With respect,

I believe that wrestling is way too much of an individual sport as it is. Over the years I have witnessed a deterioration of the “TEAM” aspect in this sport and with it comes a whole laundry list of downsides. Although our kids are important along with their development I disagree with only considering their needs when deciding where to practice. Thinking positively, the values, morals and unity gained by committing to a team outweighs a lot of the downside. Not only do we frown on wrestlers practicing away from us on scheduled practice nights we also encourage things like sitting together at tournaments, spending time together outside of practice, developing mentoring programs with the wrestlers etc etc. It is these things in my opinion that build unity, help kids stay on the right track and hopefully someday make the right decision on and off the mat. How can a team be close if the wrestlers are always off at another practice only to be seen on the weekends? How can the host team’s coach effectively coach not knowing what they have worked on away from their club? I will also share that we are perfectly fine and encourage our wrestlers to practice with other great clubs on our off night. Not that any of your approaches to the contrary are wrong, this is just what we believe in and I think it has worked well for years.

Will, I am going to agree to disagree with you on this.

Loyalty, Respect, PRIDE, call it what you want,it means diffrent things to diffrent people, but to me it means being proud of your roots, who you are, where you are, and how you got there. Not just in wrestling, but in everything.

I dont own our wrestling club, or any of the kids in it. THAT is ridiculous to even say. but i'm PROUD to be apart of it.
I'm PROUD to see our kids(yes they are all our kids)improve and do well.

Will, i mean no disrespect to you. You have done great things for your son, he is a great wrestler and you must be very proud,state champ as a freshman. I guss my problem is i'm not the type of person that "DON'T WORRY ABOUT EVERYONE ELSE" I want everyone to know that kid that was a 3 time state champ, or 4 time SQ, or the one that just won his first match was from ROSSVILLE,and i want him/her to be proud of it to.

As a coach I have routines & rules that I expect the kids to follow. When other kids from other clubs come and practice with us I make them follow our rules. They generally pick up on my plan pretty quick when their shirts are untucked or they want to warm up their "own way" or just walk out and get a drink without asking or telling a coach. These are just a few problems that can occur when kids hop around to clubs. Generally it is not a problem - but they need to know they are visitors. I can tell you one thing when a kid walks in from another club he had better have his USA card with him and his birth certificate copy
with them all the time. Kids need to be greatful or thank the club representatives. It is a little confusing as a coach when
I see a kid (I do not know) warming up with the club at the beginning of practice. He normally gets caught for a rules violation within 5 minutes of being in the room. I like to see the reactions on their face for wearing a baseball T-shirt during wrestling practice - major violation. It is in the manual - code 92 t-shirt violation. Do not do it again!

i can see the team unity aspect, we have a few that go to purler on mondays, and visit columbus, parsons, chanute, seneca mo., others on wednesdays. they are at our practices on tuesdays and thursdays. when wrestlers from these other clubs come to our practices they are always grateful, and we are too. they are trying to get better, and are helping us do the same. when you have great competition in the room, you are going to become better. i know they get sick of hearing it, but i tell the kids "wouldn't it be nice if your toughest matches are on tuesdays and thursdays". that is something i learned from a great high school football coach and i believe in it 100%. i agree that kids should be proud of where they are from, but i think a t-shirt, or a warm-up is sufficient. i would ask for team singlets, but its too cool to have one from russia, or hawaii, or texas!!

I am not saying I don't care about everyone else from the perspective that I won't HELP them. I will take anyone with me wherever I am going and I have. My barn has an open door policy, if you want to practice the door is open, 7x24. I just don't like the idea of mandated kids practices. That will happen soon enough with HS. KSHSAA doesn't permit you to travel around and practice so you better get it now before you have to quit. I like everything Jeff says, sit together, cheer for each other, etc but kids wrestling is NOT a team sport. Heck, you might have to wrestle your buddy for first because every INDIVIDUAL is allowed to wrestle. If you want to go to your club's practice three times a week and do nothing outside of that I don't have a problem with that either. That is what I mean by "don't worry about everyone else." The home town pride stuff and school pride stuff happens in high school not at the kids level. These kids should be learning to be friends with kids from all clubs. They should learn technique from everywhere. There is a big wrestling world outside of the same tournaments every year and the same wrestling room every night. You don't think your kids will benefit from broadening their horizons? Telling someone in wrestling that they HAVE to practice with only their local club is down right absurd. Jeff has his recipe and Kevin has his. I just lean heavily to side of the freedom to choose! You will have much more unity when it happens because they want to be there not because they HAVE to be there. I can tell you right now that I really like the results I have gotten out my recipe!

A few years ago my son had a great run at state. His club (the Slammers) get a lot of credit for it. Great coaching and great practice partners. The next year a new club started in town and most of the kids my son's size left the club. Out of loyalty we stayed, even though it was not in my son's best interest. He practiced with a novice when she wasn't playing volleyball and spent a lot of time coaching the little kids when she was. My mistake. One of the special things about wrestling is you are on the mat ALONE. My son lost alone. His team did not lose with him. From then on I learned, do as someone else on this thread said, go where the partners are. My son is perfectly happy with the club he is in now, a good fit on coaching and practice partners. And, we do not miss practices. But, we found that club because our last club (the Spartans) gave us the freedom to find a place with partners my son's age, size and ability level and the new club allowed outsiders to attend on a part time basis. And, I thank both of them.

And, on sitting together, just one question, how do you pick which mat. We have always sat in the bleacher above our kids mat number. And, over the years my family and I have met a number of great people from outside of our club - part of the greater wrestling family - by doing this. I would not change a thing.

Five years ago, I took my son to join a club that was an hour fifteen minutes round trip from our home. We had to make the move out of necessity and found a great program with excellent coaches, parents, tradition, team unity, fan support - and most importantly, a lot of quality wrestlers that were near my son's age and weight. Not only do I think that it has helped my son improve a lot as a wrestler, I honestly think his career could have ended a few years ago had we stayed put.

This was his first year wrestling Jr High and he and his team had a very good season. I always wondered what it would be like bringing him "back home" to wrestle with teammates from his own town. Funny thing is, most of the kids who had club experience gained that experience outside the city limit. It didn't take them long to come together and support each other. I believe that quality wrestlers respect quality wrestlers and my son (as a 7th grader) gained the respect of teammates from 7th, 8th and 9th grade. The Jr High season was so much fun this year. We owe a lot of thanks to the club that helped him along the way. Thanks for allowing us to be a part of your family.

I think this is a very interesting dynamic and the only thing that I have learned and know for sure is that I don't think the best approach is at the extremes of this discussion. I think that the best approach lies somewhere in the middle.

Will I respect your thoughts and opinions but I disagree with you on this in one aspect. I think kids wrestling is where you lay the foundation for teaching the team concept. I agree that the wrestlers really get a lot more of this in high school but the fundamental ideas of unity, teamwork, etc can be started in the kids club; no different than teaching the fundamentals of wrestling technique.

When we first started our club I was more on the side of wrestling and practicing only with the team you register with. Over the years I have realized that this is too drastic of an approach because you can't get all the right size kids with the right experience in one place under one club at the same time. Therefore as a policy we ask our kids to practice with us when we have practice but when we don't practice they can go wherever they want. I also think it is good for the kids to get exposed to different coaching and technique. Likewise, we always welcome guests in our room as long as they have their USAW card.

On the other hand, I agree with what Jeff Smith and Smokey said about having rules and learning the team/comraderie aspect of the sport. For me personally, I feel that this is one of the most important life lessons that wrestling can teach kids. I think a lot depends on the age of the kids. The younger kids love meeting and practicing with their team. As the kids get older and more serious about wrestling then they can branch out because they have the team aspect as a foundation. Our kids love becoming the "big" kids so they can be the team leaders.

Bottomline: You have to find the right mix. Both aspects (individual and team) are very important for the kids to learn.

Shawn Budke
Leavenworth County Spartans

See the open room night post on Wednesdays with the Brawlers..........

The only thing I will add is that missing a team practice without notifying anyone, could leave somene without a drilling/live wrestling partner. In that respect, you have to think of your teammates, and like Jeff said, try to do the moving around on nights that your team isn't practicing.