Promoting Your High School Wrestling Match
By: Kerry Johnson
High school wrestling is a unique spectator sport, it seems that
once you understand wrestling, you’re hooked. A difficulty that many
schools face is the casual high school student or fan that doesn’t
understand wrestling and can’t appreciate what is going on. At
Waukesha South High School we have tried to add some excitement to
the dual meet in order to make it a fun experience for the fans and
athletes.
As the fans come into the field house Blackie Blackshirt, our
mascot, greets them and we hand them a program that includes both of
the teams lineups and a page with a brief explanation on how a
wrestling match is scored. While the teams are warming up and the
fans are waiting for the competition to begin, we have music playing
along with a PowerPoint display that contains still pictures of
wrestling action from previous events.
This past season we added a few other visual effects to help the
casual fan have more fun at our meets. To start with my 6th grade
son, who is a big ham by nature, dressed up in our Blackie mascot
suit to entertain the crowd during the JV match and at the beginning
of the Varsity match. If you’re planning on getting someone to dress
up as your mascot, you need someone who is not afraid to act a
little silly. He would walk around and high-five the young kids,
students, and parents. He would give hugs to the moms and little
kids. He even patted the referee on the head as he was waiting to
start the Varsity match.
To help fans recognize our wrestlers I made another PowerPoint
presentation with the help of our photographer. Using a large white
tarp and a front projector we displayed a picture up on the screen
of the South athlete who was wrestling during each Varsity match.
With the technology that is available today it is not difficult to
project a large, clear image of the wrestler. The parents of the
wrestlers enjoy seeing their son’s picture in front of the crowd.
Also, during introductions, a student advanced the PowerPoint so
each wrestler being introduced has his photo on the big screen at
that time as well. On senior night, we ran a special slide show
before the match that included baby pictures and grade school photos
of our graduating wrestlers.
With the help of my wife, Linda, and our night custodian Dale (who
helps us during his dinner break), we make the introductions of the
wrestlers a special moment. With most of the lights in the field
house off and the music blasting we shine a spotlight from the
balcony onto the middle of the wrestling mat. Blackie gets the crowd
ready while my wife moves the spotlight around the field house and
the wrestlers run onto the mat. We place the spotlight at center mat
during the introductions and to cap it off we have a South student
sing the National Anthem. Lisa does an exceptional job of singing,
and a live version of the National Anthem is so much better than a
CD. While she is singing, my wife keeps the spotlight on the
American flag and the custodian turns on the field house lights. As
the lights slowly start to brighten, the anthem is almost finished
and the crowd is energized for wrestling to begin.
The final touch that we put on the matches is the playing of music
in between the matches. Everything from hard rock to TV show theme
songs is fair game. One of our opponents still talks to his coach
about how fun he thought it was to come out onto the mat with the
theme song from Charlie Brown playing. During nose bleed timeouts we
play the Jeopardy song and I have even taken requests from the
crowd. I was talking to a parent and he said his favorite TV show
while growing up was The Munsters. I was able to play the song a few
matches later after I found it on a CD I have titled TV Show Theme
Songs.
The last thing we do to promote the sport of wrestling at our school
could not be done without the help of our very generous parents.
Upon the completion of every home dual meet we feed our wrestlers.
We have water, fruit, snacks and even pizza to show our fans how
much we appreciate the hard work and dedication that wrestlers need
to have in order to make the sport one of the most exciting to
watch.
Our head coach Ryan Green understands that in order to build the
program and the sport of wrestling he needs the help and support of
his wrestling parents. And our parents are some of the hardest
working adults that you could ask for. They are always willing to
help in any way possible, and because of all the time invested what
has developed is a group of close-knit parents and wrestlers.
As you can see it takes a lot of people to create this exciting
atmosphere. You can’t ask just one person, or the coaching staff to
do it all. But with the help of my wife, son, the wrestling parents,
and the administration and staff of Waukesha South High School we
succeed in making the night an enjoyable experience for everyone.
|