Ryan Nunamaker's resignation alarm bell for area wrestling | Commentary
Ryan Nunamaker is "a dual meet kind of guy,". (lehighvalleylive.com file photo)
By Brad Wilson | For lehighvalleylive.com
on March 30, 2017 7:00 AM, updated March 31, 2017 12:14 AM
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Ryan Nunamaker’s resignation as Parkland’s wrestling head coach should serve as an alarm bell for those who feel that the team side of the sport stands anywhere near equally with the individual side.

“We’re in this time now where everything is me-me-me, what I can get for myself, what kind of thing are good for me,” he said. “All the time commitment and year-round training are a good opportunity for kids, but I think to be really good as an individual you have to have a team that makes you better.”

For an extremely competitive and driven man such as Nunamaker to walk away from a plum job like Parkland – one of the best posts in the state that just had an alum, Ethan Lizak, in an NCAA Division I final – would take a lot. And while he indicated he’d been thinking about a change and moving on to perhaps some non-wrestling activities, those weren’t the sole reasons he stepped down.

“The fact that we don’t compete against Nazareth and Easton in the regular season is criminal for the fans,” he said. “I miss the classic dual meets and it seems like between our (Eastern Pennsylvania) conference schedule and the emphasis on big tournaments we’re getting further and further away from the great dual meets. When you’re building a program those matches are the highlight of the schedule. That’s why we scheduled Phillipsburg; our kids had never been to The Pit and that’s wrestling is all about. We want to create excitement in the community, intensity, interest and (big dual meets) are the opportunities to look forward to to do that.”

Nunamaker’s not the only one thinking along those lines – Rick Thompson has been for a while – but this is just another alarm going off about the state of the sport.

And it’s an alarm from someone who we should listen to.

Yes, Nunamaker has his detractors. He can be prickly, and doesn't hesitate to show emotion in competition. He can also bluntly speak his mind in ways that annoy people.

But he's also pure Lehigh Valley wrestling.

Nunamaker wrestled for his father, Ray, at Nazareth in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s when the gyms were full for dual meets and the rivalries fierce and lively. But it’s not just nostalgia for glory days.

“In dual meets it takes a whole team to win,” Nunamaker said.

Right there – right there – is why this matters.

If wrestling ever gets to be purely an individual sport, it will, in short order, lose an enormous amount of its fan appeal.

There are a few hard-core fans who will follow the really elite wrestlers and that’s enough for them. But what about the non-elite wrestlers who don’t go to all the freestyle and Greco and national tournaments but who use the sport to help make themselves better young men primed for success in life? Do we not care that a wrestler such as Freedom senior Tommy Bonilla who said the sport was the best thing that ever happened to him? Do we not care for the young men who acquire the toughness, discipline and work ethic required for success in life from being very good dual meet wrestlers?

And remember what people, at least in this area, want to watch. Look at the attendance for “Who’s No. 1’ at Easton – certainly elite wrestlers by the dozens – versus Easton at Phillipsburg. Which drew more? As one longtime wrestling expert and 100 percent dedicated Stateliner fan put it, he wouldn’t go to Who’s No. 1 because he was only interested in Phillipsburg wrestlers.

Lose those people, whether they be in P’burg, Hellertown, Northampton, Belvidere, or Pen Argyl, and the sport will diminish faster than Frosty the Snowman on an Amazon River cruise.

Nunamaker made some other good points. The national-level individual tournaments, which he recognized were critical for the development of top-shelf athletes, are distant from the local fan base. “We used to go to just two tournaments, not that far away like Williamsport or Bethlehem Catholic, and not that big, 16 teams,” he said. “Now, the national tournaments have tremendous talent but they are far away and much bigger.”

Nazareth coach Dave Crowell and others have been advocating a two-tournament limit to the season, and there may be increasing support for such a proposition.

Nunamaker also noted the enormous time burdens being placed on people in the sport.

“The time commitment is incredible,” he said. “A simple home dual meet is five hours. Now in the EPC we wrestle Wednesdays and Thursdays to free up Saturdays for tournaments, but that’s two school nights back-to-back and sometimes there’s an hour of travel.”

Not to mention that Saturday night matches were aces in prime time for fans, and that so many of the EPC duals are worthless – again, none of it good for the sport.

Nunamaker realizes he may be a man of the past.

“The big tournaments are great for the kids and the competition is great but the time commitment is enormous,” he said. “I am more a dual meet guy and it’s important to have good duals. We don’t have many any longer. I think without the good duals our support in the community will be greatly impacted.”

He’s exactly right – and we should listen, because wrestling can’t lose too many Grade-A competitors such as Ryan Nunamaker and continue to prosper. Maybe it’s time we start listening -- now.

Themat.com has a discussion under the college section
"Is Wrestling Doomed?" Pay attention to the advice being offered.


gowrestle's Photogowrestle
31 Mar 2017
Participation survey shows 6000 plus less wrestlers on high school teams. Sport is looking at a 10 year downward trend. If this continues, wrestling as it exists today will end.

Amen to what Coach Nunamaker and Coach Crowell are sharing about the importance of DUALS in building this sport!!

The sport can clearly be divided into:
15% - great and elite level wrestlers
65% - average and good wrestlers
20% - novice

Our 15% is better than they ever have been. We spend more money and more energy on the 15% as well. More than ever before. Break down the USA Wrestling State Budget to see that first hand.

Our numbers are declining in the 65% and 20% groups at the Kid's, Middle School and High School Levels.

"Sometimes kids in the bottom 2 tiers NEED the sport of Wrestling more than Wrestling needs them!" Coach Doug Vander Linden 2014

More to come on this topic in a later post.....

Respectfully,
Doug Vander Linden
Burlington Wrestling

I'm glad somebody gets it!

More people get it than you think - and the ones that do not understand it need to be educated in a big way before the cookie jar is empty.

Bump

Doug speaks the truth. . .about 90% of the time a kid needs wrestling a heck of a lot more than wrestling needs the kid.

Good post Coach Vander Linden, great point for all of us to keep in mind

One thing that has always confounded me about our sport is that we have many, many that love the sport. All who read and post on here obviously have a passion for the sport.

I am confused to why every time there is an attack on our sport we all don't unify and look how to fix it. Instead we attack within and further damage our sport.

I see lots of alledged problems pointed out but very, very few solutions.

For example, lets look at all of the reasons OUTSIDE of wrestling that could be probable causes to participation numbers instead of looking within. What changed?

Just a few years ago KSHSAA allowed football coaches to have contact on the Tuesday after Memorial Day. This basically made football a six, contiguous month sport. Then they expanded the playoffs to include EVERYONE.

Go look at the numbers before and after this change in Kansas. I heard from so many kids "I NEED A BREAK BECAUSE FOOTBALL SEASON WAS SO LONG" in the past few years. Football coaches hold our kids hostage and drain them of the desire to continue working hard for three and half more months. They threaten the athletes with playing time so that they won't miss 6am summer workouts and contact camps in the hottest months of the year. More and more kids are lost to concussions caused by football and the excessive practices associated with the search for a title. Their numbers are plummeting too but nothing is changing for the better.

Why can't we all look outside of wrestling for causes as well? Why can't we offer solutions instead of pointing figures at each other?

I am not saying we shouldn't change within as clearly you must change to survive. Suggest changes that are positive to wrestling as a whole.

Lastly...Today's world is all about everyone "feeling" good. I ask you this If all of our kids focus on winning and we are to make them all feel like winners all of the time, how are they supposed to learn how to deal with the inevitable defeats they will experience in life?

My 2 cents:

1. I truly miss dual meets. In the good old days out west we wrestled a lot more duals and they were just flat out more fun. Listening to my athletes talk- most of whom begin wrestling in middle school (if I'm lucky) or in high school (most regularly)- they love duals and dual tournaments. Even my 2 state finalists 2 seasons ago that wrestled for a very long time at a high level around the nation preferred the dual meet format. They all enjoy the team aspect of it more.

2. I was blown away by these big time Pennsylvania coaches advocating for a 2 tournament limit to the season. While I personally think that is extreme, I do think reducing the number of tournaments during the season- and giving kids, families, and friends some weekends together and coaches some weekends to be with their families would be a positive step for the sport. I think this would increase the retention of athletes and coaches.

3. Bringing fans to competitions is an important part of growing the sport. I could care less if we wrestle in front of anyone, but the kids care. They see the crowds for other sports like baseball, basketball, and football and compare those with the crowds for wrestling, swimming, cross country, track, golf, etc. What is more important? If a kid is going to choose where to invest their limited time and energy what should they choose? I have kids that quit wrestling that would probably end up being varsity wrestlers to focus on other sports that they will likely never be a starter in. This has at least something to do with the social importance we place on these different sports. So the question is- how do we bring fans? I think there are a couple of changes that NEED to be made to make the sport more appealing to the general public.

a. College out of bounds rules- that are actually called like college out of bounds rules are written. It is so much more exciting to see wrestling continuing.

b. Increase consistency of stalling calls, and call them early and often. High school wrestling, except at the highest levels, is often a very slow paced/boring sport because kids are not working to score like they should. Low scoring does not mean boring, but kids standing and staring at eachother is incredibly boring.

c. Increase number of dual meets, focusing on single duals with home/home scheduling like other TEAM sports. This provides athletes a chance to compete at home, where possibly their friends will come watch and support them. It is very unlikely that many will travel on a saturday to sit in a gym all day to watch their buddies wrestle 3-4 times over 8+ hours.

d. Increase the IMPORTANCE of duals. Right now the dual meets we wrestle are purely for bragging rights. While most of us are uber competitive and we don't need any more motivation to compete other than the chance to compete- the fans we are trying to attract are not us. In the scheme of things who really cares if Blue Valley High School beats (insert what ever school here) except for the coaches/athletes/parents of those teams? I proposed 3 years ago for the EKL to do away with the individual league tournament at the end of the year and instead replace the tournament with a season long dual series. The dual placing results would be used to determine the league champions- just like football games, basketball games, and baseball games. This means that there are regularly scheduled duals during the season, teams will wrestle at home numerous times, and the dual results carry an importance for the school as a whole.

Unfortunately this was not supported by all the league schools. Here is a link to the proposal if anyone is interested in how it would work: https://www.dropbox.com/s/k5iqu3ecd579560/EKL%20DUAL%20League%20Championship%20Proposal.pdf?dl=0

Maybe that was more than 2 cents worth.

Honestly, the number one enemy of ALL sports is the obsession with WINNING instead of enjoying the thrill and intensity of competition. It is more or a parenting problem and possibly an issue with our culture today.

Kale,

Those are really good thoughts and ideas. I agree that single dual meets are needed and increase the popularity of the sport. Our program is an example that this model can work. I am not just talking about performance but for change in dynamic at our school. Ever since we added more single duals (and we dropped a tourney to do it), Wrestling has became a main stream sport at our school. Because of this, we have been getting more athletes out at the middle school level and it is "cool" to do. Consequently - we are a better team. Good stuff.

How do you get more duals??? Simple Convert four or five of the competition points to DUAL ONLY can only be used Mon - Thur after school for one match duals. Someone propose it. It is a no brainer. Then all of you HS coaches need to quit trying to outsmart each other and wrestle your line up so that the best wrestle the best. It has been my experience that dual strategy thwarts the crowd interest.

And building on that...in Missouri on Mondays-Thursdays if they hold a "dual", they can include multiple teams to compete against and only spend 1 competition "point"...so a double or quad it only costs them 1(to encourage duals and maximize teams travelling). Now to be fair, they also figure schedule requirements differently too(ie: allowing 9 duals/6 tournaments or 10/5 instead of our "points" system) but still it's an interesting twist.

Will,

Are you talking about when coaches bump around guys to avoid tough kids? If so - I would definitely agree with you. Marquee match-ups are fun for the fans.

Absolutely! Or not sending anyone out to wrestle a stud. Fans come to see a match not just to see a great wrestler get their hand raised.

I think that gets too complicated. If you wrestle more than one dual you are going to have to burn more than one point. Keep it simple. Four points for M-Th single match duals. These competitions have a start time, and end in the same or less time it takes to play a basketball game, fan friendly!! 26 points to use in multiple team dual formats, one day, and two day tournaments. You can still do 6 two day, two weigh events. That would be 24 points that could get you up to 60 matches, by rule.

Forget the point system all together...in Missouri just can't have 50 matches prior to regionals.

That is too hard to manage my friend...I like the point system WAY better.

The topic has more to do with how many years or when a wrestler starts and finishes competing. It was not a a discussion if a wrestler should be allowed to wrestle 30,
40, 100 matches a year during Folkstyle season.

If they wrestle from 6 years olds to 12 years old,
12 years old to 18 years old 6-16, 8-18, 10-20 etc

What years or age do we need to do a better job of introducing new wrestlers in the sport and keep them engaged.