Sad times
Anyone who made their way to Trinity High School's gymnasium Wednesday night saw one of the most lopsided and disappointing dual meets in the Hillers long rivalry with Canon-McMillan. Trinity forfeited four weight classes and were spanked 51-15. The program is struggling and you can't help but feel sorry for head coach Jeff Bricker and his staff. They are finding it hard to win when athletes don't come out. And last night's snow storm can't be totally blamed for the poor crowd of about 200. They know what's going on.
It's not just Trinity. McGuffey was not competitive against Waynesburg, losing 62-9 in one of the most lopsided battles between these two teams. The Highlanders also forfeited four weight classes. One of the area's Class AA powers – West Greene – forfeited five weight classes in a 49-15 loss to Bentworth.
The lone bright spot was in McDonald, where Fort Cherry pulled out a remarkable win over Burgettstown to qualify for the section tournament and knock South Side Beaver out.
Wrestling in this area might be at an all-time low, mainly because these traditionally strong teams are suffering so badly. Each year, it seems to get a little worse. One spectator at the Trinity-Canon-McMillan match told me he felt that wrestling could be a club sport in 10 years.
As hard as that is to believe, he might just be right.
It's not just Trinity. McGuffey was not competitive against Waynesburg, losing 62-9 in one of the most lopsided battles between these two teams. The Highlanders also forfeited four weight classes. One of the area's Class AA powers – West Greene – forfeited five weight classes in a 49-15 loss to Bentworth.
The lone bright spot was in McDonald, where Fort Cherry pulled out a remarkable win over Burgettstown to qualify for the section tournament and knock South Side Beaver out.
Wrestling in this area might be at an all-time low, mainly because these traditionally strong teams are suffering so badly. Each year, it seems to get a little worse. One spectator at the Trinity-Canon-McMillan match told me he felt that wrestling could be a club sport in 10 years.
As hard as that is to believe, he might just be right.
posted by Joe Tuscano at
5:07 PM
12 Comments:
It is a sad day for area wrestling. As a junior high coach, I am not seeing the numbers come up from the youth programs. Over the last 2 season I have got a total of 5 wrestlers with any youth wrestling experience (of those 2 with more than 2 years). It is very hard to build a program with wrestlers who start in 7th grade. It is even more difficult to keep those wrestlers interested when they are getting beat by much more experienced kids.
Kids now have a lot more choices then even I did in the mid 90s. Besides for basketball, boys choose video games, indoor soccer, hockey, lacrose, jobs (to pay for cars and cell phones, and the internet over working hard at wrestling practice.
It all starts with the parents. A good parent of a young boy will make there child do a sport. Most parents that I come across let there son chose to do nothing. Thats why the childhood obesity rates in this country are out if control. Letting your child inside all day and play video games year round, while there 30 pounds overweight, IS CHILD ABUSE.
If wrestling becomes a club sport it will be due to budget crisis and defunding of public school sponsored sports, and nothing to do with participation.
Make your child do a sport? I think not. Too many parents now are living vicariously through their kids. It's easy to spot a wrestler that is doing it for dad and doesn't have it in is heart. I take my 10 yr old to most every match. I ask every year if he wants to wrestle. It's his choice. I want him to do it but he has to want to do it.
Joe, you wonder why people are always sour about you reporting how sad wrestling is these days. Why not save this post for a slow day? The Tri County Tournament is this weekend and I would much rather read about your predicitions or wrestlers to watch. I appreciate how well you cover the sport.
Thank you
Sour might not be the right word. But the reason the post is up now is because the match was Wednesday. It's timely. Do you really care about reading how much trouble the sport is in in April?
No, I wouldn't care in April.
Coverage of the Middle School teams and the Elementary teams might help this sport. No. It might not be a big seller, but I remember seeing my picture in the paper as a 5th and 6th grader and loving it. High School is not where this sport begins. Stuff like that is what this newspaper could try to do to save this sport. Other than that, I would argue that schools like Quest, while they keep wrestlers in the sport year round, actually hurt the sport. Yes they might produce great wrestlers, but who will go out for a team while getting crushed by one kid on the team. I am a firm believer that the team should be developed together as a team and not as an individual. It also does not help having a reporter constanly report about how bad the sport is. I always knew Joe as the wrestling reporter in SW PA. Who the hell is,Bob Spiller? And why would we care what he has to say? I know Joe to be a realist and report it as he is. This Bob seems more like a Basketball or Football report who would like wrestling to die in the are because it has dominated for so long.
It is sad that the sport has faced hard times in this area. Trinity and McGuffey are down due to drops in student enrollement. Trinity now graduates a class of 250 McGuffey 200 and Canon Mac almost 350! This is creating a large disparity in the number of kids who they can drw into their programs.
Also, the wrestling matches of today need to get back to their roots in the rules. Start a match with the lower weights and progress to the Hwt. Wiegh in only 2 persons per weight class. The wrestling committee of the WPIAL headed by Frank Vulcano have gamed the rules to allow for way too much strategy among the coaches to be employed. Strap your headgear on and send our your best kid at that weight class. The match strategy for the coaches may be more fun, but there is less people in the stands to wathc it.
Joe, please mention that the role the rule changes have may have played in the sports dimise.
It's not the rules and it's not the enrollment at any of those schools mentioned above. It's a combination of many factors but mainly it's just a sign of the times. It will never get any better. Unfortunately, wrestling has seen its "heyday". Luckily, I got to see it from about 1961 until about 2001-2002. It has gone steadily downhill since then and there is no return IMO.
everything goes in cycles, whos to say that in the next 10 or 20 years wrestling returns to where it was. You can't stay on top forever sometimes you slide back, but with people who truly love and know the sport getting involved it can make a come back
I think it starts with coaching.If you can,t excite your base,you have nothing.I wrestled for
Joe Shook back in the 60,s.The wrestling room was still full at the end of the season.It breaks my heart the program has sunk so low.O yes,Canon-McMillan was tuff then too.
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home