Sorry, it’s been a while since my last, but I’ve been tied up expanding a couple of articles on Wikipedia as of late, and I’ve really been eating up a lot of time trying to polish everything up so they look nice, while at the same time, learning the intricacies of the online encyclopedia.
Now I direct your attention to a very deep, intelligent discussion at Wisconsin Wrestling Online regarding the future of collegiate wrestling not only in Wisconsin, but for the nation as a whole.
And what is happening in collegiate wrestling can also apply to many other sports across the board. 40 or more years ago, anyone could walk into the wrestling room/practice mat and start wrestling at ANY age – no experience necessary, no minimum high school success requirements, no nothing. Remember, I’m talking about COLLEGE here.
Unfortunately, as with other sports such as soccer, baseball, or basketball, kids now start training for their sport at such a young age it’s mind-blowing to say the least – some as young as 3 or 4 years old. With the explosion of youth sports in the 1990s – notably soccer, but also not limited to other sports like football or wrestling – the college sports scene, wrestling in particular, consists mostly these athletes with 15 or so years of experience in a particular sport, normally dating back to when they barely started kindergarten! This helps shut the door to those who may, for instance, just started a sport in high school but want to stick with it in college or even to those who want to explore new sports. It seems that nowadays that it is a requirement that you have approximately 10 years or more experience in a competitive sport to be able to compete in college. I think that’s wrong.
The over-obsessive parents do not help any, especially when they view their sons’/daughters’ successes in a sport as a symbol of masculine domination, a condition in which parents can hedge their own shortcomings and/or basic insecurities. They are ultimately the ones who perpetuate the college sports scene we now see.
Over-obsessive parents aside, this conversation also mentions the obvious lack of fanbases and fan participation for collegiate wrestling teams. This is interesting, considering that almost any crowd for any given high school wrestling meet is larger and more involved than any college wrestling crowd, at least in Wisconsin, with the possible exception of the Wisconsin Badgers wrestling team. Again, we can place some blame on the over-obsessive parents along with some additional certain greedy tendencies. Most wrestling fans obsess over the high school scene and pay absolutely no attention whatsoever to the college scene. Nothing could be more detrimental to a sport than the wrong placement of priorities, more detrimental to Title IX or “budget problems.”
If you don’t believe me, ask some high school wrestling programs that are so longer successful because the parents of those inner circles of those programs quit altogether once their last son or sons finished high school. It’s not only the parents, but also those wrestling programs who also become, in a way, “empty nesters.” And considering that most parents just drop their kids off to college with the “see you in four years unless the university calls us because you got too drunk and wound up in detox” mentality, they wouldn’t give two poo-poos about their college wrestling team.
I’m not done, yet, either. The Wisconsin wrestling team last had their final home dual wrestling meet last year against an always-tough Northwestern wrestling team. This was on the same day as the first day of the Wisconsin high school state wrestling tournament, also in Madison. So obviously, the UW Field House was jam-packed, mostly with high school wrestling fans; in my opinion, most of them seemed like they were dragged there by the hair to watch it. They didn’t cheer when most other fans who go watch these meets normally do. Some seemed confounded with the slightly different rules they have in college compared to high school. They only started to get loud and crazy close to the end of the meet, because it was such a close and exciting meet to watch (probably one of the best college wrestling meets I have ever watched). I give the same reason for this difference in cheering: they obsess way too much over the high school scene that they pay zero attention to the college scene.
This is at least my take as to why I think collegiate wrestling is hurting to much, but the forum conversation also gives some very viable insights which also cannot be ignored. If you care about wrestling and have about an hour of free time to spare, head over to that forum thread. It’s a very good read.
Tags: college, fan, fanbase, high school, parents, wikipedia, Wrestling
