Ask Cael: Is it necessary for youth wrestlers to compete for a regional or national title?

Story Published Thursday, June 3rd, 2010

Question from Shannon: Hi Cael, Is it necessary for youth wrestlers to compete for a regional or national title?   Could it help them for high school or college recruitment?  Which tournaments would you recommend for the biggest bang for the buck?   Did your father send you or your brothers to regional and/or national youth USA Wrestling Tournaments?  If so, how often and where did you compete? Thank you very much.

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I don’t think it is necessary for youth wrestlers for compete for regional or national titles.  I wouldn’t feel any pressure as a coach or parent or put any pressure on your young wrestlers to compete at those levels.  Each kid will develop differently.  The important thing for youth wrestlers is to develop a love of competition and the sport.  That will take them much farther than a youth national championship will.  Challenge them and make sure they are getting tested but with a positive attitude.  Focus on effort, having fun and doing their best.

Personally if I had a young wrestler I would put them in several other sports as well.  Play baseball, soccer, football, gymnastics etc to keep them busy.  Spend more time in wrestling but don’t only wrestle.  Once your kids get to high school then consider only wrestling or playing one or two sports, but not in their youth.  I played football in high school and ran track in the Spring even though I didn’t compete.  My dad had my bros and I do that.

Growing up my dad took my brothers and I to one regional tournament a year, The Western Regional’s.  It consisted of the 11 western states and was a solid tournament.  We wrestled the folkstyle season and also freestyle season and then hit the Western Regional’s in the summer.  We were also playing several sports at the same time.

We started going to national tournaments when we were in 8^th/ 9^th grade when we reached the Cadet Level for 15-16 year olds.  I was young for my class in school so I didn’t start going to national tournaments until I was a freshman in high school.  All of the freestyle/ Greco tournaments we went to were USA Wrestling events.

I don’t think many college coaches follow wrestlers before they get into high school.  They may have a list of prospects to watch, and some connections to young wrestlers but that’s about it.  High school is what’s important.  Youth tournaments obviously prepare you for high school but it’s all preparation and should be treated as such.  The attitude and love developed in youth like I said is the important thing.

As far as getting recruited, some state tournaments get recruited harder than others.   There are some states that if you win, you will have a great chance to wrestle in college (as long as the wrestler is a good student too.)  Some states aren’t the same.  I grew up in Utah and we have had some excellent wrestlers come out of the state but there aren’t many college coaches at the state tournament.  There are some but they would be there to recruit someone they probably saw wrestle at the regional or national level in the off season.

College coaches recruit pretty much all of the high school national tournaments in all styles.  Fargo is a huge tournament for recruiting.  Pretty much every college program is represented there, if they aren’t they should be.  The folkstyle national tournaments are followed very closely as well.  College coaches like to see prospects who want to compete.  Winning is great but probably not the top factor a coach is looking for.  Attitude is the most important thing to me.  Success in high school doesn’t always translate into success in college.  Each coach has their own qualities they look for but the trick is to get out there and compete and give the coaches a chance to watch you.  You can also send video or contact a program you are interested in.  There are so many state champions and state place winners out there that it’s difficult to follow high school as closely as we’d like.  I wouldn’t wait around and hope to be seen.  And I wouldn’t be offended if you don’t get a phone call.  Be aggressive and show college programs that you want to be there.  We want kids that want to be at Penn State, I would guess all colleges are similar.

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