Thoughts on poss. weight class changes.

[ccbig]

CCBIG

Are you kidding me did you really say what you said about dedication? The "out of the building" coaches doing the minimum. Let's look at my situation. I am a paramedic. That's what I do to feed my family. Season runs from Oct. 13th to Feb 14th this year. That works out to roughly 90 practices, 13 tournaments and 11 duals. 220 hours of practice time, 144 hours of tournament time and 16 hours of dual meet time. I am at the school at least 2.5 hours a day Mon through Friday unless we have a dual or a tournament and then it can be more. I work from 7 pm to 7 am go home sleep from about 8 am to 2 pm at school at 2:30 pm for practice until roughly 5 pm. Home to see MY family for about an hour from 5:30 pm to 6:30 pm and then back to work for 7 pm. So your inference that the out of the school coaches are "can do more" is ridiculous.

When I did the most coaching I was working 50 to 60 hour weeks. My work day started at 5am. I rushed to make it to practices by 6pm. I often also worked at least a partial day on the weekend. I was lucky to sleep more then 5 hours a night during any of the sport seasons I coached.

I know what working around a job schedule is about. I still took hours off from work here or there to see my kids in school plays, band concerts etc. and made up those hours working on weekends. It can be done but it is very hard work.

I also was providing rides not only for my own kids but other kids who would not have been able to come to practice or meets because their parents couldn't drive or find transport for their kids. I can't count how many meals and drinks I bought for kids that would not have had them at tourneys and meets if I hadn't dug into my own pocket. I never asked for to be repaid. My reward was seeing those kids enjoying something they would have missed out on otherwise.

I followed the lead of a youth coach I was lucky enough to work with for 10 years. He has dedicated over 25 years to youth coaching, community volunteering and booster club support for multiple high school programs. The things I did fall short of his dedication as far as I'm concerned.

Yeah that's what I should do use all of my vacation to coach my team. Not try to see my family because as you can see I spend so much time with them during the season. I take some time off so I can attend tournaments. But, guess what. I can't take every tournament day off so, what happens? I'm up for nearly 36 hours. Work my regular shift, get to the tournament for weigh-in, coach the tournament and then roll back to work. Oh and by the way I have a club team too. We work out 3 times a week after the high school season ends.

So please don't come on here and make accusations of laziness pointing your fingers at coaches that bust their behinds for their teams. This isn't about me, it's not about the school, it's not about dual meet records or forfeits. It's about the kids. It's about an opportunity to participate in the greatest sport there is. That is one thing we apparently do agree on.

I did use my own vacation time. I don't demand others do it but I did.

I should have prefaced my statement that some coaches have those issues. I am more then well aware that a huge percentage of coaches go way above and beyond to help thier team.

I think you would also agree that there are coaches out there that do put in the minimum effort when it comes to some of those extras.

I also tried to point out that the coach should NOT BE ALONE in efforts to build a team.

Building a good high school team starts with a good youth team to feed the middle school, JV and eventually high school programs.

Parents need to be involved at all levels volunteering in any way that they can to help their kids teams.

Booster programs can help get communities involved and provide very valuable financial support.

School wrestler alumni are often forgotten as a great resource to help with a team in many areas.

I hope I clarified my points and I tried to add a few more examples.

[wrastler118]

When I did the most coaching I was working 50 to 60 hour weeks. My work day started at 5am. I rushed to make it to practices by 6pm. I often also worked at least a partial day on the weekend. I was lucky to sleep more then 5 hours a night during any of the sport seasons I coached.

I know what working around a job schedule is about. I still took hours off from work here or there to see my kids in school plays, band concerts etc. and made up those hours working on weekends. It can be done but it is very hard work.

I also was providing rides not only for my own kids but other kids who would not have been able to come to practice or meets because their parents couldn't drive or find transport for their kids. I can't count how many meals and drinks I bought for kids that would not have had them at tourneys and meets if I hadn't dug into my own pocket. I never asked for to be repaid. My reward was seeing those kids enjoying something they would have missed out on otherwise.

I followed the lead of a youth coach I was lucky enough to work with for 10 years. He has dedicated over 25 years to youth coaching, community volunteering and booster club support for multiple high school programs. The things I did fall short of his dedication as far as I'm concerned.





I did use my own vacation time. I don't demand others do it but I did.

I should have prefaced my statement that some coaches have those issues. I am more then well aware that a huge percentage of coaches go way above and beyond to help thier team.

I think you would also agree that there are coaches out there that do put in the minimum effort when it comes to some of those extras.

I also tried to point out that the coach should NOT BE ALONE in efforts to build a team.

Building a good high school team starts with a good youth team to feed the middle school, JV and eventually high school programs.

Parents need to be involved at all levels volunteering in any way that they can to help their kids teams.

Booster programs can help get communities involved and provide very valuable financial support.

School wrestler alumni are often forgotten as a great resource to help with a team in many areas.

I hope I clarified my points and I tried to add a few more examples.

I too am in the same situation as you, only now I get paid to do it. For the first 8yrs I coached, it was strictly volunteer. I went on all the trips, coached as much as possible and loved every minute of it. It wasn't until a MS position opened up that I finally got paid. Which usually ends up going back to wrestling, if I broke it down.

No of course we can't expect every coach to be in this situation, I do expect a coach to put more effort into their program than just the season. And if they can't, find someone who can help you in the spring and summer. In my situation, I'm paid as a MS coach, but work as a full time assistant HS coach and head club coach. Our head coach is a three sport coach so he doesn't have the time to do as much as he'd like, but he is still helpful. So, it works out perfect.

[Champ Kind]

I too am in the same situation as you, only now I get paid to do it. For the first 8yrs I coached, it was strictly volunteer. I went on all the trips, coached as much as possible and loved every minute of it. It wasn't until a MS position opened up that I finally got paid. Which usually ends up going back to wrestling, if I broke it down.

No of course we can't expect every coach to be in this situation, I do expect a coach to put more effort into their program than just the season. And if they can't, find someone who can help you in the spring and summer. In my situation, I'm paid as a MS coach, but work as a full time assistant HS coach and head club coach. Our head coach is a three sport coach so he doesn't have the time to do as much as he'd like, but he is still helpful. So, it works out perfect.

What would you expect the high school coach to do if you weren't there?

[wrastler118]

What would you expect the high school coach to do if you weren't there?

I would still expect him to work his tail off for our program. Just would have to find the time to do it.

My whole thought on coaching is if you're not going to put 100% effort into building a program from the ground up, then why are you coaching in the first place.

[coachbull]

Hey at least you have weekends off. Paramedicine is not a job that has weekends off. You can't transfer the 911 calls for the weekends. So I'm not sure you are still clear on my situation.

It's nice to live in an area that has so many folks that can volunteer and you have enough coaches to coach a freshman, JV and Varsity team. I coach my high school team with another paramedic who wrestled at Arizona State. Alumni drop by every now and again but not consistently because they are in school and the like. In addition I have to coach my club team alone or with very little help. If I wanted to get a middle school program started guess who would coach it. That's right, ME. We just don't have the number of coaches here to coach teams. It would be great it's just not realistic.

[ccbig]

Hey at least you have weekends off. Paramedicine is not a job that has weekends off. You can't transfer the 911 calls for the weekends. So I'm not sure you are still clear on my situation.

It's nice to live in an area that has so many folks that can volunteer and you have enough coaches to coach a freshman, JV and Varsity team. I coach my high school team with another paramedic who wrestled at Arizona State. Alumni drop by every now and again but not consistently because they are in school and the like. In addition I have to coach my club team alone or with very little help. If I wanted to get a middle school program started guess who would coach it. That's right, ME. We just don't have the number of coaches here to coach teams. It would be great it's just not realistic.

Your area is lucky to have a dedicated coach like yourself. To really help your situation for you need to get your hands on more coaches and parents to share the load.

Start working with a few of your youngest youth parents and help get them confident enough to help coach and eventually take over coaching the youth team in a few years. Invite past wrestlers from your high school team (alumni) to help coach your higher level teams. I know many are in college but are there any older alumni that are past college age? Dig out old yearbooks and class reunion information. See who is still around locally. You might be surprised that folks may be honored to be asked to help.

Encourage the parents to become involved when their kids are at a young age and you could end up having many years worth of enthusiastic help.

It will take time but hopefully in a few years you won't be trying to fill every need on your own!

[r.payton@att.net]

Bellmont would be very comparable to Apple Valley in Minnesota. Now since AV can have middle school athletes on the team, it makes a huge difference. I'm sure there would be less forfeits if all states would allow middle schoolers to be on varsity teams.

How can it be a recruiting problem when over 20% of the state forfeits a weight class? Here is the breakdown of forfeits in Indiana at the sectional level. Tell me something isn't wrong at the bottom of the bracket.

http://www.garrettwrestling.com/brac...trubution.html
The first percentage is the percent of all the forfeits in all weight classes.
The second one is for just the schools that were counted, which is 244 out of about 308.
The third one is the percentage of all the schools if there were no other forfeits at that weight in the remaining sectionals I did not get information on.




How many 7th and 8th graders are play varsity football, basketball or baseball compared to wrestling? How many 7th and 8th graders are varsity wrestlers at weight classes 125lbs and bigger?

I would venture to guess the answer to those questions are VERY, VERY, VERY few.

My guess as to why the upper weights in Minnesota suffer is that those upper weights see the smaller, less athletic kids lettering as 7th and 8th graders and say screw the sport. Why would they want to ride the pine or wrestle at the middle school level when they see their classmates as varsity wrestlers just because of their size? The bigger kids are the ones that suffer since they won't see the varsity line-up until maybe as a sophomore or later. I also would venture to guess that you just think there are more forfeits at the upper weights than there really are.

I personally don't think that middle schoolers should be on the varsity teams, but that is another subject. I would be curious to know how many varsity starters at 103 this year in Minnesota were freshmen and not 7th or 8th graders.

CK-I didn't realize how much trouble a program as strong as Belmont's is could be having trouble filling the lower weights -I remember 30 years ago when Gunsett wrestled varsity 112 as a Freshman and placed at semi-state .... their feeder program is as strong as it gets and if they can't fill those weights no one can . Hell, 1/2 the 6th graders could beat most of the fish I see at 103 these days .This is a serious problem if Belmont can't field a decent 103 -they are a smallish school though -b ut still -112 -117 should be the opening wt . class.