I "feel your pain". Have read posts on both sides of the issue. My son ran into this two years ago. He and one other wrestler had 6-7 yrs of club wrestling under their belt, were both state placers in kids. Pretty much everyone else were novices as middle-schoolers in a brand-new program.

We struggled with this, ultimately decided that every program has to start somewhere, and we wanted to help get the new program off the ground.

Down-side was, my son got very few worth-while matches either season, then went to kids state 14yo as an 8th grader, got his butt handed to him by a bracket full of Freshman who had wrestled varsity all year. Of course, he is planning on letting that roll down-hill this year..grin