Wrestling Season Review

All that's left is the party.

Wrestling for 2017-18 has completed.

My coaching

Pros:

• Kids know they're cared about.
• I whip them into basic shape quickly.
• I'm good at instilling good basic wrestling values and techniques.
• My kids normally win (~60%) against other kids of similar experience levels and athleticism.

Cons:

• I have not created an elite wrestler. They all improve dramatically, but I haven't pushed a kid to the next level. 
• Some of that is a function of starting from scratch each season.
• Some of that is a function of my wrestlers attending 2.5 practices out of 5 a week on average.

Needs:

• An assistant coach. When I have 12 kids rolling around the room, it would really help to have an extra pair of hands and eyes.
• More time with the kids. 55 minutes for those 2.5 practices a week isn't all that long when you think about it.
• Kids who know their basics well, so that I can also show some more advanced techniques like leg-riding and the defenses.
• Reliable buses.

There were something like 17 kids who came out for the team. I probably averaged 8-12 kids showing up at any given moment. There were two kids who quit before the end of the year and another who didn't join until January.


Some stories to remember:

-I always email to confirm if there's a bus after an incident years prior. Once this year, I caught that they hadn't done it. Then I caught that the time was wrong, so I cancelled it rather than try to sort it out at the last moment. Another time, I heard that we were going to share the bus with another team. I didn't mind, but then I started thinking, "Wait...there's only ONE gym where we're going. Where would the other team play?" Turned out there was no game for the other team. The address on the website was for the wrong school, too. I had to call back several times to get it investigated and no one got back to me to let me know what had happened. Game day, the bus showed up 26 minutes late as I was trying to pick which of my extremely hyper wrestlers to make an example out of to calm the rest down.

-I had a kid get a backpack stuck on the roof of the school.

-Injuries. I've never seen as many injuries as I saw this year. There was a concussion in the first scrimmage, a concussion in practice (HS), a concussion a kid claimed was from hitting the back of his head from picking something up under a table (at home), and a concussion from a hockey game. It's the first year I remember putting on medical gloves and doctoring up a kid and cleaning blood at a match myself, too. I wonder if I should get EMT training....

-I taught a kid how to tie his shoes.

-Conflict. Parents. Wrestlers. There always seems to be some sort of conflict involved with encouraging kids to train to win a simulated fight with rules (aka wrestling). I didn't have to break up a real fight this year, though. I averaged one a year my first three years coaching (the only one with a punch that really connected was my first year as an assistant coach).