The evolution and continual degradation of WV Wrestling

[J.W.]

The Youth Wrestling Parents Today Determine the High School Wrestling Programs of the Future
Forfeits, Byes, Feeder Programs, and Super Clubs
The evolution and continual degradation of WV Wrestling

The topic of discussion for 3 plus years have been complaints of rosters, byes, forfeits, and displeasure with overall competitiveness of previously historic strong wrestling teams. Some teams have maintained, or even improved upon their dominance. Others have fallen. The fingers can be pointed at high school coaches, kids, long tournaments, and any other excuse you choose to pick, but my opinion is it is systemic from parental choices of the proclaimed elitist mentality. The same is true about your local youth baseball leagues and your middle school football programs. The more that is created, the less you will have.

A new West Virginia Youth wrestling facebook page has recently started and one of the most responded to topics of discussion is “are club teams the way to go or are they hurting the local feeder programs”. Most of the respondents to this are very much about the look-out for your individual kid, take them where they need to go so they can be the best. As the quality of one becomes more important, the quantity and quality of others will diminish.

When you look at the history of West Virginia wrestling, when South was still great, but they did not win it every year, there were great youth feeder programs with future high school goals at the forefront. That no longer exists. The landscape of most feeder programs have dwindled, strained relationships between youth, middle school, and high school programs. The same can be said with the creation of youth football leagues that overlap and deter the middle school football team importance. Baseball would be at the forefront of this issue. The creation of travel ball has destroyed the heart of local baseball leagues, and wrestling is now on track to do the same thing.

I can’t sit here and judge anyone for the choices they make for their kids, every parent wants the best for what their kid wants to do, I can only look at all of these topics from a macro level and see the correlation and down fall.

In the early 80’s through the early 90’s there were competitive feeder programs for every school. If a kid was really good, he trained with his feeder team and his friends wrestled with him and they all became better together. Creating a cohort group of kids that would move through youth making a name for themselves along with their teammates, move to middle school filling line-ups, and on to high school where there would be full line-ups and competitive match-ups. South did not always win, they were pushed, there were upsets, and competitive team races. Back in these days, Quest and other prominent clubs were used as an additional resource for those wrestlers that wanted and needed more, not as the primary training ground. Fast forward to the 2010 and beyond, and parents begin to take their kids to OMP, Young Guns, Felix Wrestling Academy, and I am sure a slew of other great national level clubs and the downfall has begun. When you pull the great wrestlers out of the school team on a daily basis, there is no one for the average to look at and say I want to be good, or for the good to look at and say I want to be great. They have lost their role model that made them come out for the sport in the first place.

The leaders, the young great athletes in the feeder programs are removed. These were the ones that their friends wanted to be like, followed, wrestled with and the friends became the high school teams in the future. They came to practice to be in the same room with those wrestlers. They shared success, trained together, and built the high school teams of the future.

Follow recent history and you can see the correlation. When Oak Glen was at their prime, there was a feeder program and middle school program that were provided oversight by the high school coach. A family, a tradition and a unity. The same can be said for North Marion’s control under Coach Roy Michael. Remember when they wrestled and beat South. The teams that are successful today are the ones that still have this, even if they are short lived. Point Pleasant had a coach that stayed with and trained, and built a sense of team work with a large group of young men who are now reaching high school. Point Pleasant’s High School coach has inherited a cohort and will continue to improve upon this talented young group. A cohort that is showing the success of this system. Independence followed this same system starting 10 to 12 years ago and have been dominant for years. Parkersburg and Parkersburg South have had and still maintain this type of relationship. Others have had it in the past but are now struggling to keep and maintain this. It comes in waves but short lived.

It is my personal belief that local youth feeder programs, middle school programs, and high school programs need to reengage their relationship, the team building concept, and the esprit de corps from the local youth feeder program through high school mentality in order to prevent the further slippage to minimal quantity and quality. Some teams will have this in short waves of a group of friends but as the parent leader progresses through the ranks, there has to be another like-minded coach backfill with the next cohort.

Again, I am not judging any parent for the choice they make, only giving some reference to where we are now from where we used to be. Remember this started with the baseball super team mentality that has destroyed your local youth baseball. We as parents have stripped the innocence and fun from the early, made it an individual job, placed individual success at the forefront over the concept of youth competitiveness and team building.

Just my long drawn out thoughts. Could make a good write-up if I were better at English, writing, editing, and gathered more resources.

[J.W.]

I need to clarify the above, since I had one phone call from a person I respect, again to each their own and this was not a call out anyone type of post. This was a correlation of common trends that have led to the rise and fall of programs throughout the past 20 to 30 years. The grass roots cause and effect. Baseball, Football, and now wrestling.

Not a judgement, not a this is right and that is wrong mentality, it is another outlook of what has changed, why it has changed, and why it will continue to be driven that same direction unless there is a continual rotation of pull together the young, have them train as a team, build them through the years and watch them flourish, as opposed to pull them all separate directions and see if they mesh back together later, because you lose many of them along the way under this method.

Again, no ill will or harm directed towards anyone in their choices. Good luck to all and hopefully there will be a change in how youth teams are developed to keep kids wrestling through high school and making the greatest sport flourish instead of fold.

[Treerat]

Excellent

[Monarch1996]

JW, you're on to something. When it comes to wrestling, I wonder how many give up because it is not immediately rewarding? For example, I stuck with it even when I lost more than I won early on. I can recall former teammates who dominated in junior high, then struggled in high school, and quit.

I had never considered the club aspect of it, but there's probably some truth to that. My kids' school, Hamilton Township, here in Columbus was very, very good not terribly long ago--with one national champ and a couple runners up as I recall--and 2nd place behind St Paris Graham for a few years (which may be, as far as I'm concerned, a partial state title since nobody seems to beat Graham). Now they barely field a team most years. Yet, the local club team is very active. Again, not a WV school, but I do think there is some correlation here.

[Bearhugger]

Good commentary by all. This response is not to challenge anything or anybody, but to simply add.

The Walsh Jesuit Ironman Tournament is a perfect talking point. I have attended the past two seasons and simply watched the evolution that has taken place.

2017: Parkersburg South sent approximately six wrestlers, Oak Glen sent one and Weir sent one. Lets stop right here and review. The three schools only sent a portion of their team or only one single wrestler. South had one wrestler win it while others won matches. Oak Glen's wrestler placed 7th. Talking out of pure speculation, I am sure there were people happy for these wrestlers and possibly a few people upset because their kids didn't get to go.


2018: Parkersburg South took almost their whole team. Oak Glen took 3 wrestlers. Parkersburg had one wrestler go. Because of the success achieved in 2017, Parkersburg South and Oak Glen got MORE kids into Ironman for 2018. South once again had a champion and a 4th placer. Many other kids won matches. Oak Glen had a 7th placer and Parkersburg had a 7th placer.

The top wrestlers are on top because of their hard work and dedication. Above is a perfect example of where the top wrestlers made the most of their opportunity. By doing so, it opened the door for more of their teammates. This is a good thing.

I am sure Powerade operates in a similar fashion. The WV teams that get in typically have 1-2 highly accomplished wrestlers. If the team does well, they get invited back.

Another very basic example is if a wrestler goes to a wrestling camp. He/she learns what they learn and then brings it back to their high school's mat room. The techniques are then shared with fellow teammates that didn't attend any camps.

The decline of wrestling is deep rooted in the decline of physical fitness in today's youth.

[Studcradle]

In October 2016 JW touts the importance of training with partners outside of your regular room school community and generously offered the EF facility. It was cancelled because no one was interested.
Does this mean that in 2016 people thought like JW does now? Not being critical of JW, i think he was right then and wrong now but either way he is thinking about ways to improve wv wrestling and that’s good.

[mattman]

I see what JW is leaning towards but I also see a complete different view. I completely understand that each kid lives under a completely different circumstance. Maybe child A is born into a wealthy family and child B is from a working class family with 8 brothers and sisters. I am a firm believer in wrestling being a sport (along with probably every other sport) that hard work will pay off in the end. Every child has a different maturity rate and year after year I watch the class of what I call the “pee wee superstar” underachieve in some eyes. I remember a story Ken Chertow told year after year and it was exactly the same every time he told it. He would run to the Huntington high football games in his sweats, knee pads and running shoes. The second the game was over he would shadow drill alone under the lights because he was hungry and determined to win. He would drill until thee lights were turned off and then he would run home. A motivated kid is more dangerous than any high level club team ever thought of being. It’s not the wins or losses that determine the man, it’s the grind, work ethic, accountability and Camaraderie that the sport offers to each individual. If your son/daughter wants to wrestle at the next level, as parents I feel we are obligated to help them pursue their dreams. If we choose to take them to Jordan, Chertow, Quest, Miron or your local practice 5 days a week, a kid is only gonna do what he wants. Hard work, passion and desire go a long way. Add the Lord Jesus Christ and anything is possible!

[rodneyjwv]

Amen!!! They have removed all aspects of God from everything we once held dear. Now everyone is wondering what is wrong, and blaming on everything but that. I pray that our country wakes up before we are overwhelmed by godlessness and the ilk that promotes it!

[Frank]

The reason athletics in wv high school is felling is a whole lot simpler than all that. The state doesn’t fund hs sports. The BOEd barely pays coaches. Their is more liability and administrative/WVSSAC BS that most are willing to put up with after thier kid moves on. The issue is with the value that our education system puts on athletics.

[J.W.]

The reason athletics in wv high school is felling is a whole lot simpler than all that. The state doesn’t fund hs sports. The BOEd barely pays coaches. Their is more liability and administrative/WVSSAC BS that most are willing to put up with after thier kid moves on. The issue is with the value that our education system puts on athletics.

Can't argue that comment at all, and agree, but my post was more about why is it that teams don't have kids come out for a team at all anymore? Your current location is an exception, but as I stated in my original vent. Your youth feeder program, Young Guns, if I am not mistaken, has a lot of tiebacks to your middle school and high school. Kids use your club as a primary training area training together from youth up through high school. You take alot of people rooting against you because your teams from grass roots to high school have been a very close knit team that has been successful. Travel as a group, train as a group, and stay together with focused goals as a cohort. At least from the outside looking in, that is my perspective. Do kids go train at other places to get more, to get different... I am sure they do. But it is the fact that they feed off each other from youth through high school that you have depth, does not seem as if you have kids going searching to be individuals for 6 years and then come together at high school to be successful, it was built over time.

If they all trained at different locations, never being together when younger, do you think Indy would have the same success right now? I never said I was right, just looking at the teams that are successful right now, or have been for a long time, the common trend is that they had great youth feeder teams that fed a middle school that had pride into becoming part of their high schools future success.

No issues against those who go a different path, but stating that their is no stopping short rosters without using the same ingredients you guys, south, and some of the teams of the past have by getting large numbers of like aged kids to train when young and build towards future success.

Hope that makes sense, and that is a compliment to what you have, not a cut, slight, or negative comment like some may take.

[aacoach21]

I would say that it can also be do to raising kids to the time they get in middle school that they are a winner with participation trophies. Plus alot of paents aren't raising their kids to not quit and to gain reward you have to work hard and put in hard work to be at the top.

[Frank]

Then u this guy

[Diamond]

I agree w your baseball comment 100% but I disagree that the clubs in wrestling do any harm. If a kid wants to wrestle and be better there is nothing stopping him/her except their own motivation. Sure there are factors such as parents work times or income that can prohibit a kid from joining or making it club practices but I've found that when I offer kids a ride to the club or practice with us that 99% of the time they decline. Kids are impatient and want instant gratification. Wrestling offers neither...So to justify my lack of skill lets blame those working hard and with all the opportunities. Kinda resembles the state of the country.

[J.W.]

Then u this guy

Nope, not me. Didn't run it, wasn't coaching. You be wrong again guy!