We need to do a better job of promoting our sport!

• Coach Ramirez

  I know this might ruffle a few feathers but here is my rant. Us coaches need to do a better job of promoting our sport. There has not been any team or individual rankings in the dispatch all year. It is not fair to the kids or the sport. I know we complain about the Dispatch all the time, but they cant print it if it is not reported. They report football, basketball, and baseball stats on a regular basis. The appointed coaches for each district need to get this info to the Dispatch. We as coaches also have to do a better job of reporting results. I know I am guilty as well, sometimes we are not getting out of the gym until around 10pm. We need to delegate someone to make sure results get reported.
  
  Crusier and Penn are doing a great job of promoting our sport with ITC. I love it and watch it every week with the rest of you wrestling junkees. But the general public does not see their work, nor do they probably want to sit through a 20 minute video as opposed to a quick read in the paper. I remember there was a system in place where individual and team rankings were reported in the Dispatch, do we need to go back to that?
  
  Thats All!
• cruiser_96

  

  Great points, coach.
  
  I'll state that a good deal of my frustration came a handful of years back when a similar complaint was raised in the presence of a coaches meeting of some sort. It was made clear that a host of coaches were sending in results but they weren't getting published.
  
  If something is going to change, a few things have to happen...
  
  #1) a sit-down meeting with the sports editor(s). Communication lines must be opened. As it stands now, we blindly submit results to an email address and hope something gets published. We need a point-person from us (the coaches) to them (the newspaper).
  
  #2) is like to know the relationship between the community papers (who seem to do a great deal as far as coverage is concerned) and the Columbus Dispatch. Is there one? Is the Dispatch a parent organization, or is it competitive in nature?
  
  #3) one last point - could be a personal opinion here but - I'd like to see stories about wrestling or wrestlers. Not a side issue (ALL WORTHY) from those who just happen to be involved with wrestling.
  
  Concerning point #3... I'd love to see 12-15 write-ups a season, given every Tuesday throughout the season. One page, two sides (so really two pages), and articles about top teams, top individuals, and upcoming events, to include results from the prior week and weekend, complete with pictures!
  
  Those are my thoughts.
  
  BTW: Penn and I realize the limited scope of our audience. It truly is for those involved. I think what the Dispatch does - and is most effective with - is gettibg the information out to all members of the community - not JUST the wrestling community.
  
  All that to say, I'm down.
• It is what it is

  I know Blackledge is the dispatch contact for most other sports, so he may be the one we need to talk to. Ulrey, from ThisWeekNews, usually covers the sports in the area (Editor is Lee Cochran). Not sure what I can do to help, but I am willing. As a city coach, we are often overlooked in most sports (except basketball), even through our own school district! I fully support any and all efforts to improve the coverage and support of all coaches and student-athletes, especially ours because most don't understand the difficulty/frustration of teaching/coaching in the city.
  
  As the saying goes, "If you're not part of the solution, then you're part of the problem!" : thumbup:
• huntergreen26

  I sent rankings into the Dispatch 3 different times this season and they were never printed, or at least I did not see them.
  
  The very frustrating part for us is that we send results into every paper outlet after every dual and tournament, and we have not had one significant pub in any paper, local or not. We have consistently been the only winter sport in Sunbury to not have our seniors have a picture in the paper on senior day. This season I have not seen a photo, a story, a reporter at a dual, etc. I have expressed my concerns, but to no avail. So, I have basically given up. I send them to Cruiser and his coverage is way better than anything else we get.
• Dust_E_Roads

  I'll give Brian Nicola from Orange a shout-out on this. I think he does a great job promoting the sport and his team and getting results reported.
• 112in84

  

  Great points, I agree so many people complain about the lack of results in the dispatch...Well send them in, if the head coach can't do it have an asst coach , mat stat or knowledgeable parent email the results.
• legman1

  Actually Football coaches need to do a better job of NOT demoting the sport of wrestling. Many (not all) have ego's the size of Ohio and hate to share "their kids" during the winter. Many (not all) think if a kid plays football he owns the rights to him. Schools must have the support of football coaches and without this support its a uphill battle to keep numbers up.
  
  Administrators should monitor football coaches closely and FIRE the ones that refuse to openly support participation of all sports.
• legman1

  Also the dispatch is a dying paper. The Cleveland Plain Dealer and Akron Beacon has always made the Dispatch look pathetic when it comes to covering HS wrestling. Possibly the CDWCA President could communicate with the Dispatch and express the frustration of the coaches and maybe they will be more willing to publish more information?
• It is what it is

  legman1;1706879 wrote:Actually Football coaches need to do a better job of NOT demoting the sport of wrestling. Many (not all) have ego's the size of Ohio and hate to share "their kids" during the winter. Many (not all) think if a kid plays football he owns the rights to him. Schools must have the support of football coaches and without this support its a uphill battle to keep numbers up.
  
  Administrators should monitor football coaches closely and FIRE the ones that refuse to openly support participation of all sports.

  This is a problem, but not isolated to football coaches. I know basketball coaches aren't very supportive during track season and a lot of wrestlers don't play football that should. As a football, wrestling and track coach, I have never understood the philosophy of specialization....it doesn't make an athlete better or more well-rounded and college coaches want to see more involvement in other areas! Numbers are an extreme problem, especially in the city, so student-athletes should support their school in every way possible and coaches should do the same....the problem is we live in a selfish society and more often than not, it's about ME, not WE.....and that does include coaches!! :thumbdown:
• Tony Mead

  i gave up on dispatch, refuse to read it, refuse to buy it, refuse to look at it unless its laying around someplace (o: I focus my attention on where they pay attention to the sport. thisweek sports has been doing a decent job writing a little each week about the teams locally, at least up here they have. ITC is my goto source for central ohio! they care, they go out of their way to gather the results and post them on their page. yappi and the chatter, pretty much everything i need to know on wrestling. the dispatch will have three nice days in march of prints and hopfully some good stuff on logan stieber. even back in our hey day when they ranked every monday and tried to get some stats out there, names were spelled wrong, rankings were flawed and barley even updated on who beat who so screw the dispatch! we have some great rankings on yappi and the itc guys kick butt central ohio.
  
  as for our selfish society. My son is a two sport athlete and represents his school well. when he wanted to do his "wrestling" workout put together by one of the best wrestling trainers in the nation during the open weight room time frames 3x a week by the trained coach that supervises the "open lifting" he was denied and told he could do their "football workout" This baffled my mind and is some of the stupid selfish shyt we have to put up with. I bought a membership at the local gym, train how we want when we want. but if you look around at some of the best wrestlers in central ohio, they know who writes their workouts in the weight room, and some great coaches on here will tell you the same. It is what it is we have no control to better our athletes unless we are selfishly doing it ourselves!
• It is what it is

  Tony Mead;1706918 wrote: as for our selfish society. My son is a two sport athlete and represents his school well. when he wanted to do his "wrestling" workout put together by one of the best wrestling trainers in the nation during the open weight room time frames 3x a week by the trained coach that supervises the "open lifting" he was denied and told he could do their "football workout" This baffled my mind and is some of the stupid selfish shyt we have to put up with. I bought a membership at the local gym, train how we want when we want. but if you look around at some of the best wrestlers in central ohio, they know who writes their workouts in the weight room, and some great coaches on here will tell you the same. It is what it is we have no control to better our athletes unless we are selfishly doing it ourselves!

  That coach was selfish for sure. I'm all for parents being involved, believe me.....we rarely see parents and most aren't involved, and you and your son are definitely good representatives! GL in the post-season!! : thumbup:
• cruiser_96

  

  Tony Mead;1706918 wrote:...
  
  as for our selfish society. My son is a two sport athlete and represents his school well. when he wanted to do his "wrestling" workout put together by one of the best wrestling trainers in the nation during the open weight room time frames 3x a week by the trained coach that supervises the "open lifting" he was denied and told he could do their "football workout" This baffled my mind and is some of the stupid selfish shyt we have to put up with. I bought a membership at the local gym, train how we want when we want. but if you look around at some of the best wrestlers in central ohio, they know who writes their workouts in the weight room, and some great coaches on here will tell you the same. It is what it is we have no control to better our athletes unless we are selfishly doing it ourselves!

  That bolded and underline portion is something else that we coaches need to stress. One of my biggest pet peeves in my school is the fact that there are kids in it who do not know the mascot, school colors, and don't care that they don't know the mascot or school colors. Unreal!
• wraith51

  

  cruiser_96;1706947 wrote:That bolded and underline portion is something else that we coaches need to stress. One of my biggest pet peeves in my school is the fact that there are kids in it who do not know the mascot, school colors, and don't care that they don't know the mascot or school colors. Unreal!

  This! I don't teach and coach at the same schools, I teach at my Alma mater and about flipped my lid when we a guest speaker come to our school, asked who our rival was and not one kid could answer!
• rassler

  Let's not put all the blame on the media. The wrestling community needs to look at some of our own promotional issues. The highlight of our sport is the post season yet we do a horrible job in making it fan friendly. Anybody have any idea when the semi finals start at the Newark sectional? The finals at Upper Arlington? Mom, Dad, and grandma will be there all day but the interested public simply is not interested in watching mismatches in the opening rounds and sitting around all day. When to show up and watch any decent wrestling is a crap shoot at best. Set a start time for the semis and finals and stick to it. Fans will come back but not until they know when to come back.....
• KSU55

  rassler;1706973 wrote:Let's not put all the blame on the media. The wrestling community needs to look at some of our own promotional issues. The highlight of our sport is the post season yet we do a horrible job in making it fan friendly. Anybody have any idea when the semi finals start at the Newark sectional? The finals at Upper Arlington? Mom, Dad, and grandma will be there all day but the interested public simply is not interested in watching mismatches in the opening rounds and sitting around all day. When to show up and watch any decent wrestling is a crap shoot at best. Set a start time for the semis and finals and stick to it. Fans will come back but not until they know when to come back.....

  Amen! As a relative newcomer to the sport, it is not easy to fall in love with it if you did grow up committed to it. There are many things that could be done to promote and make more fan friendly.
• kennypowers

  rassler;1706973 wrote:Let's not put all the blame on the media. The wrestling community needs to look at some of our own promotional issues. The highlight of our sport is the post season yet we do a horrible job in making it fan friendly. Anybody have any idea when the semi finals start at the Newark sectional? The finals at Upper Arlington? Mom, Dad, and grandma will be there all day but the interested public simply is not interested in watching mismatches in the opening rounds and sitting around all day. When to show up and watch any decent wrestling is a crap shoot at best. Set a start time for the semis and finals and stick to it. Fans will come back but not until they know when to come back.....

  Bingo!! I would like to add that clearing the gym for sectionals is asinine. It would cost a mother and father $24 to watch their child wrestle 3-4 matches. There will be weights in the D2 sectional that might be 8 or less kids. Not even figuring in if they have other children to bring.
• rydawg5

  As a casual person who was never really into going to wrestling matches in HS, it was just way too convoluted, confusing, long, and lacked direction. I don't think it's so mch "promoting" than it was what you saw when you get there.
  
  Picture someone coming in, seeing 4-6 random mats with whistles going off and just having no clue of what is going on unless you are specifically trying to root for an individual.
  
  You have some huge limitations unless there is some reformation of what is going on.
  
  I could be completely wrong but this is an observation of someone who went 2 times and never wanted to go back.
• Tony Mead

  rassler;1706973 wrote:Let's not put all the blame on the media. The wrestling community needs to look at some of our own promotional issues. The highlight of our sport is the post season yet we do a horrible job in making it fan friendly. Anybody have any idea when the semi finals start at the Newark sectional? The finals at Upper Arlington? Mom, Dad, and grandma will be there all day but the interested public simply is not interested in watching mismatches in the opening rounds and sitting around all day. When to show up and watch any decent wrestling is a crap shoot at best. Set a start time for the semis and finals and stick to it. Fans will come back but not until they know when to come back.....

  I was just telling my buddy who lives near Newark, finals should be 5-5:30 if you come to early you may have to pay twice, If you come to late you may miss the boy cause he is the first one up. you have valid points, this info should be everywhere, with times, "previews" , possible match ups, team races, we need some PR (o:
• wraith51

  

  Here in lies the problem with setting a semi-final or final time for sectionals and such, last couple of weeks I've read post about how long some of these tournaments last and breaks are too long. Lets say we set finals for 5pm but the sectional was light on numbers and everything is done by 2pm. Now you have to clear the gym bring everyone back in to sit around for another 2hrs, or have them sit around in the lobby/cafeteria/commons area for 2-3hrs waiting. That's a bigger drag than anything. There are some of these locations where there is nothing to do or places to eat within a few mile radius so you pretty are left to just sit and wait. Some may say "why not move the finals time up?" Good point, but if it is printed for 5pm and the casual fan comes at 4:45pm to see the finals and they're already at 152, I'd be pretty pissed so I'm sure the casual fan would be too.
• 80baby

  We are having our Columbus City Schools Wrestling Championships tomorrow. After looking at our entry grid prior to our seeding meeting our tournament director and head scorer along with a little assistance from our coaches came up with a realistic schedule to put out to the public. It just takes a little planning but we can keep everyone informed as to what our tournament schedule will be. Also I commend out Student Activities Department because after listening to some our coaches they decided to charge one price for our tournament and not clear the gym prior to the stat of the finals. I think that keeps the fans there that where there during the early session and brings more fans out to watch the semis and stay over for the finals. Our sport is all about the kids first and the fans that watch and support them.
• KSU55

  wraith51;1706996 wrote:Here in lies the problem with setting a semi-final or final time for sectionals and such, last couple of weeks I've read post about how long some of these tournaments last and breaks are too long. Lets say we set finals for 5pm but the sectional was light on numbers and everything is done by 2pm. Now you have to clear the gym bring everyone back in to sit around for another 2hrs, or have them sit around in the lobby/cafeteria/commons area for 2-3hrs waiting. That's a bigger drag than anything. There are some of these locations where there is nothing to do or places to eat within a few mile radius so you pretty are left to just sit and wait. Some may say "why not move the finals time up?" Good point, but if it is printed for 5pm and the casual fan comes at 4:45pm to see the finals and they're already at 152, I'd be pretty pissed so I'm sure the casual fan would be too.

  Per previous posts, this is not a newspaper problem. The Dispatch will report a hop scotch game if the readers are there....it is a business. Wrestling needs to expand its fan base. It is possible to improve the fan experience without compromising the integrity of the sport. Some items to think about:
  
  -length and timing of tournaments. Already pointed out in this thread.
  -fan friendliness in duals and tournaments. Even in duals, the variance in how they are conducted is maddening. Starting at different weights, no idea who is wrestling who, is this a mismatch or a marque match? How about announcing that the last match earned 5 team points instead of 3 because? In basketball, I can figure out what is happening as a lay person. One needs a wresting PHD to understand why team XYZ is in 1st place in a bracket tourney or why they won 32-29 in this dual. Don't change the rules just go out of the way to make it easier to follow.
  
  More will watch, more will follow, more will promote , grow the sport. Evolve or die.
• wraith51

  

  KSU55;1707011 wrote:Per previous posts, this is not a newspaper problem. The Dispatch will report a hop scotch game if the readers are there....it is a business. Wrestling needs to expand its fan base. It is possible to improve the fan experience without compromising the integrity of the sport. Some items to think about:
  
  -length and timing of tournaments. Already pointed out in this thread.
  -fan friendliness in duals and tournaments. Even in duals, the variance in how they are conducted is maddening. Starting at different weights, no idea who is wrestling who, is this a mismatch or a marque match? How about announcing that the last match earned 5 team points instead of 3 because? In basketball, I can figure out what is happening as a lay person. One needs a wresting PHD to understand why team XYZ is in 1st place in a bracket tourney or why they won 32-29 in this dual. Don't change the rules just go out of the way to make it easier to follow.
  
  More will watch, more will follow, more will promote , grow the sport. Evolve or die.

  I like the fan friendly environment for duals, what's hard is during the double dual situation it can be hard to follow for the casual fan if there is no vested interest. We had a true dual this year with just us and one other team and we hired an announcer who announced match ups, records of each kid and their grade before the match. In the individual matches he would announce the points scored and how (ex. "That's two points for the takedown), and would announce team score and why the team got 6 for their win vs us getting 4. He didn't go into detail as to the why just the quick "4 pts for the major decision."
  
  That made it fun, but in this age of getting more matches not too many teams are willing to do just a 1 vs 1 dual. And fyi those results were reported to the dispatch and never printed.
• KSU55

  wraith51;1707051 wrote:I like the fan friendly environment for duals, what's hard is during the double dual situation it can be hard to follow for the casual fan if there is no vested interest. We had a true dual this year with just us and one other team and we hired an announcer who announced match ups, records of each kid and their grade before the match. In the individual matches he would announce the points scored and how (ex. "That's two points for the takedown), and would announce team score and why the team got 6 for their win vs us getting 4. He didn't go into detail as to the why just the quick "4 pts for the major decision."
  
  That made it fun, but in this age of getting more matches not too many teams are willing to do just a 1 vs 1 dual. And fyi those results were reported to the dispatch and never printed.

  Exactly! It is more difficult in a quad and impossible in a tourney, but start with the duals. Tell people what weight we are at, who is wrestling, why might I want to pay attention to this match and help me understand a few things along the way. Make me want to come back because I understand what I am watching. I don't like cricket because I don't know how the game works and it makes me feel stupid to watch it. I don't like to feel stupid. There is a problem when somebody who understands the sport still can't tell how kid won 2-1 because he missed the penalty point while he looked down to take a sip of his diet coke. Can you imagine calling back a touchdown and walking off 10 yards and NOT telling the fans why? More than any sport I know, wrestling conducts itself through the prism of the competitor and not through the eyes of the observer. Growth will not come from more published articles or results, but needs to be an organic effort to make it more compelling to those normal people that don't read forums like this or watch Cruiser and Sean on Monday mornings.
  
  That said, you still can't beat it.
• Blast82.5

  There is a never-ending conversation about how to encourage more action into the sport (especially at the college level where riding time creates a disincentive for action) ... the idea always being to promote the sport to the "non-wrestling" public.
  
  People come up with all sorts of ideas, but IMO, any changes made must be in the direction of making the sport and its scoring easier to understand. Convoluted rules about how a takedown differs between when it finishes in-bounds vs. out-of-bounds do not help the sport. Different team points for tech falls depending on whether near-fall points were scored or not, do not help the sport. "Locking Hands" calls when a guy's hands brush by each other, or when the bottom man stands up and suddenly drops to one knee for a split-second, do not help the sport.
  
  The preponderance of the world's culture-specific wrestling styles are "takedown only" styles (think Sumo) ... get the other guy to the ground or push him out of the ring and you win. I'm not necessarily advocating scrapping folkstyle wrestling for Sumo or the like ...
  
  But when it comes to changes that would make the sport more appealing to the masses, clearly the movement must be toward action and simplification of scoring.
• rassler

  wraith51;1706996 wrote:Here in lies the problem with setting a semi-final or final time for sectionals and such, last couple of weeks I've read post about how long some of these tournaments last and breaks are too long. Lets say we set finals for 5pm but the sectional was light on numbers and everything is done by 2pm. Now you have to clear the gym bring everyone back in to sit around for another 2hrs, or have them sit around in the lobby/cafeteria/commons area for 2-3hrs waiting. That's a bigger drag than anything. There are some of these locations where there is nothing to do or places to eat within a few mile radius so you pretty are left to just sit and wait. Some may say "why not move the finals time up?" Good point, but if it is printed for 5pm and the casual fan comes at 4:45pm to see the finals and they're already at 152, I'd be pretty pissed so I'm sure the casual fan would be too.

  Blame the length of tournaments on silly pool formats and lack of organization, not lack of set times. Pools tournaments have RUINED the fan experience. Nothing can be followed. In the end, all the pool format does is pad the records of the better kids and the lesser kids just end up getting hammered another round. It also makes it more difficult to accurately predict when the semi finals or finals will begin.
  
  Set the finals for 5pm. Who cares if you finish the semis at 2pm? Take your team out for a team bonding dinner between sessions like we used to do when tournaments were organized and fans were in the stands. Parents/relatives can also plan accordingly. Can you image the uproar if they announced the Darby finals will start after the semis somewhere between 2pm-5pm? Let's at least give the general public a chance to support the sport.
  
  PS The WPIAL semis were at 11:30 this morning and the finals will be at 7pm. No doubt the gym will be packed for both sessions.