Middle School
My MS guys had their first match Thursday. They all showed up with shoes, singlets, underwear that fit, mouth guards, and headgears. That's a huge win. I brought 14 kids. Only 2 had ever wrestled before. The most experience the others could have had were 5 weeks with me. Several of them had joined the team late (I think the least amount of experience was two weeks!).
Predictably, our opponent's front line kids ate mine for breakfast. He's a good coach, has been around with an established program (23 kids), and the school is for 6th-8th graders. The MS I coach for is only 7th and 8th, so sometimes other coaches have an extra year to start on the basics.
We did a lot better against the more inexperienced kids. We gave as good as we got. I've got multiple kids who show the instinct. I was happy with the effort and progress. Bare minimum, the kids know what a meet looks like and got over their deer-in-the-headlights debut. I hope it's motivational in practice.
I gave my phone to one kid to film the matches. The team left a few surprise selfies on my phone.
I started with 6 kids in 2015-16. I grew to 8 kids in 2017-18. This year, I have 16. Maybe 17 after a kid and his dad walked up to me at the meet (I'll let a kid start late who moved to town and is willing to drive an hour to see their friends wrestle and gets interested).
Looks like the kids are having fun.
The next problem is we've outgrown our supplies. I need to look more into new uniforms. I'm borrowing singlets from the high school as is. After that, I have to find some volunteers to help out at the city tournament and scrounge up another match somewhere in January.
Elementary School
Before Thanksgiving, I was told "There is a bus!"
The following week, I was told, "No bus! The AP wants you to wait. You need to send home a letter to parents, etc."
That annoyed me. I replied, "Already did it. Some parents even wrote back. My plan was ______."
I thought I'd have to wait another week, but the afterschool guys got back to me late that night, "Let me tell the AP that."
2:10 PM the day of (school ends at 3 PM) I got a call. "It's a go! Good luck!"
First thing I did when I got to the school was check in with the bus driver. No one had told him yet, so it was a good thing I did.
It worked out...mostly. I rode the bus over with the kids and then rode back with them. It made me miss some practice, but the kids at least saw a real wrestling room. "Man, you were right. Those guys are squirrels!" Coach W said after I got back. "It's amazing the difference a few years can make in maturity."
The hope is being around the older wrestlers will give some positive role models.
The plan was to ride with them again the following week, but I had to cancel for the first time. Coach W had a meeting and asked if I could cover the HS and MS for the first hour of practice. It was the day before our first match (see above), so it was probably for the better.
High School
I was looking forward to going to a local high school match on Friday with Shane. I help coach the kids, but don't go to most of the matches due to logistics. The snow cancelled it, though. It wasn't falling here, but it was falling elsewhere. The teams from Richmond cancelled early on, so the tournament organizer pushed it back a week....which kills whatever story potential I had to communicate here.
Oh, well. Maybe I'll have a story next time.
Shane
Shane looked pretty good the first week! Then he was congested to high heaven and sick. That makes us 1 for 2 this season.
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