1. Joe Hulen
AP Literature
3rd Period
Ms. Tillery
Senior Project: Youth Wrestling
Youth wrestling is the catalyst, through its teaching, participating, and
progression, for the advancement of wrestling in the nation. The concepts taught at
the beginning of a person’s wrestling career carry through all their years of
participation. Opportunities for young wrestlers can encourage further interest in the
sport of wrestling. With the teaching and participation increases in wrestling there
should be increase also in the nation’s wrestling competition internationally.
To begin with, wrestling is considered one of the most technique driven sports
in the world, so the first teachings of a young wrestler can instill good or bad habits.
The sport of wrestling is “based on self-discipline, hard work, skill, and
determination”(Desmaris 2). While at a young age, coaches try to influence youth
wrestlers to work as hard as they can during practice. Wrestlers are to do what the
coaches say and in the time they say to do it. This coaching creates a child’s
self-discipline and hard work. Many people may believe that pushing a child at too
young of an age can deters the child from the sport , this is also known as a child
becoming “burnt-out“ of the sport, but that’s why wrestling enthusiast like Michael
Bonora suggest that “no learning will ever take place if your son or daughter is not
having fun at that level of the sport”. So to combat this fear of losing kids, many
coaches like to reward their young wresters with games that may or may not actually

2. help the children with basic concepts of wrestling or conditioning.
Once a child starts to realize that wrestling is fun, he or she is more likely to
become more interested in learning how to better him or herself with technique.
With this new technique, there can be more complex concepts of wrestling taught as a
child is growing through wrestling programs. Wrestling is a sport where everything
builds off another thing, one move transfers into the next and so on. This technique
taught by coaches around the nation is what can make an average wrestler a great
wrestler. Technique concepts are not usually taught to children in depth at this level,
however, it is beneficial for a youth coach to start introducing the techniques to the
wrestlers. In equal importance, it is potent for a coach to teach wrestlers “skills,
fitness, fair play, and values” o the sport of wrestling (Coaching 58). A coach is to
instill the techniques and physical conditioning needed to wrestle, however, the coach
is also to implement the role of sportsmanship with in a young wrestler. These values
include how a wrestler carries himself before, during and after a wrestling match. A
common courtesy in wrestling that every young respectful wrestler should learn is to
shake hands with his opponent before and after the match along with shaking the
opponent’s coach’s hand. This tradition keeps the image of a wrestler positive as long
as the tradition continues. After practicing the techniques of wrestling and learning
the values and sportsmanship of wrestling, a child may want to start participating in
actual tournaments.
The process of starting competition in wrestling is one of many different
situations that may occur depending on how well a child is doing is his or her own
mind. For a beginning wrestler, there will be many hard losses. In this part of a

3. wrestler’s career, there maybe a phase in which Jason Christenson calls “the
“burn-out” effect that comes with overworking”(Maloney 1). Many times once a
child stops having fun on the mat, he or she my try and work harder on their skills,
but if they see a lack of improvement in their own eyes, they become very
discouraged and lose interest. In this time many people leave the sport of wrestling to
see what that person is better at.
In turn, to discourage this notion of low confidence wrestlers who are younger,
Beginner’s tournaments were invented. These tournaments “provide a venue for first
and second year wrestlers to compete against other wrestlers with similar years of
experience. To give them an opportunity to succeed, keep them interested in
wrestling, and grow the sport”(Team GA Beginner Tournament Standards 1). Before
Beginners tournaments were introduced in the state of Georgia, new and
inexperienced wrestlers, under the age of fourteen, would go to youth tournaments
and be placed in brackets containing other wrestlers who could have many more years
of wrestling experience. So in theory, a thirteen year old wrestler, who has never
wrestled a match in his life, might have to wrestle against another thirteen year old
wrestler with eight years of experience on the mat. A loss to the less weathered
wrestler is bound to occur in most cases. Instead of letting this continue, and “leaving
the sport after one or two years due to an initial lack of success…competing against
much more experienced wrestlers week after week”, Beginners tournaments where
brought forth to “allow them to build confidence by wrestling kids with the same
level of experience” (Team GA Beginner Tournament Standards 1). This mission
statement for Beginners tournaments is the reason the sport of wrestling is growing

4. in the younger ages around the nation. Allowing wrestlers of the same experience
eliminates may uneven matches that occur at a lot of tournaments.
A Childs first tournament may in tell many emotions for the wrestler. Once at
the tournaments some inexperienced wrestlers may become nervous, in which they
need their coach to “go over strategies with the entire team and individuals and
remind the wrestlers to use solid techniques used in practice”(How to Coach Youth
Wrestling). This reassurance provided by the coach can calm down a wrestler about to
participate in their first match. Many coaches do this by making “wrestlers perform a
moderate warm-up activity” that involves the drills included in a normal wrestling
practice (Safety and Fitness). Wrestling, in either drills or live situations, before a
match gives the wrestler one last chance to hone their skills before a match.