graham

13 hours ago, Champ725 said:

What weekend is Middle School State? 

Great question. There is no IHSWCA Middle School State on the ISWA event calendar. But I am pretty sure it was there last year..... I thought it would be at Center Grove moving forward....

But there is an ISWA Middle School State listed on the ISWA event schedule for 2/23/2020 at Carmel HS....  

Brady just won GFC @ 120

...

9 hours ago, base said:

A couple ideas for youth programs

1. Get the parents together. Hold a cookout, or maybe during your youth practice have a coach take time to do a "parent clinic". Figure out who the most "likeable" parent is and ask them to be the ambassador for the other parents - do NOT pick the parent that wants to run everything but not many people like cause that will drive people away. The more the parents become friends, the more likely it is that their young wrestler will be back next season. If they enjoy spending time with each other, it's also more likely that one wrestler going to a weekend tourney in the spring will bring more along with them.

2. Early in the youth season get an inexpensive package of cool-looking clothes together and see if the parents will buy it or get sponsors to help cover costs where parents cant. When a little kid gets a "pro headgear" or "real wrestling shoes" they are now a real wrestler. If the tshirt you get them is super cool, it might be their favorite shirt they wear every other day to school and other kids see that stuff especially if a bunch of them are wearing them

3. Communicate! Let the parents know ahead of time what is coming up, what the kids are working on, etc. Seems like every other youth sport has practice on specific nights every week with a game on saturday. With youth wrestling, try to get with other clubs in your general area and set Monday, Thursday or whatever night as your "meet nights" where clubs can get together and do some round robin wrestling with no pressure just get a lot of matches against some new faces. Wednesday night is bad because that is youth night at many churches. Make those meet nights fun.  Don't know if its possible, but try to get the screaming parents away from the mat and into the stands as much as possible so its more of a kid-friendly environment

4. Stress to the kids that the focus is not on winning, but trying the moves that they have been working on. As a parent, it doesn't get much more frustrating to practice double legs all week long, only to get to a match and watch your wrestler dance around and never try a double leg! Reward them for trying moves, not just for winning. In football we used to give helmet sticker awards - not sure what could work for wrestling but try to have someone (maybe the kids parents) keep a tally on how many times they attempt a move even if it doesn't work, then make a big deal out of the counts at the next practice - maybe ask the kids really trying to talk about what they were thinking and if the moves worked for them or not

Super solid post. 

Your son may be at a disadvantage in USAW youth wrestling, in the sense of his age compared to others he is wrestling. But unless you enrolled him into school early, he will have an advantage in that way in high school.  My 13 yr old is an October birthday and I think it has been great for him. 

One of the best youth wrestlers I know (if not the best) is not small for his age and his dad had him wrestle 8th grade and under duals from the time he was in 2nd or 3rd grade.  So he was wrestling kids who were 3 and 4 years older. He would even have him bump up a weight at these duals. Lol It was tough going in the beginning, but he won USAW folkstyle nationals and got 2nd in USAW freestyle nationals this last year. He is in 6th grade this year.

My two youngest sons both have November birthdays and I think it’s great. 

Either way, this is a USA Wrestling thing and not necessarily an Indiana thing. 

I tried to get my son (8th grade) to play golf this summer like in the past but he would not do it. Wanted to keep focusing on wrestling.  I don’t want him to burn out, and thought it’d be good to mix it up as we have in years past, but he sees that freshman year coming up.

As far as middle tier kids not being as high in numbers... my guess is that this phenomenon is happening in other sports as well with the rise of specialization. It may correct as parents who got burnt are having kids and won’t allow their kids to do it. 

But the ideas posted here before about about bringing more hype to duals and wrestling in general—lights, music, recognition in publications.  I think this is key to bringing new kids into the sport. Also, getting year-round kids to do some recruiting along with coaches. My son talked his friend into joining the team at school and my son wasn’t even on his team. This kid is now an 8th grader, gonna wrestle again this year and will probably wrestle in high school.  Seems like adding 1 or two kids to a program a year is not too lofty a goal, and the hype should help retain if implemented.   

1 hour ago, smitty11 said:

Do you have to pay for this service?

Yes. 

And I want to say Thank You! to Indiana Mat for getting me a $30 discount on my Track Gold+ membership!

Don’t know if the promo is still available but it prompted me to take advantage of that when I went to watch a match from the tournament. 

10 hours ago, wrastling said:

Nobody seems to be talking about it and nobody looked surprised during the match. However, I definitely question the pin in the finals match with Bailey and Saito. 

Trackwrestling tweeted a clip of the pin out, recognizing Logan, and they didn’t question it either. 

Logan Bailey!  

4 hours ago, gsmith58 said:

You need to be promoting that Dillon Graham kid instead of monkeying around promoting Freshman. Seems that Graham kid has beaten several of the kids that made the list.

On a related note have you seen the size of Mr. Ocampo? He used to be in my son's weight class for years. He's a tad bigger these days

 

Dillon who???  Never heard of him

Yeah I saw Ocampo at GRR.  He looked tough. Last time I remember seeing him, he was smaller than Dillon, I think. 

I saw a tweet saying that a lot of these cadets from other countries are definitely over 18.  Is that possible?

28 minutes ago, Mattyb said:

He lost 8-1 in the quarters. He still has a chance to medal. He needs the guy that beat him to win the next match. Most of the USA guys got beat in the Quarters or semis. 

On a break now. I think they start back up at 11:00 our time. 

I saw that on Twitter after I posted. 

Dang. 

Rooting for him the rest of the way!

When does he wrestle next?

On 7/22/2019 at 9:18 PM, Sig40 said:

I looked him up, he was a freshman last year.  I was going to add him. lol

He lost to Malik Hall 3-2 Friday night, so he is pretty legit.  

Yeah when gsmith asked earlier in the thread if I had any input, this is why I said I will leave it to those who know better!

Oh wow. My bad, I thought he was an 8th grader. Lol

I’ll tell you an 8th grader that is not listed that I think will surprise a lot of people is Alexander Ocampo.

Yesterday evening @Flowrestling tweeted:

Jessie Mendez is the truth. 

59 minutes ago, MattM said:

Transfers givith and transfers takith away!

Yes, I noticed this. I guess it’s pretty common?  Seems like every high level transfer-in has only stayed a year or two tops the past few years. 

Wow. That sounds awesome!

37 minutes ago, Y2CJ41 said:

See the graphic above of the ISWA regions.

Can’t read map, not from Indiana originally, but looks like westernmost County on the map is Hancock?

Indy eastsiders hackles will likely raise when being referred to as westside.

57 minutes ago, Y2CJ41 said:

False

The Northwest is bringing 13 more kids from last year. The west central side of the state is bringing 41 more kids. The east central area is down 13, northeast area is down 5, and southern hemisphere is up 3 wrestlers.

Like I said the only area that is growing is the westside.

 Marion County is included in your definition of Westside? 

https://www.flowrestling.org/video/6463569-74-kg-rnd-of-16-jaden-mattox-ohio-state-unattached-vs-joe-lee-nlwc

Here’s a barn burner for ya. 

12 minutes ago, JMILL said:

 

truthtime.... some people have no sense of loyalty to anything and it runs across the board state, teams, schools, clubs.... etc. thats all

Yes, of course that is true. 

But if getting the best team to Heartland  is what the goal is, then loyalty to one entity and one entity only should be considered.  

And that is loyalty to the state of Indiana. 

Not a club or academy. 

12 minutes ago, JMILL said:

This splitting teams idea is something that has been going on for a long time and thats a fact.... it has made the heartland teams weaker every year and thats a fact.

I am not as experienced as you are in putting wrestling teams together, obviously. 

But I have quite a bit of experience in a similar situation and when factions are present in a state based effort, this pisses people off and they revolt and start their own thing.  And yes, this dilutes the overall quality. 

I know there are other reasons why people start their own thing. And I know in this case different people had different reasons. 

But if you went back to the beginning of splitting dual teams in Indiana and looked through to today, I’d bet a dollar to a dime this would be the number one reason.  Factions, and a lack of unity. 

12 minutes ago, JMILL said:

Heartland is the USA wrestling national tournament so if we are going to put our best foot and team forward then we have to have 100% buy in..... anything less than 100% is simply hurting our chances to contend with the other state top teams.

I agree with you on this. I think bringing the best teams to Heartland on that weekend is the best thing for Indiana wrestling since it is through USA Wrestling. 

25 minutes ago, JMILL said:

nope not at all.... that was something in response to K.Hudd saying he didnt need team IN .... he knows what it means.   

Mr Graham i am 100% confident in the fact that you can read between the lines and know what this disagreement is all about with the parties involved.

I have nothing but respect for you and your son.

Thank you for the sentiment. Much respect to Logan and his success!

Now on the matter at hand....

I think I am reading between the lines. I’m sorry but I just don’t see how Team Indiana and loyalty to a certain club or academy have anything to do with each other.  

52 minutes ago, JMILL said:

 

I would venture to guess your comment about not needing "team indiana" is more of a reflection on your personal opinions based on my observations of your level of loyalty to any one club, organization or academy.

This is an interesting paragraph. 

Jmill are you saying that wrestling with Team Indiana has something to do with whether you have loyalty to a certain club or academy?