JUST WANT SAME IMPUT ? COACHES CARD $30.00 KIDS CARD $30.00 NOW THE BRONZE CARD WANT FROM $50.00 TO $60.00 COACHES CARD WANT UP $5.00 .WELL THE NUMBERS OF WRESTERS GO DOWN BECAUSE OF COST? MAYBE LESS COST BIGGER NUMBERS OF WRESTERS!!IAM JUST SEENING ALOT OF YOUNG GOOD WRESTERS NOT GOING BACK TO WRESTLING ...BASKETBALL CHEAPER .MY ROOTS OF WRESTLING GOES BACK WERES IT WAS SELF TAUGHT .ALL COACHES NEED TO READ THE RULE BOOK AND FOLLOW UP ON NEW RULERS .OVER THE LAST 5YRS I SEEN TO MANY POTENTIALLY DANGEROUS MOVES NOT STOPPED. OLDTIMER

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First of ALL Merry Christmas and I get the honor of playing the role of Santa till the end of wrestling season.

I’m glad someone else out there has the same view point as I do. Living in Kansas City it has become a never ending task to motivate parents to allow their kids to come out for wrestling. My approach is somewhat similar to a salesman over-exaggerate the product under-exaggerate the price. OK not exactly the most honest approach but a lot more affective then telling them they will spend $30 for a membership card; $130-$150 for wrestling tournaments; and at least $ 150 for food, hotel, transportation. If I was upfront about all of then I wouldn’t be COACH Trae, I’d be BILL-COLLECTOR Trae (which is what I in the end become). The city has too many resources and free/low cost recreational leagues for football, baseball, and TONS of basketball. Let’s be honest if I was a parent that didn’t know anything about wrestling would I encourage my kids to play basketball or wrestle.
Not only do I have to blindfold the parents but I perform the same procedure on the kids first because if they find out that it will cost about $300 to wrestling (BWT I didn’t include the cost of uniform, tshirt, headgear, singlets, wrestling shoes etc…) they wouldn’t even ask their parents if they could join the club.

I’m glad to support wrestling kids by donating scholarship money through my membership card. BUT who’s gonna support me. Who do you think in my club is ultimately paying for these kids to wrestle.

So let’s be real we either want a lot of money or a lot of kids. BUT I don’t think we can have A LOT of BOTH.

I agree with both the above statements but I must ask, how did you or your clubs vote on the manditory headgear? Talk about a rediculous expense for a 6 and under novice! And where do weekend invitational tournaments get off charging more than we do for qualifiers? Kids wrestling has always been more expensive than other sports due to the travel and food expenses but in the last few years we have priced many parents out of our sport!

This is a great topic. I have a concern as well in regards to this area. I would hate to see this sport go the way of others like soccer, where only the wealthy can participate. It becomes extremely difficult to participate on a week end week out basis due to the expense involved. One concern is the amount that is actually going to the kids. We just moved from Oklahoma and are not one of those that say that wrestling is of the BEST quality there. One thing though is that it does cost less in the long run and the awards at the tournaments are generally much nicer. Of course they charge for admission to the tournaments which we have not seen here in Kansas. One possible considerations is club's obtaining sponsorship to help defer cost. I know Derby does a good job with the kids regarding singlets, headgear, shoes, etc and we appreciate that for our son. It is a shame though that many quality wrestlers and their families can not afford not just this sport, but sadly any sport. Maybe it is time for the YMCA's or other non profit organizations to become involved to provide more opportunities for lower income children.

Concerned Coaches,

Hello I might have a few answers for you coaches and parents. I'm Coach Ed I don't like the cost either considering I have to pay for a babysitter every Saturday from November to August. But if we were not wrestling it would be something else. My kids get to be around their parents 9 months out the year, 3 nights a week and every weekend. If you look at it the right way and conduct yourself right what better lesson to teach by example. There are several clubs that pay there coaches, that, I think is the biggest disgrace. Give to your community and youth, that alone can change the path of our youth. It is about the kids if you had forgotten. The matter about head gear was brought up by me when I served on the rules committe for the state. High schoolers wear them, why not get the kids use to them. We run WHY Wrestling in Northwest and started at the YMCA Central, they made us move because we didn't generate enough money for their inconvenience. Also the reason you don't see any tournaments in Wichita is because it cost you a minimum of 1,200.00 dollars just to get the school to have tournaments. And to top it off the schools won't let any mats leave the school if not a school function even though it is serving kids. There are many road blocks in the road but the question is how much does it mean to you or the kids. Wrestling is our way of life and it doesn't mean our kids are the best but it taught me a lot on the fact that only one you can rely on is GOD and yourself. So don't blame cost for the drop in participation, but also the intensity of the sport and the behavior of parents and coaches. I've been at this a long time and have seen several admit to themselves that it's just too hard. And as a coach you should assist them in coming to the best decision for their safety and mental well being. I'm also a bronze clinic instructor, and it is definitely needed!! Kids coaches and parents drive more kids out of the sport than the cost could ever. Why not try to concentrate on the benefits of the sport and not how much it is going to cost a parent.

Thank you
Coach Ed
Why Wrestling & Kansas Krusaders Girls Team

Coach Ed,

First I want to say that I admire very much your efforts both as a coach and as the person leading the drive to promote girls wrestling in Kansas. I have a great deal of respect for you for that. I have a second grade daughter and over the last five years I have often thought it would be tremendous if there was a girls division.

I'm going to take exception with a couple of aspects of your post. I believe it could give the impression that anyone who posted before on this subject should not offer a negative comment about the costs of our youth wrestling program and should instead be making positive comments about the benefits of youth wrestling. I believe that you could get into the profile of just about any of the people who posted before you and find that they have also made positive comments about the benefits of youth wrestling to their children or the kids that they coach. Check out Mike Furches' post in Starting Wrestling Age topic. He agrees with you about parents being able to handle the stress of wrestling. I listed a sight that had an article that also is designed to inform new parents about the benefits of wrestling:
http://www.waucondawrestling.org/YC/ycParents.htm

A person can be very positive overall about our sport, but that doesn't mean that they agree with everything about it and maybe what they don't agree with is something that might need to change to improve the sport participation for everyone.

I don't think any of us would disagree with your statement that coaches and parents themselves can drive kids out of the sport. Does that not also happen in basketball or football or any other sport? Yes I believe the intensity of our sport can also drive kids away. Again though I am sure that at least happens in football. These are all things though that happen after a kid has already started. Excessive cost is something that keeps some kids away before they even get to the starting blocks. I do not think we can be oblivious to the personal financial hardship that many individuals are confronted with today. I understand the difficulties that Coach Travius is encountering in the area that his club serves the community in. We recently signed my daughter up for a second grade girls basketball league that several parents were financially unable to handle the $75 cost due to a parent recently being laid off and their other family needs. I just believe it is a real life personal issue for many families right now in this economy and that the personal finance issue does keep some from even starting the sport. It makes sense to me that the higher these expenses become that more families in the future will decide not to even start the sport.

To Husker Fan & coach Ed, Thanks for the comments but I felt it nessecary to clarify a few things for myself since I am referanced in one of the posts here. I did not take the comments negatively and in many regards agree with what is being said. I for one am one that has made the sacrifice to see to it that my son wrestles. My only point is that many, due to the reality of their financial situation cannot afford many of the aspects of wrestling or for that matter any sports. Is it imperitive that parents make sacrifices? You bet, it is after all our children and our children deserve the best that we can give them. That does not mean that the gift of wrestling does not come at some cost though. For some it literally means that the family eats or the kid does not wrestle. I know of specific situtions like this due to the area of the community I live in. I could go into a great deal of detail here regarding the recent changes in the financial aspects of my families life but this is not the place for that. It is the place to say that with lay offs and hardships on many families it is imperitive that not just the families but the sport find ways to make wrestling affordable for all of the young men and women who want to participate. It is a great sport, I believe it probably teaches more than any other, but to leave children out due to their families socio economic status would be a shame. That has happened in some sports like Soccer and it would be sad to see it happen in wrestling. One of the ironies I found out when moving here is that kids, even on a school level, at least in Wichita, have to pay to participate, that is a shame, after living in 4 other states this is a first. I can't help but be convinced that some of the rules and finances hurt more kids than it helps. (i.e. Jr. High participation rules and kids not being able to wrestle dual divisions during KS tournaments, monthly sign up fees etc.) I just happen to believe that it is a great sport that we need to find ways to allow all of those with the ability to wrestle, as mentioned in my earlier post many clubs have done this, mine I believe is one of those, I know for a fact that others do not though and that is a shame.

Compared to other youth sports, wrestling is not as expensive as football, baseball, hockey, and others that require you to buy pads and other equiptment. Most Clubs are worried about the kid wrestling and not about collecting money.

Hello again,

Well as usual, as my wife always tells me don't argue a mute point. But let me leave you with one thing to ponder. There has always been poor and injustice and always will be, but what you do to change the situation is what matters. Anyone can complain and see injustice but if they do nothing they don't really disagree. And what I mean is, obviously you guys have a passion for this subject and more power to you. If it is anything like the battle I have had on the girls, MY PRAYERS ARE WITH YOU!!!
And don't take it that I am uncompassionate to the problem but we all have our battles. GOOD LUCK and GODS GRACE.

Sincerly,
Coach Ed
WHY WRESTLING AND KANSAS KRUSADERS

As a parent of two wrestlers I understand the expences.Candlewishes has been a success for many organizations.They are SOY candles with cotten wicks which burn longer and cleaner and are triple scented.The great thing is you make 50% profit,and they pre-package each wrestlers order.Shipping and handling are paid by the company.There is also a January bonus coming up. For more info please e-mail me.

Candlewishes had a good suggestion on a fundraiser. I was at a Bronze clinic training session today and the topic of fundraisers was discussed. Another good one that was brought up at today's clinic was community members and organizations sponsporing one or more wrestlers for a year. I don't know how easy it would be to do this, but apparently the club at the meeting today was having a great deal of success with that in their community.

Does anyone know if our State or National organization has any existing financial programs already in place for a family or club that could use financial assistance?

Husker Fan,

This is a topic that has been discussed and debated by the Executive Council. The conclusion arrived at by the Council is that it would be very difficult to effectively manage a scholarship program at the state level. Their recommendation was that each club should establish some means of helping those families in need, since those needs can be determined most clearly at the club level.

I have found clubs looking at a wide variety of resources to help them with their funding. These include hosting a tournament, soliciting local merchants, raffle ticket sales, discount card sales (see FundATeam.com for an example), and sales of other merchandise.

Finally, I would argue that wrestling can be a relatively inexpensive sport, depending on how involved the participants want to become. In my club, it costs $45 to join, which includes the USAW card. This gives them three practices per week for almost five months, which doesn't seem like too bad of a deal. If they want to go to the tournaments, there is an additional cost (except for our own tournament, for which we do not charge our own kids). However, they don't need to attend a tournament every week in order to get a lot out of the sport. For those who do not have the financial ability, our club provides assistance. Our principal fundraiser is our tournament and the accompanying concessions.

Mike & Others? I am fairly new to Kansas so am still learning, I learned a long time ago that the only dumb question is one you don't ask so here goes. I realize that many of the tournaments are fund raisers for clubs, but I also understand that the funds raised are limited due to not charging admission. In Oklahoma we had nice awards at every tournament and charged between $2 & $3 for tournament admission. I never heard anyone complain about this due to the fact we knew that the clubs used the funds to help sponsor the club and provide nice awards for the kids. It was also not unusual tomake between 5K and 7K a tournament in clear profit. We always did a lot with this for the kids. I guess you know my question from here. I agree that individual clubs are the answer to the question and while it is not as large of a problem as other sports I believe that sports in general are more of a problem then when many of us were kids. I don't remember for myself there ever being fees and it was not unusual to get a group of folks together to play sanlot ball or pick up basketball, or for that matter even wrestle. But with all of the competition and lack of finances now a days it would just be nice to find ways to encourage more kids to wrestle. I happen to believe that the things learned from the sport, discipline, perserverance, dedication, hard work ethic, etc, are many of the keys to helping young people overcome the obsticles thrown their way. I have also worked at writing grants in the past and believe that some scholarships and grants for underprivlidged children would be available. I would be glad to assist as much as possible in helping provide some of these opportunities. I also used to manage and market bands which has some similiarities regarding sales pitches and all. My main question though, is are there limits that prevent clubs from charging admission or in raising funds? Thanks for answer in advance.

Mike Juby:

Thank you for your reply to my question. I agree with you that for most of us wrestling is very affordable. I also agree with you that for most of us when we do have some times of financial difficulties that we can still participate at a lesser level in wrestling (by limiting tournament participation and especially those tournaments that require overnight travel and extra expenses). Even at the lesser level of participation our children will still be gaining great value from just participating in practices.

Of course you would like to see every child have the opportunity to experience all of the best tournaments that they can. I have a concern for Coach Travius's Wyandotte County Club because I know that it serves an inner city area where financial hardships would really limit participation and that they could use some assistance. On a personal level my family could send them a donation. I intend to do that. I'm not sure if some of the promotional ideas would work well in his community or if his club has the time and resources to develop them.

I have been on his website and I have read what some of his goals are for his club and community. They appear to be very worthwhile to me. I know there are some wonderful athletes who no doubt would be great wrestlers in his community. I hope Coach Travius is successful and the young children in his community get the opportunity to experience the benefits of wrestling.

One can keep costs down by participating in 1 or 2 tournaments a month. If a kid can only participate in 1 or 2 a month from Dec.-Mar. along with practicing on a regular basis he will and can still greatly benefit from the sport of wrestling.

1-2 tournaments a month equals to 4-8 for the season. So if a kid competes in say 6 tournaments during the season that will amount to $60 in entry fees plus $30 for a USA card and another $60 for shoes and singlets for a total of about $150 for the season. That is still comparable to some baseball and soccer leagues around. One doesn't have to go overboard and compete every weekend to get the benefits of the sport.

Wrestling is as expensive or as inexpensive as you want it to be. In our club, we charge our wrestlers the $30 for the card and a $20 club fee. We supply our wrestlers with singlets, we recycle our shoes so that younger wrestlers can get by without that expense, and so the only real equipment expense is the headgear. We encourage our parents to only wrestle the tournaments that they feel they can handle. If that is only 2 tourneys a season, then that is what they wrestle. Those of us that have kids that have wrestled for a number of years put more money into the sport. We do it because we love wrestling and our kids love wrestling. If I had to force my child to wrestle, we would not be doing it. You and your child have to choose what they want to be involved in. There is no way we could do soccer, football, baseball, basketball, wrestling, volleyball, or everything that is out there for them to do. Choose your battles, so to speak, and then budget your money and your time so that it can work for you.

Several of us (myself included) have suggested that all of us have the ability to lessen our level of participation and still have our child benefit from their participation. This is true, there is no doubt about that. But I believe we would all have to admit that if we are limiting the wrestlers' participation to just practices or a few meets a year that they are not getting the same experience as a wrestler who gets to compete in a full schedule of meets (especially the top ones that often require overnight travel expenses). When this happens, a sport does become more of a sport for wealthier families(I have heard this said about golf and other high expense sports).

I think that this is the challenge of this question. Are we providing an affordable enough situation for most people that they are able to send their kids to a challenging enough set of meets that they can grow to be the best wrestler that they can be. It is affordable enough for my family and I believe for most of the families in my club. It probably is for the majority of families that do participate.

But costs are inching up and it has probably made many cut back in their participation. I just think it is something we need to keep in mind. There are many families that have either lost a job or have had to take new jobs at reduced levels of income in the last several years. If there are small ways that we can try to hold the line on some tournament fees and other expenses that are associated with them, I think it should be done. Some of you might have some ideas on how that could be done.

I will offer one example. Manhattan is having a tournament this weekend. The last weigh-in time for Saturday is 7:30 AM. We would have to leave about 5 AM in the morning to make it and have to get up about 4:30 AM. To me I believe 4:30 is too early to wake up a wrestler who has to wrestle that day. This makes it very difficult for people in the Kansas City area to leave on Saturday and make it there by that deadline. Several families from my club have decided to go up and spend the night at a hotel. This is an extra night of travel expenses that maybe could be avoided if we were given an extra 45 minutes for the weigh in deadline. This is a small example but maybe a bunch of small things could add up.

Wrestling has been the most expensive sport that my son dose. Over the last few years.
Yes, wrestling sometimes requires hotels, the Manhattan, Salina tournaments for sure.
Food and drink prices can be high at some tournaments.
To help offset this. Our club this year has a $40.00 sign up fee that includes the card. If you have more than one child wrestling the fee is $30.00 for each additional. We also provide a singlet and warm up jacket and pants. Most of the time, we have a pair on shoes if needed. We supplement our club fees by fund raising. To cover expenses.
There are very few one on one sports that are available for kids. I for one am happy that my son has something he loves keep him active during the winter. Yes it cost more than most other kid’s sports.
But the benefits are worth the cost to me.

Compared to baseball (tournament teams especially) wrestling is cheap!!!! Not to mention the fact that it keeps your kids off the streets and teaches them discipline. I feel it is a small price to pay for all your kids get out of it.
If you are worried about costs, have your team get sponsors or have fundraisers to cover some of the costs.

First I would like to thank everyone for there support. And I will get back with those who emailed me shortly.

I think everyone has really gotten out of focus with the initial topic. I won't ever compare the cost of wrestling with the benefit that it provides. Neither will I speak for everyone as a whole but from my own personal experience. Lastly this message board would be used a forum to express ideas and opinions so I value all feedback positive or negative.

Our club maybe vastly different than most clubs. Where most clubs have more little kids and gradually fewer older kids most of the kids in our club get turned on to wrestling at an older age. Most 6 year olds don't say, "Mommy, Daddy I wanna wrestle." (I don't think it would happen) I believe one day they get in a car and wind up at wrestling practice and that is the beginning of there wrestling career. Their parents are involved because it was their parent’s idea. Plus at that age parents like to be around and watch their kids.

The kids I come in contact with are a little different. This community is not wresting oriented like smaller communities are and it takes year to build that up. Most of the kids that approach decide that want to wrestle on their own the have to motivate their parent to support them. These kids are often 10 – 11 - 12 year old and their parents don’t feel the need to be as involved as the younger kids. Then when you add the lack of parental support to the actually cost of participation and most kids never make it to their first practice.

I think one of the bad things about me is that I have a heart. I believe in being persistent. I try to get some of these kids with lack of parental support and funds in the club anyway because the benefit by far over weighs the cost.

You have to understand that there is a larger picture than WRESTLING. The bigger picture is life and the quality of it. Many of these kids are not in favorable home situations and I want to give then a greater outlook about what life is or could me. This enables me to give kids the chance to be around positive adult figures.

A chance to be successful and an opportunity to learn teamwork, camaraderie, and values develop strong citizens.