Some interesting perspectives here. I agree with a lot of what Randy says and understand his perspective. The Parade article supplied by Richard has a lot of great points but i think it is alarmist and extreme. I am going to vent a bit here so i apologize in advance.

I have been accused of being one of those rabid parents/coaches. My only goal for my son and my numerous foster kids in my group home is that i expose to wrestling, is NOT about getting All-American honors or state championships. I want them to learn about work ethic,life lessons and overcoming obstacles. I would rather that take place in the classroom and on the mat as opposed to finding out through a hard knock life. I could care less whether they play college sports but i know dang well they will be better off for having wrestled.

I love the articles about overzealous parents wanting their kids to be stars. I contrast them with some of the horrendous abusive parenting stories of the kids i work and live with. The answer is not in either extreme but is in the middle and maintaining the perspective needed to help our kids get the true lessons out of sports.

Recently, I sat down with our local parents group for our high school wrestling team. At that meeting, my son was at 28 day JRobinson camp at the time mind you and I will have 5 foster boys on the squad this season, I was told by parents that I was "crazy" to set the expectation for our kids to work as hard as the other high school teams in our region. I literally was told that we needed to "set the bar lower" The parents agreed that they wanted the squad to be more successfull, but not at the cost of working harder. Now that is a scary attitude in my book.

Bring all the opportunities you can to Kansas, the best wrestling i have seen in the nation has been here at home. Why not?