I cannot speak for the entire East Kansas region, but I can give you my thoughts from my years as an assistant coach at Leavenworth.
I believe that wrestling is a part of the culture of the communities in the Central and Western parts of the state that you and others on this post have referenced as perennial wrestling powers. Young kids grow up wanting to wear the singlet of their high school team. Wrestling is a part of their family. You hear names from those communities that are synonymous with several generations of wrestling dominance (Lambotte, DeShazer, Gentzler, Ball, Beeson, Waters, etc...). I remember watching the 5A State Finals a few years ago from the stands sitting next to the Arc City contingent. There were dozens of elementary aged kids in the stands on a Friday cheering on the Arc city team instead of being in school that day. I thought it was awesome! I remember telling one of my guys that those little kids we were seeing in the stands were the same kids that would be winning state medals in the next few years (one of them was little Beeson). Those kids grow up in a community that fully embraces the wrestling culture and that breeds success at the high school level.
In our community, and I can guess many others around my area, kids grow up wanting to be basketball players. The basketball culture has grown immensely popular though what is seen on TV. Our kids grow up with dreams and aspirations of being basketball players and not wrestlers. I would be willing to wager that I recruit the hallways as hard as any coach in the state. I teach freshman and I hand them all a flier about why they should wrestle. The response I get most..."I'm not a wrestler, I'm a basketball player." According to them they are all going to be the next NBA star. Basketball culture is glorified and glamorized where as our wrestling culture here at Leavenworth is know for being anything but easy. Heck, we have an assistant coach who has been in a cornerstone of our team for many years and even his son wanted to be a basketball player (until recently) because that is what all his friends do. Our community embraces basketball and our teams have experienced very good success over the past years. Basketball culture has very deep roots around here.
The perennial power house wrestling schools have a community that embraces wrestling and kids that grow up wanting to be wrestlers. I know at Leavenworth, and other schools in my area, we are doing what we can to get kids on board early. We are making progress, but we certainly have a long way to go to catch the central and western "Hot Spots" of wrestling. We will continue to encourage and promote wrestling in our area for sure.
If they had a "like" button on the site, I would have given it one. Good answer, Its just a culture you're fighting against. And looking at the results, its just amazing how things don't change in wrestling. Leavenworth has been able to put a few big hitters out over the years although.
One trend ive seen is the success of high level academies and clubs. Something like Purler in Missouri whose gone national is what I mean. Im just saying, if some big name former college wrestler put an academy in KC, could you get any of your kids (elementary to High school) to go? Im just seeing more of this around the country? I know the biggest obstacle would be $$$ and parents time and commitment to drive to it. Maybe there is something like that now. But, if they did go to a good academy which takes time to build, then this would be a gap closer with the schools west of KC metro area.
