Cheating

[Domsmom]

There may already be a thread about this but I've search and was unable to locate one.

Is there a governing body that associates itself in ensuring that kids are not wrestling in the wrong age brackets, weight classes, or novice tournaments?

I am asking as I keep running into it and it seems to keeps getting worse. A certain team in our area who has a coach that will do ANYTHING to ensures his wrestlers... One being his son... Has the best chance at winning... No matter what it costs. They have been caught numerous times and it brought to other coaches and parents attention but when the problem is coming from the coach of the team how is it that it can be stopped? Is there anyone that should be contacted that has not been?

[coach_williams]

You can challenge their age and they have to be able to provide a birth certificate showing that the registered age is correct. Also be prepared to have the age of your wrestler challenged as well.

Weights should not be something that can be "cheated" unless the meet coordinator is working with him to do it.

Not much you can do about the novice thing unless you have hard evidence that the wrestler competed longer than the novice requirements. I think most novice tournaments define a novice as 2 or less years of experience, so if you could show results from 2 or more previous years of wrestling then you would have a valid claim to take to the event coordinator.

Unfortunately there is nobody to report it to for youth wrestling. Eventually the WVYWA will hopefully be the governing body of youth wrestling in the state, but for now there is no one to report it to. Sad isn't it?

[Beast]

This may be hard to hear...let them play their games...

The goal of this whole youth wrestling sport, in my opinion, is for kids to learn the sport, develop a love for it, &, hopefully, improve over time which translates to competing in MS & HS. It is hard to be the better person, but it will benefit your wrestlers in the long run. I have struggled with this myself.

Teach them that no matter how the deck is stacked, against them or in your favor, go out there & show them that it doesn't matter. He is going to perform to the best of his ability each time, no matter what. In my exerience, those kids who need a leg up or some advantage, eventually get beat by the better wrestler...and their is no greater satisfaction than that.

You want to put your 9 yr. old in the 8&under, good, just another chance for my kid to beat his & know that you did it the right way. Your kid is really good or has wrestled for 5 yrs. & wants to steal a novice trophy...go right ahead. If your kid is 71 lbs. & you want to cut them down to 55 lbs so they can get a title...so be it.

If you want a wrestler to win in the long run, they have to be willing to lose..it makes them better. When you can separate winning from improvement, that is when your kid will truely succeed. After that has happened, & he beats that cheating kid, you continue to emphazes that it is not about winning, but getting better, then move on to the next challenge.

[forthekids]

Remember something my coach told me 30 plus years ago and still is true today. " just keep working hard, nothing else matters, the cream will rise to the top."

[aacoach61]

I co-founded a youth wrestling team, coached middle school and high school wrestling and eventually was lucky enough to coach my son to three state high school finals and two state championships. Along the way, I saw it all, but by far the vast majority of coaches and parents were very ethical and well-meaning, Many of us became close, lifelong friends through wrestling.

Here is my advice: the lessons learned by the kids as youth wrestlers are what matters, not the wins or losses. Make it fun and don't stoop to pettiness. Parent-coaches that take short-cuts (or "cheat" as you call it) will eventually learn that it doesn't work in the long-term and they will be lucky to experience the joy of watching their child wrestle at the high school level. Kids are smarter than you think.

In short, I have a few hundred plastic youth wrestling trophies I'm willing to give to anyone who really thinks they're that important. They seemed so at the time, but now I realize it was the mat time--not the wins or losses-- that mattered most. Get your kid quality mat time, and make it fun, win or lose, and may God bless you with a child that wants to wrestle 4 years in high school and perhaps beyond. That's where the real fun starts.

[Bearhugger]

I am more impressed with a kid who placed in the high school state tournament than a kid who was pee wee state champion at age 6 and then quit the sport.

My mother had a neighbor whose son was supposedly a state champion somewhere in time before high school. I did see him wrestle some in high school as a sophomore and he was good. However, he didn't finish the year and didn't wrestle anymore after part of his sophomore season.

[justawrestlingfan]

I feel like everyone is missing a big point here. In youth leagues it is important for fairness and balance to exist. Yes, if the kid who is getting "help" from his dad/coach continues to wrestle he will have to pay the piper, but the kid who is facing someone who is older/bigger than they are represented to be can easily lose hope and become disenchanted with the sport. Children are more concerned with fairness than anyone else. If we truly love our sport and want to see it flourish then we need to be protecting the integrity of it not taking a "he will get his in the end" attitude. Youth league wrestling is where we lay the foundation of the love of the sport. If there is no integrity at the youth level then the youth will find something else to do.

[Bearhugger]

Becoming disenchanted can occur at any age. There are many kids who might not begin wrestling until they hit middle school or even high school. They will face opponents who have wrestled since they were 4 years old.

If a parent has the knowledge that their child was beaten by a more experienced and/or older opponent, then the parent should use that information to guide their child to persevere and stick with the sport. They will encounter the same kind of "unfairness" in the work place too.

[mike.carman]

I have been watching these posts and have done a lot of thinking about it. I am a part of the new WVYWA that has been formed and I know that this has been discussed in our meetings. Since it has been discussed, that means we know it goes on. Our rules have been written in such a way to try to stave off this type of behavior. Unfortunately, this type of mentality exists in all sports. I have a son that started competing at an older age. For three years I watched him get beat by and on occasion I saw him prevail over stronger more experienced wrestlers. As a parent, I tried to put him in the best learning environment I could possibly put him in. I also purposely put him in situations that he could not win, to test his mental toughness, but always found ways to turn them into positives for him. I also put him in situations that he would win to make sure he found success. It sounds like you are trying to do this for your child and I applaud you for that. We too ran into people working the system to try to gain whatever competitive edge they could. Those situations are tough to deal with. The only thing I can tell you about that is that it won't always be that way. As your child gets more experience, he/she will find that they can overcome situations like this and prevail anyway.

As a wrestling community, I have learned that the coaches and people who run most of the tournaments and organizations, not just locally but across the nation, genuinely have big hearts for all of the kids. We don't want to punish the child for the adults transgressions. So in a situation where the coach of an organization is the problem, because of everyone's big hearts, we have a tendency to look past the short comings of the coach/parent to allow all kids to compete. Not saying that is right or wrong, I am just saying that is the way it is looked at. Teaching the kids what I consider to be unsportsmanlike behavior in any way is a bad thing and should be discouraged, but I do know this, if it continues, it only hurts the wrestler. As these kids get older, there is very little tolerance for cheating and unsportsmanlike behavior. Middle School and High School coaches won't put up with it and neither will the governing boards or the organizations or the officials.

As far as becoming disenchanted with the sport, that happens no matter what. All of these kids you see that have been so good for so long didn't all start out that way. Most of them had to work through the very situations you are talking about. None of them could have done that without the help of their parents and coaches encouraging them. When we as parents and coaches, start talking about those around us "cheating" in front of the kids, that does more to discourage the child than just going out and competing does. Parents and coaches should be discrete in communicating this to the child. In other words, talk about this away from them, so they can be oblivious to it. Hopefully, their anguish in losing can be overcome and they can set goals to beat them the next time. The kids are there to compete and showcase what they have learned. They have enough on their plate without worrying about who is cheating and who is not.

The bigger picture, as someone else pointed out, is getting our young wrestlers good quality matches. Don't worry about the trophies or the places in tournaments. Be your child's biggest cheer leader and the one who picks them up when they are down. I got that from Nat Carr btw. Your child will be successful and these situations will seem to disappear. I know it is frustrating for you but be patient and great things will happen. In the end, what goes around comes around.

[Domsmom]

Thank you everyone for taking time to reply. It was nice to hear different opinions and outlooks on the situation.

[Domsmom]

My son fortunately has no idea about what has transpired through all this except the intimidation that he endured without my knowledge until after the youth football season. This coach unfortunately assisted in coaching our local football team also. My son did not disclose this information to me until next to the last game.

The wrestling club my son belongs to is amazing and I'm thankful for the awesome coaches that surround him. We too go to tournaments that challenge the boys and do not "trophy chase". We go to tournaments that challenge our boys the most.

We accept defeat as a learning experience. Our boys don't ever lose.... They learn. Every match is a learning experience. There are tournaments that we go to and dominate and others we go to and get our butts whooped. We travel farther for competition. It's just hard sometimes to accept defeat when you find out that a child has been cheated.

I was just trying to find out if there is a overseeing body to report unsportsmanlike conduct, cheating, and other issues to. I hope there comes a time that there is. It was mentioned that cheating really discourages the kids that work their butts off. Cheating does happen in every sport but usually there are some type of governing body to hand out some type of consequence.

[justawrestlingfan]

Becoming disenchanted can occur at any age. There are many kids who might not begin wrestling until they hit middle school or even high school. They will face opponents who have wrestled since they were 4 years old.

If a parent has the knowledge that their child was beaten by a more experienced and/or older opponent, then the parent should use that information to guide their child to persevere and stick with the sport. They will encounter the same kind of "unfairness" in the work place too.

I don't think we are talking about a kid getting beat because of more experience and youth wrestling is supposed to protect young kids from unknowingly facing considerably older kids. Quite frankly I find it to be a bit of BS that you would suggest that if your 8 year old 55 pound kid got blew up by a 11 year old 70 pound kid that you would just tell your kid to suck it up and learn from it.

This isn't about workplace fairness or even fairness in school. This is about the integrity of our sport. Turning a blind eye to known cheating benefits no one.

[Bearhugger]

How do 55lbs kids get matched up against 70lbs kids?

[justawrestlingfan]

I thought we covered this...cheating. 55 vs. 70 might be an exaggeration, but it wouldn't take much effort to get weigh-ins fudged to allow a 60 or even 65 pounder on the mat with 55.