Leaderboard

I'd watch...

Just got confirmation that America Scaleco will be donating a new weigh-in scale to the raffle as well. The weigh in scale sends weights right to your phone. They will be in attendance as a vendor as well! Awesome prize, they sell for $700. Check the scale out here- https://www.americanscaleco.com/weighin-scale

Let's face it. Wrestling isn't fun when you truly try to take it seriously. If you push the serious part too fast then you lose the kid\athlete. But... if you are not serious you get your butt kicked at any tournament you try to enter so it hard to find the balance. Wrestling is going against the way society in general is headed, it is up to us to sell it to kids and parents on the benefits of it and unfortunately it needs to be spoon fed in small doses over years until they fully buy in and understand. Sorry but going out and hitting a golf ball, kicking a soccer ball, or dribbling a basketball can just plain out be easy and fun for kids and adults if they want it to be. Someone giving you a blast double or a good hard cross face while all you want to do is have fun usually doesn't go well with kids.

The NWCA Leadership academy is awesome.

We keep getting these post about the competition. I think we are missing the real reason, that kids are not sticking with the sport. See my post above (about what to do to make kids like wrestling practices better). Look at the responses…. You have two current kids and a recent grad who is trying to help build a program at Ben Davis. We not losing kids because the year round kids are beating them . We are losing kids because they do not enjoy workouts, and feel as they don't other don't share the same feelings and experiences as they do. They are not coming together as a brotherhood. "Why get you teeth kicked in everyday at practice for no reason?!!!" That is what the kids that are walking away are saying. I'm just telling you. You want to keep kids??? Give them reason to show up and show out. As far as going two and out every weekend to start. My son went his whole first year and most of his second year before he won a match. He cared some, but liked the other kids at club and wanted to be with them. We didn't really care about the losses. He stuck with it and ended up with a pretty great career. And..... he beat most of the kids that beat him when he started, along the way. His best buddy started a year after he did and won just about every tourney (right out the gate). He went on and was a 4 time state qualifier. With that said, different kids will take different paths. Both kids had highs and lows. But... they were always there for each other. That's a huge reason neither gave up. As far as being humiliated... why would you be humiliated from getting beat in a game or wrestling match. The fact that the kid went all out and will work to close the gap should be what we focus on (not trying to find someone easy to beat). Too much is being put on wins and loses. Not enough being focused on becoming a hard worker, good teammate, and baddass (win or lose). Yes.. badass. If a kid makes it through a wrestling season... They need to be told that they are a badass. Its OK to lose matches. Make it fun and surround the program with like minded positive people. That's how we stop it.

Just finalized with wrestling mindset. The guys from wrestling mindset will be in attendance and speaking as an option at the breakout sessions. Wrestling Mindset has a very large social media following, and will make for a great breakout session. https://www.wrestlingmindset.com/ https://www.instagram.com/wrestlingmindset/?hl=en https://twitter.com/WrestlingMindse?ref_src=twsrc^google|twcamp^serp|twgr^author https://www.facebook.com/WrestlingMindset/

Is a must for what? The training "365 a year" is a big downfall to this whole conversation. We've lost casual wrestlers because a combination of things. But training every day of the year is going to drop retention rates terribly. Youth are getting burnt out from a youth season that starts in November and ends in March. But "if you want to be good you need to do Freestyle and Greco too." So now youth wrestling can be until May. It's no wonder that retention rate of athletes and coaches is so low. This isn't just wrestling, but the youth sports culture is so out of control that parents are pulled 100 different directions. It's easy to stop taking their child to wrestling when they have to travel for wrestling, baseball and basketball, etc... At the high school level, we are asking our kids to train year round because we want them to be the best. But at smaller schools where those athletes do more than 1 sport they don't have time to train year round for 2 or 3 sports. I know coaches that get upset at athletes that aren't there all summer and spring, but if you want to know the truth, those part-time athletes are what is going to keep this sport competitive at semi-state and regional levels. We can't diminish their value because they aren't a state placer or aren't there every off-season practice. More participants will always help increase the competition level.