Next Generation of Wrestlers?

[aoberlin]

Kids same. Parents different. Our fault as parents. 

[jay_flo78]

23 hours ago, Y2CJ41 said:

I can't believe all these parents who grew up in the tougher times have produced such wimpy kids.

not sure if you’re being sarcastic, but either way, we are somewhere in the red arrow area.  

[jay_flo78]

43 minutes ago, aoberlin said:

Kids same. Parents different. Our fault as parents. 

I concur. 

[Tcarter]

I make my first grader cut 15-20 pounds for local tournaments and 25-30 for the national ones.  3 nights per week I make him sleep in the snow in just his underwear.  Ain't no soft kids in my house, he wrestles 500+ matches per year and is a 47 time national champ.

[Silence Dogood]

5 minutes ago, Tcarter said:

I make my first grader cut 15-20 pounds for local tournaments and 25-30 for the national ones.  3 nights per week I make him sleep in the snow in just his underwear.  Ain't no soft kids in my house, he wrestles 500+ matches per year and is a 47 time national champ.

Saving the country and our society. 

[Tcarter]

Just now, Silence Dogood said:

Saving the country and our society. 

Just doing my part, appreciate the kind words 

[Y2CJ41]

3 hours ago, julia2009 said:

not sure if you’re being sarcastic, but either way, we are somewhere in the red arrow area.  

That's cute, you know how to post pictures. I'm sure you'd agree there were some weak refs last weekend that you were very angry with. I wish their parents were tougher on them, but I'm glad you showed them how to be tough.

[TripleB]

We started an elem league down south. It's exploded from a handful of teams to 16 teams. 

 

My goal is to always maximize matches and minimize time. This Sunday Madison will host a 5 way, 4 matches guaranteed, full JV surface. Will start at 10:00 and be done by 3:00. Owen Valley hosts an 8 way. Last weekend Scottsburg did a 10 way w/ 8 full surfaces, 4 rounds of wrestling and 2 full JV surfaces. 

 

This not only gets matches but creates camaraderie amongst the parents and kids. WE are building programs from the ground up. 

 

Elem duals blows away double elimination tournaments!

 

Teams this year - Colt Wrestling Ky, Columbus East, Columbus North, Eastern, Edgewood, Henryville, Indian Creek, Jeffersonville, Jennings County, Madison, North Knox, Owen Valley, Shelbyville,  Scottsburg, Southwestern, West Washington

 

Yeah I know free advertising... hit me up, we are always looking to expand 

 

[Johnpsulions]

I appreciate everyone’s input. 
 

in all seriousness though, is asking a kid to “cut” from 131 natural weight to 126 really asking that much ? 
 

you obviously can’t force them to but simply encouraging them to do so to reach their said “goals” and help the team? 

you’d think this was legit child abuse the way kids and parents react to this seemingly simple request the last couple of years.

[aoberlin]

17 minutes ago, Johnpsulions said:

I appreciate everyone’s input. 
 

in all seriousness though, is asking a kid to “cut” from 131 natural weight to 126 really asking that much ? 
 

you obviously can’t force them to but simply encouraging them to do so to reach their said “goals” and help the team? 

you’d think this was legit child abuse the way kids and parents react to this seemingly simple request the last couple of years.

It really depends on what their body fat percentage is. If you are asking to cut 5 pounds before every match. Yeah that can be allot for some kids and if we are being honest. Just not that healthy and against the regulations put out by the IHSAA. Yes many kids are doing much more and many of them might be our place winners. Is what it is.

[DawgPoundRed]

Some of the posters on this forum from your generation are soft too

[aoberlin]

1 hour ago, DawgPoundRed said:

Some of the posters on this forum from your generation are soft too

My belly is soft.

[Bulldog89]

4 minutes ago, aoberlin said:

My belly is soft.

I think there are a lot of soft bellies on here!!

[Johnpsulions]

19 minutes ago, Bulldog89 said:

I think there are a lot of soft bellies on here!!

My Belly is fluffed a good amount. Although, I am working on weight loss. I figure if I'm asking kids to lose a couple pounds... Its only right that I do it myself.... Down about 5 pounds since day 1 of season with a goal of 10 by end of season

 

Even though I don't have to and I did my time.... I wan't to lead these rascals by example

[Bulldog89]

5 minutes ago, Johnpsulions said:

My Belly is fluffed a good amount. Although, I am working on weight loss. I figure if I'm asking kids to lose a couple pounds... Its only right that I do it myself.... Down about 5 pounds since day 1 of season with a goal of 10 by end of season

 

Even though I don't have to and I did my time.... I wan't to lead these rascals by example

Doing the same here!!  It actually helps during the season, with my son's eating plan, we all drop a few lbs.

[aoberlin]

6 minutes ago, Bulldog89 said:

Doing the same here!!  It actually helps during the season, with my son's eating plan, we all drop a few lbs.

Not me. I meal plan for my kid and then make him watch me eat junk all the while I tell him he is soft.

[TightCradle]

28 minutes ago, aoberlin said:

Not me. I meal plan for my kid and then make him watch me eat junk all the while I tell him he is soft.

I can acknowledge that this may be based in facts. 

[aoberlin]

6 minutes ago, TightCradle said:

I can acknowledge that this may be based in facts. 

Facts. I may want to rethink my parenting strategy. But for now I am fine. Not sure about him.

[Johnpsulions]

5 hours ago, Y2CJ41 said:

That's cute, you know how to post pictures. I'm sure you'd agree there were some weak refs last weekend that you were very angry with. I wish their parents were tougher on them, but I'm glad you showed them how to be tough.

y2 - I know you love the traffic I'm driving to the site for you  I knew exactly what I was doing with this post 

[Dwilly]

I find this topic interesting. My kid worked 2x as hard as I did. My youth was spent playing baseball, soccer, basketball, etc. In Middle school I ran XC, played basketball, wrestled, baseball, & ran track.  Local wrestling club was 2x a week for freestyle in spring. When not doing that I was playing pickup basketball with friends, organizing a baseball game in the local field with soda cans & paper plates as bases with ghost runners, doing the same for football games etc. I cant remember the last time I saw ANY kids doing any of this. The reason?...we have monetized youth sports & make them practice 24/7, and we call them soft.  These kids we call soft are going to club practices, RTCs, and academies all week every week starting at early ages. How many are single sport athletes at ages younger than 12?  Many. Kids arent softer, just different & burnout is real. 

[aoberlin]

17 minutes ago, Dwilly said:

I find this topic interesting. My kid worked 2x as hard as I did. My youth was spent playing baseball, soccer, basketball, etc. In Middle school I ran XC, played basketball, wrestled, baseball, & ran track.  Local wrestling club was 2x a week for freestyle in spring. When not doing that I was playing pickup basketball with friends, organizing a baseball game in the local field with soda cans & paper plates as bases with ghost runners, doing the same for football games etc. I cant remember the last time I saw ANY kids doing any of this. The reason?...we have monetized youth sports & make them practice 24/7, and we call them soft.  These kids we call soft are going to club practices, RTCs, and academies all week every week starting at early ages. How many are single sport athletes at ages younger than 12?  Many. Kids arent softer, just different & burnout is real. 

Word. It requires much more now if you want to compete at the upper levels. Yes the casual may be different. But the elites are a whole different story.

[Dwilly]

5 minutes ago, aoberlin said:

Word. It requires much more now if you want to compete at the upper levels. Yes the casual may be different. But the elites are a whole different story.

Also some kids used to wrestle to stay active & be involved. It didn't require the sport to be their entire identity. Some still do, and I hear the "he has no heart" or comments similar. Well maybe you don't know what that kid has going on in his life, or maybe this isnt as important to him as you want it to be. Thats on you not him. This forum is an example of that. Grown adults get online & critique the performances of youth & adolescents match by match. I'm not knocking that as much as saying I for sure didnt have to deal with that.  I got an "atta boy" when I won things, but certainly didnt get micro analyzed when I lost. I love the passion in this sport btw, and the attention this forum brings to the sport. Kudos IndianaMat...sincerely.  I don't want my comments to be taken as a negative to forums like this, more to spotlight that they have it tougher in some ways than we did.

[TripleB]

21 hours ago, aoberlin said:

Not me. I meal plan for my kid and then make him watch me eat junk all the while I tell him he is soft.

My man.... atta boy

[bomber_bob]

One of my favorite quotes when I hear the ole "kids these days" complaint:

 

“The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.” - Socrates around 400 B.C.

 

Kids will always be kids. Coach Mayaab at clinic said a few years ago that we have to build relationships and "milk" these kids. Going from playing Fortnite every day to being screamed at in a hot, sweaty, smelly wrestling practice is not enticing to any 14-15 year old kid. Not to mention, we expect them to show up, work hard, and then tell a kid with 10% body fat that he has to lose weight? Those can be difficult conversations if there is not a strong relationship between that coach and wrestler. 

 

Rules without relationships = rebellion. Gone are the days of demanding respect to gain respect from a kid, because they will just find something else to do. But if you show respect to the kid, I feel they will always gravitate towards the thing that gives them attention and love. 

[Jcjcjc]

I think wrestlers who were pretty tough tend to hang out with other wrestlers who are pretty tough, so when they think back on their youth, they have memories mainly of wrestlers who were pretty tough. They prune the memories of un-tough people through the years. 

 

The people who weren't pretty tough in wrestling probably aren't posting and reading this board, so they don't come up with a counter argument through personal experience, so the only side our observations is the tough side, while we are cognizant of both tough and untough people around us today because we don't have to have very good memories for that. 

 

Kids in my day were a mixture of tough and un-tough. Some of my teammates worked extremely hard to improve themselves. I had a few teammates who worked extremely hard when I wrestled them which helped me a lot. I'm eternally grateful for these teammates and developing that type of character is the focus of my coaching career. I also had teammates that weren't tough, and I wouldn't spend much time thinking about them if I didn't coach where I encounter their contemporary archetypical counterparts allowing me to remember hundreds of wrestlers from all my years all at once.

 

The best part of coaching is encountering a kid that reminds you of an untough kid in the past, but helping them develop into a kid who reminds you of a badass tough wrestlers you remember from the past. 

 

I vent to my dad every single season about something that annoys me currently with kids, but he always has a story to top me. His 35 years of coaching just have better highs and better lows than my 16 when it comes to positive and negative examples of toughness, work ethic, dedication to overcoming adversity. 

 

I think of a wrestler from the 90s who lost his mother and didn't ever have his dad around on a weekly basis because it opened my eyes to the most important struggles some kids go through, and my dad was an amazing father who allowed me to learn about what it meant to succeed as a person through wrestling. He always gave me opportunities to analyze the actions of the wrestlers on his team from the time I was old enough to analyze until the I graduated and he retired. 

 

I also think of the kids who quit the morning of sectionals a few years after that last kid graduated who I think had very strong homes, and I've been trying to figure out why kids like that don't want to put it on the line.