MWA

Article by Neil Kiernan 🖶 Print This Article Don't tell parents to "trust the process" make them part of the process.   There has been a consistent trend in the conversations surrounding youth sports. There is a lot of talk of what is considered to be a crisis of burnout and lack of interest in youth sports. The coaching community seems to of decided the best way to handle the issue is to place the blame squarely on parents.  According to Wade Schalles and Ben Askren wrestling retains about 40% of it's participants after two years of participation in wrestling. While I have never looked at any hard statistics my personal experience would give me a an inclination to believe it.  The most prevalent theory as to why is generally that parents are over-pushing kids. And that they should sit back and "trust the process". This picture has been circulating from a lot of coaches recently and it compelled me to start this blog rather then having to type out my observ...

By Ryan Lancaster, MWR Founder Michigan runs on innovation. The automobile and Motown are classic examples, but there are also hidden and nuanced instances as well. One of those is the way we train in wrestling. I hope to highlight that fact over the rest of the summer. Our first installment I sat down with Joshua Trader, the founder of the Pictured Rocks Camp in Munising, MI. Trader is the MI-USAW assistant folkstyle director and upper peninsula liaison, and he has found a unique opportunity that blends the beauty the UP with the fun of a wrestling camp. 1. What is your background in the sport? I started wrestling in middle school. I wrestled all through high school. When I was a senior I injured my elbow. In order for me to stay involved in the sport I turned to coaching. I've been coaching in different capacities since 2006. I've coached kids who have never wrestled before to kids who are 4x state champs, nationals Champs, age class world team members and many wre...

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...

Photo Credit: muskegoncc.edu Michigan Wrestling Resource recently caught up with James Tietema for a short interview.  James Tietema is a former college coach and wrestler. He was an All-American (NCAA D2) at the University of Findley, and National Finalist (NJCAA) wrestling at Muskegon CC.  He won a state title for West Ottawa HS in Holland, MI and amassed over 100 falls in his prep career. In other words, he's good so listen up. MWR: You just taught a clinic on Handfighting at Myrmidon Training Systems.  What can you tell us about your experience? What stood out to you about teaching in that environment? James Tietema:  Its a small space so its very personal and you are able to interact with the wrestlers more which lets you have a bigger impact on them learning the technique showed. MWR: How important is the skill of handfighting to the success of a wrestler? Tietema:   The higher level you wrestle the better you need to be at hand fighting. I think ...

Sure, everyone is going away from paper and using Trackwrestling for stats these days. I'm very supportive of the idea as it cuts down on the amount of work involved in compiling and tracking statistics. I also like that we are using less paper products to run tournaments. That said, a lot of coaches still prefer keeping stats on paper and it's always good to have paper on hand as a backup if Trackwrestling goes down or the wireless goes out. One of my assistant coaches from early in my career was an awesome man who had been around wrestling a long time. His name was Vince Trzinski and he knew everyone everywhere we went. He gave me this awesome document to keep track of stats at individual tournaments. Each wrestler had their own sheet and sheets could be traded off by coaches and statisticians when multiple wrestlers were going at a time. Impossible to do with a scorebook, and difficult with tablets unless you have several.  Anyway... Without further ado, here's the downl...