Leaderboard

A constant recruiting effort benefits our program directly by making forfeits less likely, giving us future wrestlers in training and having larger crowds. But perhaps most importantly, if you believe in what wrestling stands for, why wouldn't you want the maximum number of students to benefit from being a part of the sport? You never know where or how someone may benefit the sport. A former wrestler of ours, who never made the varsity, became the coach of a state championship middle school team in Illinois. He loves the sport and passes on the lessons he learned as a wrestler to his wrestlers. I couldn't be prouder of him. With that being said, I would like to hear what coaches are having success with in recruiting kids into their programs. I have listed three we do to start the conversation. 1) After 30 years of coaching high school football, and recruiting like mad the whole time, I moved to our middle school football program three years ago. One of my assistant coaches there is on my middle school wrestling coaching staff. We use every opportunity to recruit kids into the program. A player that I started recruiting as a seventh grader finally went out for the team as an eighth grader. He fell in love with the sport and this year as a freshman went 10-5 as a varsity fill-in, earned a letter and established himself as a very promising member of the lineup for next season. 2) I work to have a good relationship with our high school and middle school basketball coaches. We've had a few kids who got cut in high school come out. Watch out for those kids who quit basketball after their freshman year! We got a heavyweight who played basketball as a freshman but didn't go out as a sophomore. He came out for wrestling knowing almost nothing about wrestling but was a state qualifier as a junior and placed sixth as a senior. We had another heavyweight who came out after quitting basketball as a freshman (I spoke to the basketball coach first to make sure it was not going to be a problem). He was a Regional champion and 2X Semi-State qualifier. I speak to the boys middle school coach each year and ask him to refer the boys who get cut to wrestling. We also encourage the middle school basketball players to come out for wrestling for the last month or so of the wrestling season after basketball is over. We got a fifth place 215 lb.state placer that way when he chose to wrestle instead of play basketball in high school. 3) Do something special for a match. Last season we partnered with Chad Masters to televise our match with the Marauders. Josh Holden of Greenfield and Courtney Duncan of Frankton graciously agreed to do the play-by-play and color (the only objection the TV station offered when I asked them was that they didn't have anyone who knew wrestling to call the match) for the broadcast. We had the best home dual meet crowd ever. Next season Coach Holden and I are broadcasting our dual meet from Hoosier Gym. I have seen other schools do the match on a theater stage (great job Floyd Central!). Randy Qualitza did a varsity match before a varsity basketball game decades ago. Be creative. Could it flop? Sure. Who cares. Let your kids know you are trying things to make your meets an event. It will always be a slog for most programs to get kids in large numbers in but I believe it is worth it. What works for you?

we talking about recruiting kids currently at your school or at another school?

Just copy, paste the class rankings here from Indianamat that was as listed . A few wrestlers missing from this year State Finals . I’d put Jaden Reynolds on this list . Just curious on who everyone would choose .

Westforkwhite: Some great ideas! Thanks for contributing. I will look to implement a couple of those for next season.

I meant OK state, just shortened it. I love the move, they need a starter after White. Plus I’m a big OK State fan, love their history and watching them wrestle.

Thought you were going to OSU. Really sucks being a Purdue fan seeing a potential AA leave, but pumped as an Indiana fan to you wrestle for one of the best teams in the country! Good luck on the rest of your career!

Phenomenal room last night! 4x AA Nick Crume was in rolling with just about everyone. Not only did we have him, but we had Kenny Kerrn - 2x State Finalist, Tyler Moser - SQ, Cody Koebel - SQ, among others. 30 kids in the Lions Den and 10 coaches willing to scrap! #GrowTheSport

Yes it is. I remember the last year of the Hinkel regime, they were on some great national recruits ready to jump on board including the Valencia's (Purdue connections with their coach), Stroker out of Iowa, and a couple of others that bailed after the Purdue assistant Athletic Director blew it all up over ego. Still remember just a few short months before he axed Hinkel, Purdue had gained momentum in state, reestablishing a nationally recognized recruiting trail, and had hosted the 100 year celebration for the program, with a huge opportunity to build on the alumni base that had helped the team fund the new wrestling room, and was ready to do more. Then the same assistant AD got up in front of hundred's of faithful alum, grabs microphone sounding like he was Kevin Hart, and proclaimed loudly in a packed room that "Hinkel's my guy...."...good grief what a load of poopy diapers. Unfortunately, that part of alumni support has never recovered - beyond the direct Alumni, you had 15+ years of former wrestlers making their way to successful high school coaching positions and trees in Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, CA, PA, etc. that were starting to pay dividends on raising the awareness of the program... Just prior to that, it took a while for Purdue to become the last team in the Big Ten to add a 2nd paid assistant, and even then, the Head Coach had little discretion in choosing the assistants they wanted to hire. Can't think of any other program that has that operational hierarchy. Can you see a Jay Robinson acquiescing to such nonsense?

Here is alleged video Snapchat-1245038841.mp4

I personally thought the right call was made. When they showed the reviews in slow motion there was no pulling of the head gear. Yes, he had it palmed but was forcing the head away.

I love all the suggestions and cool fun stuff added to wrestling.. Televising the meets is great... anything that can grow the sport i'm in favor of...Football teams are great places to get Athletic big men to fill voids many schools have.. also like stated before there's kids of all sizes playing different sports that can benefit from wrestling.. Wrestling is a awesome sport and everybody can benefit from trying wrestling.. Especially when you have passionate Leaders like Dave kicking these kids his knowledge and love.

The main thing I did when first took over at MV was to recruit heavily from the football team, I was there anyway. Then would just stand in the halls and talk to any kid I could and tell them how wrestling could benefit them. I remember seeing a young man running down the hallway, he looked to be around 100lbs and we needed a 106. He was a soccer player, so told him he could spend his winter upstairs with us. He has told us coaches that he is more aggressive on the soccer field and has much more confidence in life. Dave setting up the our dual to be televised has been a huge bonus. We have had lots of kids tell us how cool that was and asked if we would be doing it again. I am hoping to get Dave and PH back on the screen this coming year, and possibly another dual when we get our schedule finalized. (We need a couple duals if anybody is interested). We have discussed trying to use the auditorium, football field (weather permitting), the schools new Performance enhancement center basically anything to create interest. Randal Hayes has came up with great intro music for our duals that the kids love. We have thrown free t-shirts into the crowd just to fill as many seats as possible. As Dave said, anything to let your kids know that you are putting in the effort to make this as fun as possible.

Actually people weren't doubting him as opposed to wondering why he wasn't living up to his potential. If he can do it at tournament time, why can't he do it all the time? That's a fair question. Was then. Is now.

Is this the move you liked mattyb?

I want to give kudos to IU's Jake Kleimola (Merrillville). While he was a IN HS State Champion, wrestling at 197 in college hasn't been easy. 2017 - He redshirted his freshman year and went 3-4 with his only wins against wrestlers from Eastern Michigan (non-starter), DII Findlay and Muskegon Community College. 2018 - Things didn't get much better as he stepped into a starting role for IU, obviously before he was ready. Jake went 0-13 last year but only 4 of those lossed were major (or higher) decisions. There were several close matches, including seven by one or two. 2019 - Jake finished a respectable 13-18 on the season with an 8th Place finish at the Big Ten Tournament. That's a huge jump and one I thought should be recognized. He has two more seasons to go.