Looking at Wrestling with a Developmental Perspective

Over the last few years I’ve been able to observe high school wrestling and youth wrestling at the program level as opposed to watching for the best kids at high school tournaments for recruiting purposes. I’ve also been able to attend several kids’ tournaments.    

            Let me begin by saying that in my current job as a teacher, I see different teaching philosophies.  Some professors take pride in their classes being hard more than trying to help all students to learn.  I don’t think most wrestling coaches or programs do this, but wrestling as a sport does.  Wrestling overall has a TERRIBLE system of integrating new kids and families into the sport and I will argue that this ultimately has a negative affect all the way up to the success of the U.S. in international competition.

            I am confident that these ideas will not necessarily be implemented, because the current wrestling philosophy is one of self selection.  Wrestling is a tough sport, and like the college professor that wants to be known for being a tough teacher, we kind of take pride in that.  To a certain extent we look for mental toughness and natural ability as determinants for success, and if a sixth grader who starts wrestling for the first time (or even a six year old) doesn’t have it, well, too bad.  Wrestling doesn’t have a lot time for them.    

            If you disagree, then listen to the stories of adults who may not have been wrestlers but did attempt it once or twice.  The stories are always funny, but what isn’t funny is that the person didn’t stick with the best sport known to man.  Here was a youth who was willing to give it a try, and wrestling did very little bring him along.  And not all these guys were just sissies.  Some of them couldn’t take getting beat in wrestling, so they picked other sports which also require physical toughness and mental toughness and found success there.  I wonder how much stronger USA would be, if we had greater depth of talented, tough athletes.  There has to be some way to find chances for these kids to be successful in the first few weeks of their participation.    

            Now I’m not trying to be a bleeding-hearted pansy about the whole thing.  In fact, the ideas that follow came to me as I watched good youth wrestlers who could be a lot better with some implementation of the following suggestions. 

Organize youth competition based on skill rather than chronological age

            Many martial arts group athletes for competitions based on a belt or skill level.  I imagine there are reasons why this is not done in wrestling, although I don’t know what they are, but this would actually make the good kids better.  My whole inspiration for this article came while watching “good” youth wrestlers with poor fundamentals and bad habits.  At the youth level, we have confused being “successful” with being “skilled.”

 

            As I have watched these successful wrestlers, I have noticed that because many of their matches are against first- or second-year wrestlers, they have gotten away with some crappy technique and reliance upon low-percentage moves.  They win a lot, but many of them lack the fundamentals of takedown set-ups and effective counters to leg attacks.  A lot of these kids are trying Billy-bob moves in tough matches, because those moves worked against inexperienced wrestlers. 

            Grouping kids by experience would make it so that advanced kids wrestle other advanced wrestlers and cannot get away with sloppy technique.  It would also help speed up events, because the brackets would likely be smaller.  USA Wrestling would have to take the lead on organizing this on a national level and establishing criteria for skill level.  With the internet capabilities, there must be some way to do this.

            One advantage of a type of a belt system for wrestling is that it might attract older people to take up the sport.  Who would have thought we would have such an epidemic of adults getting into butt-busting Crossfit training.  The new fitness is extreme fitness and it has been surprising to see the unlikely people who are attracted to it.  

Limit the variety of techniques that inexperienced wrestlers are allowed to use in competition

            Traditionally, one of the few reasons a move is illegal in wrestling is because it poses an injury risk.  Perhaps we could only allow certain moves in competition for the most beginning wrestlers.  This would give novice kids a better idea of what to expect then they get into a match.  We teach a first-time wrestler a few shots and how to sprawl and maybe an escape and then he gets thrown into a match against a kid who hits him with a headlock or an arm spin and the novice kid has no idea what hit him or how to defend it.  It’s a system that is guaranteed to fail the new kid. 

By the way, it seems that we have just come to expect that a lot of the littlest wrestlers will cry at competitions.  Does that happen after soccer games or tennis matches?  I’ve seen kids cry because they lost, but I think a lot of the time the littlest kids cry in wrestling because they don’t know what just happened to them.

            This doesn’t have to happen.  Eliminate headlocks and front headlocks in the first two or three levels of youth wrestling.  Force them to get better at other techniques.  Limit the mat techniques allowed in tournaments for the most novice levels to a half nelson and a few other techniques.

            Remember, when the kids get successful they can always move up in their competition level.  But I would caution against tournament officials allowing someone to “throw a kid” into the advanced mix too soon, because it is not fair the kids in the advanced levels, who will be tempted to use crap against the less-skilled wrestlers.

 

Essential techniques for advanced youth wrestlers

                                     

            This isn’t a long list.  And no, not all the “good” wrestlers can do these things.    

• Set-ups: underhooks, Russian ties, and clearing collar ties
• Crab ride to teach leg basics
• Stuff head to butt drag to defend against a leg attack
• Front headlock without getting elbows tied up
• How to finish a shot when an opponent sprawls
• Stand-ups

Basically, if you want youth to be good, don’t teach them anything you don’t see in the NCAA championships or at the international level.  The higher the wrestling level the more basic the moves and the greater ability of the athletes to use them in different situations.  If a good head stuff and butt drag works in the NCAAs, it will probably work against a nine-year-old kid. 

How to keep families who are new to wrestling coming back

            Matside Bracketing at Local Tournaments

Make the tournaments user-friendly and family friendly.  Get off the PA system and assign entire weight classes to a mat.  Go back to a simple line-bracketed system that any fool can figure out and update the brackets matside.  Local tournaments can effectively wrestle little kids out of small 5- or 6-athlete pods.  Use central table help to set up the brackets and turn it over to the table help.  Once the smallest kids are finished, about 60% of the gym clears. 

Use Social Media to Teach New Families

I’ve met a lot of single moms at events, and even dads who don’t have a clue about the rules or how a tournament will be run or how to coach their children.  Social media can help.  Club coaches can easily post information to YouTube.  If you can’t, then find some teenager to video you on his smart phone and have him post it. 

Things Clubs Should Post on Youtube

·         Rules: Put together a 15-minute clip on how wrestling is scored and what the illegal moves are.

• Techniques: Don’t worry.  There is nothing that secret about your sprawl or single leg. 
• Event Information:  As much as you probably enjoy getting phone calls…

Zero Tolerance for Psycho Dads and Parents who Bully Their Kids

I dedicated an entire article to this last year.  If you want to grow the sport, control the parents. 

In summary

            At every level I have coached, I’ve had to try to correct bad habits that kids brought with them.  As I’ve watched youth sports—not just wrestling, I’ve seen that there is such an emphasis on winning, that parents and coaches are willing to sacrifice good fundamentals for easy wins.  Let’s face it, if you teach an eight-year-old to be a great headlocker and he will win many matches with it. 

            You see fewer at the high school level.  And even fewer at the collegiate level.  The exception is Greco, where a well-executed headlock is a critical skill.  Nevertheless, I’d rather that we save teaching it until the athlete has confidence in a greater repertoire.

            Hopefully, most coaches are thinking long term for their athletes and focusing on the things that will work at the highest levels.  Fortunately there are little kids out there with excellent skills.  I’ve seen turks, good use of underhooks and Russian ties and hip heists by several youth wrestlers.  But we can do better.  More advanced youth wrestlers should have these types of moves in their arsenal.             

Group kids accordingly.  Give the very newest wrestlers a real chance at success and be fair to the advanced wrestlers by not putting them in situations where they will be tempted to use Billy Bob moves.

            Finally, take care of the families that are new to wrestling.  Maybe we are as good as we can possibly be in wrestling in the U.S. and we don’t really need to grow…nah, that’s ridiculous.   

As an Athlete Troy Steiner Showed Wrestling is the Best TEAM Sport

              Many devout wrestling fans who remember the 1993 NCAA Division I wrestling championships will likely recall a high-scoring match in the 142-lb finals where a talented Iowa freshman named Lincoln Mcllravy beat Fresno State’s Gerry Abas by a score of 16-15.  More people will assume that Iowa Hawkeyes probably won the team title that year.  Few will know about the sacrifices made by Troy Steiner to help Iowa win that team championship.

                In 1992, Steiner won the 142-lb NCAA title outscoring his opponents 53-2, which included three shut-out technical falls, an early match default, and a decisive 8-2 victory over Oklahoma State’s Chris Owen.  The following year, midway through the season, Steiner cut down to 134 pounds to compete three.  Why did Steiner, the defending national champion at 142 lbs, decide to cut to 134 pounds during his senior year?  

His coach, Dan Gable, wanted him to.  

            In Gable’s book Coaching Wrestling Successfully, Gable writes that he believed that Iowa’s chances for a team title would be better if he pulled Mcllravy out of redshirt and added another tough guy to the line-up.  I doubt Gable did this because he thought Mcllray was better than Steiner.  He probably did it because he knew Steiner would make the cut to 134, and that Steiner would do better at 134 than whoever was previously in the line-up.

                In the end Gable was right, while Mcllravy was successfully disposing of opponents in the 142-lb bracket, Steiner was literally wreaking havoc at 134.   Two shut-out technical falls and an early match default put him into the semifinals where he lost a heartbreaking 8-4 decision to Penn State’s Cary Kolat. 

                I cannot even comprehend how Steiner must have felt.  This is a guy who scored 85 points against eight opponents while only giving up two points in NCAA tournament matches going back to the previous year.   When you lose in the semifinals in wrestling, you want to just be done.  Any consolation victories would be pretty hollow if you had already won the championship.  Nobody cares about third or fifth place. You don’t often see the second or third place guy on the award stand with a smile.  Gracious? Yes.  Happy? Not so much so.

 Unfortunately, in wrestling you don’t win silver—you lose gold.

Nevertheless, Steiner won two more matches for his team in the consolation bracket to finish third as an individual and help propel the Iowa Hawkeyes to yet another national team title.  

While I don’t know Troy Steiner personally and he wouldn’t know who I am, I remember watching him in college.  I was impressed with his soft-spoken manner in interviews and the quiet intensity he possessed.  So the story of his sacrifice has had a profound influence on how I view myself as a team player in whatever organization I am in.  Unfortunately, I have a long way to go to be a more self-sacrificing team member.  Like many people, my motives have a strong dose of “What’s in it for me?”

Steiner is not alone.  There are many unsung heroes in wrestling.  We could do a better job of telling their stories.  If you think about it, most of the stories we tell about wrestlers are of guys whose personal sacrifices culminated in them achieving a personal goal like winning a state or national championship.  I think we often miss opportunities to recognize the contribution of the guy who saves precious team points by doggedly fighting to avoid getting pinned or finishes a match he will likely lose because he has an injury.

What we say to athletes doesn’t effectively communicate that wrestling is probably more of a team sport than basketball, baseball, or football.  

Compare the difference a Lebron James makes on any basketball team or the influence a Heisman trophy candidate quarterback has on an otherwise average football team’s win-loss record.  (If you don’t believe me, see where Boise State football will likely be ranked next year after they graduate Kellen Moore.)  Now imagine a wrestling team with one national champion in the line-up.  Although the guy can probably get six points for you in every dual meet, there is a limit to what he can do.  It really is a team effort. 

I’m not trying to disrespect what we consider to be team sports; I am only emphasizing that wrestling is much more of a team sport than we often consider it to be.

With a new wrestling season upon us, wrestling fans who want to be inspired should pay close attention to what is happening behind the scenes in the lives of the wrestlers.  I hope the coaches will make a continued effort to publicly recognize team players.  And I encourage all wrestlers to remember that there are guys like me our here who you inspire for more than just your wins and championships.

Thank you Troy Steiner.  And thank you to teammates and athletes whose work ethic and dedication have inspired me.