I'm a big numbers guy, I watch the addition and dropping of programs at all levels like a hawk and I feel there is nothing more damaging to the sport than dropped programs. Based off of the statistics I last saw- Wrestling is the second most dropped program in the country after Cross Country, and wrestling has dropped from the fifth most popular Boy's Sport to I'd estimate about the 6th or 7th. Note I don't want to turn this into a Title IX bashing fest since I feel that is where conversations have been steered towards in the past and I think history has shown us that it's a losing battle that at the end of the day isn't really the true source of our problems. Now I am aware of issues that affect Kentucky in regards to adding programs but I do feel that if there was a concentrated community effort to actually try and add programs we would see results. In the time I've spent watching wrestling getting discussed I feel a lot of us have sat on our hands, myself included. The past two years especially I've tried to reach out and get programs started in the Louisville area but so far I have seen nothing in the form of results, hence I am posting in here in an effort to increase the quantity of the voices speaking out and hopefully younger guys willing to take over and lead a program. It doesn't always have to be a Kentucky guy, we can reach out across the border to Indiana and Ohio and try to attract candidates there as well, they would be willing to make the jump if they felt the support was there. Arkansas had a powerful voice speaking out in Pat Smith to help grow the sport there and you can see it slowly starting to come to fruition and I hope to find a similar effort started here. Really at this point what do we have to lose?

I'm going to offer some schools in the Louisville area I feel could have successful wrestling programs first then some programs around the state I think could be successful. 

Louisville
1. Butler
Butler is already a powerhouse in most sports and have the tools necessary to succeed as a wrestling program. I kind of had the door shut in my face when I offered to start a wrestling program at Butler but the chance of having a successful program in that part of Louisville is too beneficial to the state of Louisville wrestling to pass up.

2. Louisville Collegiate

A powerhouse in soccer with the resources to be competitive even if the enrollment size is probably too small to be an actual powerhouse

3. Eastern

Every day that I am reminded that the legendary Eastern program has been shuttered hurts. I did have the door shut in my face here as well but there has to be a build up of alumni support to get the ball rolling here.

4. Ballard

Not as well remembered as Eastern's program but Ballard has the potential to be a successful program if restarted 

5. Christian-Academy Louisville 

A small school football powerhouse with resources to spare, honestly should be higher on this last. With the right coach in place could be a state powerhouse.

Rest of State
1. Fort Thomas Highlands High School
2. Bowling Green High School
3. South Warren High School
4. Franklin-Simpson High School
4. Pulaski County High School
5. Muhlenberg County High School
6. Warren Central High School
7. Madisonville North-Hopkins High School
8. Campbellsville High School
9. Graves County
10. Rockcastle County

With this list I mostly looked around the state for top level athletics programs that I have felt before would be successful in wrestling. Since most of these are in parts of the state I don't really have that much knowledge outside of say Graves County I wasn't able to provide a write up like I could for Louisville. If anyone has knowledge or beliefs that these are good targets for programs or that better ones exist speak up. If we agree on programs on this list start up dialogues with administrations and Athletic Directors, find out what we need to do as a community to get programs started in these places. It is better that we try to get programs started and fail than to never try and wonder what if.

For the record going off of KHSAA Coaching Listings Kentucky has around

247 Cross Country Programs
95 Bowling Programs
107 Bass Fishing Programs
162 Archery Programs
250 Baseball Programs
272 Basketball Programs
237 Golf Programs
194 Soccer Programs
131 Swimming Programs
203 Tennis Programs
243 Track Programs
220 Football Programs 


But only around 97 Wrestling Programs. 

For Boys Sports, Wrestling in Kentucky is only two spots from the bottom slot held by Bowling. I don't know about any of you, but that number doesn't sit well in my stomach. We have to try something.

2 schools stand out to me as prime locations to start wrestling Mercer Co and Clark Co. 

Both have great athletic programs. would have the whole county feeding in,making it easy to build a feeder program.

Mercer has 4 counties that border it with wrestling, and 10 counties with in 2 counties with wrestling.  

Clark has 4 counties that wrestle bordering them, and 9 with in 2 counties. 

I think Shelby Co would be great too. 5 counties that touch them have wrestling, and 9 with in 2 counties, more if you could Indiana schools. Thst a prime spot in the middle of great wrestling with no program.

This gives you competition close to home and keep travel cost down. That's a big thing as you start a program. It also provides you and opportunity to find coaches from the area. Often it's hard to start new programs because if there was no wrestling near by, theres no coaches around. 

I think you need to expand by working your way out from the highest concentration of wrestling. Think that's why it's hard to get started at say Warren co. There is no program with 1 county from them and only 1 program 2 counties away. They would have to travel far for every event, plus find coaches willing to move there to start the program. You may find a head coach, but then you have no pool of ex wrestlers there to find assistants. Makes it much tougher. 

I agree that we need to work to add programs but right now our focus needs to be on getting open coaching positions filled so we don't lose those programs. With a little over a month from starting we still have several schools with no coach including Doss, Hopkinsville, North Oldham, Thomas Nelson, and I am sure there are others.

2 hours ago, coachteater said:

2 schools stand out to me as prime locations to start wrestling Mercer Co and Clark Co. 

Both have great athletic programs. would have the whole county feeding in,making it easy to build a feeder program.

Mercer has 4 counties that border it with wrestling, and 10 counties with in 2 counties with wrestling.  

Clark has 4 counties that wrestle bordering them, and 9 with in 2 counties. 

I think Shelby Co would be great too. 5 counties that touch them have wrestling, and 9 with in 2 counties, more if you could Indiana schools. Thst a prime spot in the middle of great wrestling with no program.

This gives you competition close to home and keep travel cost down. That's a big thing as you start a program. It also provides you and opportunity to find coaches from the area. Often it's hard to start new programs because if there was no wrestling near by, theres no coaches around. 

I think you need to expand by working your way out from the highest concentration of wrestling. Think that's why it's hard to get started at say Warren co. There is no program with 1 county from them and only 1 program 2 counties away. They would have to travel far for every event, plus find coaches willing to move there to start the program. You may find a head coach, but then you have no pool of ex wrestlers there to find assistants. Makes it much tougher. 

Excellent point on needing to be near other existing programs. I competed in Region 1 and I know the long bus drives aren’t something every AD is willing to invest in. A lot of programs closer to that southwestern corner of the state such as Lyon County don’t have programs. UHA’s program was one that had a flash in the pan of success but then died out very fast.

1 hour ago, cmccoy said:

I agree that we need to work to add programs but right now our focus needs to be on getting open coaching positions filled so we don't lose those programs. With a little over a month from starting we still have several schools with no coach including Doss, Hopkinsville, North Oldham, Thomas Nelson, and I am sure there are others.

You’re not going to hear me argue about the need to find qualified head coaches. I believe Hopkinsville found a head coach? I may be mistaken. Paducah Tilghman is still looking for a coach to my knowledge.

I agree with the idea that if the AD’s won’t advertise these positions properly then we should do so ourselves. Especially in Louisville we should be seeking coaches from across the river

HIghlands high school already has a youth program on the move.  I believe they are starting there and moving forward.  They may be fielding a middle school team this year with those Youth who are now in middle school.

It is an interesting way to start a program but probably a smart one.  By the time there wrestlers reach high school and they actually start a high school team they will have experienced kids on their team. 

A lot of times people who would be willing to be a head coach don’t even know an opening exists

1 minute ago, grappler-of-old said:

HIghlands high school already has a youth program on the move.  I believe they are starting there and moving forward.  They may be fielding a middle school team this year with those Youth who are now in middle school.

It is an interesting way to start a program but probably a smart one.  By the time there wrestlers reach high school and they actually start a high school team they will have experienced kids on their team. 

I talked to a coach yesterday who believes that is the best way to start a program and I don’t disagree especially since it will eventually build pressure on an AD to add the program which I think is a rarely spoken of but vital component

Having a mamas pounding on the AD's door because little Johnny can't wrestle anymore because there is no high school team and he has been wrestling for 5+ years is a big motivator to AD's and schools. 

46 minutes ago, grappler-of-old said:

HIghlands high school already has a youth program on the move.  I believe they are starting there and moving forward.  They may be fielding a middle school team this year with those Youth who are now in middle school.

It is an interesting way to start a program but probably a smart one.  By the time there wrestlers reach high school and they actually start a high school team they will have experienced kids on their team. 

Somerset is doing this as well. They are starting k-8 this year. Believe the high will be following in next year or so

So far I'm setting up a Google Spread Sheet with as many high schools I can find more or less grouped by probable region (would need some rebalancing). I'm color coding each school 

Green- Is in a county that already has a wrestling program or has recently had a wrestling program within the past 10 or so years

Yellow- Borders a County with wrestling

Red- Borders no counties with wrestling

I included the football classification for size when I could and estimated when it was a school without a football team to get an idea of the size of the school, if we think it would be better to have just flat enrollment numbers we can alter that.

Ideally this spreadsheet can then be used to reach out to AD's and start to determine which schools are open to the idea of starting programs and then hopefully as a state we come together and work on finding potential coaching staffs, I've honestly been debating creating a list of former wrestlers in the Kentucky area with coaching potential for awhile.

In Nky all teams over 3A (there are no 3A teams in Nky) have wrestling except Highlands. There is 1 (2A) team with wrestling (Newport) Lloyd and Newport Catholic dropped their team in the early 80s, Holy Cross had a team for a few years in the 2000s.  The only (1A) school to have wrestling was Brossart which lasted only a few years. 

These are only the schools that have football. 

23 hours ago, FalconWrestling said:

Excellent point on needing to be near other existing programs. I competed in Region 1 and I know the long bus drives aren’t something every AD is willing to invest in. A lot of programs closer to that southwestern corner of the state such as Lyon County don’t have programs. UHA’s program was one that had a flash in the pan of success but then died out very fast.

 

You’re not going to hear me argue about the need to find qualified head coaches. I believe Hopkinsville found a head coach? I may be mistaken. Paducah Tilghman is still looking for a coach to my knowledge.

 

I agree with the idea that if the AD’s won’t advertise these positions properly then we should do so ourselves. Especially in Louisville we should be seeking coaches from across the river

hoptown has a coach.

Tilighman doesn't.

UHA is rebuilding through Youth and MS from talking to Scott.

I spoke to South Warren's AD a few years ago about wrestling. They want it, but until 68/80 schools start popping up they cannot fight to start it because of the travel to Region 1/2. 

15 hours ago, FalconWrestling said:

So far I'm setting up a Google Spread Sheet with as many high schools I can find more or less grouped by probable region (would need some rebalancing). I'm color coding each school 

Green- Is in a county that already has a wrestling program or has recently had a wrestling program within the past 10 or so years

Yellow- Borders a County with wrestling

Red- Borders no counties with wrestling

I included the football classification for size when I could and estimated when it was a school without a football team to get an idea of the size of the school, if we think it would be better to have just flat enrollment numbers we can alter that.

Ideally this spreadsheet can then be used to reach out to AD's and start to determine which schools are open to the idea of starting programs and then hopefully as a state we come together and work on finding potential coaching staffs, I've honestly been debating creating a list of former wrestlers in the Kentucky area with coaching potential for awhile.

share it with me. 

11 hours ago, halfhalfhalf said:

share it with me. 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1q0q8axR7-FG_RWNAmp_I-yyxmcr1uGWFgzfYwvcwW3A/edit#gid=0

Here is the first draft

1 hour ago, FalconWrestling said:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1q0q8axR7-FG_RWNAmp_I-yyxmcr1uGWFgzfYwvcwW3A/edit#gid=0

Here is the first draft

Boyd has a team. Would be nice to see Greenup, Raceland, Russell, Fairview, Lawrence, East and West Carter and Rowan start up. 

Excuse my ignorance but what pressure has been put on our D1 schools to bring on wrestling?  I would think that would be the best way to grow high school wrestling in KY. Over the last couple of years we have seen several wrestlers leave the state to wrestle elsewhere. The biggest wrestling program being Ryan Moore going to Cornell with a current top 20 at NC State with Fausz. 

7 hours ago, tcats said:

Boyd has a team. Would be nice to see Greenup, Raceland, Russell, Fairview, Lawrence, East and West Carter and Rowan start up. 

Did I include them? I know that program. That's an oversight on my part your eyes start to cross when looking at district maps and school addresses for a couple hours

 

7 hours ago, REscalera said:

Excuse my ignorance but what pressure has been put on our D1 schools to bring on wrestling?  I would think that would be the best way to grow high school wrestling in KY. Over the last couple of years we have seen several wrestlers leave the state to wrestle elsewhere. The biggest wrestling program being Ryan Moore going to Cornell with a current top 20 at NC State with Fausz. 

There was talk at U of L which from my understanding apparently fell through to nothing a couple years ago.

A lot of people in Kentucky I guess feel that the correct way to create pressure on a college is through starting a club team which through my understanding has never actually created a D1 program. At the same time we can't hold ourselves entirely at fault, D1 programs aren't being created anywhere

3 hours ago, FalconWrestling said:

Did I include them? I know that program. That's an oversight on my part your eyes start to cross when looking at district maps and school addresses for a couple hours

 

 

There was talk at U of L which from my understanding apparently fell through to nothing a couple years ago.

 

A lot of people in Kentucky I guess feel that the correct way to create pressure on a college is through starting a club team which through my understanding has never actually created a D1 program. At the same time we can't hold ourselves entirely at fault, D1 programs aren't being created anywhere

2 new D1 programs will be added next season. 

11 hours ago, REscalera said:

Excuse my ignorance but what pressure has been put on our D1 schools to bring on wrestling?  I would think that would be the best way to grow high school wrestling in KY. Over the last couple of years we have seen several wrestlers leave the state to wrestle elsewhere. The biggest wrestling program being Ryan Moore going to Cornell with a current top 20 at NC State with Fausz. 

I still don't think a ton of our guys are even bothering to try to wrestle in college, despite there being a ton of opportunity.  For example, D2 Bellarmine had exactly one Kentucky kid in their freshman recruiting class.  I know Lindsey had a nice KY recruiting class, and Kentucky Wesleyan got a few top kids from instate, but besides that, I'm not sure there's enough instate interest to even help push the big D1 schools to add a program.  We can't even get a lot of KY kids to fill the 6 or 7 smaller college programs we already have. And the few top kids that went out of state (Cornett, Mason Smith, Moore, Fausz, Meyers), likely would have gone out of state anyway.  

Still hate that Bowling Green doesn't have any wrestling programs. Third largest city in the state with 5 public high schools...I get that they don't want long drives to region opponents, though. No other county that touches them has a program, but neither does Union (they're special though, I know). Neither does Calloway County. Bowling Green schools could start a wave of programs around them forming. Don't know if/when we'll see it, though. Wishful thinking.

The way I’d start programs in Bowling Green would be to come in and take over a huge gym facility and create the “Bowling Green Wrestling Club K-8”

Get have groups of kids coming in from all over Bowling Green, start with inter team competition before taking them out to competitions throughout the state. As these kids start to hit different high schools in Bowling Green there will be parental pressure on the AD’s to create programs.

At this point we almost need a committee of coaches going around to different AD’s, matching them up with potential coaches, and helping them get programs off the ground 

13 hours ago, rjs4470 said:

I still don't think a ton of our guys are even bothering to try to wrestle in college, despite there being a ton of opportunity.  For example, D2 Bellarmine had exactly one Kentucky kid in their freshman recruiting class.  I know Lindsey had a nice KY recruiting class, and Kentucky Wesleyan got a few top kids from instate, but besides that, I'm not sure there's enough instate interest to even help push the big D1 schools to add a program.  We can't even get a lot of KY kids to fill the 6 or 7 smaller college programs we already have. And the few top kids that went out of state (Cornett, Mason Smith, Moore, Fausz, Meyers), likely would have gone out of state anyway.  

D1 is great but  I can tell you as a parent it’s not as important as the education my son is going to receive. My son was fortunate enough to be recruited to a D1 school which is great. The reality is that Mason understands wrestling gave him the opportunity to attend West Point. Rather he becomes an all American or not it really doesn’t matter. He will graduate from one of the top universities in the country which will look pretty good on a resume. I think parents and kids get caught up in the whole D1 thing. I think if kids are doing a sport they love and they can use their hard work to gain a free college education, I would call that a success. 

If you want to get noticed you need to compete outside of the State.  Send letters and videos to college coaches going into your junior year. Based on my experience you would be surprised at the responses you will receive from the largest wrestling schools in the country. Kentucky is not a highly recruited state. Athletes need to do the leg work with emails and compete at large events and get noticed. If a wrestler can earn any money for college I would call that a success. D1 or not. 

On 9/5/2018 at 9:13 AM, grappler-of-old said:

In Nky all teams over 3A (there are no 3A teams in Nky) have wrestling except Highlands. There is 1 (2A) team with wrestling (Newport) Lloyd and Newport Catholic dropped their team in the early 80s, Holy Cross had a team for a few years in the 2000s.  The only (1A) school to have wrestling was Brossart which lasted only a few years. 

These are only the schools that have football. 

GOO did you vote defending Region 6 champs Walton-Verona off the NKY island? Small 2A school with many athletic teams on the rise. 

LOL guess so.  

I was looking at last years football alignment and didn't see ya'll.  I had/have no idea what football division you were in. I didn't see you in another district than Newport. 

I guess it was just wishful thinking LOL> 

I see. Just trying to brush us aside. No respect. Just kidding of course. 

Well just call you guys the Rodney Dangerfield of NKY. LOL

So a big call to action in my mind would be to start reaching out to listed schools, especially the ones in green and yellow and inquire about wrestling programs. I've had little luck myself in Louisville but I am notoriously prickly

Just a clarification. Murray does not have a wrestling program, but Calloway County does. I know Murray tried to start one, but they were stopped by the school board is what I heard. Another way to help grow the sport, which also helps with Title IX, is to get more girls involved in wrestling. 

1 hour ago, Shannon Powers said:

Just a clarification. Murray does not have a wrestling program, but Calloway County does. I know Murray tried to start one, but they were stopped by the school board is what I heard. Another way to help grow the sport, which also helps with Title IX, is to get more girls involved in wrestling. 

As someone who has a personal history involving Calloway County I am well aware they have a program. Didn't know about this history involving Murray and their school board however.

I have no issue bringing more women into the sport myself

I was told this happened within the last year or so with Murray. I was told this by someone employed by the district. I don't have direct knowledge of it, but it was being discussed because they were trying to get me to transfer kids to the Murray school district. Since I have three wrestlers at the moment, they weren't going to a school without a wrestling program. 

The regional Bowling Green argument is a bad one for them. Truth is Butler Co has talked of having a program. Barron County had one and would again if schools in Warren Co did as well. Plus E-Town isn't far away which has 3 teams, Owensboro has 4 teams and Ohio co has a team all are closer than lots of the other schools which currently exist. There would have to be realignments done but there is plenty of teams. No different them than basketball or any other sport. This is really the area we need it the most it is so close to Nashville and a connector between Lexington, Louisville and the western part of the state could be some awesome weekend tourneys.

I miss Webster County wrestling. I can't imagine where my old Webco friends would have ended up without it. 

Harrison, Bourbon, and Montgomery counties are in Region 8.  They were left off  the spread sheet.  Pendleton County boarders Harrison County as well.

How do I see the spreadsheet? 

Remember I'm an old fart. 

On 9/21/2018 at 11:10 AM, grappler-of-old said:

How do I see the spreadsheet? 

Remember I'm an old fart. 

Click on the link on Falcon's post on page one.

I’m trying desperately to help Lexington Catholic resurrect their program. Haven’t exactly had the door shut in my face, but not a lot of support from the AD as it is his belief that there isn’t enough demand from the community based on the failed attempt to start a program there a few years ago. 

I started a youth/ Middle school program at the feeder schools and have had about 10 kids each of the last two years. Coach Critchfield at Henry Clay Gabe me a great deal on an old mat to get us going. 

My son is in 7th grade this year, so I have at least two years to convince the administration that it’s worth it, even if we are small and start slowly. Still a work in progress, but hopeful. 

Lexington Christian has also approached me, so perhaps if Catholic won’t be receptive, Christian will. It would be great if at least one of the private schools here in Lexington would start a program.