Jacob, I had enough success in wrestling that I am not living it through my son. I do however have aspirations of him attaining personal character traits that come from only having been a wrestler and not a spectator or parent, such as, discipline, ethics and hard work to name just a few. I'm not saying wrestling is the only way to acquire these traits, only that if you do wrestle long enough, you will acquire them.
Burn out? I don't believe there is such a thing. There is a change of priorities, that happens all the time, and that?s ok as well, it's a part of life and growing, but I doubt it will happen in H.S. Since we don't compete as much and practice the same number of days as everyone else {or less} I doubt seriously we'll become burnt out. It's not how much or how often you train, but the quality of your training/coaching/technique. My son reads and plays video games more than anything else, and he can continue doing so as long as his report card keeps looking the same as it as every grading period.
Having coached the sport at the H.S. level for five years, M.S. level for fourteen years and being a teacher, I think I know when to push harder and when to pull back the reigns, especially for my own son.
Your comment on Indiana catching up with other states, Michigan, PA and New Jersey were the top teams at the Virginia Challenge this past month, they allow 5th graders to compete on their M.S. team. Two 5th graders were on Michigan's team that took second. This is the same team that won Danville last year. They said that the Virginia tournament was by far tougher than Danville. If these elite states are going to these tournaments and using 5th graders maybe we should. Just my personal thoughts on wrestling.