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Youth Wrestling Catching On
Last updated Wednesday, December 26, 2007 8:54 PM CST in Prep Sports
By Brandon Harris
Special To The Morning News
SPRINGDALE-Wrestling finally has a place in Arkansas high school sports. Now the goal is to make it competitive with other states.
Most of Arkansas high school wrestlers will have been wrestling for only a handful of years when the Arkansas Activities Association gives prep wrestling its sanction at the beginning of the 2008-09 academic year. But when Arkansas schools go up against schools from nearby wrestling powerhouses Missouri and Oklahoma, they’ll be at a distinct disadvantage.
Wrestling, just like any sport, relies on development at the youth level where kids can learn and practice basic skills, setting them up to learn more advanced and complex skills when they become older.
In Arkansas, where prep wrestling is just now catching on, youth wrestling is emerging as well. Seven programs exist across the state — Bentonville, Springdale, Fayetteville, Rogers, Russellville, Bismarck and Little Rock — with others soon to join.
“It’s grown phenomenally,” said Tom Mulcahy, coach for the Rogers youth wrestling program. “In the first year of youth wrestling in Northwest Arkansas, we probably had 30 kids in the entire area. Now we’ve got four programs in Fayetteville, Bentonville, Rogers and Springdale, and almost all have 50 kids.”
The programs accept boys and girls of all ages as long as they’re in school. They typically practice twice a week and go to tournaments on most weekends during the wrestling season, which runs from November to March. They focus on several of the wrestling basics, Mulcahy said, like pins and takedowns.
“Wrestling is one of these sports where you really have to do it for a long time to be good at it,” said Gerry Kirk coach of the Springdale youth wrestling program. “I started in fifth grade, and I started probably four years too late.
“Fortunately, we’re usually wrestling against other kids in the state who have all wrestled the same. But when they go up against kids across the board, they get hammered because they’re wrestling kids who have been wrestling for 10 years and they’re only in the 10th grade.”
Three of the four Northwest Arkansas cities with youth programs are coached by the high school coach. Kirk coaches for Springdale High and Springdale Har-Ber, Tony Travis for Fayetteville and Bill Desler for Bentonville.
“There’s a reason why you call them feeder programs,” said Don Schuler, vice president of the Arkansas Wrestling Association, which currently governs the sport. “The reason we can’t go out and compete with Oklahoma and Missouri is because their kids have been wrestling since they were 5 years old.”
The youth programs are a part of the next step in building wrestling in Arkansas, Schuler said.
“Our big goal now is to maintain the 40 high schools that we have with programs,” he said. “Our vision has shifted now from the recruiting aspect to retaining schools, and youth programs will be the key. If we don’t get youth programs and build them up, we’re not going to succeed.”
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