*** Official Youth, High School, College and International Wrestling Thread ***

[thabear04]

Originally Posted by Iowanian

All of my siblings have wrestling age boys now. The mat club now allows preschool so we are throwing the young ones in. With our boys and those of first cousins when this group is in high school we could have 13 boys on the high school wrestling team from our family at the same time. We are not pushing. We are encouraging. Right now it's just rough housing on the mat and practicing stances and getting thrown around.

I anticipate a lot of winter bleacher butt in the coming years. I will likely be helping with thE youth program as time allows.

I'm now taking my dad spot for our youth wrestling program. My dad been doing it for about 30+ years.

[rico]

Originally Posted by Iowanian

All of my siblings have wrestling age boys now. The mat club now allows preschool so we are throwing the young ones in. With our boys and those of first cousins when this group is in high school we could have 13 boys on the high school wrestling team from our family at the same time. We are not pushing. We are encouraging. Right now it's just rough housing on the mat and practicing stances and getting thrown around.

I anticipate a lot of winter bleacher butt in the coming years. I will likely be helping with thE youth program as time allows.

Anymore, in Iowa... the school youth programs aare fading a bit to Super Clubs that are generally run by former NCAA champs/All-Americans...kids generally join when they reach a level where they are taking things rather seriously. If this sounds appealing to you, hit me up when the time comes and I'll steer you in the right direction... not sure where you are located geographically speaking, but a lot of the choice of which super club to choose is dependent on where the person lives.

It's pretty neat. Some of these guys are able to make a living by facilitating their own wrestling club...which is awesome, for I've always found it to be catastrophic that wrestling is the most grueling, tough sport, but the athletes can't make a living via becoming professional like other sports.

Some examples of these include:

Eastern Iowa Wrestling Club (Iowa City based...run by Terry Brands...who was an NCAA champ and Olympic bronze winner).

Sebolt Wrestling Academy (In North Central/North East Iowa. Run by 4 time state champ and current Iowa career wins record holder, T.J. Sebolt).

Porcelli (based in Des Moines...great guy).

D.C. Elite: Based in Cedar Rapids/Mount Pleasant. Run by Iowa HS state champ and Wisconsin NCAA All American, Dusty Coufal. This has been the most successful club the past 3 years, although Eastern Iowa is catching up. My bros are in this club along with House of Payne, although I wish they'd try out Eastern Iowa WC...there is a coach for D.C. Elite who pisses me off and IMO, doesn't belong in there because he coaches a HS team). Dusty is the most intense youth coach in the state and really gets a lot out of kids. His wrestling club is his life....really...I think it's how he makes a living. He runs the king of the super clubs, for now...they win everything and are invited fo prestigious national dual wrestling tourneys in which they always place pretty high and sometimes win it.


House of Payne: Jason Payne's club. He is an NCAA All American from UNI...along with being a 3 time state champ. My bros are in this one as well. I love this guy. Located in Washington, IA...brings in a lot of the South East Iowans like ourselves I live in a small town near Burlington... the Royals's A baseball team used to be in Burlington. I used to see some of these guys who play for the Royals now (most notably Gordon and Moustakis) all the time at the bars. They were real nice, but most of them were very vocal about how much they hated Burlington, IA due to the lack of support for the Burlington Bees team. Anyways...

Ubasa: Hawaiian standout and former Iowa wrestler, Pablo Ubasa. He conducts sessions in Des Moines and Iowa City.

High Altitude: Gosh, this guy's name of escapes me, but this program is located in Des Moines. Until D.C. Elite dethroned them, this used to be THE premier club. Excellent coach.

Cobra: Southwest Iowa, Council Bluffs area...can't remember the guy's name.

Meneely: Run by former HS superstar and Iowa wrestler, Todd Meneely. Based in Omaha..also reels in Southwest Iowa wrestlers and Council Bluffs kids.

Legends of Gold: Northwest Iowa...they get some of the Sioux City area kids.

Kaos Gold: Oskaloosa

Team Swagger: Run by former Iowa HS runner-up, Jamie Cochrane. My bros have been to a few of these sessions. Cochrane has such a unique and awesome method of conditioning and conducting practices. I've seen it firsthand. A FANTASTIC program...located in Moravia, Iowa.

Young Bucks: Albia area. Maybe held in Knoxville. Run by the Pickerel brothers. Nick Pickerel was my brother, Justin's primary practice partner at UNI...Nick won state a couple times in high school. These guys are great.

Higher Power Wrestling Club: T.J. Sebolt and I believe Dean Happel (a state champ from Lisbon, IA who actually beat Tom Brands either in HS or college). There are higher power locations sporadically placed around Iowa... like Centrville, Lisbon, etc. These guys incorporate prayer and religion into practice. If that's your thing then one thing I can say about them is that they have some dandy wrestlers. Carter Happel is probably the best wrestler in the state of Iowa...won Fargo.

Young Guns: Run by University of Iowa NCAA Champion, Eric Juergens. He turns kids into monsters. Based in Dubuque and the Quad Cities. After Juergens was done ad Iowa, he helped out as a volunteer coach at the cdge I wrestled at, my Sophomore season, which was Loras College in Dubuque. He basically imposed his will and took over the program..unpaid. Our paid coaching staff was totally fine with it. This guy is an absolute machine. And he is great at connecting with kids and helping them with the mental aspect. Great coach. I hung out with him quite a bit for a few years there...dude was an absolute nut when we'd start drinking....just had that "I am invincible" mentality... would do crazy, funny shit. Fun guy to hang out with and an absolutely awesome coach.

Former Iowa NCAA champ, Joe.Williams is starting something on Iowa City. To be honest, he appeals to the Iowa City High and African American kids. Nice guy...INTENSE coach.

That's it, in a nutshell, off the top of my head... when all your boys nephews have the basics down, these super clubs specialize in "polishing" their skill sets...and in most cases, it just works wonders. I'd highly recommend it.

[NewChief]

Tournament #2 is in the books.

This was an open tournament, unlike our last one which was novice. My son wrestled at 60 lbs, so he was in a good weight class. Unfortunately, his first match was against the reigning state champion in their division. Ouch.

He won his second in nailbiting fashion. The kid went up 1 point on him with out 12 seconds left in the final round. We were screaming "You've got to double leg him! Get a takedown" and with like 4 seconds to go, he shot and doublelegged and scored two points to win the match by 1. Freaking craziness.

He lost his third one to a kid who had absolutely zero form. Just grabbed him, tied him up, and tossed him around. The kid wasn't shooting or halfing or doing anything. He was just stronger and more agressive and my kid was doing a shitty job of running out of his holds and then turning around and double legging him.

This week, my son is going to have to learn how to do a decent double leg. He wants to sprawl and work to back constantly, but he's not quick enough on his sprawl, so he ends up getting taken down a lot, which puts him behind in scoring.

[GloryDayz]

I love the update.. And yes, at 10 they will run into kids who are technically not as good, but win on attitude. Don't worry about it, in short order the coaches will coach your son through such things and teach him to use their aggressiveness to their advantage. Nothing wrong with being aggressive, but there's everything wrong with being predictable and not having the skills to make the stick.

Here's a pic of my son (burgundy singlet) at 10/60 bridging-out of a match that he won because he held that bridge for nearly 25 seconds. He learned a lot that day, and one lesson was not to get too cocky because your're up by 6 points. He also learned that just because you're pretty good doesn't mean that other kids aren't good too. This was a friend of his to boot! He lucked-out because the kid thought my son couldn't hold the bridge. Well, he did, the the five points the other kid got for all this effort left him one short of the match going into OT. It was a great day and 25 seconds of my life that took more than a year off the end of my life!

I coached him a LOT in football, baseball and wrestling and wrestling, BY FAR, is the one that put more gray hair on me! LOL!!

Originally Posted by NewChief

Tournament #2 is in the books.

This was an open tournament, unlike our last one which was novice. My son wrestled at 60 lbs, so he was in a good weight class. Unfortunately, his first match was against the reigning state champion in their division. Ouch.

He won his second in nailbiting fashion. The kid went up 1 point on him with out 12 seconds left in the final round. We were screaming "You've got to double leg him! Get a takedown" and with like 4 seconds to go, he shot and doublelegged and scored two points to win the match by 1. Freaking craziness.

He lost his third one to a kid who had absolutely zero form. Just grabbed him, tied him up, and tossed him around. The kid wasn't shooting or halfing or doing anything. He was just stronger and more agressive and my kid was doing a shitty job of running out of his holds and then turning around and double legging him.

This week, my son is going to have to learn how to do a decent double leg. He wants to sprawl and work to back constantly, but he's not quick enough on his sprawl, so he ends up getting taken down a lot, which puts him behind in scoring.

[NewChief]

Originally Posted by GloryDayz

I love the update.. And yes, at 10 they will run into kids who are technically not as good, but win on attitude. Don't worry about it, in short order the coaches will coach your son through such things and teach him to use their aggressiveness to their advantage. Nothing wrong with being aggressive, but there's everything wrong with being predictable and not having the skills to make the stick.

Here's a pic of my son (burgundy singlet) at 10/60 bridging-out of a match that he won because he held that bridge for nearly 25 seconds. He learned a lot that day, and one lesson was not to get too cocky because your're up by 6 points. He also learned that just because you're pretty good doesn't mean that other kids aren't good too. This was a friend of his to boot! He lucked-out because the kid thought my son couldn't hold the bridge. Well, he did, the the five points the other kid got for all this effort left him one short of the match going into OT. It was a great day and 25 seconds of my life that took more than a year off the end of my life!

I coached him a LOT in football, baseball and wrestling and wrestling, BY FAR, is the one that put more gray hair on me! LOL!!

That's an awesome pic! My boy is actually 7, though (not 10).


My 9 year old developmentally delayed kid is also wrestling, but he's not competing as of now. It's more like physical/occupational therapy for him. So far the coaches have been very cool about it. We just have to rotate his partners, because he doesn't put up much of a fight for his partners, so they don't get as much work as they should. That being said, I was noticing his partner working with him last week, and I thought the other kid was actually learning a ton, because he was having to teach my delayed son how to do some of the moves and such. What's the saying: you remember 10% of you hear and 90% of what you teach (or something like that).

[GloryDayz]

You're a teacher so you prolly know this already, keep them both in it. Like music and scouting, there are secrets in these activities that help kids be awesome. I think we all understand how music helps the mind, scouting prolly character, but wrestling is the enigma to me. i know it helps kids be as awesome as they can be. Perhaps it's the "no team mates, no time outs, not excuses" way things unfold on the mat, but the room is another place where these kids learn the value and coloration between hard work and success. Conversely the experience, or at least see, how lack of effort, preparation, and commitment leads to poor outcomes. The same can be said of any sport, but wrestling doesn't dilute the blame or accountability factor.

I know my son did band all through high school, earned Eagle scout, went to state as a youth wrestler, played football for five years, baseball for seven, played tennis throughout high school, lived his high school years in the robotics room, took every advanced class they offered in science, English and math, and ended up in S&T. Am I a proud dad? Yes, he's one of the best kids and young men I've ever known. He's everything I wish I ever could have been at those stages in life!

And I credit wrestling with a very unique lesson in all of that - a gut check... He went through his phases, but was awesome because he learned how to channel anger, frustration, pain, and humility into a positive force on the mat.

Keep both of them in it, you won't regret it...

Originally Posted by NewChief

That's an awesome pic! My boy is actually 7, though (not 10).


My 9 year old developmentally delayed kid is also wrestling, but he's not competing as of now. It's more like physical/occupational therapy for him. So far the coaches have been very cool about it. We just have to rotate his partners, because he doesn't put up much of a fight for his partners, so they don't get as much work as they should. That being said, I was noticing his partner working with him last week, and I thought the other kid was actually learning a ton, because he was having to teach my delayed son how to do some of the moves and such. What's the saying: you remember 10% of you hear and 90% of what you teach (or something like that).

[rico]

Originally Posted by NewChief

Tournament #2 is in the books.

This was an open tournament, unlike our last one which was novice. My son wrestled at 60 lbs, so he was in a good weight class. Unfortunately, his first match was against the reigning state champion in their division. Ouch.

He won his second in nailbiting fashion. The kid went up 1 point on him with out 12 seconds left in the final round. We were screaming "You've got to double leg him! Get a takedown" and with like 4 seconds to go, he shot and doublelegged and scored two points to win the match by 1. Freaking craziness.

He lost his third one to a kid who had absolutely zero form. Just grabbed him, tied him up, and tossed him around. The kid wasn't shooting or halfing or doing anything. He was just stronger and more agressive and my kid was doing a shitty job of running out of his holds and then turning around and double legging him.

This week, my son is going to have to learn how to do a decent double leg. He wants to sprawl and work to back constantly, but he's not quick enough on his sprawl, so he ends up getting taken down a lot, which puts him behind in scoring.

Exciting stuff, isn't it? Sounds like he ran into a brawler in his 3rd match. I've seen it time and time again..those types of kids are usually passed by the mode technically sound kids the time they hit 4th or 5th grade...that is unless, they make changes to their own game(s). I've noticed that a lot of kids who wrestle that way have mohawks. Just an observation... or at least, kids with mohawks tend to wrestle that way. I used to love wrestling kids with mohawks and never understood why other kids were intimidated by them.... it was usually a huge indicator to me that the kid was a dunce and that if I wrestled smart and watched for the headlock... I'd bury the kid. I mean, I hate to generalize, but I literally have never seen a mohawk kid who wasn't like that. Seriously.

Props to your boy! Keep us posted.

My bros are now a Junior and Freshman this season. Season starts Monday, although to be honest, it never really ends for them. I'm hoping my Freshman brother can handle the pressure. There is a lot old pressure on him for he is one of the most heavily anticipated wrestlers for our school... ever. He set a JH record last season for school sanctioned events. He became the first wrestler from my school to not only go undefeated all through JH, but he did not give up a single point. He pinned every kid he wrestled in his 2 seasons of JH school sanctioned events with an exception of 2 tech falls and one major decision. Lotta expectations/pressure...our high school is ranked #46 nationally via intermat. It just worries me... Just talking about this shit makes me nervous. Brennan, the Freshman will be at 120 while my Junior bro, Shea will be at 126.

[NewChief]

Oh, and I witnessed the most glorious ankle pick I've ever seen to start a match in Division 5 today. Sadly, it was against one of our club kids. It was still just insane. The kid who had it done to him walked off the mat laughing actually because he couldn't believe how quickly it was over.

Ref signals, other kid quick as lightning drops down and does an ankle pick, upends our kid, throws him, and pins him. Over in like 6 seconds.

[Sorter]

Originally Posted by NewChief

Oh, and I witnessed the most glorious ankle pick I've ever seen to start a match in Division 5 today. Sadly, it was against one of our club kids. It was still just insane. The kid who had it done to him walked off the mat laughing actually because he couldn't believe how quickly it was over.

Ref signals, other kid quick as lightning drops down and does an ankle pick, upends our kid, throws him, and pins him. Over in like 6 seconds.

I love these inside ankle picks. Absolutely wicked.

[rico]

Originally Posted by Sorter

I love these inside ankle picks. Absolutely wicked.

I love watching Dake get taken down. That dude rubs me the wrong way...and I really like Taylor.

I joined a college wrestling fantasy league, Sorter. I need your help. I know the jist of college wrestlers, but my wrestling knowledge in terms of who is who is more broad on the youth/high school levels. I just haven't had time to follow college wrestling as I once used to. Anyways, the scoring is about how you'd predict...bonus points for majors, techs, wins, pins, etc. Large emphasis on how they finish at Nationals.

With that said, who should I look into drafting? We get one wrestler per weight and 2-3 for your bench. Who will place high and/or score the bonus points? Can you give me a run down? THANKS A TON!!!

[Sorter]

Originally Posted by rico

I love watching Dake get taken down. That dude rubs me the wrong way...and I really like Taylor.

I joined a college wrestling fantasy league, Sorter. I need your help. I know the jist of college wrestlers, but my wrestling knowledge in terms of who is who is more broad on the youth/high school levels. I just haven't had time to follow college wrestling as I once used to. Anyways, the scoring is about how you'd predict...bonus points for majors, techs, wins, pins, etc. Large emphasis on how they finish at Nationals.

With that said, who should I look into drafting? We get one wrestler per weight and 2-3 for your bench. Who will place high and/or score the bonus points? Can you give me a run down? THANKS A TON!!!

125-Delgado/Waters/Gilman/Peters
133-Clarke/Thielke/Gulibon
141-Steiber/Mecate/Dutton
149-Steiber/Houdashelt/Kindig/Ruggirello
157-Ness/Green/Demas/Alton (points early in the year)
165-Sulzer/Massa/Palacio
174-Storley/Brown/Wilps
184-Dean/Courts
197-J'den
HWT-McMullan


I have never done what you're doing before and don't follow it as closely anymore. Rudy is probably someone who can give you better ideas. I'd think L. Steiber would be a lock for 1.1 but again, I have no idea.

[rico]

First dual meet of the season. Our high school team is ranked #1 in the state. I am freaking nervous for a few reasons. 1.) Our first dual of the season is vs. #2 ranked Davenport Assumption (who landed a 132 lb recruit from KC, BTW...name is Stuart Shafer). 2.) I am calling the event via podcast. 3.) I have 2 brothers in the dual at 120 and 126. They both have two of the toughest kids in the Assumption lineup. My Freshman brother at 120 is going to be facing the 126 lb bro's rival from last year...a freaking tough kid who placed at state along with my brother. Some super high expectations for my youngest bro. He was a 4 time Grade School State champ along with a bunch of other escalades. Heck, last year out of 70 or so matches, his only Folkstyle losses were to a kid named Garrett Niel and an OT loss to Jack (or Jake maybe) Beeson...from Kansas City of all places. His first ever high school match is going to be vs. a freaking upperclassmen beast...and I'm going to have to call the match. Ugh. He feels the pressure due to everyone's expectations and it is stressing him out. And the older bro is ranked 3rd in the state now and wrestling his rival since 2nd grade, who is under ranked at #7.

I'm going to be a train wreck all day.

[NewChief]

Well, it's been a pretty awesome first season of wrestling. While my youngest hasn't won any tournaments he's placed as high as 2nd in one (admittedly, a small bracket, but still).

We'll be heading up to Lebanon, MO next Sunday for a National Novice tournament.

My son has progressed so much this year. He still drives me crazy at times with lack of effort during an actual tournament or not having his "game face" on, but his abilities and drive have really developed.

Our last tournament was in OK, and he wrestled in both the novice and open. He got his butt kicked pretty good, but he won a few matches. Since then, though, he's really come on in practice. At the end of practice sometimes, we line all the kids up smallest to largest and do "king of the mat" where first points scored stays on the mat, then next biggest kid comes up.

The last two practices, he has "beat" 3 kids larger than him and held the mat. Two of these kids have absolutely destroyed him in the past as well.

Anyway, if he'll ever start getting a little quicker and more urgent in his movements, he may start being truly competitive. He has the head for it, his double leg shots are just slow, reaching things, and he is bad at anticipating his opponent's shot and sprawling before the opponent is into his legs.

Still, it's been a lot of fun.

[Sorter]

Originally Posted by NewChief

Well, it's been a pretty awesome first season of wrestling. While my youngest hasn't won any tournaments he's placed as high as 2nd in one (admittedly, a small bracket, but still).

We'll be heading up to Lebanon, MO next Sunday for a National Novice tournament.

My son has progressed so much this year. He still drives me crazy at times with lack of effort during an actual tournament or not having his "game face" on, but his abilities and drive have really developed.

Our last tournament was in OK, and he wrestled in both the novice and open. He got his butt kicked pretty good, but he won a few matches. Since then, though, he's really come on in practice. At the end of practice sometimes, we line all the kids up smallest to largest and do "king of the mat" where first points scored stays on the mat, then next biggest kid comes up.

The last two practices, he has "beat" 3 kids larger than him and held the mat. Two of these kids have absolutely destroyed him in the past as well.

Anyway, if he'll ever start getting a little quicker and more urgent in his movements, he may start being truly competitive. He has the head for it, his double leg shots are just slow, reaching things, and he is bad at anticipating his opponent's shot and sprawling before the opponent is into his legs.

Still, it's been a lot of fun.

[NewChief]

Originally Posted by Sorter

Thanks. That's awesome!

They haven't really been teaching them that technique. It's been mainly double-leg sprawls, trying to get head control as you sprawl then spin to gain the opponent's back and score, break them down with a chop or ankle pick and run a half. Which tends to work all day with Division I around here, but I imagine isn't going to serve them well in the long run.