For me, more and bigger are not better. More and bigger may be damaging in the long run. Here’s why.
The Saturday before Christmas Day, I drove to a large, public high school to catch the second day of a high school wrestling tournament. When I drove into the parking lot, vehicles were parked in the standard spaces, but also on sidewalks, grassy areas, and next to painted curbs. I finally found a legal handicapped space next to the baseball and football fields, but I also noticed that the parking lot was small compared to the gymnasium that I entered.
Courtesy: WV-mat
One side of the gym was closed, but the open side was crammed with fans, coaches, and wrestlers. Floor space not taken up by four mats was populated with scoring tables, chairs, and more sitting people. Later I was told that two more mats were being used in an auxiliary gym.
When I arrived, there was a brief lull in mat action. Then, the girls began wrestling. A mother told me that these were wrestlers in the girls’ division. I watched the action on just one mat–Mat 4–because I learned from watching the action at the NCAA D-1 tournament that you can’t see all the action. The more prudent approach is to pick one mat and watch the action on that mat.
I did just that when I noticed that some boys were beginning to compete–only not in the usual weight-class order. I was told that these matches were some of the junior varsity wrestle-back matches. “Oh,” I thought.
I was growing a bit impatient because I had come to see my favorite varsity team. Finally, some of the varsity wrestlers competed. I enjoyed those matches before leaving at 4p. to return home. After all, six hours at Mat 4 was enough.
Courtesy: Twitter
As I drove home, I couldn’t help but think about how much high school wrestling has changed since I competed in the early-through-mid 1960s. I lost my second varsity match, but remained undefeated after that, finishing my varsity career at 33-1. Today, it’s not unusual for a 9th grader to wrestle varsity, and, likely, this young man has already wrestled more matches by Christmas than I did during my entire varsity career.
Ironically, when I was a coach in the 1970s, wrestlers in my area endured the long holiday break without wrestling. To fill the gap, I launched a two-day holiday tournament with wrestlers from eight schools competing. That was something new back then. Today? Not at all. In my area, there’s a wrestling tournament this week–a two-day, ten mat affair–that includes junior varsity, girls, and varsity division wrestlers. It’s billed as an invitational tournament, but any school willing to pay a scaled entry fee can participate. Last I checked, over 100 schools had registered.
I don’t know how I’d respond today if I were still coaching. While I’ll stop short of saying ‘the old days’ were best, I will say that we seem to be suffering from a cultural disease that we didn’t have back then. We believe that more is better and that big is good.
But here’s the thing: more is not always better, and big isn’t always good. There are plenty of times when more is too much, and big produces issues. You see that in high school sports all over the country. Each sport used to have a season. Today, the seasons seem indistinguishable: kids play the same sport nearly all year long.
For me, more and bigger are not better. More and bigger may be damaging in the long run.
