Watch more video of Skyline Super 32 Qualifier (Nside Premier) on flowrestling.org This leads to my coaching friends asking my advice. I tell you what, I've had my bad tournaments in the early going, but things are going pretty well now. It would be fun to write a book on how to run a tournament just to put it out there. Anyhow, here is a response I sent to someone asking for some advice on the initial steps in setting up an offseason dual tournament:
Secure
the facility – does your county have weird restrictions?
Look at your state and surrounding state schedules
and secure a date that doesn’t overlap and the facility is available.
Use
personal relationships to get 2-3 decent teams to commit 100%
Then
advertise the snot out of it, rule of 6 is people need to hear/read something 6
times before they remember it, but it doesn’t have to be big 6 or 8 teams is
good, 12 is plenty, any more than that is Great money but LOTS of work to pull
off.
Ask
your local association for refs first, then nearby groups. Ask
them to NOT ask other associations for help. If they can’t get enough
find them on your own, OR pay college wrestlers to ref they
do pretty good.
Don't be afraid to fire a bad ref, the wrestlers and coaches are your clients and the refs are your employees.
Set it up round robin, with a final cross pool match
This should get you started! Look forward to more tournament advice in future posts.
read the whole article to get the gist but here are the main points: 1. Your degree isn’t a golden ticket. We need to put an end to the “silver spoon complex.” 2. It’s all about experience. The
reason so many college graduates can’t find work is because they lack
experience. 3. Passion will help you succeed. If you’re just looking to get hired anywhere, employers will be able to tell. 4. Companies hire the person who is certain to cause the most positive impact. Before you apply to your next job opening, ask yourself the following: What can you do for the company? 5. Go the extra mile. Success doesn’t come to those who wait.
I'm going to remix their advice to apply to seniors (or juniors) on wrestling teams. Some of you feel like you deserve leadership roles. If you are not being treated the way some past captains were treated here are some things to consider:
1. Your grade or medal isn’t a golden ticket. Put an end to the “silver spoon complex.” You have to earn leadership roles before people will actually follow you and your coach knows this. Simply being a senior does not entitle you to anything on a wrestling team. Ask yourself this, have you voluntarily stepped up as a leader? You've had plenty of opportunities, getting practice started, setting the gym up for tournaments, and showing up at youth practice or camps to give back. Show you deserve to be a leader by being one on your own without being asked.
2. It’s all about experience. Seek out leadership opportunities outside of the wrestling room. If you are reading this and are not yet an upperclassmen start earning that leadership role now. There is an art to getting people to do what they might not want to do and making them want to do it with a positive attitude. When you start voluntarily stepping up your coach can tell if you've lead anything before. Try and find leadership roles in other aspects of your world to build that experience.
3. Passion will help you succeed. Be honest with yourself... do you REALLY care about the success of the team? One of my favorite quotes, "When you squeeze an orange you get orange juice." When you are in a pinch, when the going gets tough, do your actions reflect a teammate that is PASSIONATE about wrestling AND team success. It's not hard for a coach to see whether he says anything about it or not. If you haven't done well here it is easy to change. Start today! Your coach is secretly begging you to make this change and you'll hear feedback pretty quick after you do.
4. Coaches choose a leader who is certain to cause the most positive impact. Before you get upset that coach is not treating you like a captain, ask yourself this: What can you do to impact the team? What specifically can you do to make the TEAM win? You've stepped up as a leader, you've led elsewhere, and you really care... NOW, can you actually make a difference on this team. We are talking about CONFIDENCE and a sense of RESPONSIBILITY for any of last season's team failures. What are you taking responsibility for making better on this team and are you confident you can do it?
5. Go the extra mile. Success doesn’t come to those who wait. You have to give everything you do your all ... even if it means
working late or on the weekends. Some people describe this as paying
your dues, but it’s really just putting in the effort required to make
an impact. When a portion of the people in your life think you are doing TOO MUCH you are on your way. You do not have to give up everything, but you will have to give up some things. Everyone has a priority list whether they realize it or not. Some things are more important than being successful at wrestling. The honest truth is this: The more you prioritize ahead of your wrestling team's success the less likely anyone, including your coach, will look to you to lead the team.
1. Uniform: Agree 100%. Compression tops and fight shorts IMO.
2. More Points: Agree 100%. Coach Schalles is a huge advocate for more points. Me too. But I would go about it another way. In freestyle, limit wrestling on the mat unless a pin is imminent. MMA is proof of that. When those guys get stuck on the ground without action people boo in a hurry. Get them back to their feet immediately after the scoring sequence ends.
3. Black marks: What he wants is to reward pins and lots of points and eliminate those who don't score lots of points. Even eliminate people who win but don't score. Wrestle round robin till you have a champion. Cool idea. How about this win by pin you get 20 points and opponent gets 0. Win by tech fall you get 15 points opponent gets 0. Any other match you get the points you scored and they get the points they scored. win 3-2, you only get 3 points. Lose 12-9 and you still get 9 points. At a certain point deficit (40 points maybe) you are eliminated. Determining what the point deficit for elimination is would be an important task. Once everyone in the weight is eliminated or has wrestled each other the wrestler with the most points gets 1st.
4. Retire periods. Good idea. 1 period matches. If we use my suggestion, than we only need one period. People will view each match in a tournament more as a quarter in football or inning in baseball, rather than the whole game. Corruption would be tougher because every wrestler in the weight class would have to be on the take, there is no one person to pay off.
5. Retire the ball grab. Good idea. Using my idea, if you are eliminated by a total point deficit and you win by total point totals than you can tie a match and it doesn't matter.
6. Retire the push-out. Disagree. It is points. Just make a takedown worth more. It does keep wrestling on the mat and wrestling near the line more exciting.
7. Bring back stalling. Disagree. If we want to battle corruption we can't give that sort of power to the refs. It is also an excuse to not make a real attempt because you are waiting on a stall call. If you win a tournament by most points scored than there is plenty of motivation to run up the score.
8. Move back to 10 weight classes. I'm a big fan of more participation at the younger levels but if Coach Schalles thinks that's what is best internationally I'll go with that. I don't know how that will effect more points and more excitement.
