A small group of wrestling coaches from the east coast are currently touring the various U.S. Navy facilities in Coronado and San Diego, CA. The three-day tour has included visits to the Navy Seals BUDS (Basic Underwater Demolition School), SWCC (Special Warfare Combatant-Craft Crewman) school, a walk on the USS Pelelieu LHA-5, Helicopter Squadron Six tour, a guided bay cruise on a landing craft, and a guided tour of a submarine - the USS San Francisco. The coaches have had the privilege of not only seeing the facilities, craft and weapons and associated technology of the U.S. Navy but hear first hand about the physical and mental training necessary to prepare these men and women to protect our nation. Navy Seals research has shown that wrestlers in particular possess the qualities needed to become a Navy Seal.

Coaches participating in this unique experience include: Paul Marino (Paulsboro HS, NJ); Dan O'Cone (Brick Memorial HS, NJ); Kevin Ensore (Hereford HS, MD); Jack Holloway (Tower Hill HS, DE); Dave Crowell (Nazareth HS, PA); Joe Narkiewicz (Manheim Twp. HS, PA); Mike Rogers (Franklin & Marshall College); Jack Childs (Drexel University). There is one more day left of this tour...but none of us coaches want it to be over. Check out www.sealswcc.com for more information on the Navy Seals and SWCC.

Submitted by Coach Dave Crowell.

 

 

Things are going well in Bachatski. Team had a workout with the club team yesterday followed by a cook out at lake.  They had lamb which they were proud they just butchered.

Team is very popular in town as people stop there cars to get out and say hello.  At the place we are staying there is young kids here and they go crazy everytime these any of our goals.  Some of people have wanted pictures of their babies with our guys.  Pretty neat experience.

Today we will be visiting the local mine which is a big deal to our hosts followed by another workout.

We will competition on friday at an outdoor stadium.  We will be wrestling on a stage.  They expect much of the town to come out and watch.

On Saturday we will be a wrestling demonstration at a nearby town Islamic festival. They have invited our guys to show some technique.

As with any injury in sports, the most important prevention is to have a plan before the injury occurs.  In the heat of a wrestling match, parents and coaches sometimes become overwhelmed by the moment, rendering decisions based upon the score and the intensity.  There is no place for uncertainty regarding closed head injuries and concussions.

The athletic trainer is usually the initial line of defense regarding further injury during athletic competition or practice, and the most qualified to render a decision as to the athlete’s ability to continue to compete.  There are a number of sideline evaluations that must be done if a concussion is a potential diagnosis, and the sport of wrestling challenges the athletic trainer to render such an important decision due to its injury time limitation when blood is not involved. 

Two specific tests that athletic trainer’s perform are the Standardized Assessment of Concussion (SAC) and the Balance Error Scoring System (BESS).  These screenings will yield important information regarding the athlete’s capacity to resume wrestling.  The facts demonstrate that only 10% of concussions include loss of consciousness, and some researchers believe it is considerably less based upon the athlete’s failure to report common concussion symptoms.

Common initial concussion symptoms include dizziness, balance deficits, headache, ringing in the ears, fatigue, slurred speech, general disorientation, vomiting and amnesia.  Later symptoms include severe headache, irritability, sensitivity to light, personality changes and depression, memory and concentration deficits.  Coaches and parents who know the athlete best can recognize many of the secondary symptoms due to personality changes, which should be reported to medical staff.

As a general rule, any athlete that is rendered unconscious should automatically be removed from competition until they have further tests by specialists, and are monitored for at least 24 hours for further symptoms, as initially there may be nothing that would suggest concussion.  General CT Scans and MRI’s cannot be a determining factor as to resuming athletic competition, as they have proven to be less than sensitive to the subtle changes regarding concussion.  Athletes with a prior concussion history are at greater risk.

Testing and retesting using conventional psycho-neurological testing is advised.  It would be best if athletes, who are prone to potential concussion, including wrestlers, would proactively undergo such testing before the season, yielding a baseline for comparison.  Return to sport should also include simulation of the stressful environment, including increased heart rate and blood pressure followed by a re-evaluation of symptoms.  This physical exertion will sometimes demonstrate that the return of concussive symptoms signal that the athlete is not ready to resume normal training and competitive activity.

Vincent Hudson, PhD, DPT, ATC is a certified athletic trainer and a licensed physical therapist with 27 years of clinical and operational experience in the area of sports medicine.  He has been employed at colleges in the Division I, II and III levels as well as the NBA and NFL.  He currently is the Chief Operating Officer at OAA Orthopaedic Specialists in Allentown, PA.

By Vincent Hudson PhD, DPT, MBA, ATC

Any challenge for the coach, parent and athlete following an injury is to attain proper information to help all involved come to a clear and concise plan of care. 

To accomplish this, there must be a prepared pathway predetermined before an injury occurs.  Once this pathway is developed, those in charge must be aware of the options and resources available to them in developing plan of care.  Many of the initial challenges regarding athletic injury include well-wishers and non-medical staff making medical pathway decisions that create more roadblocks, and slow down the process of the athlete attaining the correct medical care.

The two most important aspects in attaining a pathway include 1) having the athlete evaluated by the specialist as soon as possible, and 2) having that specialist provide a diagnosis and initiate a plan of care.  Many times the general population doesn’t understand the process of diagnosis. Most diagnoses are fairly simple.  Example ankle sprain – athlete injures ankle, sees a physician, athlete physically evaluated, x-rays taken, diagnosed with an ankle sprain, treated by athletic trainer or physical therapist, athlete returns to play.  This scenario occurs hundreds of times each day.  But why the x-ray, or any other diagnostic test?  Most diagnostic tests, x-ray, MRI, CT Scan, blood work, etc are performed to clarify and support a diagnosis, and/or rule out a prevailing more severe diagnosis.

The key to all of this is selecting the physician who knows what they are doing in this area of injury.  One would not want an OB-GYN evaluating a sprained ankle, or an orthopedic surgeon evaluating a skin infection.  This miscalculation can prolong reaching a proper diagnosis, and extend the athlete’s return to play while adding unnecessary cost and time due to errors in judgment due to the lack of expertise in a medical area.  Nothing is more frustrating to the motivated athlete than sitting idle because the plan of care is not working.  This scenario is primarily due to a misdiagnosis, which lead to a faulty plan of care, where the treatment was not actually addressing the true problem.

The ultimate goal of the team physician and athletic trainer is to get the athlete to the proper specialist to attain the correct diagnosis and apply the correct plan of care and receiving proper treatment.  This will allow the athlete to safely return to play as soon as medically able.

 

Vincent Hudson, PhD, DPT, ATC is a certified athletic trainer and a licensed physical therapist with 27 years of clinical and operational experience in the area of sports medicine.  He has been employed at colleges in the Division I, II and III levels as well as the NBA and NFL.  He currently is the Chief Operating Officer at OAA Orthopaedic Specialists in Allentown, PA.

Did you know that the average tenure of a high school or junior coach wrestling coach today is 3 to 5 years?  Did you know that in some states, as many as 66% of the head high school coaches do not even work in the schools?  We suspect this phenomenon has resulted primarily from the elimination of so many intercollegiate wrestling teams over the past 35 years.  Historically, our intercollegiate teams served as the training grounds for developing future generations of high school, junior high, and elementary school teachers and coaches.  Typically, a wrestler attended college, majored in education, competed in wrestling, and upon graduation, pursued a career in teaching/coaching.  Having lost 474 intercollegiate wrestling teams since the early 1970s, is it any wonder we are faced with a shortage of the traditional teacher/coach?

Thank goodness we have people in the community who are willing to commit countless hours to coaching our young aspiring wrestlers.  There are plenty of examples of these community based coaches who have enjoyed considerable success.    Unfortunately, there are also many examples of community coaches who have really struggled.  A specific area where many community based coaches struggle the most is with the concept of “educationally based athletics.”  Most traditional teacher-coaches are familiar with this concept through their training as a teacher/educator.  However, it is not necessarily something you would learn as a doctor, lawyer, carpenter, etc.  

By referring to “educationally based athletics,” I am referring to the concept of teaching very important “life’s lessons” through participation in sport.  Lessons such as sportsmanship, integrity, teamwork, and leadership are all central to the educationally based athletic concept.   At the youth, junior high, and high school levels, the overwhelming majority of participants are average in skill.  Too much focus on winning, particularly with a team with average talent, will result in conflict and in some cases, ugly conflict.  Coaches should never forget that their words are very powerful and in many instances, can make or break a wrestler.   

For this reason, the NWCA has collaborated with the National Federation of state High School Associations (NFHS) to develop an online Fundamentals of Coaching Wrestling course that is uniquely designed for any novice middle school or high school coach (less than 5 years of experience or no head coaching experience.  This course is “turn key” and provides the coach with just about everything he needs to conduct a successful program.  It takes about 2 hours to complete and is offered for 3 continuing education unit credits (about 30 clock hours).  For more information, please go to coaching development webpage. 

Why is it that high school/college football, basketball, and baseball receive so much more media attention than wrestling? Well, I recently asked Gary Mihoces, senior writer at USA Today for his thoughts.

Gary did provide several responses ranging from the economically induced reduction of sports column space and the undeniable appetite for readers to want prominent coverage of mainstream sports such as football and basketball. While wrestling coaches have very little control over these trends, he did identify one specific area where wrestling coaches could really help themselves and our sport.    

“It boils down to the fact that sports writers are always under a rigid deadline and if they don’t have easy access to timely dual meet and tournament results, statistics, and other relevant content, they simply  can’t get the stories in the newspaper. Historically, access to timely dual meet and tournament results has always been a challenge and availability of individual wrestler and team statistics has virtually been nonexistent,” said Gary Mihoces.

In all fairness to high school and college wrestling coaches, they do not typically have the same access (as compared to football, basketball, etc) to professional support personnel in the areas of marketing/promotions, statisticians, and public relations. Consequently, the responsibility to provide results and stats to the media becomes one more administrative duty that the coach has to oversee.     

This fall, the NWCA developed/launched a new “live scorebook” system that is uniquely designed to assist the coach with these types of administrative duties. Ideally, the coach should identify a student manager, a parent, and/or a volunteer to perform this administrative task. In most cases, whoever has been assigned to keeping score for dual meets will be ecstatic about converting over to using this new automated way of keeping score because it is so much more efficient. With the new” live scorebook” system, individual dual match scoring is merely entered into a laptop computer instead of a hard copy scorebook. If there is internet access in the gymnasium, your results are pushed out to the internet “real time.” If you don’t have internet access, you can simply use the “off line” version and then push the results out to the internet after the meet. In addition to pushing the results out to the internet, the live scorebook will also do the following:

• Automatically forward your results to all media outlets (this is pre-loaded into the live scorebook database)
• Automatically captures your individual wrestler statistics (takedowns, reversals, etc.).
•  For college and high school coaches who are required to enter dual meet results into the Optimal Performance Calculator after each competition, the use of this tool satisfies that requirement.
• An individual season record form for each wrestler is automatically established.

The media has unrestricted access to all of these statistical reports. For the first time, the media can write stories around statistical leaders, head to head competition between competitors, and much more. If you haven’t seen the reporting capabilities of the live scorebook, please be sure to go to the following link: 

http://www.nwcaonline.com/nwcaonline/results/ColScorebook/MeetResults.aspx.

You can order the system at this link as well.  It is initially $199 and then it will have an annual recurring licensing fee of less than $100. Typically, there are a group of parents or alumni who are more than happy to pay the licensing fee so they can follow all of your matches. 

Oh, and one last thing. Through a partnership with LiveSportsVideo.Com, the NWCA is now able to provide an integrated “do it yourself” webcasting system along with the scorebook. And imagine this, it is FREE (you might have to purchase some equipment depending on what type of camera you have). For the first time, you can provide a live webcast (along with an integrated scorebook) to your parents, fans, and media. 

In summary, both of these tools simply make existing administrative duties much easier to execute. Further, the statistical reports generated by the live scorebook can provide the mainstream media with unprecedented statistical information which will move amateur wrestling light years into becoming a more media friendly sport.

Written by Mike Moyer, Executive Director, National Wrestling Coaches Association

The wrestlers are in every school in America. We must recruit them, train them and retain them. The quality of experience must be such that the majority will always want to move on to the next level. As wrestling coaches we can no longer wait to let students come to us. We must aggressively present the sport of wrestling to the students and their families.

I would like every coach out there who has had success recruiting students into wrestling to please share their ideas with the rest of us. I will share one approach that has been successful.

I know of one junior high school coach in Pennsylvania who has designed a combative sport for middle school students. He had this course approved by the head of the physical education department and then this fall put it into action before wrestling sign ups. The good news is the students love it and it has had an impact on the number of students signing up to join the junior high school wrestling team. 

I can’t wait to hear what some of you have done to increase your numbers. I personally believe the greatest emphasis should be on grades 6, 7 and 8.

Remember, the theme of NWCA Coaching Development: Let’s Grow Wrestling Together!

Wrestling needs you now more than ever! Please join some of our most successful high school and college wrestling coaches from across America at the 2009 National Wrestling Coaches Association (NWCA) Convention scheduled for August 6-9 at the beautiful ocean front Bahia Mar Hotel in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.  Everything is designed to help you strengthen your wrestling program and/or grow wrestling in your area. This experience will provide you with the following:

• An opportunity to learn practical and systematic approaches to promote positive growth of individual wrestlers and wrestling programs.
• Learn how to respond to the challenges facing wrestling (increasing number of forfeits, unreasonable parents, funding challenges, etc.).
• Organizational skills to help you promote and market wrestling in your area.
• Learn to develop a system of teaching for all grade levels that enhances the improvement of the specialist and the multisport athlete.
• Develop a leadership mindset to enable you to create a positive team culture.
• Provides an opportunity to share ideas, problems, and goals with college coaches in order to establish a better bridge between the NCAA and the high school athlete.

In this intense 2-day period, you should be able to assess your present situation and lay plans for 2009-2010. Just like we tell our athletes, “Success Never Rests.”  I would strongly encourage you to bring your whole staff, from youth through high school. Spending this 2-day period together will help to get everyone on the same page.

For more information and/or to register online, please go to:  http://www.nwcaonline.com/convention.cfm