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Discussion Topic: How can we save the sport of wrestling?
Jeremy Craft added to this discussion on December 25, 2009
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Another thing that we did last year was a wrestling tournament on the high school football field. It was really cool.
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Discussion Topic: How can we save the sport of wrestling?
Michael Rodriguez added to this discussion on December 25, 2009
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Quote from Jeremy Craft's post:
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"I say, bring out the excitement.
We need a Dennis Rodman, a Ray Lewis, etc. of college wrestling. Much like the UFC. I'd rather watch a showman like BJ Penn who trash talks and entertains than a Kenny Florian who is a great fighter but who is as bland as white bread."
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Wow.
As far as the topic, I tend to lean more toward the "I am wrestling; Don't weep for me" stance. I don't think it's broken and I don't see anything that needs fixing. Wrestling has been around for a long long time, and it will be here long after we're gone. I like weight classes, I enjoy both great offense and great defense, I like the serious aspects of the sport and to be honest, I like the fact that ours is a fringe sport. Part of its appeal it that's it's not for everyone.
Someone mentioned repealing Title IX. I don't agree. I'm all for changing the way Title IX is implemented and enforced, but the spirit of the law is noble.
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Discussion Topic: How can we save the sport of wrestling?
Mark Niemann added to this discussion on December 26, 2009
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We're thinking of wearing wedding dresses as opposed to the traditional warm-ups. Excited???
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Discussion Topic: How can we save the sport of wrestling?
Lou Demas added to this discussion on December 26, 2009
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Mark-
Follow your dream!! All great thinkers have been mocked in the beginning. Sure many people won't get the entertainment value of going to the NCAA Championships and seeing all of our countries top wrestlers looking like they all just came to do a massive photo shoot for Bride's Magazine but I do. They, my friend, are just not visionaries!
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Discussion Topic: How can we save the sport of wrestling?
Hank Kornblut added to this discussion on December 26, 2009
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I have a markedly different perspective than the rest of you.
The family unit has disintegrated to the point where a huge percentage of children are not growing up in a stable environment. They have one parent--not two. They often have siblings with whom they only share one common parent. Out-of-wedlock births are normal and frequent. These kids comprise an ever increasing portion of the school age population. They are difficult to educate because they lack structure and discipline in the home. They have few worthwhile role models Expect them to wrestle? Are you kidding?
Communities today are frayed and fraying. It used to be that most school districts were pretty good places to live. Today, you wouldn't want to send your children to a lot of public schools.
The number of kids wrestling nationwide may be substantial but that's because the sport is offered in a lot of high schools and has grown in the south and west. Here, in Cleveland, the number of forfeits is overwhelming and the weakness of todays programs is obvious as compared to most programs in the same communities thirty years ago.
My personal opinion is that the current model of Jr High/Middle School to High School no longer works well. I'd much rather see wrestling be community based in communities that choose to value it rather than allow bad programs to chronically exist in downtrodden schools (or those which no longer want to support it). Let wrestling clubs spring up where desired and allow these kids to face each other. Instead of the OHSAA, an organization such as Jude Roth's OAC or MyWay could run a state meet. In the long run, this is where the sport is headed anyway. As tax bases falter and finances dwindle, schools will cut sports (and they should already in my opinion). Richmond Heights was the beginning. We'll see more of that soon.
I'd rather yank wrestling from the high schools, allow community programs to spring up and work together and let these kids turn the sport into something good again. Currently, there are too many schools at which the sport is a farce. Just my thoughts.
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Discussion Topic: How can we save the sport of wrestling?
Mike Leedy added to this discussion on December 26, 2009
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Quote from Hank Kornblut's post:
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"I have a markedly different perspective than the rest of you.
The family unit has disintegrated to the point where a huge percentage of children are not growing up in a stable environment. They have one parent--not two. They often have siblings with whom they only share one common parent. Out-of-wedlock births are normal and frequent. These kids comprise an ever increasing portion of the school age population. They are difficult to educate because they lack structure and discipline in the home. They have few worthwhile role models Expect them to wrestle? Are you kidding?
Communities today are frayed and fraying. It used to be that most school districts were pretty good places to live. Today, you wouldn't want to send your children to a lot of public schools.
The number of kids wrestling nationwide may be substantial but that's because the sport is offered in a lot of high schools and has grown in the south and west. Here, in Cleveland, the number of forfeits is overwhelming and the weakness of todays programs is obvious as compared to most programs in the same communities thirty years ago.
My personal opinion is that the current model of Jr High/Middle School to High School no longer works well. I'd much rather see wrestling be community based in communities that choose to value it rather than allow bad programs to chronically exist in downtrodden schools (or those which no longer want to support it). Let wrestling clubs spring up where desired and allow these kids to face each other. Instead of the OHSAA, an organization such as Jude Roth's OAC or MyWay could run a state meet. In the long run, this is where the sport is headed anyway. As tax bases falter and finances dwindle, schools will cut sports (and they should already in my opinion). Richmond Heights was the beginning. We'll see more of that soon.
I'd rather yank wrestling from the high schools, allow community programs to spring up and work together and let these kids turn the sport into something good again. Currently, there are too many schools at which the sport is a farce. Just my thoughts."
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Thanks for the insight Hank, I'm in total agreement with that assessment. As I stated before, my kids attend/attended Toledo Public and there, they even go so far as to "pimp out", the athletes. What I mean by this is, they realize the gate money they get from the public schools following is minimal but capitalize on the private schools and surrounding schools gate dollars, when those teams come to call. They exercise full control over the City League and are able to manipulate schedules to maximize their share of the gate. In turn, for that control, they relinquish to some kind of "sweetheart contract" to the other schools and honor them indefinitely, or until someone breaks the agreement. There is no consideration for bettering the programs by improving schedules or challenging the kids.
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Discussion Topic: How can we save the sport of wrestling?
Harry Lester added to this discussion on December 27, 2009
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Hank,
I totally agree on what you wrote. I have had the chance to work with a couple of inner city schools in a mulitple states. Majority of the kids came from single parent homes. But from my experience, it wasn't the environment keeping the kids from wrestling. It of course makes it harder to keep kids committed to the program, but from My Experience it was making the kids excited about wrestling, excited about doing something with their lives. I had the chance to work with a a detroit city school for the last 6 years, and I have seen their program grow from 7 kids to almost 30 kids this year. The coaches in that program made it happen by bringing in people that the kids could look up to and give them something to look forward to in their futures. I don't see the in and outs of these programs so I am going based off of what I have experienced. Every program I have worked with have kept kids by keeping them entertained with wrestling making wrestling more fun than anything else they are doing in life at the time!
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Discussion Topic: How can we save the sport of wrestling?
Dom Mancini added to this discussion on December 27, 2009
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Back in college I wrestled for coach who was an NAIA national champion he defined wrestling about as acurate as i have ever heard and this was back in the mid 80's. He said and I quote "wrestling is like a fungus, some years it gets better and some years it gets worse but it never really goes away and it never really gets any better."
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Discussion Topic: How can we save the sport of wrestling?
Hank Kornblut added to this discussion on December 28, 2009
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Dom: You're correct. Wrestling will always survive.
My point is that the school based wrestling programs are not really good anymore for the high school sport.
If Harry Lester were to spend time in inner city Cleveland running a club, he could probably put together an amazing program. That program would be much better for the kids than if they trained with him but then went to wrestle for their nearest public school.
St Paris Graham is a community based program that funnels all the kids to it's high school squad. St Eds is a private school that funnels in the talent in similar fashion. Neither Graham nor Eds operates under the old model--call it the Maple Heights model.
I know that what I'm advocating--the abolishment of high school programs in favor of community based youth clubs that serve the same purpose--will not come to fruition any time soon. But it's where we're headed. And I think it's better than what we currently have.
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Discussion Topic: How can we save the sport of wrestling?
Gary Sommers added to this discussion on December 28, 2009
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Quote from Hank Kornblut's post:
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"Dom: You're correct. Wrestling will always survive.
My point is that the school based wrestling programs are not really good anymore for the high school sport.
If Harry Lester were to spend time in inner city Cleveland running a club, he could probably put together an amazing program. That program would be much better for the kids than if they trained with him but then went to wrestle for their nearest public school.
St Paris Graham is a community based program that funnels all the kids to it's high school squad. St Eds is a private school that funnels in the talent in similar fashion. Neither Graham nor Eds operates under the old model--call it the Maple Heights model.
I know that what I'm advocating--the abolishment of high school programs in favor of community based youth clubs that serve the same purpose--will not come to fruition any time soon. But it's where we're headed. And I think it's better than what we currently have."
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Hank, having grown up in Maple, born in '56 and graduated in '74, I am not sure their "model" was any different than a number of top public programs back then (e.g. John Marshall, Valley Forge, Garfield Heights, Bay, etc.). Except of course they did it better. :)
Seriously, it was the model all public schools used. Kids were born in a school district, attended the public school, stayed there for high school, participated in extracurriculars (in this case, wrestling), and graduated from the local high school. There was little if any youth wrestling, really the Milkovich boys (Mike's and his nephews) seemed to start earlier but the rest basically began in 7th grade at one of the two junior highs, learned the sport from Mike's brother and Mike, and developed from there.
It was what I think high school sports should be, not fathers sending their sons all over creation for sports, often at the expense of an education or a sense of team and community.
Just my opinion.
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