You're in the hunt for a state championship this year and the community doesn't support the program---how depressing for all in wrestling. Making kids choose in 4th grade is also what makes me sick to my stomach. In our community which is definitely a basketball community and very successful at it, many of the kids when you talk to them are burnt out on all the games,camps, etc. that it is felt they must participate in to reach that elite level. I have also thought as has been mentioned in earlier posts that it is so important that the kids on our teams sell the sport, but far to often they emphasize things that hurt the sport---acting like they are starving, etc. rather than emphasizing the self discipline, conditioning, etc. they are developing in the sport of wrestling and allowing damaging misconceptions of our sport to continue. I have tried over and over to sell/show the link to football that wrestling has and this has helped to get a few kids to try but not nearly as many as should. I also wish I were as good a salesman in convincing kids that wrestling is also a team sport as the basketball community does. Kids are often told that if they miss a basketball event they are hurting the team, but missing wrestling is ok because it is an individual sport. I will try to emphasize the positive tomorrow to my youth wrestlers----I am very proud of my 3 juniors who have chosen to wrestler and are having good seasons and were each chosen to the National Honor Society. These kids make it hard for the old sell--"You don't want to hang out with those type of kids" that has been said in the past. Sorry for rambling on and long live wrestling.

I'm no expert but i'd be willing to bet you will not find a single school that has any sort of policy regarding youth athletic programs ie: pre junior-high. If you do, it will be a private school and I think the reason has something to do with school funding? Youth organizations cannot be supported by school districts which is why they are completely seperate "clubs". It simply doesn't matter what sport, of course they can let you practice in their building, but putting the school mascot on your fifth graders' singlet or tank-top isn't allowed (as far as I know). If the question is "do any schools have a policy?" the answer is NO the schools cannnot have such policies in place because they are not SCHOOL clubs.- I may be wrong
The sad irony here is that while the schools can't even acknowledge the existence of such clubs, the club certainly does(and often HAS to) support the schools wrestling program just to keep it economically viable. I'm pretty sure that our club actually owns 1 or more of the mats that the High School uses regularly, and DONATES singlets and equipment/travel expenses when funds aren't in the budget (which is quite often). It has to, just to keep your team current, and be able to compete outside of your 4 surrounding counties, which these days may only have 5 schools between them. And like the rest of the clubs, have to rent the gymnasium for our annual tournament.
If the question is "how do I get more youth athletes to give wrestling a try?" Then as all before me have said, there's no single answer. We have or have had all of the things previously mentioned. Tradition? State Champs 86 Runner-Up 90,91,92 95or96? Frinds following friends- club has 0 eight graders and 6 seventh graders. We have over zealous parents and some who simply don't care if their son is there or not and certainly aren't going to help. My advice would be to acknowledge the club for what it really is - a feeder program to make the High School program as competetive and successful as possible. Stress this to each and every parent who signs their kid up for practice that the goal of the club is to make better wrestlers. If you know right now that your son (at any age) is going to play basketball throughout High School please don't sign him up. This way myself and my staff can focus on the boys who will one day be wrestlers. If you are in a position to encourage these boys, DO SO. I'm sure there are hundreds of these guys out there and forgive me for not remembering his name, but I've been to many, many club meets all over for a long time (I have a senior & a 7th grader) and I have never seen Joseph Hayeks father -for example - go to a club meet and take ONLY Joseph. Never! Not one time! When you take your 2 boys next week, take 2 more. Let them know that even if their own father doesn't care, someone else's does. Count the number of boys in your club and compare it to the boys at this weeks meet, for every 1 in your car there were 3 at home- find out why. If you fight for them long enough, they WILL fight for you.

We do not have a policy for the youth programs. What I have seen is give them some rope and many times they will hang themselves. Every dad in the area wants be a little kids basketball coach. I think that is great. They become my best recruiters most of the time. They want to win so bad that they will only play the top 5 kids and the rest sit there. I just tell them that it will only get worse when they get older. Usually, there are only 3 or 4 kids out of each class that play because you always have a few in the class below you that will take the spots of the older kids.

Coach Schumacher and myself are the only ones that run any kind of kids wrestling practice around here. I do not want our PE teacher teaching wrestling. She knows nothing about it and I don't want the kids lead the wrong direction. There were 8 kids out for high school wrestling when I came to Plainview. In the last 17 years we have been as high as 28 and have had more out for wrestling each of the last 8 years than the basketball team. I doubt that will always be the case because our numbers are getting so small in our school. We only run a 6 week program for the K-8 wrestlers. I always hear how people start their kids program after Christmas and run in to April. We run into several of those kids in high school and beat many of them if they are still wrestling. I wish that we could start wrestling around 5th or 6th grade, but I too feel that I have to start earlier or they will not try it by junior high. We start with kindergarten, but I also tell the parents not to take them to too many. We have 19 out for high school, Creighton has 19, and Neligh has 22 in our area. We all run similar kids programs. Now, I do have a few that do more wrestling, but I try to not start that until junior high except for my own boys. Of course, they have been around it all the time for several years. I really think you only need 3 kids out of each class to stay competitive anything extra is a bonus. We had 2 seniors last year and 3 this year. More would be nice, but we are hanging in there for now.

The thing that bothers me more than getting kids is keeping all that we do get. A few can't see past the end of their nose and chose to do nothing instead of sticking with it.

Here is a few things that I have done to promote wrestling in Kimball. I had a sign up a week ago and start practice. I hold practice just for my older group (4th-8th) on Monday evening from 6-7:30 pm. I hold practice for my little group (pre-k-3rd) on Tuesday from 6-7:30 pm and Thurdays for both groups from 6-6:45 (little) and 6:45-7:30 (big). I also get my high school wrestlers to help out when they can. I also make it a point to go to every class and hand out my information for the club and explain what we do. I also come up against b-ball but with their coaches they are my biggest helpers to get kids to wrestle. I also wrestled for Randy Kliment (Creighton) in high school and I stole a lot of his successes in the fact that I make it a point to know every kids name and talk to them every time I see them out and about. I also tell all my parents and kids that if they are new to this that they need to practice for a while before tackling tournaments. I also put together a tournament schedule that I will be at as a coach so they know that also. I try to pick tournaments that can be successful for my group of kids. I also take some of my older kids to bigger tournaments if they want too. I have only been in Kimball for 2 years and I have built my club from 30 kids total last year to 65 kids total this year. I also have 6 8th graders that will wrestle next year in my club when I didn't have any last year. We have a home dual this thursday and I got it arranged with the AD that if my club wrestler come to the dual along with their parents that they get in free and I pick up the tab. I did this in Sidney when I was there and we had a great response. So after all this typing what I am try to say is try different things to promote the sport the best you can. If you fail try something different. The old saying goes if you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink but if you lead it there enough hopefully he figures it out.

Never resting and cmac,
Thanks for the replies. I'm already doing the things you mentioned. Problem I face here is if there's 15 boys in a class sign up for basketball, they'll make 3 teams so they all play, all the time, I guess smart on their part. Otherwise, going by what everyone has posted so far, I guess I can take comfort in the fact that I'm doing things right it's just not happening currently. This has turned out a good discussion if for no other reason I have been able to verify what I'm doing. Only thing I'm thinking of trying differently would be to have sign up next year very early but still start practice late January/early February like we currently do. Maybe if I beat them to the punch and gets kids signed up earlier, I'll get to them first?

Fellow Wrestling Enthusiasts, at Maxwell Public School wrestling is offered in Junior High P.E. immediately following football. All kids are encouraged to wrestle (most do) but it is not mandatory. This season runs about seven weeks and includes about five meets. This season is followed by junior high basketball, which runs about ten weeks. Most schools in our area that offer both sports in high school do about the same routine. Maxwell is only ten minutes from North Platte and about a dozen pre jr. high kids participate in Federation Wrestling in the larger town. Maxwell hosts a successful youth meet every year and this draws a lot of revenue and future wrestlers.
Wrestling is new to Maxwell (7th year) and from the outset we were blessed with a dynamic coach. Coach Ryan Jones is also our head football coach (4th year) and he would have a successful and highly attended wrestling program anywhere. Nowhere is basketball more sacred than Maxwell and basketball gets more attention even though the wrestling program is more successful of late. I have learned that a non productive football or basketball coach does not last long in Nebraska, most schools do not seem to care if the wrestling coach produces. A varsity high wrestling coach in rural Nebraska is kind of like a rural village trustee (councilman), who ever shows interest is appointed. I admire anyone that takes time out of their lives to work with kids, it's just that some of these guys are program killers.
Coaches need to start by targeting the "misfits" early on. By "misfit", I mean the diminutive and the overly large kids that do not fit in a basketball program. Try to have a small dual in your gym once a varsity season and promote it hard. This is one of the few times a wrestler gets anywhere near the attention and adulation of a kid in a basketball game. A necessary but inherent flaw of a wrestling meet is attention being divided over three or four mats. Coaches report all of your scores to the local paper, radio or television station. Coaches also need to learn to promote. If you do not know how, learn. Make your wrestlers feel special, make them feel they are the part of an "elite" unit. Good luck.

Right you are Maxcat! Here'something you can try. If they're making more teams so that all the boys get to play, have the wrestling club take all 40 of those boys to watch a varsity b-ball game. Have those boys count the number of players from each team who actually get on the court during the varsity game. Odds are, it will be around eight. Explain to them that there are actually 40 kids on the basketball team, but they can't all fit on the bench. Point out that between their three youth teams, there are three boys who's fathers coach- they will play in high school. There are also three boys in grades ahead of theirs who are already 6'2" they will play. So the other 32 of them will essentially be fighting for the 2 remaining spots. Then take them to a quad and show them that at a good meet, you will play every time. Maybe not varsity but they have the same opportunity as everyone else on the team- wrestle offs! Point out to the 119 lb eigth-grader that if he were a frosh he'd already be varsity because you're open there. You're definitely doing things right just keep letting the kids know that you NEED them.

Seems that this is a statewide problem. I contacted a buddy of mine who wrestled in Iowa and asked about how they promote wrestling. We took a modified, but similar approach. We started a little kids wrestling club, K-6, boys and girls. Cost for joining is $5. Membership gets you a wrestling shirt with your name on the back. The front logo is exactly the same as the Junior High and High School shirts. We have the varsity wrestlers hand out the shirts. If you wear your shirt to home wrestling events you get free admission and a free pop and popcorn. Seems to go over well with the kids and we get parents without high school kids (yet) to the home events. We even set aside a wrestling club VIP seating section. The kicker here is that we start up the club just before junior high football is finished. We then have a second sign up for Weekend Warriors and start practice for the little guys in Mid-January. The idea is to compete for the little guys right out of the shoot and hopefully win some of them (and their parents) over while at the same time promoting the wrestling program, giving back to the kids. The adult wrestling club picks up the tab for the kid's amission and concession stand costs. We also pay for the kid's admission to a few local tournaments. It's a shame, in some ways, that it's come to this. So far in two years we've gone from 10-12 little kids to 20-30. Only time will tell if this is going to net a few more kids for the wrestling program, but it's a start.

Great first post Cards12! Some great new ideas here.......