With our youth and middle school programs seemingly at an all time high when it comes to talent. Yet the potential loss of many programs like North Hardin Hopkinsville and so on should there be reason to worry about the state of wrestling in Kentucky?

I don't believe Kentucky Wrestling is in any trouble, those teams are more or an exception than the norm. 

Like you said, youth and middle school has grown leaps and bounds in last few years. We have training facilities like CWA, ETC, No Ox, and IK. Plus we have went from around 70 teams to 100 in the last 15-20 yrs. 

Off season events are being held more now than ever, kids are traveling to national eventd, and our national teams have been highly competitive.  

I know it's looks bad when we have a team like north hardin struggling to keep the program, but the good far out weight the bad in kentucky wrestling.  And I believe in the next 5-8 years, it will take another big leap as all the youth kids from the last few years start hitting high school. 

Most of our youth wrestlers are multi sports kids: Wrestling, Football, Soccer, Baseball ect.

It would be interesting to track current youth wrestlers through high school and see how many of them drop out of wrestling to focus on another sport.

I know the elite wrestlers (kids) will stay with or choose wrestling, it’s all the other kids that fill up a line-up to make a solid tm and program.  

Until we get other coaches (football) and administrations to understand the benefits of wrestling and multi-sport kids, programs may still struggle to keep #’s at the high school level.

Just saying…

With NH Ranked 4th pre season, I cannot believe no one is jumping at this team. Josh is drooling about this for his team. Step it up, I know there are young out of college wrestlers looking for an opportunity like this!!

The only reason I am coming on is to address this situation as KYWCA President. I will be logging off again for good after this post. I felt as President that it is important to address. We do have an issue. According to the KHSAA Coaches listings the following programs do not have a coach. Maybe they do have a coach but the school has not listed them if so. We cannot let these programs go away. We have worked very hard to build wrestling and we need these teams to help us continue to build. Please reach out to anyone you know who may be interested.

North Bullitt

North Hardin

Iroquois

Hopkinsville

Barren County

Graves County

Paducah Tiglman

Whitley County

Shawnee

Pikeville

Louisville Holy Cross

In wrestling,

Coach McCoy

While I have no clue about some of the others, I know Barren County's situation. They have a coach (Luke Pniewski for those old guys who remember him from his days at Hoptown as a wrestler), but have been told until other teams in their area pick up the sport (Warren County teams, BGHS, Edmonson, Glasgow, etc...) they WILL NOT revive their team. North Bullitt and Pikeville both have coaches listed as of 3:00 eastern time today on the KHSAA website.

My $0.02 on the situation: the US as a whole is dropping in quality. BEFORE ANYONE STARTS BASHING ME AND CALLING ME EVERY NAME IN THE BOOK, realize this is NOT just my views. I've talked with 2-3 college coaches in the past few weeks and they all say the exact same thing. One coach went as far as to predict that wrestling as a whole will be gone as a sport within the next 10 years. The cause? The sport is evolving and many coaches don't want to keep up with the changes. Being a coach today takes TONS of time and a desire to succeed. Gone are the days when as a coach, you walk in and simply run practice and ensure transportation to and from events. The top coaches in the nation, much less Kentucky, are the ones who spend 300+ days per year devoted to improving their programs, and find ways to travel to wrestle only the best. Challenging yourself makes you better. period. 

What will it take for wrestling to excel again?? We need one major thing: coaches who are willing to keep up with the changes and put in the time to make their programs better FROM THE BOTTOM UP (youth, middle school, high school. youth could simply be running a summer camp or two btw). Right now, I'd say those teams who don't have coaches will take ANYONE to just keep their program afloat though. 

Yes, I think so and I feel it's more then just coaches doing more. Anyone that has been coaching for a while will tell you youth  & middle school wrestling cost has went up, refs want more money, one or two coaches for three levels. All those factors need to be looked at also. They are good but having better comp doesn't take care of school budgets and when it becomes about money and what a school spends people & sports get cut.  

     It is true that wrestling is changing by leaps and bounds.  The only way to keep up is to have young coaches on your staff.  The problem with young coaches is that they have young families to raise, (a new wife and young kids). It becomes even more difficult if one of those young kids is a girl.  Try to spend 200-250 days a year with your wrestlers, miss most of the Christmas Holiday and New year.  It makes it almost impossible for a young coach to continue coaching.  

     This along with the growing belief in one sport wonders.  Has made it almost impossible for coaches and wrestling families to keep up.  

As coaches it's incumbent on us to recruit former wrestlers to get into both coaching and refereeing. There are lots of former wrestlers attending college in Kentucky. We need to recruit those former wrestlers to get involved. There must be a former North Hardin wrestler in the Radcliff area interested in coaching. I'm happy to say that the Hopkinsville job has been filled. The new coach is Kris Perry. 

As coaches it's incumbent on us to recruit former wrestlers to get into both coaching and refereeing. There are lots of former wrestlers attending college in Kentucky. We need to recruit those former wrestlers to get involved. There must be a former North Hardin wrestler in the Radcliff area interested in coaching. I'm happy to say that the Hopkinsville job has been filled. The new coach is Kris Perry.

That's a fantastic pick up for Hoptown, best of luck to Coach Perry

I don't know how it's been for others but I tried applying to Graves County who also had a social studies opening I could fill. I got NOTHING back from them. Maybe I didn't go through the right channels to let the right people know I wanted to coach there but it was pretty frustrating. I tried to apply to the Hoptown job when I heard it was open but when I want to apply I didn't find anything. 

I'm as stunned as anyone that North Hardin is having trouble finding a coach. Maybe someone can scavenge Fort Knox for a band-aid coach like Fort Campbell had to do in 2009 when they almost lost their program. We had to have parents walk into the admin offices and basically curse out the AD before they were willing to seriously look for coaches. A lot of AD's in Kentucky are more than willing to let a program die.

This is coming from a public school stand point and some might see this as farfetched but we must get a grip on this before more than just wrestling is in trouble, with that said "THE WAR ON HIGH SCHOOL ATHLETICS IS REAL". Let's take a look at the #'s I top out as a head wrestling coach at $4,433 minus taxes $2,970 and that's if you dont work in the district. This is district wide. Avg budget $1300-1500 on entry fees, 500 on supplies, 60 singlets $1200. Transportation I took a 2 week CDL course (non-paid)? I understand why there are not people applying for the job.  You have to absolutly love the sport to coach hands down. I'm able to raise the funds but what happens when I'm gone? I posted my job up 2 weeks after state, I had 1 person apply and they did not have enough college hours to coach?  I refuse to let my time to be in vein. 

This is for all sports, for too long coaches have neglected fundraising and the impact that it is having right now on HS sports. I could sit on here about how our school district micromanages our funds and what they don't do for athletics but I understand why. And coach is completely right we have to recruit our graduates and promote the sport from the youth levels. My issue is that even though you may be in a district that doesn't have these issues but who will you compete against in the end? My prediction is all sports will be club level in the next 20 years.

So please before you coach any level especially youth know that 70% of kids quit before HS cause they don't have fun, or you become the 10th person on a coaching staff know that there are teams that need you more, and know that it is unfair that they do not put what you will really be doing in the job title, but always remember what you signed up for. This is a touchy subject for me and I'm trying to create a solution to this epidemic. 

Please share this post on every social media site. Looking to fill vacancies for the following Head Wrestling positions:

North Bullitt

North Hardin

Barren County

Graves County

Paducah Tiglman

Whitley County

Shawnee

Pikeville

Louisville Holy Cross

     Wow $4,400.  Our head coach gets $1,800 (no matter years of experience) Asst. Coach $1,125 (no matter years of experience) Lowest paid coaches.  Football and Basketball (boys and Girls) each make $11,000 (regardless years of experience)

Just looked up this gem because I knew at one time Gary Canter was highly paid at LaRue...LaRue County pays $10,000 to head Football, Basketball, and Wrestling coach at LCHS. $7,500 to JV coaches in all those sports. Be interesting to know what Union, Woodford, Campbell, and a few of the other top public schools pay.

The bottom line in this issue is that we as a wrestling community need to be stepping up farther than we already are. Yes, the ideal situation is to be head coach at one of the "Big Dawgs." However, it seems to me no one wants to work their way up anymore. I know of several young coaches who could make an impact at a few of these schools who are still looking for a coach, yet I'm not sure they're willing to do that because "it's not a big name school." You don't get into coaching for the money. You get into it for the love of the sport. 

And Falcon...NH isn't having trouble...the administration DOESN'T WANT THE PROGRAM TO CONTINUE! I have that from someone involved with the school. 

That's what I figured but I wasn't going to speak on the matter. It strikes me as eerily similar to what almost happened at Fort Campbell in 2009, I ended up nearly getting expelled for speaking out about it at the time

any updates?  I know whitley has a coach

An outsider's view: Looking through the early season results at the college level, I would say no, KY wrestling is not in trouble. There is a lot of young tough talent. This must be pointed out to the HS and MS boys as something to shoot for. Here's to hoping KY wrestling continues to grow.

Not many coaches I know spend 250 days  a year with their wrestlers .I would like to know 10 in the whole state or 10 in any other for that matter  that DO .seems ky gets some D1 guys each yr and a lot of NAIA because of the in state teams that are very very good in that div.Dont think its  Hurting  I do think it could be tougher and there is some in squabbling that hurts the state a bit .The FEAR of freestyle and greco does hurt the state a bit to be honest I think it's as much the coaches faults as it is the kids if Coaches We're out there 250 days a yr and not afraid of working out of their comfort zone the sport would grow .

I agree, I doubt that few if any do 250 days a year. It made me wonder how many I do. I went back and looked at this year and estimated. Starting jan2015-jan2015 I will have spent around 200 days with the team. That's not always wrestling, but training in some way. Pretty much 6 days a week in season, 3 days in off season lifting/wrestling, off season tournaments, and clinics. Then took 3 two week breaks. I would guess that's more than a majority due to coaches be involved in other sports and spending time with their own children. But regardless,  coaching is a huge commitment by coaches and all deserve thanks for all the time they put into wrestling and the kids they help mold. 

Growing the FS/GR side of the sport certainly wouldn't hurt. So much to add to your arsenal in doing these styles. Heck, just learning to defend a throw or to throw your opponent is worth the price of admission on the GR side of things. Beneficial for all weight classes. 

Yes ,And I was not knocking coaches for their time spent just making a point about another post .sometimes it's nor the time spent but spending it wisely .I have seen some of the top teams and kids in their rooms and seen my own in them and on those teams there and I have worked with some good kids outside of the wrestling room and incorporated some of those good habits and training /warm up techniques in when I help kids or when they trained with mine and IT WORKS seeing Austin and his training partner both in finals at NHSCA one year at 220 and Austins training partner on his team go from not placing to state finals the next yr  I think there IS a smarter way and a lot more things that need to be done to overcome other states and their advantages the problem is will coaches and dad's be smart enough to understand and listen and will kids carry through with it .I'm no great coach by any means but I could take 20 kids from scratch as youths and wipe out every team in the country within a few years .NO BS

    I believe that almost everyone on this site could say the same thing.  The unsaid thing here is that you need 20 dedicated and motivated families and kids. 

About twelve lol usually it's groups of brothers kicking tail  Ervins Coopers Jones Lampes And so on .and I don't think everyone could if they could there would be a lot more Ky  kids winning national titles jmo

Instead of saying "I could" would it not be better to say "I did" ?

Middle School participation numbers look to be significantly down again this year.  That can not be good for the future.  

Sorry to hear that,  you have probably touched on the #1 statistic that answers the question of this thread. 

On 11/20/2015, 9:26:13, plantmanky1 said:

Middle School participation numbers look to be significantly down again this year.  That can not be good for the future.  

I think the all day tournaments hurt middle school wrestling.  If the weight classes could be broken up somewhat with some going in the morning and some going in the afternoon, I think that would help.  The 10-12 hour marathons aren't for a lot of folks.

46 minutes ago, TBG said:

I think the all day tournaments hurt middle school wrestling.  If the weight classes could be broken up somewhat with some going in the morning and some going in the afternoon, I think that would help.  The 10-12 hour marathons aren't for a lot of folks.

I can see this working on the middle school level, not high school though.

"I think the all day tournaments hurt middle school wrestling.  If the weight classes could be broken up somewhat with some going in the morning and some going in the afternoon, I think that would help.  The 10-12 hour marathons aren't for a lot of folks."

So the school teams that arrive on a bus have half their team sit around  doing nothing for half the day and then the lower weights do the same for the latter part of the day? Do the upper weights weigh in and then sit for half the day or weigh in after the lower weights finish wrestling, thus sitting around for half the day unable to eat while they wait to weigh in and then wrestle. Even if you had remote weigh ins it would still mean half your team sitting around waiting to wrestle or waiting for the rest to finish. I don't think this is the answer. just my 2 cents.

12 hours ago, naplesme said:

"I think the all day tournaments hurt middle school wrestling.  If the weight classes could be broken up somewhat with some going in the morning and some going in the afternoon, I think that would help.  The 10-12 hour marathons aren't for a lot of folks."

So the school teams that arrive on a bus have half their team sit around  doing nothing for half the day and then the lower weights do the same for the latter part of the day? Do the upper weights weigh in and then sit for half the day or weigh in after the lower weights finish wrestling, thus sitting around for half the day unable to eat while they wait to weigh in and then wrestle. Even if you had remote weigh ins it would still mean half your team sitting around waiting to wrestle or waiting for the rest to finish. I don't think this is the answer. just my 2 cents.

And obviously, you can't split your teams for dual tournaments, which is about half our season.  People aren't quitting or not signing up for swimming because of long days. 

Kentucky has made huge strides in wrestling since at a low in 1991. Problem is the nature of the beast like swimming. There is no real casual fans support. To have a successful team you wrestler your matches in all day Saturday events that the casual fans doesn't attend. Plus you add to the fact that football season doesn't end for most teams until November doesn't help with the sharing of athletes.  Wrestling is very much a inner fraternity that requires sacrifice that the average person doesn't want to pay. As for finding good coaches, its hard to tell a young 20 something year old that might had a significant other or trying to start a family that his social life and family life is now limited. ( I can't count how many times I missed important family and friends events because of coaching) Like participating, coaching is a huge sacrifice for the love of the sport. For what makes our sport great also weakens it. 

On 11/20/2015 6:08:27, depperschmidt said:

Instead of saying "I could" would it not be better to say "I did" ?

OH I did with the ones I had control of and I would and could gladly any day given the chance .

It's easy to pick up a bunch of studs already throw them together and look like a great coach .

Much different doing it from scratch but much more rewarding.