Dennis I love to hear your ideas. You have a great deal to offer, don't let a little heat drive you off. Believe me there are some people on here who like lighting a fire under my tail. I would love to see McCann make some comments also. Between the two of you there is so much wisdom and knowledge. Don't back off. I think your knowledge of the front headlock, twister and much more is excelent you have a lot to offer on this issue. I also think there were several bearcats we were scared to see on the mat. Though we did not duck them. And what was the crack about Kearney wrestlers not making it in Kearney. I just wish I had as many wrestlers who went on and did well in college. Kuchera, Keisweiter, Bauer, Bauer, Heavyweight state champ brain dead on the name. I don't get the guys point.

If you take the front headlock out of wrestling you are making high school wrestling less and less real wrestling. Take the regular headlock I acutally hate the move. Out technique a guy for 5 and half minutes and get hit with a desperation headlock and lose. But that doesn't mean I want them to take the headlock/headthrow out. If they do high school wrestling will be less and less true wrestling. Hey we need to find ways to avoid the headthrow, just because I think it is a low percentage technique that often alows an inferior wrestler to beat a superior wrestler does not mean it should be removed I just need to be a better coach and figure out a way to defend it. There are just certain moves that make wrestling wrestling, if you take those moves out you make less than wrestling should be.

I did finally watch the headlock video tonight and after watching it, I don't think much of what we do is really illegal. We don't grab the chin on the cement mixer we grab the wrist or use the Kearney techique and grab the arm pit/tricep. If we do are regular front headlock right we don't lock our hand and we don't turn the chin out we turn it under.

But the question is as grappling man has pointed out is how will the refs interpret this. Will they call all cement mixers illegal. Will they check to see if you have the wrist or the tricept or if you have the chin. On the front headlock are they going to all you for a chin wrench even if you are turning the chin under.

Are there some refs on this forum who have watched the video and been to the rules meeting? What do you guys think? Do you think you will be able to see if a guy has the chin on the cement mixer or if he is turning the chin out on a front headlock. On the move that they kept showing with the guy lifting the guy up on his toes we don't do that much in folkstyle though we do use it for a tilt in freestyle. Frank Kuchera taught it to us. I was wondering about the front headlock to an inside trip. I think this is a real good move. The trip they showed was not an inside trip and I am not sure I have ever seen it used. Dennis, David used this move (front headlock inside trip) in the state finals his soph year when he beat the kid from Ralston. Do you think that move would now be illegal. I don't think he was lifting the guy up on his toes. I think the guy was trying to stand up out of the front headlock and David then forced him back on his heels and triped him. I think this is an excellent move and my son has had some success with it. I don't think it is a choke and I would hate to see it outlawed.

Hey I got caried away but this gets me fired up. Dennis what do you think? Don't back off.

I didn't see much bashing of you or your family on here? So why the comment? If you have something to say and you believe in it, then say it and stand by it. I can't believe you don't have some wrestling armor around you? So,.....dry 'em up!

We could maybe start a discussion though on the pressures of being and adolescent and having to live up to the expectations of a family, school and community!
More and more excellent athletes in High School never make it at the next level. The once renowned star of the team, school and community is disillusioned when the time comes to take the next steps. Are we setting our kids up for failure? Take David for example, he could be arguably the best HS wrestler ever in Nebraska. He dominated his sport for 4 years and did a great deal to put Kearney wrestling at the top!
Did wrestling and all of his success lead him to disappointment and heartbreak?
This is not a slam on David, he is like many other teens in todays world. Life away from home and what we have been successful at is much different! We need to do a better job of preparing our kids for what life is really about!

Where can you get a copy of the video you are talking about? Is it only available to coaches?

...and please, Dennis, don't take this as a criticism of you and your wife's raising of your children. From what I've seen in my dealings with David and Angie, you guys have done a super job with your kids and you have absolutely nothing to be ashamed of.

This is just a general observation that I've seen in watching thousands of parents and their children in all kinds of activities at all levels. Take it for what it's worth:

There is such a thing as living vicariously through others, and I'm seeing more and more parents put their kids through this every year. They send Johnny or Sue to this camp and that camp, pay for this trip to a national tournament and that spot on an area all-star team, force their kids to attend this private lesson or that, and it becomes a 12-month-a-year deal where all the kid is doing is eating, sleeping, going to school and spending every free minute they have on a paritcular item - sports, music, beauty pagents, etc.

For some kids, they do it because they are passionate about their music or their sport and have dreams of being the next Rulon Gardner or Britney Spears or whoever. But for every one of them, there are countless others who are doing it because mom and dad somehow failed at a certain level or didn't get to where they wanted to go and, by God, they're going to make sure their kid did what they weren't able to do.

I see it all the time...and it really starts to come out when their son or daughter doesn't get the brass ring that, the parents felt, they deserved. They start blaming everybody - coaches, school or tournament officials, a random fan in the stands that looked at their kid funny, etc. etc. - and can't accept the fact that maybe, just maybe, their kid wasn't quite good enough to succeed at that level.

To give you an example...I was a trumpet player in high school. And by all accounts, I was a pretty damn good one. My parents pushed me to practice and work hard on my instrument, but not to the point where it was obsessive. I had a chance to try out for the UNL marching band, but chose instead to "retire" from playing after I graduated from high school. Could I have gone on to do great things in music? Who knows? In retrospect, I wish I'd have at least kept the silver trumpet I had my senior year (sold it to pay for important college expenses, such as Old Milwaukee).

Today, my daughter plays the violin and in my opinion, she's got a lot of potential. My ex-wife and I encourage her to practice, but not to the point where she has to sacrifice family time. Sometimes she just wants to play catch with her dad, rather than work on her orchestra selections. Sure, I'd like to see her become a world-famous concert violist and play with the Boston symphony. But I'd also like to see her graduate from high school, get a college degree and do something with her life that she's passionate about -- just like her old man.

All I know is that I don't want to be that ugly parent that forces a kid to perform at the highest level in something because I didn't quite make it there myself and, by God, she certainly will -- only to see my child walk away burned out, disillusioned and, ultimately, pissed off at me for being a failure in life because I pushed her too hard.

I think parents like that really need to take a step back from themselves and let their kid find his own way. If he wants to be a champion wrestler, offer him the tools to help him accomplish that goal. But also recognize that priorities change and he may want to go a different direction. Had I gone the direction I intended to go after high school, I'd be programming computers somewhere in a dimly-lit corner of a giant warehouse on the outskirts of El Paso, instead of becoming the entreupernerial guru and wrestling geek that I am (a badge that I wear with great pride, by the way).

Again...this rambling thought isn't directed at a particular individual or family. It's just a general observation I've made from my spot on the press table at a wrestling tournament, basketball game or football sideline near you.

Hey, NWI whats wrong with programming computers in some giant warehouse?

...it's just not for me. I need to get up and move around a little...what better place to do it than a wrestling tournament?

NWI has some very good observaitons. I think we could all point to examples in several sports of partents pushing their kids too hard possibly for their own needs rather than what is best for the athlete. I think that one of the biggest problems with this and the toughest to balance is the possibility of burn-out. If the kid wants to be the best he/she needs to start early and train hard. But that is the very thing that leads to burn-out. It probably boils down to how much the kid actually wants it and how much pressure he/she can handle to become "the best", if that is what the athlete actually wants.

This is a very interesting question and worthy of further discussion here.

Drawing from personal experience here...a couple of years ago when NWI was just getting off the ground, I was so consumed with magazine and work that there was no time for anything else, including my daughter. She'd spend opposite weekends with me, but it was pretty much her sitting in front of the TV while dad bashes out another issue in the basement. No sleep, no family time, no personal time...it darn near drove me over the edge.

That's the main reason why I left the daily paper in York for the Gretna Guide and News weekly paper, so I could spend more time with my daughter and spend more time away from work and wrestling. In the end, I think it's helped keep me fresh in both entities, although there are still times where I feel overwhelmed by all that's on my plate. I'm able to handle it a lot better now than I was then, and I think that's something parents need to be cognizant of when it involves their kids. THEY need to look at the big picture, which is well beyond state titles, college scholarships and what not.