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Got
Money?
(1/8/03)
In today's wrestling world wrestlers are being more and more pressured to go to more tournaments and get more involved. After all the best way to get better at wrestling is to wrestle as much as you can. There are tournaments on Friday nights, Saturdays and even Sundays. After the folkstyle season is over wrestlers are encouraged to participate in Greco-roman and freestyle wrestling. In order to be great at wrestling you have to have money.
I recently read through the latest Crossface magazine and could not believe the advertisements for all the youth tournaments. I'm glad to see that there are so many options for tournaments but was outraged at the cost for some of them. The average cost for a youth tournament was $8.00. Some tournaments were over $10.00. I know some people are saying, What's ten dollars? Well if you are like some of the kids I know, you can go up to ten tournaments if not more and now that ten dollars is up to one hundred dollars. Part of the reason these tournaments are getting so expensive is because they are handing out trophies. Kids don't need trophies for a youth tournament. High school wrestlers that win state don't even get a trophy, why should kids that win a youth tournament get a trophy. In my opinion I would rather get a medal than a trophy. A perfect example of this is the Olympics. Do they hand out trophies or medals? Another reason that these tournaments are so expensive is because these tournaments are fund-raisers for their wrestling clubs. The same wrestling clubs that complain about other tournaments being so expensive are the ones that charge $10.00 for their tournaments and give out trophies for finishing first through fourth place. It wasn't to long ago that you could go to a tournament for $5.00.
If tournaments are going to charge so much, at least give the wrestlers more than three matches. We should be more concerned about our wrestlers getting better than making money for our wrestling clubs. We should also be more concerned about our wrestlers getting better than what they are going to get if they win their chart. Why do they always have to have four man round robin charts? Why not have a five or six man round robin charts? Some kids only get two matches with a four man round robin chart because tournament organizers will throw in a bye here and there. That means they are paying around five dollars for a match. That is outrageous.
As I said before, after the folkstyle season is over, wrestlers are encouraged to participate in greco-roman and freestyle wrestling. I love greco-roman and freestyle wrestling but I will be the first to say how expensive it is. In order to participate in any USA Wrestling sponsored event you have to purchase a USA participation card, which is about $30.00. Then if you want to go to state for greco-roman and freestyle then you better be willing to pay about $40.00. If you succeed at these tournaments and want to be on the Wisconsin National team get ready to pay some more money, like $250.00 more. I think that if it is going to be that expensive, we should have more paid coaches at the state level. Now don't get me wrong, I am one of the biggest supporters of USA wrestling. I just wish we could find a way to make it cheaper for wrestlers to participate. I think all age groups should follow what the junior division is doing this year and make it cheaper for wrestlers that attend both the national duals and individual nationals.
After the tournaments are all said and done if you want to get better you might want to think about going to a camp or two in the summer, but you might want to make sure you have some money because chances are you will be paying over one hundred dollars. If camps are going to charge so much to attend, they should at least include a videotape of the instruction. There is no way a wrestler could retain all the technique that is thrown their way during a camp.
As you can tell I have a problem with the ways we are making profits off of our wrestlers. If your going to charge so much for entries at least give them more for their buck. Lets start turning the focus away from money and more towards improving our wrestlers.
John Elmer
For
Wiwrestling.com
Written for WIwrestling.com by Freelance
Columnist John Elmer
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