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The Pressure Is On!

By Dave Black, WWF Chairman, 02/03/16, 5:00PM CST

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The pressure is on!  I remember as a parent this time of year when your wrestler is nearing the end of the season or possibly even their career how the pressure becomes greater. I was always reminded by my kids that they’d do the wrestling and I should just relax and enjoy it. It’s always easy to say or think that those are easy tasks but in reality it is hard to not get caught up in all of it. If there is anything that I can say that would possibly elevate some of that anxiety is to just be supportive of your child. Too many times I hear parents talk about their involvement, I had a mother tell me last weekend that “we” are down a weight and it was a hard cut for us, not sure if it was both of them or just her son that cut the weight. It is hard work to make weight all year and to keep grades up, stay healthy and be a student, that’s the time when they need all of your support. I was in the stands once in a tight match with one of my sons and my screaming and ranting became apparent that I was losing confidence in the outcome, when it was over my son told me that he needed my moral support at all times, and please do not act like that again.  That was a real lesson that I learned at that time. The pressure on kids to compete and excel can be immense, and we as parents, coaches and fans need to be supportive of the outcome, regardless if “we” didn’t get what we hoped for.

Onto the WWF now. Our tournament schedules are posted on the website and dates and time are secured. We have had plans to initiate the requirement for coaches to have an education card from USA Wrestling to be eligible to be mat side at our state tournaments. At this time we have tabled that requirement as USA Wrestling is updating their programs for testing. In the future we will enforce that requirement, we have now targeted that for 2017. The NCEP programs are very good, there are 4 levels of coach’s education, Copper, Bronze, Silver & Gold, at a minimum we will require the Copper Level certification. This year the WWF will have online registration and online ordering for uniforms or WWF apparel, we are hoping this will eliminate some of the planning and costs as it will allow families to spread out the costs as the season goes on. All that information will be online very shortly, keep an eye on the web for details.

The Challenge Series was very successful with 119 schools having participants in it this year, the WWF & WWCA will continue to support this event, we are excited that we have these opportunities of the sub varsity wrestlers in this state.

Best of luck to all of the high school wrestlers as the tournament series gets closer, stay healthy, keep the grades up and work hard!

 

Yours in Wrestling

 WWF Chairman, Dave Black