the one week lag between our conference finals and the start of ISWA season. Take Care, GMS Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chambers Posted November 18, 2011 Share Posted November 18, 2011 I was told by a coach that started the middle school team at Southridge that the season started at the start of Febuary so that the kids who also play basketball could end their basketball season and then start wrestling. With small schools you sometimes need those kids that do both at that level to field a team. Also with all the basketball teams playing there would be a lack of gym time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snoopy Posted November 18, 2011 Share Posted November 18, 2011 Getting basketball players Mat space, or gym time also many times it is the same coaching staff. I will say it is frustrating to take a kid in his first match against a kid that is finishing his season. Many kids get discouraged at this point, no matter how many times the coach tells him "It will get better." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eckert Posted November 18, 2011 Share Posted November 18, 2011 I have to agree with the above statements. However if you look at the dominate schools in the wrestling community, they offer a elementary dual teams and get kids to travel during the ISWA time frame as well. In order to get Middle School teams to start earlier, we need to get some of these kids more interested in wrestling before they choose basketball. We have started an Elementary Duals team this year at Jasper. We are trying this method to see how many kids will stick with wrestling and really have a chance to enjoy this sport. We had to adjust our practice times as well due to kids playing basketball and doing this elementary team, but we hope down the road that the kids will want to wrestle more than play basketball. Then we will have the upper hand on practice times. It will take a few years, but I think once it takes off our Middle School team will have to do the same. Then our Club travel team for the ISWA tournaments will expand and we can get some really good numbers to show up at every tournament we enter. Coach Paul Eckert Jasper Wrestling Club Travel Team Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MCKAJC Posted November 18, 2011 Share Posted November 18, 2011 I also helped run the age group program in Munster for several years. This is a bit of a double edged sword. Starting in Nov. does create smaller numbers on the middle school team in an area where basketball is bigger than wrestling. But yet they finish their season in early Dec. in time to wrestle the ISWA and IKWF seasons, which are really better from a developmental standpoint. This is due to the fact that both the ISWA and IKWF get allot more matches for kids and are generally at a higher level than middle school wrestling. At least that's the situation in the Northwest part of the state. MS wrestlers may get 12-14 matches per season not including MS State. Whereas ISWA and IKWF can provide 30+ matches, not including State tournaments. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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