MWA

By Ryan Lancaster, MWR Founder I think tradition and history are important for our sport. When I took over at West Ottawa a few backs, I spent the first year digging through all the old yearbooks and school newspaper (The aptly named West Ottawan) to see what past I could dig up. After 50 years, its easy to see which coaches cared about the program and which didn’t by the records they left. I stumbled upon an old article simply titled “Wrestling” from a guy named Sidney Huitema. In it, details why everyone should try wrestling (and why it isn’t for everyone). I dug a little deeper and realized he was the founder of the program at the school. I wanted to see what I could find so I pulled on the string a little more. The following is what unraveled: Huitema at West Ottawa in 1966 Sidney John Huitema Jr.  was born Dec. 25, 1936, in Yankton, South Dakota to Sidney and Adeline Huitema. He was the third child born in a family of five. He graduated from Yankton High School in 1954 and wen...

Back in 2011 the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFS) approved weight class changes for high school wrestling. The MHSAA (Michigan High School Athletic Association) for some reason decided not to make this change and retain the weight classes from before the change which are: 103, 112, 119, 125, 130, 135, 140, 145, 152, 160, 171, 189, 215, and 285.  Fast forward, it is nine years later, and the MHSAA is one of the only remaining states that are still not using the NFHS weight classes established back in 2011. The weight classes used by the NFHS are 106 pounds, 113, 120, 126, 132, 138, 145, 152, 160, 170, 182, 195, 220 and 285 which you can see give more wrestling opportunity’s to the larger wrestlers without as big of jumps between weights. There are still 14 weight classes, the weight differences in the smaller classes are only increased by 1-2 pounds than previous. Wrestling has always had a great relationship with the sport of football, you know what every...

Michigan Wrestling Resource is ramping things up to provide more information and resources to our wonderful wrestling community.  I started this off by reaching out to the community to anyone who has something to share.  One of my favorite people (yes, I have favorites *shrugs*), Timothy Lambert reached back with this: "I will be starting a weekly FCA Coaches Huddle for Michigan Wrestling Coaches next week beginning Monday. We will be going through 3Dimensional Coaching videos, discussion questions, have panelists, share wisdom, and learn on how to coach the heart behind the athlete and sharpen our skills as coaches. I'll send the link and information if anyone is interested once it's out!" Instantly I was thrilled. For a very long time, my heart and mind felt that Michigan wrestling needed a ministry.  Wrestling is such a great vehicle for so many things in life.  Building your faith and growing with Christ is one of those things.  And we lacked a Christ-center...