To wrestle or not to wrestle....That is the question...With senior year and college plans starting to take place I have pondered this question and I still have a blank...Sure it would be cool to wrestle in college...But I have to think about career...I'm sure I could wrestle juco...But I don't want to look forward to a juco...nothing wrong with that though...I haven't even had any colleges talk to me yet any how...I'm just kinda stuck on this question and figured I'd see what some of you older wiser people would have to say who have been through the college experience and what some of you would recommend...

Wrestle. If you don't, you'll miss it and wonder what could have been. I remember Bronco Wrestler pondering the same thing. I suggest looking up that topic.

Chase, I sent you a private message make sure to get back in touch with me. I am going to respond to this though because I am sure there are other wrestlers in your shoes with the same questions. As a former high school coach, in football and soccer, I must say that things do not always take care of themselves. I have responded to this in the past but the bottom line if you want to wrestle or compete on a college level, you must take some responsibility to promote yourself. There are several Kansas kids I am promoting now on a college level to various colleges who have contacted me. I also know that several colleges are in contact with Aaron Sweazy regarding Kansas Kids. I can only give you my knowledge in this but I think that that knowledge has proven to work.

My last official “high school” coaching experience was in North Carolina before I moved to Oklahoma and then back here. I made it a point to help all of my athletes go to college if that was their dream. There were several things I did to help insure this. The first was that I set up study groups and had tutors helping out the team in mandatory study sessions before practice. In North Carolina that was easy because our practices generally started at 4:00 or 4:30. I also had requested weekly progress reports on my athletes. I insisted that they maintain a 2.3 GPA in order to play on the team. That by the way was higher than the schools requirements, but was within my rights as a coach. With the addition of all of these things, I never had a kid not meet their requirements. As a result, one of my proudest accomplishments was not only a top ranked team in state, but also a top 50 team in the nation that was also a Pepsi Scholar Team, which meant that as a team we had an accumulative GPA of 3.5 or better.

There was a reason for this, on my last soccer team; I had 5 legitimate Blue-Chip Players on it. All of which played D-1 Sports and one with a national championship ring. I was hearing from coaches, on an almost daily basis. I was always asked about 3 questions from each coach, the first always being asking about their grades. Meet your core requirements and then some. Take your ACT, SAT as many times as possible. Research shows that each time you take it, your chances to improve your score also increases. Colleges will not generally recruit players or athletes that don’t have a chance of succeeding in school.

The second thing that colleges asked me about was normally personality traits. “How do they get along with teammates?” “What types of activities are they involved in?” Things of this nature. Remember a well-rounded personality, commitment to community, those types of things are things that tend to show a coach that you will stick with it, not cause problems, and the like.

The third thing generally asked was about the kid as an athlete. “Are they coachable?” “What are their strengths?” “Weaknesses?” “What was their competition like?” Things of this nature.

There is another very important trait that I became aware of. The parents, athlete, and high school coaches have to promote you actively as a athlete. Truth is, that things work out for the studs, but you hear stories all of the time, of coaches finding athletes by having material sent to them. Truth is, that with all of the colleges offering opportunities, very few have a large budget to be going out. You have to make the effort to contact the colleges that you are interested in. Anyone saying otherwise has never been to a college web site and seen the requests from colleges, even like OSU who are asking for athletic profiles from athletes interesting in attending college there.

I would recommend the following. Identify what it is that you want to do in life, I don’t mean wrestle unless you are wanting to coach or something, but as close as possible, what vocation or area of study are you interested in. Then determine the type of school you want to go to. Large, small, private, public, junior college, and you can go on and on here. Then contact the schools that offer wrestling if you want to wrestle in college. I will say this here, I have seen you wrestle, I will assure you that you can wrestle in college, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. You may not wrestle at Oklahoma State, but there are plenty of colleges that would love to have you. After you have made your decisions, done some research, start contacting those colleges. I would recommend a quality packet of material. A brief introductory letter, along with stats that include your grades, extracurricular activities, wrestling stats, and so forth. Keep it brief and informative. Then you will want to have reference letters, and obviously a letter from your coach. You will also want to have a 5-10 minute highlight video. There are different theories on how to do this, some say with music, some say without. I believe you should do it with music myself to keep it entertaining. But some will again disagree with that. The video should be brief though because you will have to realize that many other coaches are sending in material for their athletes.

There is a lot more that could be said here, but I believe the process starts in the Freshman year of high school. It starts by starting to put stuff together, and finding some ways to communicate with coaches and programs. It intensifies at the end of your sophomore year through the start up of your senior year. By the completion of your senior season you should have made a decision. For those that don’t there are still opportunities. I will also say this, as a person who attended an expensive college, who had little or no money at the time, (some things never change) I was able to go to college. I was also able to help a daughter go through college. If you want to go to college, you can go to college. If you want to wrestle in college, you can wrestle in college. If you want to do these things, you can not leave it up to chance. If you wait on someone to do it for you, it will likely never get done. You have to do what a lot of good Kansas wrestlers do, you have to take the bull by the horns and go after it on your on. The help is necessary but the bottom line responsibility is yours.

There is a pretty good resource available that goes over all of this. I have reviewed it and found it to be pretty much right on the money. A link to it is http://www.collegeboundsports.com/index.php?ref=aam Check it out, and I believe that especially for those going into their Freshman/Sophomore Years that this is a great resource. There are many others, many that are just as good for a lot less money, but this gives you an idea as to the type of business that this has turned into.

From someone who chose not to wrestle, I would say it depends on how serious you want your life to be at 18. If you want to balance studying many hours a day along with practice and the stress of competition, then by all means wrestle. However, if you're more interested in having a little more fun and trying to figure out what you're ready to do for the rest of your life, don't wrestle. Your commitments to the sport don't have to end if you chose not to wrestle, which was kind of a big thing for me. So if you're ready for another 4-5 years of not eating and running a lot but doing something you love, you have to pick that. College is pretty sweet, though. So you have to take into consideration that you won't be able to go out and party like all college students should do.

I agree with all of this. But it's not like if you wrestle you won't have any fun at all. I'm having a blast right now, and I'm wrestling.

And Mike is 100% right. The only colleges that talked to me at all; with a couple of exceptions, were the ones that I talked to first. Qualifying for Senior Nationals and going is a great thing for any wrestler that wants to wrestle after high school. They have a little convention of a lot of the college wrestling programs around. This is a great opportunity to get your name out to colleges around the nation.

It's absolutely true that you won't have fun in college if you wrestle. I can assure you that I'm having more fun than he is. What you need to do is go to a good school, get a place on one of the main party streets, and live it up. Trust me on this one yo.

Chase,
Agreed with most of the posts. I sat down with one of my seniors last year, who was debating college wrestling or not, and had him make a list of the colleges he would like to wrestle for. I used any and all of my contacts, including emailing the coaches personally, and in the end this athlete had at least 3 offers. He ended up being a proud teammate of the studly Mr. Chenowith (at least last time I checked he was still with the program). I know Jilka has a lot more contacts than me if that's the route you decide to take. Fun is fun, but truthfully the friendships you make through this sport last a lifetime and people do respect those who are willing to commit themselves to a college sport.

If I'm thinking of the right guy you helped out, he's still with the team. And billy, I'm having a little bit of fun.

If you are really wanting to wrestle in College and you have to ask, I'm not sure there is enough dedication...........you have to want it.

If I was a College coach the first thing I would want in an athlete is GRADES, why coach him and then lose him to flunking out, besides if you get an academic scholarship that leaves more money in his budget.

A coach will also want coachability, not the biggest awards, green kids are perfect if they haven't hit the ceiling. Coaches can always improve muscle and technique, attitude is a little tougher.

Temperment and how they can handle adversity, it might have been all roses in high school, but if you think College will be also, they don't need you. You will go through some serious soul searching in College........can you handle it?
Expect to be put through a meat grinder. Remember coaches will not baby you or wait for you to come around, there is someone else waiting to take your place that wants to wrestle.

However if you dedicate yourself, you will find friendships and memories that will be the greatest if you put your mind to it. Also you are more apt to regret NOT wrestling than regret wrestling. You can't go back and rewrite history so you better do it before it is too late. One of the reasons I hope to see as many guys wrestle in College is that these are the ones that will make our sport survive and thrive. In future years after college these are the ones who will coach or will be parents of the next generation of wrestlers. Plus remeber they will still be brewing beer when you get out of college

Well I'd probably worry about that if i actually drank, but thats no biggie

I can personally agree with most of the posts that have been made here about this topic. I wanted to wrestle in college, pretty badly, but I chose not to. You see, ever since I was in 7th grade I always wanted to be a Marine. I know that's a pretty crazy thought for a 7th grader, but that's just what I wanted to do. But as the years went by..I wanted to wrestle more and more in college. Then I started talking to a recruiter about the Corps and college. I found out that I could do both, but then I would have to go into the reserves to do it. Now I'm not dissin on the reserves here or anything, but I didn't want to be a weekend warrior. I wanted to be a full time Marine. So I had to make a decision that would pretty much change the rest of my life, well at least for the time being. I finally decided to for-go college and become a Marine. And I probably couldn't be happier. Now can I wrestle while in the Corps? Of course, definetly. In fact I happen to be stationed where the All Marine Corps Team is based. But, with the unit that I am in, I don't have time in order to try out for the team. Now, do I regret my decision about joining the Corps and not goin to college and wrestling cuz I can't wrestle now? No, I don't. Do I miss it? You bet your a** I miss it. I miss the cometition, the training, the excitement of not knowing who my next opponent would be. But I'm happy with my decision about joining the Corps. I'm doing two of my dreams that I have ever had. I'm a Marine and I'm a police man at the same time. I've made so many friends along the way, that's it's unbelieveable. I've joined a brotherhood that only we as Marines will ever understand. Now, I do realize that I could have made a lot of other friends while in college, but there's just something about the Corps that I like more than I think I would at just any college. I have decided though, that starting next semester, I'm goin to start college. I can do a lot of online classes, mainly becuase that's all I have time for. Now I just have to decide what I want to get my degree in. But you do what you want to do. If you want to wrestle, then go wrestle and kick some a** and take some names. But if you decide not to, take a good look at what you want to do, not only for a carreer but also just with your life. Do you want to be famous? Rich? Or just plain happy. Whatever it is you want to do..just make sure that your not going to regret it later on in life. This is just my two cents and a little personal story from someone who wanted to wrestle in college.

Chase,

You are one of my favorite ks wrestlers to watch. I hope to see you wrestle in college because I believe you have the tools to be great.

You have to sell yourself when it comes down to wrestling in college. That means wrestling in the summer. If coaches are not knockin at your door, let them know that you are interested by sending profile sheets and tapes to them.

As far as not wanting to wrestle in juco's,(labette) what is your reason? A juco(labette) is something that you might wanna consider because it will prepare you mentally as well as physically for the a year school. If you decide that you dont wanna wrestle after you are done wrestling at a juco(labette), at least you will have your general ed classes complete before you move on.

If you have any doubts on wrestling in college, dont do it.It is one thing to start something, continue doing it, and then not do it the next year. You dont want to go through a season of dreadfulness. It is another thing to start something and then quit. I will be keeping in touch w/u through out the season. I wanna see you wrestle at the next level.If you need any help getting into any colleges, email me,(skinnykenny149@hotmail.com) or call me. Im all for helping out anyone who is interseted in wrestling in college.

I didn't think i wanted to wrestle in college either after high school. so i sat out. yeah i kept around the sport. i have three other brothers that wrestle. i also had the opprotunity to coach at my high school and it killed me not being able to go out on the mat and show what i was all about anymore. so i talked to a coach and now i am wrestling again and i'm lovin it. so take it from me, you should take the opprotunity while you have the chance. when you look back on it i'm sure you will be glad that you did.