Originally posted by mom4:
I personally feel that the wrestling season is too long. Five months of a year is too much to ask for any young athlete to devote to just one sport. It seems like things are going good the first few months but when it gets towards the end of the season, burnout becomes more of an issue. The weather is getting warmer and friends are wanting to play outside, not sitting in a loud, hot, cramped gym all Saturday. Then, you have friends leaving to go on vacation for Spring Break while you still have intense practices before heading on down to Topeka. I would rather see a kid only compete at 4 or 5 tournaments a year until they are 12-14 and have them out for high school wrestling than to see a 6-10 year old compete every weekend and then get burned out at a young age.
I think you brought up some good points about the weather getting warmer and friends leaving on vacations for Spring breaks making it difficult for some of the kids, especially if they have been at it for several months. Kids are getting to the point that they are wanting to get outside and enjoy themselves.
My son is a 9th grader and he would have been competing in his second year of 14 & under. He has been wrestling since the 1st grade. He just completed in his first year of wrestling in high school mostly JV with ten varsity matches this year at Aquinas. He had about 2 weeks off after his final JV meet from competition and had decided on his own to compete in Kids. He wrestled the Ottawa Kids meet before Subs and did very well there. I thought he would do very well this year at State. But he told me that next week that he was burned out and did not want to wrestle the remainder of the Kids season.
My son has never complained about going to folkstyle practices before. He was always pysched about the Subs, Districts and State. I could see physically on him after Ottawa that he was drained and had no fire for the remainder of the season. It was tough for me because I really liked what I saw from him at Ottawa and I wanted to watch him wrestle more. I was planning on taking him to Brute Nationals too. I decided he was old enough to make this decision. He had wrestled hard six days a week from the middle of November to about March 4th. I really believe he was ready for a break.
I am hoping that after four weeks rest that he will be ready to start practicing freestyle. He told me that he thought he would be ready for that after a short rest. It will be his decision. I don't want him to burn out. I want him to continue to love and look forward to wrestling. I feel if I let him control his own destiny with his sport now that he will not burn out and will continue to enjoy it. That is more important to me for him.
