Novice wrestlers go through a lot of pain to make it in the sport of wrestling...that is why I am so fed up with coach's sons who are allowed to "practice" for 2 or 3 years before they get there wrestling card then their "first" season which is actually their third or fourth they come out and kill every other novice...OH but they are a first year wrestler! yeah right What a load of you know what. Some people have no integrity.

Welcome to the forums, at least with this account.

I guess we might need a coaches name in order to validate your claim. Otherwise I will say that I know several coaches that bring/brought their kids into rooms before they started officially competing as that is what happens when you grow up around the sport. I will also say that every one of those coaches I know has not wrestled their kids in Novice more than one or two tournaments, they throw them into open and run with it. Did you ever play baseball or football with your kid in the backyard? That’s practice right? A wrestling room is a coaches back yard. A true experienced wrestling coach probably won’t try to let their kid float through in novice, they want the real challenge. I won’t say it hasn’t ever happened outside my experience but some kids are naturally gifted and pick the sport up quickly with a few common moves and that allows them to run through Novice, but would get destroyed in Open depending on age weight. So then in that case what is fair? Make them wrestle open then leave the sport in the 1st year? It’s novice it shouldn’t be about winning and losing it should be about growing and getting better each match.

It’s a rough road to walk sometimes but I don’t think calling out coaches is the right direction, they are usually the ones that put their kids through the grind. And yes not all clubs have the integrity you would like to see, that shows with satellite weigh ins also.

There will always be those parents and in particular daddy's that will put their kid in the novice so they can trophy hunt. These kids can do just as well in open taking 2nd, 3rd, or 4th. The problem is daddy's ego can not handle them not taking 1st. Unfortunately these are the same daddy's that will push their kids to the brink of tears every match, berate and belittle them in front of others when they are forced into the Open tournaments and don't do as well. What did they expect? They babied them for years and made it easy. When the going gets tough they are not prepared and will end up playing basketball. Do your children a favor dad's. Teach them to wrestle, teach them to win and lose with dignity, and teach them to work hard for what they want. There are a hundreds of screen names that do not show up anymore and the kids no longer wrestle. All because daddy and mommy made it too easy.

novice shouldn't be an amount of years anyway. I know a kid that is on his 3rd year of wrestling and should be wrestling novice tournaments. On the same token some first year wrestlers should be in open tournaments only. As far as the coaching thing. I have been a high school, middle school, and kids wrestling coach and I wrestled with my boys when they were 3 and 4 years old all the time on the living room floor. And they tagged along with me at practice a lot before they started wrestling. Yes when they finally entered wrestling they are a leg up on "Little Johnny" who got a flyer from school about joining wrestling at age 6. Coach's sons tend to be good wrestlers. With that said if a coach is lying about the years experience of a wrestler to allow them to wrestle novice tournaments that would be a totally different situation.

This has been a subject, often a sore subject, for many years. If I had to fault anyone, I would fault a Coach for not going to the parents and saying that their wrestler needs to wrestle open because they are ready and the experience will benefit them much more than pounding on Novice wrestlers. If the parents don't head the advice of their Coach, then they should be sent on their way to find another program that looks the other way and allows an overqualified wrestler to continue wrestling in Novice tournaments.