I probably should have posted this in the Misc. Wrestling forum, but that does not get as much traffic so forgive me if this is a bit off topic from college wrestling.
I am writing an article about wrestling for a newspaper and I need to take a quick demographic survey as the basis of one of the concepts in my article.
If you have a few free minutes, could you answer the questions below for me?
1. How old were you when you started wrestling?
2. Why did you start wrestling? Did you have a family member or someone else that was close to you who had wrestled and encouraged you to do so? Or did you start on your own?
3. What city and state are you from originally? Did you live in an urban area when you started wrestling or was it more country/suburban? Tell me a little about the demographics of the area you lived in when you began wrestling.
Thanks for your help! You can either email the answers to me at dhobeika@gmail.com or if you don't feel comfortable doing that, I guess you can post them on here.
I was 9 years old. Originally I wanted to try Judo because of all the throws and tap outs that I wanted to learn. I lived in Russia and you could start Judo only at 10 years old there by law. At the same time a freestyle wrestling coach came to my school and invited my classmates and I to join a freestyle club where you could start at 9 years old.
I didn't want to wait a year so I joined a freestyle club. I fell in love with it and never thought about Judo anymore.
Nobody in my family wrestled so I was on my own. My parents didn't mind though.
I lived in Leningrad which is a big city.
In New York I met Roman Ruderman, Mocco's coach, and he brought me to NYAC. There I met my high school coaches and they invited me to Poly Prep.
2. Why did you start wrestling? Did you have a family member or someone else that was close to you who had wrestled and encouraged you to do so? Or did you start on your own?
A friend encouraged me to go out for football (I never played organized sports before), and the jv football coach, who was starting a wrestling team at my high school, convinced me to go out for wrestling.
3. What city and state are you from originally? Did you live in an urban area when you started wrestling or was it more country/suburban? Tell me a little about the demographics of the area you lived in when you began wrestling.
Brookline, Mass (with which you are familiar ). Semi-affluent suburb of Boston.
2. Why did you start wrestling? Did you have a family member or someone else that was close to you who had wrestled and encouraged you to do so? Or did you start on your own?
Older Brother
3. What city and state are you from originally? Did you live in an urban area when you started wrestling or was it more country/suburban? Tell me a little about the demographics of the area you lived in when you began wrestling.
Suburb of Milwaukee, the city was/is a very typical suburb. (New Berlin)
7th grade, 12 years old, they didn't have junior programs back then, started in middle school.
2. Why did you start wrestling? Did you have a family member or someone else that was close to you who had wrestled and encouraged you to do so? Or did you start on your own?
Wrestling family, father and uncles wrestled, older brother wrestled, older cousin was a state champ, 4th at NCAAs in '52 and 5/6 in '51, other cousins also wrestled.
3. What city and state are you from originally? Did you live in an urban area when you started wrestling or was it more country/suburban? Tell me a little about the demographics of the area you lived in when you began wrestling.
More suburban than urban but not rural, a small, 1 sqmi blue color community packed tight with 12,000 residents, Roselle Park, NJ. Town was a legacy wrestling community, nationally known coach, Pug Williams, now in the USA Hall of Fame, through the 50's had the most state champs in the state and numerous team titles. Today it's routinely one of the top 25 teams in the state occasionally climbing into the top ten.
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19-0 ? Hell No ! 18 Wins and 1 GIANT Loss !
2. Why did you start wrestling? Did you have a family member or someone else that was close to you who had wrestled and encouraged you to do so? Or did you start on your own?
I was the first person in my family to wrestle. I got into it in 7th grade, the "cool" teacher that year had won DIII Nationals back in 1994. He was all about it, and he got a number of us impressionable young kids to be all about it.
Originally Posted by DH
3. What city and state are you from originally? Did you live in an urban area when you started wrestling or was it more country/suburban? Tell me a little about the demographics of the area you lived in when you began wrestling.
Southern Delaware. Not Urban, but not really particularly rural either, small beach town.
1. 7th grade 12 years old
2. Because I was cut from the basketball team. No, started on my own.
3. Garrett, Indiana its a small suburban/rural town with just under 6000 residents.
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I will smash your face into a car windshield and then take your mother, Dorothy Mantooth, out to a nice seafood dinner and never call her again!
Tell me about it, this morning, I woke up and I shit a squirrel, but what I can't get is the damn thing is still alive. So now, I've got a shit covered squirrel running around my office and I don't know what to name it.
I was a junior in high school, Florida didn't have wrestling till the late 60's. Me and my twin brother wanted to be pro. wrestlers. and fell in love with amateur wrestling. Wrestled and coached for 35 yrs. Ft. Lauderdale, Fl. Back then it was a sleepy little town. Not the pits, like it is today.
1) Around 9 years old, (mid 1960's). The local Boy's Club Director was a boxer and wrestler in College & HS, (from Central California).
2) I hung out at the Ventura Boy's Club for years growing up. We played every sport available and offered to us, (no tennis or golf played on this side of town). No one in my family wrestled before me. (since then, both sons & numerous cousins and nephews).
3) Ventura, California. The westside of Ventura to be exact, demographics was perhaps 50% white & 50% mexican/american with very few blacks or asians, the low income area of town, low to middle class. (eastside of Ventura was 80% white, mid to upper class).
1. How old were you when you started wrestling? 14 (soph in H.S.)
2. Why did you start wrestling? Did you have a family member or someone else that was close to you who had wrestled and encouraged you to do so? Or did you start on your own?
I started wrestling on my own. I am the oldest of my siblings and while we loved WWF style "wrasslin", we had no idea what real wrestling was. My mom was very much against it, but I signed up for the team anyway.
My reason for joining the wrestling team was to get in better shape for the upcoming baseball season, at the advice of a baseball coach. I was terrible, but the team was so small that I was able to go varsity and wound up 1-15 that 1st season, with all 15 losses coming by fall! In spite of my lack of success, I fell in love with the sport that year and never played baseball again.
3. What city and state are you from originally? Did you live in an urban area when you started wrestling or was it more country/suburban? Tell me a little about the demographics of the area you lived in when you began wrestling.
I grew up in inner city Sacramento, CA. Sacramento is a very racially and economically diverse city, as was my high school (about 40% white, 20% black, 20% Latino, 15% Asian-American & 5% other). Wrestling was/is a popular sport in N.Cali, but primarily in the suburbs. The larger N.Cal cities (Sacramento, San Francisco) typically are less supportive of wrestling (San Jose was an exception to this rule) . I was the first person from my school to go to the state tournament and it was the 2nd oldest school west of the Rockies. Occasionally, we would develop a gem such as Adam Tirapelli, who won his 1st state title while attending Johnson HS, another inner city school in Sacramento (before his family moved to Clovis in the central valley) but this is a rarity.
Questions for anyone that has wrestled... 
). Semi-affluent suburb of Boston.
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