USA Wrestling vs. NUWAY

[cmccoy 4]

Anyone who knows me, knows that I am a USA Wrestling Guy. I support USA Wrestling to the fullest. That being said, I do feel like that Kentucky as a whole does not really follow the USA Wrestling model. Let me explain. USA Wrestling supports our Olympic Athletes and one of their goals is to build USA Wrestling into a World Power in the areas of Freestyle and Greco Roman. In Kentucky, we do not do much of that. How can we improve that? 

 

I have heard NUWAY supports only Folkstyle in their organization. Is Kentucky big enough for both? Would Kentucky benefit from both? I don't know the answer. 

 

I would love to hear pros and cons of both.

[pioneer_pride 1]

Chris - I got involved up to my neck on this many years ago and heard both sides pretty much at the highest level. Dave Dean and Roger Chandler on the Nuway side. A guy named Ted Witulski (sp?) And others on the usa wrestling side. I can give you some pros and cons for each that I heard. Im sure this thread will blow up like usual, so im just posting what ive been told and let people judge for themselves.

USA wrestling

pros

-they support the Olympic movement

-they run the most prestigious tournament in the country (Fargo) for kids wanting to get noticed for college. That may have changed with additional nationals, but I still have heard fargo is the pinnacle for a h.s. kid.

-fs/gr is a good change of pace for kids after h.s. season. This is my opinion.

-their insurance coverage and support of their clubs in the case of lawsuits is superb. Guy from Illinois usa wrestling told me how he was sued before for an injured kid....usa wrestling did a great job.

Cons

-not sure if this is the case anymore, but they previously all but neglected folkstyle

-costly. Their coaches passes, wrestlers cards, certifications add up to a pretty penny. These funds go out to colorado springs and are used to help support train olympic hopefuls. How does this benefit Kentucky? How many olympic hopefuls have we ever had? Not that many.

Nuway

Pros

-they developed nuway to form a national organization to rival usa wrestling to support folkstyle wrestling.

-their model is to take a modest % of fees for administration (website, insurance, etc.) And allow states to govern themselves and keep their dollars to grow their state.

-helps develop folkstyle/collegiate wrestlers in state to support college wrestling. According to Dave Dean, as an MSU coach....he had to recruit more out of state before nuway in order to stay competitive.

-allows for wrestlers to compete across state borders with membership (so does usaw)

Cons

-still forming/growing. Probably going to make mistakes and learn some tough lessons along the way.

-competes with fs/gr off-season so could possibly negatively impact olympic movement.

-their insurance coverage has a cap on catastrophic injury. Usaw does not. Ive been told this can be good or bad. Basically if a lawyer knows your liability insurance has no cap they will seek more money.

These are the things I have been told. To answer your question if they can both exist in our state and would we benefit, I always believed it would be good to have both just to give people a choice. If you dont like usaw, form a club and go with nuway and vice versa. However, since most people are more familiar with folkstyle, you may have kids choosing nuway just out of familiarity and never getting started in fs/gr. No one wants that either.

[Ranger123 43]

Pioneer was one of the pioneers in looking into this stuff before our youth and ms had to choose a side. He knows way more about nuway than I do. What I can add on the USAW side is that since Keith smith really took the reigns of KY USAW they have supported us tremendously. Last spring/summer alone KY USAW put thousands of dollars into Team KY for ms/schoolboy dual teams and Keith is doing the same this year. This includes a schoolboy team to compete in fs/gr duals. So the money is benefiting our kids in a real way.

[crazyotto 381]

The fact that this is a discussion underscores the fact that KY wrestling is growing! Personally, I encourage all to go the GR/FS route. If for no other reason that it gives the kids another take on the sport. Learning a toss (or how to defend one) can be very beneficial during crunch time of a folkstyle match. FS helps with mat wrestling skills. Both styles can add to your folkstyle arsenal. I have nothing at all against Nuway. Anything to promote the sport is good by me.

[8798 45]

What do the big boys do?  When looking at some of the top high school wrestling states in the US, many, if not all, have pretty extensive freestyle/greco programs.  Something to consider in the discussion, however, is state population.  The larger the population, the larger the pool from which to draw wrestlers...and the more wrestlers you have the more programs you can fill.  Below is a list of state populations for those states some consider the top wrestling states.  (I realize this list is debatable.)     

 

Pennsylvania - 12.7 million / Ohio - 11.5 million / California - 38 million / New Jersey - 8.8 million / Illinois - 12.8 million / Minnesota - 5.3 million / Iowa - 3 million / Indiana - 6.5 million / Oklahoma - 3.8 million / Michigan - 9.8 million

 

Kentucky sits at a state population of around 4.3 million.  Only Iowa and Oklahoma have smaller populations, of course they also have longer and stronger wrestling traditions/emphasis.  Those larger states have enough kids to do both with significant participation in both.  While we have improved greatly over the years, our depth as a state is still a bit shallow.  Personally, I do not know which would be best for the state, although I tend to lean toward freestyle/greco in the "off season."  With our currently limited participation, however, do we really have enough wrestlers to participate in both successfully on a national level?  It seems it would be best to focus on one until our numbers grow enough to have good showings in both.  Of course, I guess that takes us back to the original question...which is best?  But, at least, we know about state populations now...

[pioneer_pride 1]

Keith has done a hell of a lot. Ive been out of the loop for a while and that is still obvious what he has done sending kids to fargo. He said he would do it years ago and he has. Keith/usaw has done good things. When I coached, I thought fs/gr was a fun great change of pace for kids. It was just different enough and emphasized different aspects that kept kids from getting burnt out. Id say you gotta have fs/gr in the state. During folkstyle season theres nothing wrong in my opinion with both leagues having a presence here. I dont think its as much of a population thing as it is just another opportunity to compete outside our region. Nuway joins leagues from many of our bordering states.

Keith has done a hell of a lot. Ive been out of the loop for a while and that is still obvious what he has done sending kids to fargo. He said he would do it years ago and he has. Keith/usaw has done good things. When I coached, I thought fs/gr was a fun great change of pace for kids. It was just different enough and emphasized different aspects that kept kids from getting burnt out. Id say you gotta have fs/gr in the state. During folkstyle season theres nothing wrong in my opinion with both leagues having a presence here. I dont think its as much of a population thing as it is just another opportunity to compete outside our region. Nuway joins leagues from many of our bordering states.

8798 - id say all of those states have a nuway league and a usaw league.

[8798 45]

You're correct Pioneer, most, it not all of those states have Nuway as well as USAW.  (I think I alluded to that in my post.)  I also agree that freestyle/greco are of great benefit to folkstyle wrestling.  March 25th there was a pretty good article posted on this board from Daryl Weber about the benefits of freestyle/greco and how they can help with folkstyle wrestling.

[cmccoy 4]

I agree. Keith has been great for our sport and has really been a great contributor with USA Wrestling. I meant no disrespect toward Keith or USA. I just wanted to see the options. Figured I would get a good, civil discussion going about something relating to spring and summer wrestling.

[chadmack282 1]

There needs to Olympic style wrestling training in this state!! My son wants to do the FS/GR KY state tourney but I have to assume there will be no other 6th graders there so we will probably go to the Franklin Iron Man in Indiana.

I have asked about training & camps for FS/GR on KY Wrestler with no response.

[CoachC 115]

Part of what we struggle with in our state is the small percentage of kids that participate on a national level after the big folkstyle national tournaments are over.

[CCMS_SC 59]

My 2 cents.  I support and highly recommend FS/GR.  Both and especially FS helped Sean tremendously.  The key is to find a good(great) club/coach to work on the styles.  Joining Nate Carr's club and spending as much time with him as possible was the best decision we ever made, and I'm sure that Joe and Joe Jr. teach nearly if not the same technique.  Their club in Lexington would be a great place to start.  Nate is Sean's role model, and we'd travel hours and pay nearly any amount to learn from someone with his knowledge and integrity.  It's already been said but the great thing about FS/GR is that it is different enough that you can practice nearly year round without getting burnt out.  It's all about mat time.  FS is by far Sean's favorite style out of all 3, but it transitions very nicely to folkstyle.

 

Keith Smith, CoachC and others are trying to grow the participation in FS/GR and are doing a great job, and I hope everyone supports them and the numbers continue to grow.  If a young wrestler wants to take his technique/skill to the next level, you definitely need to find a room.  And yes, until you go to Fargo you won't understand, but it is by far the best tournament and most challenging one you'll ever attend (any other HS tournament pales in comparison ANY).  Find a way to attend at least once!

[pioneer_pride 1]

To give some more background on why i had pushed earlier for ky m.s. wrestling to go with nuway or to follow their model....when we first looked into getting usaw coverage for the m.s. clubs, a charge for a usaw card was going to be like $30 per kid plus club charter AND they would only be covered at usaw events where all participants were usaw covered. Asking the school teams to pony up another $30 per kid was impossible. Keith was able to work with usaw and got cards for the club teams at $10 per kid for our in state season. This was a great compromise that also allowed kids to pay the extra cost to get a full card and continue on with usaw.

Cincinnati has a fs/gr league. If you contact "sids dad" (don jones) on here he knew a lot about their cincy league for fs/gr. They used to have weekly open challenge mats that were like scrimmages. And one or two open tournaments per weekend. When I last looked into it, they were open to accepting ky teams but they only accepted two teams at a time. My son hated fs at first until he understood the scoring then like ccms_cs said above it was his favorite style.

Fs in the off season is great because most of the kids you meet up with are the true year round die hards.

[kdsmith27 14]

KY USAW has gone to the tier program now and seems to be well like with the different options available. below is the breakdown of how the fees are used to help with KY kids and coaches. It is wrong to think that KY USAW fees all go to the Olympic movement as shown below. Every cent made by your State Association goes back into the grassroots movement in Kentucky to make our kids more competitive nationally.
 
Our $15 league (Limited Folkstyle card) is now good for the whole year. This includes HS Wrestlers
upgrade fee for out of state wrestling is $25
Full card is $40

Below is last years breakdown. We will post the new breakdown soon.

KY/USAW charges $25 per membership card. Five dollars of the $25 remains in the State Association account. Of the remaining $20 dollars here is a basic breakdown of where those funds go.

Insurance = $6.00
Newspaper = $2.00
Grass Roots Programming = $5.00
Olympic Movement = $2.00 (this does not mean to the OTC, but programs that we must conduct to have an Olympic sport)
Other Associated Programs not directly Grass-roots (i.e. Events, marketing, Building costs, employee costs, etc.) = $5.00
The above should make it clear that for all intended purposes, since 90 percent of USAW membership is below the senior level, the dollars that can be attributed to Grass-Roots programming is actually $13 out of the $20.
This $13 goes for programs such as Coaches Education, State Leaders Training, Membership Supplies, Rulebooks, promotional posters and flyers, National Convention, coaches’ video tools, grants to state associations, promotional materials, staffing, athlete appearance, officiating clinics, etc.

[8798 45]

There needs to Olympic style wrestling training in this state!! My son wants to do the FS/GR KY state tourney but I have to assume there will be no other 6th graders there so we will probably go to the Franklin Iron Man in Indiana.

I have asked about training & camps for FS/GR on KY Wrestler with no response.

 

If you live close to Indiana, I know they have a number of clubs that train in freestyle and greco.  River City in Louisville also began their Spring Session last Tuesday which specializes in freestyle and greco.

[chadmack282 1]

I bring my son to Ohio for fs/gr. I was referring to raising the awareness of fs/gr to alot of other kids in the state with more training opportunities. Most parents wouldn't drive 60miles each way on a week night for an 1.5hr practice.

[CCMS_SC 59]

I agree it's not easy, but if your wrestler has goals/dreams beyond high school, it is time/money well spent.  Until more opportunities are available IMO it's black and white, it's jump in the car or don't.  I recommend jump in the car. 

 

CoachC hit the nail on the head.  The reason that there is a big drop off after the folkstyle nationals is that most of the current KY coaches have little to no knowledge/experience with FS/GR.  Those that do (Knable, Hoehn, Carr's, CoachC, others) need to drive this movement for the good of the sport in KY.  Most of the other state teams are led and coached by many of their HS coaches and college coaches/wrestlers.  Our first year at Fargo, we sat in the corner across from Kyle Dake who was coaching for NY.  KY USAW needs to approach our college wrestlers (Ervin, Fahy, Yenter, Ruschell, Myers, Lampe, Cooper, Carr, etc.) and coaches from LW, Campbellsville, Cumberland, St. Catharine).  It doesn't take a genius to notice the success of the states with strong FS/GR programs.  KY is surrounded by or fairly close to some of the best: IL, IN, OH, PA, MO, MI, IA, VA and a little farther away WI, MN.  As a state we need to work on catching states like IN, VA, MI, MO, and IA, baby steps.  Cadet and Junior dual teams would be a great start.  They'd take a beating at first, but just like folkstyle the success will come with time and hard work.  The top talent can compete (just need to gain experience), but as a small state, the depth may always be an issue.