Originally posted by TAlley:
When I was Coaching at Andover, the year they won the 4A State Championship in Football, we also qualified the entire team for State and placed 3rd. I think out of the 22 postions on the Football Field, 13 were filled by wrestlers. Some of them were 126 and 132 pound wrestlers playing guard and nose tackle.
I think back to the 70's when Douglass High School won the State in Football over Hoxie. I watched that game and remember an awful lot of wrestling names from both teams.
I've always felt that the best hitters and defensive lineman were wrestlers, reguardless of size. Any Football coach who wants his players lifting weights instead wrestling is missing out on the best offseason conditioning possible. Put a good football player in the weight room and if he is not totally dedicated he will put the weights down when he is tired. Put him in the wrestling room and he will shove weight around, learn leverage and position and if he gets tired and tries to stop, someone will kick his but.
Back to the size issue. Obviously coaches want all the 200 pounders on the field, but in my years of coaching I found that the hard nosed wrestler at 140 to 160 will play like 220 and will make up for his size with what he has learned on the mats.
Great post and I agree totally, again, for me I am speaking of the 100-135 pound wrestler. I would take a 150-pound wrestler that is decent over a 175-pound football player that don't have the conditioning, balance, and knowledge of how to take someone down any day, especially on the defensive end. This raises another question. What aspects of wrestling help football players the most? I personally think it is the tackling and blocking parts. Knowing how to hit, and control is vital. It is also another way that I believe Greco for example can be of benefit.
