Coach Nieman Posted November 9, 2015 Share Posted November 9, 2015 (edited) As a recently hired head coach, one of my biggest concerns for the future of my wrestling program is keeping numbers up. Unfortunately, every coach in the program, including myself, is a lay coach. On the one hand, it is nice having a group of coaches passionate enough about the sport to take time away from work every day to help build our program up. On the other hand, encouraging potential new wrestlers to come out for the sport will surely be a problem. We have had an elementary wrestling program for 1-5 graders for about 9 years now that is coached by adult volunteers and high school wrestlers. We also have a middle school program for grades 6-8. But that is also run by lay coaches. Now that I've laid out the program's feeder resources, I'd like to ask for any input on effective ways to help get kids to come out for the sport. Callout meetings and asking coaches in other sports for recruiting help will only get me so far. Thanks in advance for any pointers that are offered. Edited November 9, 2015 by Coach Nieman Coach Nieman 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jmills Posted November 9, 2015 Share Posted November 9, 2015 Parent commitment is key. If you can have a strong parent involvement in the program year after year success will come. Recruiting in grades 9-12 can be a futile effort. If they have not wrestled in the past few will be interested. At this level peer pressure maybe the best way to get older students to come out. Developing a very large, strong, active, committed youth program will keep the kids out for years to come. Best programs are the ones where kids have been on the mat for years (year round) and involved in wrestling outside of the school (year round) and parents are very much involved (year round). k-12 host, host, host and host events (year round). Start young, get families involved and make it fun (year round). Major Ursula and PirateDad 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Smooth34 Posted November 10, 2015 Share Posted November 10, 2015 Your football coach should be your biggest recruiter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jmills Posted November 10, 2015 Share Posted November 10, 2015 All Football players should be required to wrestle!!!!! (as their off season) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fabio Jr. Posted November 11, 2015 Share Posted November 11, 2015 little secret....get a coach to help out with freshman football...make sure he is a personable coach that the kids like and he can recruit freshman who may not realize that 5'2 120 lbs doesn't really help a future in football PirateDad and Coach Brobst 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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