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Best excuses


Coach Brobst

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With the season coming up on Monday, and all of us coaches doing our last minute recruiting/retention drives, I was just curious as to what some of your favorite excuses for not wrestling are: 

 

I know we've all heard the singlet argument and the "I don't wanna lose weight" argument. Those are common, but I'm sure we've all ran into that clever kid who has a different reason.

 

For instance, a student yesterday told me he was "Too strong and too fast to join wrestling. It would be a waste of my time."

 

Any others out there?

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"I don't like guys touching my junk"-

A quote from a kid who was the center on the football team....in an offense where the quarterback took all snaps under center

 

"I've got to get a job to help support my family"-

Quote from a kid who a week later was fired from his job because he never went to work. Also noted his parents were business owners, two business to be exact

 

"Football coach says if I lift all winter and spring, I'll be a starter next season"- quote from a kid who never went to lifting and didn't even play football the next season

 

"My parents don't want me to cut weight, they say it's unhealthy"- quote from a kid who was over 350 pounds

Side note, his parents, who encouraged him to wrestle because of the weight loss benefits, later told me their child said I said he was too big and wouldn't do any good. That turned out to be a fun mess

 

Those were some of the good ones Ive heard

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I forgot about this one 2 years ago. After about a full week of practice, a kid told me:

 

"I am joining a speed-skating team."

A few years ago we lost 3-4 kids to hip-hop club.

We had a kid last year quit because he thought practice was to unpredictable and he didn't like that. We had 8 out of 10 football kids quit in the first 6 weeks, after a big push from our football coach to get them out. I've decided that most (not all) football players are wimps.

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Honest question: Given these excuses, are most of these attitudes what coaches want in their room? I realize we want to do anything to grow numbers, but the more concerning losses to me are the kids that wrestle their whole life & quit sometime at the high school level.

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A few years ago we lost 3-4 kids to hip-hop club.

What do they do in hip hop class? I am serious about my question because that's a new one for me never heard of it before

It is a dance club. Things like this, archery, and a bunch of these other small clubs are great for kids socializing and trying new things. But are additional obstacles for us to try to retain kids. I agree with Dwilly that you really don't want that attitude in the room, but which kid (and really how many adults) don't make excuses for everything these days. It's about building character and changing those concepts.  If they had character and didn't make excuses before they came into the room I wouldn't have a job!

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Honest question: Given these excuses, are most of these attitudes what coaches want in their room? I realize we want to do anything to grow numbers, but the more concerning losses to me are the kids that wrestle their whole life & quit sometime at the high school level.

You are totally right. Not really kid we want in there anyways, but it's always fun to talk about their ridiculous excuses. The ones who quit after doing it their whole lives are definitely concerning, but my experience has been those are few and far between and when they do arise it's often because they are stuck behind a guy who's better than them and are tires of being JV

 

That's why we have to make it fun. Number one reason any kid quits is that they aren't having fun

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You are totally right. Not really kid we want in there anyways, but it's always fun to talk about their ridiculous excuses. The ones who quit after doing it their whole lives are definitely concerning, but my experience has been those are few and far between and when they do arise it's often because they are stuck behind a guy who's better than them and are tires of being JV

That's why we have to make it fun. Number one reason any kid quits is that they aren't having fun

It's definitely a difficult sport mentally as it is physically. All kids hate cutting weight to some degree and that's mostly the mental aspect. Many can become frustrated in getting techniques down after practicing many repetitions. Many don't realize how close they really are to their goals and what progress they make. My opinion is they put way too much stock in the win/loss column. Hard to get kids and adults to focus on the small details of improvement. The wins will come if you keep chopping wood.

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