grappler-of-old

2022 State recap

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Elite:  Looking back at my post it may seem I am criticizing what you are doing.  Not in any way am I doing that, keep doing what you are doing, you are helping at the top end. 

I am not saying we don't train elite kids. What I am saying we don't just focus all our efforts on them.  If we don't increase the numbers in the wrestling room who are those elite wrestlers going to impact? It's the what came first game "The chicken or the egg".  I think the egg. 

We must build up our middle class.  Teams with several competitive kids on the team.  We must have more kids so we have JV tournaments every weekend. JV state is awesome "Thanks Moore High school". We have built up our middle and Youth. Now we have to focus on building the numbers in the high school rooms.  We have to get kids in the room even if they are half committed (High school sports are to get kids doing something for their school to keep them focused on school).  

We can work on this on both ends, but we need more on the lower end working harder.  We still have a huge number of 1st generation wrestlers, parents who don't know how to motivate their kids.  If this 1st generation is half committed then when they have kids who wrestle they will help make those kids fully committed.  

Everyone likes working with the elite kids, winning is fun.  The problem is we don't have enough who are willing to work the lower end.  On the surface it seems less rewarding but in the long run it is extremely rewarding. I thank the JV coach's all the time for getting them ready for the next level and suffering through the kids quitting and not giving their all.  I don't think they know how much they help the sport move forward. 

All right I will get off my soap box. sorry. :ph34r:

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42 minutes ago, gator1 said:

I grew up wrestling in PA and the biggest difference I see between KY and PA is numbers. More youth, more middle school, more high school. JV squads with real wrestle offs that pushed the starters to work harder. Individual tournaments that you could be proud of to come in 3rd place, and you definitely wouldn't place if you didn't put in the work.

Also way less travel and more competitions because every school had a team. 

I believe if you increase the numbers, the competitive spirit will take care of the rest. 

Idk, I could be totally wrong. But that's my theory.

Pennsylvania has triple the population of Kentucky, but that isn't a great excuse when Oklahoma(.5 million less) and Iowa(1.4 million less) have much greater success than we do.  What it comes down to is a lack of coaches. Specifically, a lack of coaches who are committed beyond the season.  No division one teams in the last 30 years/a low number of other college programs are a major contributor to this.  

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3 hours ago, GooglyMoogly said:

Pennsylvania has triple the population of Kentucky, but that isn't a great excuse when Oklahoma(.5 million less) and Iowa(1.4 million less) have much greater success than we do.  What it comes down to is a lack of coaches. Specifically, a lack of coaches who are committed beyond the season.  No division one teams in the last 30 years/a low number of other college programs are a major contributor to this.  

True, but where do the coaches come from? They come from our current wrestlers. The more you grow the numbers, the more possible future coaches you'll have. But the way we run our season with all day Saturday tournaments comprising most of the season, there's a huge obstacle to getting young guys who might have or will be having families into the coaching ranks.

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I don't believe there is a coach anywhere that wouldn't want to have a few elite kids mixed with a couple really good ones and the rest above or average kids,  but in reality most teams just dont have that and really only a few do. I have done this coaching thing for a while now (18 years) and that by no means makes me the guy with all the answers. I coach all kids in our program from Pre-K to Seniors and have watched us grow over the years. I coach all the ages because we have nobody else to do it. The school board says if you want a feeder you coach it so I do with the help of my other 2 coaches. I say this because I think its the same for a lot of non traditional wrestling schools I see every year. They don't have numbers and sometimes no help. For me my numbers have grown and we are a better team over the past few years but what I wouldn't call a good team. We are average with some really good kids but no elite ones. I have a team full of non committed wrestlers and parents. First and foremost parents are what has to get committed because if they aren't the kid wont be. I agree the all day tourneys are a bad thing. Unless all your kids are winning every tourney and everyone is totally bought in it can hurt numbers. For us we started to grow in keeping kids when we switched to duals over individual tourneys which helped in many areas. First faster days, then more matches for everyone and even JV because most of the time you can fill in other teams holes with back-ups This allows my JV kids to usually get 25-30 matches a year at least. Last the team starts to grow together as a unit. So we only wrestle usually one individual tourney a year just so our kids have some experience in them for regionals. As for JV tourneys we just don't do them at all. Truth if my younger kids are going to be wrestling kids that are wrestling varsity anyways at JV tourneys why not just go wrestle a varsity match. We can all have our thoughts but as long as anyone who isn't a state medalist can wrestle JV its not really JV. I can go on a lot about why I don't like JV but will leave that to another day. I am not so sure I agree with wrestling a few years back was better than it is now, but everyone has their own beliefs there too. I know we did have a few studs back then but I would say we have that now too and I think maybe more depth these days. Before we had just a few kids at a few elite programs which we still have all of those today, but have added more like Paducah Tillman, Walton Vernon just to many two. There are more that didn't have those guys years ago. So in all I think KY wrestling has gotten better not worse. I think we just have to build numbers and keep them then the cream will continue to find each other and rise to the top.

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On 5/5/2022 at 10:37 AM, Elite Training Center KY said:

I think we just have different aspirations for Kentucky wrestling. We have had a time when there were 4-5 nationally ranked kids at the same time out of Kentucky (Me, Brock, Fausz, Lampe, Meyers). At this same time the depth was MUCH higher than it is currently. When you have elite guys they typically train outside of their program and they will bring that stuff back to their rooms. That could be work ethic, technique, commitment level literally anything. Parents notice what other kids are doing and don't want there kids to fall behind. If little Jonny is going to 3 summer camps and Bobs dad down the street sees that he will most likely sign his kid up, that grows wrestling. Trying to build Kentucky wrestling on sheer numbers wont help as now you have a bunch of half committed wrestlers and that spreads like wild fire. There will ALWAYS be powerhouse and dominate programs, even in Ohio and other states. We should compare ourselves to other states as they are better. If you do not compare yourself then how do you know if you are getting better or worse? If all you care about is Kentucky state titles I can promise there will be 14 state champs next year just like we had the last 20+ years. 

Why stop at nationally ranked HS kids? Why not compare NCAA AA's as an evaluator?

I recall having a very similar discussion with a former college teammate from NE OH about this subject. I actually was bragging about the young talent we had at that time in KY (I believe you were one of them!) He then proceeded to tell me that his HS team had more NCAA AA's in the previous 5 (it may have been 10) years than our whole state has had ever. That really put things into perspective for me. 

We'll never have what they have. Might as well accept it and move on. It doesn't mean our elite cannot compete vs theirs. Ours have and will continue to do so. But we should spend more time marketing our sport and focusing on participation. It's a #'s game. The more athletes we get interested in our sport, the more that will end up at training centers like yours and learning from the best coaches our state has to offer. 

My 8th grader stopped wrestling and is now involved with travel football, travel basketball, and competitive track. I've seen firsthand 1000's of better than average KY athletes that has never sniffed a wrestling mat. We have the committed athletes. They're just choosing other sports. 

 

 

 

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37 minutes ago, MLee said:

Why stop at nationally ranked HS kids? Why not compare NCAA AA's as an evaluator?

I recall having a very similar discussion with a former college teammate from NE OH about this subject. I actually was bragging about the young talent we had at that time in KY (I believe you were one of them!) He then proceeded to tell me that his HS team had more NCAA AA's in the previous 5 (it may have been 10) years than our whole state has had ever. That really put things into perspective for me. 

We'll never have what they have. Might as well accept it and move on. It doesn't mean our elite cannot compete vs theirs. Ours have and will continue to do so. But we should spend more time marketing our sport and focusing on participation. It's a #'s game. The more athletes we get interested in our sport, the more that will end up at training centers like yours and learning from the best coaches our state has to offer. 

My 8th grader stopped wrestling and is now involved with travel football, travel basketball, and competitive track. I've seen firsthand 1000's of better than average KY athletes that has never sniffed a wrestling mat. We have the committed athletes. They're just choosing other sports. 

 

 

 

I agree with a lot of this. I do think the numbers need to be there in order to create elite guys. With that being said Kentucky has gone backwards as far as depth, as well as our very top talent. I am not looking to make statements about how bad Kentucky wrestling is right now, the fact we are wrestling the state tournament in a HS gym speaks for itself. What can we do as coaches to grown wrestling? I am at a school where we have FANTASTIC coaches as well as a full time JV coach who does a great job. What should smaller schools do that don't have the man power that schools like Union, Ryle, JC, Trinity have? What tips can we give to new coaches or young guys right out of college? (I am still learning from Patrick and others). We can keep saying Promote, Promote, promote but in what way? These are all genuine questions that I think could help. I do think that the 2013-2017 guys coming back from college and taking over young programs like Owensboro will help. 

Edited by Elite Training Center KY
typo, probably have more

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2 hours ago, panthers said:

. First and foremost parents are what has to get committed because if they aren't the kid wont be. I agree the all day tourneys are a bad thing. Unless all your kids are winning every tourney and everyone is totally bought in it can hurt numbers. 

38 minutes ago, MLee said:

My 8th grader stopped wrestling and is now involved with travel football, travel basketball, and competitive track. I've seen firsthand 1000's of better than average KY athletes that has never sniffed a wrestling mat. We have the committed athletes. They're just choosing other sports. 

 

 

 

  Long Saturdays are a huge problem.  Commitment has a different meaning than most other sports.  Wrestling is 6 days a week, every week to be competitive as a high school sport.  Basketball and football mostly finish on Fridays.  I am not sure what the answer is, but I know having super tournaments (12-18) teams every weekend is not the answer.  Getting parents home before dinner is optimal.  

   This is a new generation, everything needs to be shorter.  A movie over 2 hours long is to long, a professional sporting event lasting over 2 hours is to long.  We have to change with the times regardless of whether we like it or not.  

 

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1 hour ago, grappler-of-old said:

 

I agree its a huge commitment to wrestle, but it's not unlike other sports.

Track events are filled with kids and spectators. The time waiting to time participating ratio is very similar to wrestling. Know of any travel baseball or select soccer families? You don't see them in the Spring/Summer. AAU Bball kids play games on Saturday's and Sunday's. During their off days, I'd say a similar % are getting additional skills training. Although HS games are on Friday night, most good HS Fball teams have film study and workouts Saturday mornings. My daughter does competitive cheer (unfortunately). She goes 6 days a week. Hell, nobody practices more than our local HS band! 

I don't think the commitment spooks kids. Poorly ran programs and events turn kids/parents off. I agree, we can reduce the time spent at the gyms, but I don't think that is the main issue with participation. 

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2 hours ago, MLee said:

I agree its a huge commitment to wrestle, but it's not unlike other sports.

Track events are filled with kids and spectators. The time waiting to time participating ratio is very similar to wrestling. Know of any travel baseball or select soccer families? You don't see them in the Spring/Summer. AAU Bball kids play games on Saturday's and Sunday's. During their off days, I'd say a similar % are getting additional skills training. Although HS games are on Friday night, most good HS Fball teams have film study and workouts Saturday mornings. My daughter does competitive cheer (unfortunately). She goes 6 days a week. Hell, nobody practices more than our local HS band! 

I don't think the commitment spooks kids. Poorly ran programs and events turn kids/parents off. I agree, we can reduce the time spent at the gyms, but I don't think that is the main issue with participation. 

Track isn't every weekend, and it's outside. In terms of number of days, wrestling is comparable to other sports, but the big difference is is 2-3 hours (tops) vs 8+hours for wrestling. Also, as a parent you don't have to watch your kid get physically beaten up in those other sports which coupled with being stuck in a gym for a whole day can make things unbearable for parents and kids. Of course, the reason we are so big tournament focused is because with so many partial teams, it's the only way you can guarantee your guys get matches. 

I do believe depth has dropped dramatically. There are teams that were really good a few years ago that are now on life support. And where there might have been 10 really solid kids in a weight class, now in many, there are only a handful. 

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