When Jonny was starting in kids wrestling I knew very little about the "Youth Wrestling" Community and was also not very involved with the club. We went for 2 years every practice every weekend if he wanted of course, and that poor boy never won a match, not one for 2 years! On the 3rd year I got involved and took the club over and found this website and then I learned about novice tournaments. Everyone said "well technically this is Jonny's 3rd year and he can't go" Well I took him anyway.

Now my thought at this point was my kid sucks something awful! (and still he LOVES it) But hes getting stomped so fast at opens, he ain't learning hes just losing. Maybe an even field is what he needs to grow to understand the sport. We went to 3 novice events and placed in 2 and won the 3rd. Now hes getting hardware and WRESTLING. Now back to the dog fights where we win some and lose some. Now hear we are 7 years later 10 years old 2 State titles, some National championships etc... Still loves this sport with everything he has. If it had not been for those Novice tournaments for both of us to use as a LEARNING tool I really think this story would ended long ago. Without any success to nurture an athlete even small successes they are not going to continue in any sport.

Its very, very necessary to have these novice events. Kids clubs use their events to earn money for their clubs. The problem is scheduling, we have so many events in Kansas, kids clubs are Sunday wrestling so that they can have good turnouts and numbers to raise money. We need a group of people from all districts to work together to create some sort of committee to work within clubs and districts to optimize our season and their money by working together on scheduling these tournaments. I think that would really help.