Here it is Christmas eve morning and I am sure there are lots of guys home for Christmas... Since so many will be on today, I have a couple of questions about facilities. At Pratt, where my son wrestles, we wrestle in a basement portion of a 1930's building, with concrete supports coming up through our mat area. We do pad them, maybe later in the season when everyone develops more meanness we will be able to take the padding off. Our weight room is also part of that catacomb area, there are some mechanical press machines and the like but for the most part just free weights and benches, despite the well-intentioned promises of some school administration officials, the weight room is not state of the art by any means. Now I am not saying that we would be 14 time state champs if we had a facility, but rather am stating what the status quo is. What I am curious about is what do some of the other schools practice in? I have been to Goddard,and Andale, Scott City and Liberal, and know that they have very nice facilities. What about Ark City, Junction City, Santa Fe Trail, Columbus, Effingham, Beloit, Abeline, Clay, Norton, Hoxie, Goodland, St Francis, and anyone else? Also, we will practice once a day-- anyone else practice two a day? Just wondering what some ideas are on what it takes to develop a program.

My son practices at the grade school - they haul the mats to the high school whenever we have a tournament or dual. The facility is alright, but there are no weights available at the grade school. The team does ALOT of conditioning, which is apparant during the 3rd round when our boys still have steam left.

OTOH, the school where I teach (which has 4 gyms side by side, but those are BASKETBALL gyms) the wrestlers are in a shed out back. We have a state of the art weightlifting facility, but I don't know if our wrestlers use it.

as for SFT we have an old gym that is for wrestlers only. Its 8mi away and since mcburney about died driving there his sophomore year we have to take a bus that doesnt pick us up until 3:35. We practice late to make up for it (i think thats why) but every now and then we get there on time and still practice late. i am pretty sure it is just because of captain kirk, but to answer the question SFT has nothing fancy for a wrestling room or a weight room. I would have to say it is a little safer then pratt.

Good topic Mike. I am not sure how much a particular facility makes or breaks a program. Pratt has managed to produce a good number of studs despite their archaic training facilitiy, but it sounds like you are way overdue for an over haul, nonetheless. Santa Fe Trail has a unique situation in which they basically have their own training compound, which is nice, but as Travis mentioned, forces them to bus to and from practice, yet they produce tough teams year after year. Baldwin is similair in which Coach Harris has converted an old elementary school into a practice facility, which is very nice also, but he also deals with transportation issues, yet he's been able to develop a great program out of Baldwin. In my first years at Tonganoxie, we bused to and from the fair ground building in town and had to roll out and rollup the mats each practice so as not to interfere with the "Tongie Twirlers" who practiced there each night. One time I remember arriving at practice only to discover tens of thousands of boxes of girl scout cookies covering our practice area. So we rolled out one little section of mat off to the side and did what we could. In hind sight I guess this is kind of funny and part of the character building that goes into wrestling.

Now at Eudora, after having just built a brand new school, we have a wrestling room that accomodates five sections of mat and is adjacent to a HammerStrength-filled weight room that we use for 45-minutes every day. Will this facility make us any better as a program? Well, that depends on how willing the athletes are to use the facilities that we have. This would be true for any program. I have seen some great programs developed out of schools using nothing more that a converted classroom for a practice room and sandbags for lifting. I know of many schools that still use their stages for practice facilities and love telling stories of how so-and-so threw so-and-so off the ledge. I am sure many Pratt wrestlers have old war stories about getting thrown into a concrete support are two.

Facilities can help give a lot of pride to a program and be a nice show piece for the school, but you know as well as I do that that doesn't always translate into getting kids to come out for sports. Does that mean that I would give up the room that I have now? No way! Not a chance. For now, my athletes are going to have to deal with telling stories about getting hurled into heavily padded walls. Now where's the fun in that?

Happy Holidays to everyone in the wrestling community!

Q: What does it take to win?

A: freestyle, freestyle, and more freestyle

-wrestling proverb
"Summer wrestlers make winter champions."

Eric, I agree with you 100%,but might add a little greco can't hurt.Thankyou for all you have done for Tim and kansas wrestling. Jon Elliott

Freestyle is really good practice. Greco is trash because it teaches you to throw, and rarely are throwers any good in high school and beyond. Freestyle gives you technique and you can be good at freestyle using folkstyle moves. You don't have to know all the freestyle rules to do good in tournaments. Besides, the mat time is what causes the most improvement, not the style of wrestling.

someone obviously didn't wrestle much greco...cause if you did you would know that greco is also very good...it teaches you to use your hips a lot and last I remember, hips were a big thing in wrestling...it also teaches you position and other various things...

I was really looking more for the facilities that various schools have to practice in and how much they are practicing over holiday than what styles people do in the summer. thanks offering an opinoin on styles, but that is pretty much a matter of opinion that has been kicked around ad nauseum before.

Mr. ennings,I think Sam Hazewinkel the #1 ranked senior U.S geeco wrestler @55kg might disagree.Spends alot of time training and wrestling greco,also happens to to be ranked #1div.I NCAA 125lbs

Missouri Valley has a guy at HWT that's also a giant he throws lateral drops and headlocks like a crazed man...he made it to the semis of FHSU Open pretty easily and was a NAIA National Qualifier.

As for rooms-

Chapman has to push the bleachers up and we practice behind them...if a big basketball game is slated to happen, we have to cut practice short and move mats so the bleachers will go back.

Concordia used to have a room similar to the one mentioned at Pratt, but it wasn't in the basement

Abilene- They have a little stairway and a matdoor for sliding mats right through to the gym to make easy setup for them. Last time I was in there I remember they didn't have tons of room but they had a set of metal bleachers and enough space for quite a few guys to wrestle in.

Circle- used to be a really small room...part of the space in the room was occupied by rolled up mats, then the wall on the other side would cause part of the mat laying down to be rolled a little up the wall. It was like a sauna in there too and with all the bodies it was hard to get a grasp on your opponent and do something.

I agree with some of these comments but have to ask, do you think there are any advantages to knowing greco when you tie up with another wrestler. I would put my money in this situation on the wrestler who knows greco, just my two cents worth. Both Freestyle and Greco are of benefit to Folkstyle in certain situations. From an arm spin to learning to burn the hands off in a bar arm position, both of these and many others can be of benefit. Plus don't forget about the defensive technique learned from these styles.

Mike Fairleigh, how long has it been since you were at the Scott City facilities? Has to be at least a year or so cuz our guys are not practicing in the same room they were. With our school being rennovated they are also building a new wrestling/weight room, which was supposed to be done in time for practices to start but it's not(imagine that) the reason the guys are not in the normal wrestling room is because that is where the band is having class, so our wrestlers are bused out to the fairgrounds to practice. I'm not sure how nice it is to practice out there but if i was them i probably wouldn't want to be bused to practice everyday, especially since i have to ride a bus 7 miles to a crowded school everyday. I'm sure once the wrestling room is done it will be nice. but who knows when it will be done. the new story of our life.

Oh, yeah-- I forgot about the new high school project from Hell! I had understood that they were coming along on the building but then I had also heard that they got bogged down in the mud when it rained and snowed and so the SCHS kids are being bussed out to the old Shallow Water High school building (a mud adobe building that used to be a 1a school, closed in 1970.) that has to really be a kick in the shorts to have the taxes and no school for two years now. I guess that should be warning to anyone who lives in an area where school officials are pressuring the locals to renovate the existing school. What I really want to know is why can't the band play at the fairgrounds? they could march out there, play their songs or whatever, and march back. should be a highly honed unit by the end of the year.

Why can't the band and wrestlers share the facilities? Isn't wrestling practice after school? Isn't band during school? Surely arrangements could be made if the wrestlers were to take this to the school board.

who would want to move all the equipment and stuff for the band tho? as much time as it would take to move all that stuff around we would only have time to warm up for the day and then we would have to put our instruments away cuz it's time to get stuff moved for the wrestlers and then we would have to go catch the bus. i have nothing against the wrestlers or ne thing but the band and actually quite a few other school organizations have got the short end of the deal this year. which sucks big time. note to ppl who are thinking bout rennovating an old school, i think it would be cheaper and would take a heck of a lot less time to complete.

heart,guts,determination,toughness,an extreem work ethic,dedication,and a workout partner with the same.

How many of us are national champions? Not one person commenting on this topic. Greco teaches you how to use your hips, but so does salsa dancing and although I do that in my spare time, most people do not. Greco teaches you to throw, which isn't what most people would encourage for high school wrestlers. Freestyle allows you to work on your hips, as well as many other techniques that are needed way more than what is tought in greco. Of course greco isn't trash, but it doesn't allow you to work on things that are kind of important, such as shooting takedowns. I would know because I did lead the state championship team of Manhattan in takedowns.

but did you not get beat in the finals by knipp?? didnt see many takedowns in that match. Greco is the greatest i think but i'm somewhat good at it i think ask marrs.

Also, I'm sure that the #1 ranked wrestler you spoke of isn't where he is because he's amazing at greco. I'm sure he got there because he was good at wrestling, and greco was something he picked up better than other wrestlers of his ability.