Dual meets for the elementary guys is an awesome experience and has done wonders for programs I've been involved with...but it has also been nightmarish at times.
I think the issue with dual leagues is that you have to start putting rules in place. After you set the rules, then you have to trust that people follow the integrity of the rules. Jim Watkins is the head coach at Calumet High School and has always been a mentor of mine. I've repeated his phrase often, "It's always right to do the right thing. It's not always easy to do the right thing....but it's always right"
For example, as we look at the history of elementary dual tourneys in Indiana, there's been situations where Team A might have not have had enough kids in their club to compete, so they picked up a couple local kids from surrounding schools to help complete their lineups. Then Team B would do the same, but would pick up a couple kids to 'complete their lineup' that accidentally were multiple time state champions.
Now here's the tough part....how do you set the rules or guidelines for these situations?
If Team A is a couple kids short of filling a lineup and the kids on Team A have a couple friends in neighbor schools that don't have a dual team, I think it's great that they're growing the sport by including others to fill their team.
If Team B has enough kids (or even if they don't!) and they go searching for elementary killers so they can pound other local teams, then I think that shows a lack of integrity.
There are many examples of things like this when dealing with elementary wrestling. One person says in this thread, "What do you do with 6th graders and 3rd graders that weigh 80?"
I've been lucky enough to run some rooms that have had some tough hombres in them. Kyle Ayresman, Stevan Micic, Sean McMurray, Jason Tsitrsis, Eric Roach, Mitch Sliga, Cody LeCount could all wrestle the guy 3 yrs older than them, or 20 lbs bigger when they were in elementary school. In fact, it was probably better for them if they did to that. (I think there's 19 IHSAA State Championships in that group of elementary guys!). That doesn't mean everyone is supposed to wrestle older bigger.
Carmel USA ran a freestyle duals tourney last spring. I was asked by all 5 teams that entered the tourney, "do we have to have a team made up of only kids from our schools?". My answer was, "we're trying to put a competition together so kids can wrestle freestyle in a dual format. If you come with an all star team of killers, you will murder every team there. You'll get a $2 medal and I will publicly taunt you in front of many people." (ha!)
We intentionally reached out to schools that we know have integrity and it was an amazing event.
CUSAWC is currently in their third year of our Youth Wrestling League. We split all of the kids into 4 teams (we have about 80 this year). We have practices on Mon/Wed and in November, we have 'competitions' on Monday nights. There are no weigh ins and zero parent coaches. On days of competition we have coaches match kids up from both teams so there is as quality of wrestling as we can try to get. Our goal of YWL is to provide a place for all elementary guys to learn about the sport, improve they physical skills, and have a great time.
We have put together an elementary team from guys in our YWL. We are hosting small triple dual elementary meets once a month. I believe that they are full for Nov/Dec.
I can't imagine all of the work that goes into PRE-SEASON individual State rankings, team State rankings, team dual rankings, regional rankings plus individual high school mentions and a lot of good pics and GREAT writing. What a great way to kick off the season. Look forward to diving into the preview more this week.
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