Need your ideas...how do you make wrestling fun?

Anyone who watched Penn State's approach before the NCAA finals last year saw how much fun those guys had with our sport. Because of this, during this season we've taken a drastic change to the mentality we use with our team's approach to wrestling. In the past we've been all like.... "GRRRR....crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentations of their women! The only enjoyment comes from the decimation of an opponent!"

This year I'm trying to get away from the "wrestling is supposed to suck" mentality and we're trying to make practice and competition as fun and carefree as possible for our athletes.

I would love to pick your collective brains and come up with as many ideas as possible to not only recruit future wrestlers, but retain the one we have and make wrestling as enjoyable as possible for those involved. I know a lot of you do great things for the promotion of the sport (I'm talking to you, Coach Lueders), so post those things here so we can beg/borrow/steal ideas from each other to keep our kids involved and loving what they do.

Here are the things we've added this year that have been successful for us. Feel free to use any of them or dismiss them as lunacy.

* Spikeball: Rather than have our guys waste away eating nachos, now they have something they can do during breaks between rounds to get out of the bleachers, have fun, and meet wrestlers from other teams.

* Uniform selection: (This one was probably the hardest one for me to get used to). Rather than the traditional warm-ups, they wanted to go with a "Late 80s throwback" theme...thus we are wearing Zubaz and crewneck sweatshirts with a neon pink 80s font, complete with fanny packs and sweatbands. Looks ridiculous to me, but the kids ate it up. (--horrifying sidenote--how old am I that the late 80s are now "throwback?") Additionally, the majority of our team now has either a mullet or a perm. Gross, but whatev, I guess.

* The "Pin Chain" a la Miami football : The first wrestler of the day to score a fall gets to put on a Mr. T style chain with a gigant gold safety pin. When the next guy scores a pin, he gets to steal it from him. Guy with the most falls in the least amount of time gets to wear it for the team pic at the end of the day. I know Bonner is doing something similar with a pin chain...would love to hear the details. We do have 3 rules for our pin chain:

1. Don't break it
2. Don't be a jerk (we're not out to showboat, just to have fun and enjoy wrestling)
3. You must immediately take a picture in the chain and post it to some sort of social media so classmates hear about wrestling (#Branding)

* #DadJokes: In the past, before every match I used to call the wrestler over, shake his hand, give him a brief "go get 'em" and a firm slap to the headgear. Now I call them over, shake their hand, pull them in close, and tell them my best dad joke. EX: "What is Beethoven's favorite fruit? Ba-na-na-naaaaaaa...Ba-na-na-naaaaaaaa." I was amazed at how much more free and loose our guys wrestle when they laugh right before the handshake with the opponent.

* Friday practice Soul Train dance line: In all honesty, we have a serious soul deficiency at Washburn Rural. This one's still a work in progress.

That's pretty much it so far. I'm running out of ideas and could use your help.

So whaddaya got? What do you and your program do that makes wrestling enjoyable for your kids (that I may or may not steal down the line)? Post your team's ideas here!

Love the ideas! Wrestling is a grind and the kids need to be kids and have fun. We have also seen the pin chain with a couple of other teams. It's a great idea to get all your wrestlers pushing for the pins. The sport is already hard so introducing some fun will keep them engaged and coming back, and hopefully introducing other kids to wrestling. Some practice games we do are one move tag, dodge ball, and 21. I have seen the bench wave after wins.

We started playing games at the beginning of practice instead of the normal jog, stretch routine. This serves as are cardio warm up and then we still do tumbling after game. We play knee football, sharks/minnows, shirt tag, dodgeball, pretty much anything out of the norm that isn't just running in a circle. Our practices get off to a fun start and I am able to have their attention more during practice using this method. It also makes the coming to practice more enjoyable knowing it starts with a game instead of just jogging in a circle.

At Southeast of Saline, I have them wrestle blind folded for conditioning. The first day I only do one of them, the next day the other and then do both of them. If we don't wrestle with them, then I have them do their drills with it on. They do enjoy it.