Ask Cael: Do you feel that it’s hard to stay focused on wrestling if you redshirt your freshman year? I know you were able to do it, but it seems to me alot of wrestlers just get lost in the college life and never wrestle up to their full potential and end up quitting ?

Story Published Thursday, September 17th, 2009

Question From Jeff: Do you feel that it’s hard to stay focused on wrestling if you redshirt your freshman year? I know you were able to do it, but it seems to me alot of  wrestlers  just get lost in the college life and never wrestle up to their full potential and end up quitting ?

I don’t think it is difficult to stay focused while redshirting.    I think the culture of the program has an enormous effect on redshirts.  It’s important to surround yourself with the right people and right leadership.  If the older kids on the team are partying then the incoming kids might follow their lead.  A few kids are natural leaderes and are going to do everything they are supposed to and more to be successful, regardless of what is going on around them.  There are also a few that are going to go the opposite direction,  regardless of the circumstances.  But the majority is going to follow the lead of someone else and that’s why it is important for a program to establish a strong, clean culture.

To stay focused, redshirts need to have training and competition goals.  Goals provide direction, and direction will help them stay focused on moving the correct direction.  There are many tournaments available to redshirts.  They should get 4-5 open tournaments of folkstyle and a few freestyle tournaments in as well.  If a wrestler looks at a redshirt year as a year off of wrestling then that could definitely be a problem.  We all know “the idle mind is the devil’s playground.”

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