The NWCA Board of Directors has been very aggressive in three primary areas that we believe will have the greatest impact on saving and/or growing wrestling at all levels: coaching development, student-athlete welfare, and promotion of our sport. Generally speaking, most of our tools and resources are delivered through the coach.
Over the past 4-5 years, we have been collaborating with many high level university administrators, elite coaches, businessmen, and the scholastic/collegiate governing bodies to develop and implement the specific strategies outlined below.
Coaching Development
Nobody plays a more important role in securing the future of wrestling than the head coach. Successful coaches today must have strong CEO skills (marketing, fundraising, relationship building, organization, etc.). Listed below are some specific examples of mission critical NWCA programs and services uniquely designed to help the coach become a more proficient mentor-coach:
College Coaches
· Invested 400,000 to develop a one of a kind College Coaches Leadership Academy - the content has been developed by some of our nation's top coaches, athletic administrators and CEOs (with wrestling backgrounds).
· Through the generosity of several benefactors, the NWCA is committed to providing full scholarships (airfare, lodging, tuition, etc.) for every head college coach and selected assistant coaches to attend the Leadership Academy.
· Improve Eligibility and Graduation rates of Wrestlers - The NCAA has recently developed several initiatives designed to measure each college team’s eligibility and graduation rates. NWCA is more committed than ever to improving our sport's position on the rating ladder. The NWCA has retained the consulting services of nationally renowned academic expert, Mark Gumble and a team of colleagues from the National Association of Athletic Academic Advisors (N4A) to work directly with the coaches of our most threatened teams. For the 2nd straight year, wrestling had the 2nd best improvement of any sport...our strategy is working.
· Developed a standard code of operating procedure manual to assist all college coaches with the administration of their programs.
Scholastic level
· Recently completed an online course in collaboration with the NFHS titled “Fundamentals of Coaching Wrestling (uniquely designed for the novice middle school and high school coach).
· Collaborated with our nation’s top high school coaches to release an online course designed to improve the recruitment and retention of wrestlers, ages 6 and above.
· Released an online course designed to reduce risk in coaching wrestlers.
· Developed a Standard Code of Operating Procedure manual to assist scholastic coaches with the administration of their programs.
All totaled, the NWCA will have allocated over $200,000 toward the development and delivery of the above-mentioned youth, middle school, and high school initiatives.
Student-Wrestler Welfare
· Weight Management Reform- historically, unhealthy wt. loss has plagued amateur wrestling and has routinely been the number one objection that parents and students cite for not wanting to participate in wrestling. In fact, between 1975 and 1998, high school participation in fell by nearly 130,000 in large part, due to the wt. loss aspect of our sport. Since the implementation of the national weight management program, high school participation has grown by nearly 40,000.
· Skin Infection: The NWCA, in collaboration with Fresh Health, LLC, secured a $150,000 grant to develop to develop/deliver a 25 minute webinar that has been made available for FREE to all 50 state high school activity associations. Over 7 million high school athletes in all sports now have free and unrestricted access to our educational video. We are getting ready to release a companion video for the healthcare provider
· Sports Medicine Committee - The NWCA is convening a sports medicine committee to investigate the growing incidence of overuse type injuries in wrestling.
· Sports Safety Website: NWCA has developed a comprehensive section of its website dedicated to sports safety including sections on mat safety, concussion awareness and skin infection prevention.
· Sports Nutrition: Developed a comprehensive nutrition program for wrestlers to create a diet plan that honors their weight loss goals. In addition, a wide range of nutrition resources and guides to help any coach or athlete.
· Youth Tournament Software Program – in collaboration with the Princeton Area Wrestling Society, the NWCA has developed an innovative youth wrestling tournament software program that more carefully groups young novice wrestlers according to age, weight, and ability.
Promotion of Wrestling.
· The NWCA has made available, for FREE, to all media and fans, comprehensive team and individual wrestler statistics. The end result will be unprecedented statistical data on teams and individual wrestlers that will be available to the media and spectators this upcoming year.
· Development of a live time scorebook to provide live time results to the fans.
· The NWCA allocates a significant amount of resources each year to nationally televise the All Star Classic and National Duals.
· Developed a comprehensive resource section of its website dedicated to growing wrestling.
Other Initiatives
· The NWCA staff maintains regular communication with entire conferences and/or individual schools that are interested in adding wrestling (particularly D-II, III, NAIA enrollment conscious schools).
· We are currently working with a sponsor who has agreed to purchase a wrestling mat for every college in a specific conference that adds wrestling.
· Working with lobbying and public relations firms to help secure the future of several threatened California College Wrestling programs.
· Hosting summits with CEO and College Coaches to help secure wrestling with short and long term goals
· Every October, we mail a letter of support to every college President and Athletic Director thanking those that currently sponsor wrestling and asking those that don't consider doing so for a laundry list of reasons.
· Investigating the need to add women's wrestling as a NCAA emerging sport
· We currently sponsor a National Dual Meet Championship for eight NAIA women’s teams that would otherwise not have a national championship to participate in (the NCAA currently does not recognize women’s wrestling as a championships sport).
In summary, no one organization can save or grow amateur wrestling by itself. Instead, the NWCA is committed to working with many other entities that have expertise in different areas such as wrestling publications, wrestling websites, and collegiate/scholastic governing bodies. The working relationship between all of these entities has never been better and together, we are sure there is a bright future for amateur wrestling.
For more information visit http://www.nwcaonline.com/nwcawebsite/savingwrestlinghome.aspx