Well as a former wrestler and now coach of Schlagle High School, I would have to say that most of the comments on the forum are true over the last few years. I wrestled at Schlagle from 1995-1999. In 1995 Schlagle qualified 7 out of 7 wrestlers and placed 10th in the state. Not bad for a basketball school. Over that time we had a wrestler on our team named John Davis who was a 2 time state runner up to Bo Maynes and won state his senior. We were legit wrestlers we went to hard tournaments including the Chanute tournament where John nearly defeated Zach Roberson but lost 1-0 (it was alot closer than that u just had to see). This was Turner's first year going to Chanute, I know up until this season we have been going to Chanute for 10-15 years.
In fact Chanute would drive up and attend the Schlalge Invitational (which was actually a pretty good tournament) then at the end out January we would go down to SEK which rotates from Chanute and Coffeyville.
Those were the days.... but they are gone. New administration meant the lost of our very own tournament (Schlagle Invitational) a tournament that we host for nearly 20 years. Just this year when we got our team schedule we noted that the Chanute tournament was cut because of budget reasons. Don't think that we just choose to go to local tournaments!!!
I must admit that KCK wrestling is poor right now. BUT realize that there are alot of other factors that play a big role in that. Don't complain about the people who are workin hard to change that.
I for one have been working very hard to change wrestling in my city. I have been coaching a middle school team for 5 years now and when I started the team consisted of 6 wrestlers (there are 18 weight classes) this year the same team had 57 wrestlers. I have founded a kids club that has been around for 5 years now. The kids have produced some of the athletes I have at Schlagle and some at Washington High School.
The school Boundaries in KCK really divides up the talent pool and kids I have working together in kids club all go to different school. School district like Turner doesn’t have that problem. Most of the Turner kids already know how to wrestle before they attend high school. Not the case at Schlagle.. I have to spend the first few days on stance movement double legs etc…
So just keep in mind that there are also a lot of other factors that play along with the success of a program.
