A numbers crunch
What is it about kids today?
Do they have it too easy? I know, pretty soon you will expect me to tell you how I had to walk through 2-feet of snow, in bare feet up a mountain side just to get to school in the morning. You get my drift.
It appears that there is a numbers crunch at some area schools regarding their winter sports teams.
Hardin Northern even had to postpone last weekend’s girls basketball game with Columbus Grove because of a lack of numbers. The Polar Bears have just eight girls out for basketball. Four of them were too hurt to play last weekend forcing the game to be delayed. And it’s not like the Polar Bears don’t have female athletes because they have solid girls programs in both volleyball and softball.
But I’m not just picking on Hardin Northern though. Arlington has to cancel a girls JV game because of lack of numbers. Several area boys basketball programs don’t have freshmen teams -- something that was relatively unheard of 5 years ago.
In wrestling, several area schools have low numbers Cory-Rawson is down to five wrestlers this year. I can never remember the Hornets having less than 10 and when Bob Abbey was in charge of the program C-R always had at least 20 kids and sometimes even more.
Swim teams like Fostoria and Ada don’t even have enough competitors to field relay teams.
So what’s it all about? There was a good column about the situation in yesterday’s Findlay Courier by veteran Northwest Ohio sports journalist Dave Hanneman that you can read here.
Are winter sports too hard? Is there just too many other things for kids to do like working, playing video games or hanging out with their friends?
Here’s my take on it. For girls, volleyball is much easier than basketball. The prep season is shorter and a lot less running involved.
For boys, only 7-10 kids get to play a lot in basketball so many boys don’t want to make the sacrifice of practicing each day if they know they aren’t going to get much of a chance to play.
In wrestling, it’s a difficult sport, you have to make weight and there’s no one to fall back on because it’s just you out there on the mat and if you haven’t prepared yourself properly it will show when you step out there. Plus it’s very demanding physically.
Swimming? Those gosh darn Speedos they have to wear probably keep a lot of boys from participating.
So what to do? Find coaches that kids like and will compete for. Winning shouldn’t be the ONLY thing. Having fun is a key to. Administrators better start finding coaches interested in building numbers first and winning second for the survival of their athletic programs.
NOTEWORTHY:
GIRLS HOOPS: Findlay won big over Whitmer last night in a Monday Night Special. Assistant coaqh Shawn Lyon was in charge of the program as his wife Connie was home sick for the night. Here’s hoping Connie gets back on the FHS bench real soon. Also last night, Vanlue girls basketball coach Mark Willard picked up his first career head coaching win as Vanlue pummeled Lima Temple Christian 66-26. The Wildcats should be improved the next couple of weeks with the return of three players who have been injured.
SAVING CREW: I got this email the other day:
<
http://gobearcats.cstv.com/genrel/112806aab.html
I was on a rowing team that got cut last year and we were able to get support from the media. Covering this story gives the issue the attention it needs for changes to be made. Hopefully, other universities will realize that cutting sports is not something they want to do.
Thanks,
Michelle Nolan>>
The last thing I would do is cover a story about a college cutting it’s women’s crew team. Talk about a waste of athletic funds. It’s all about Title IX women’s crew teams are large and help balance out football. In what other sport can you never have participated in during you lifetime and still get an athletic scholarship….crew. With mainstream men’s sports like track and field, wrestling and swimming being cut in the name of Title IX each year, excuse me if I don’t shed a tear for the crew team.
NEWSWORTHY:
Findlay wrestlers looking to take the next step
Tuesday’s Findlay Courier local sports
Bettsville girls beat Monclova
Crestline basketball team looks for improvement
Ottawa-Glandorf’s boys rock Bryan 75-47
Today's Wrestling Stories can be found on the NW Ohio Wrestling Blog
Do they have it too easy? I know, pretty soon you will expect me to tell you how I had to walk through 2-feet of snow, in bare feet up a mountain side just to get to school in the morning. You get my drift.
It appears that there is a numbers crunch at some area schools regarding their winter sports teams.
Hardin Northern even had to postpone last weekend’s girls basketball game with Columbus Grove because of a lack of numbers. The Polar Bears have just eight girls out for basketball. Four of them were too hurt to play last weekend forcing the game to be delayed. And it’s not like the Polar Bears don’t have female athletes because they have solid girls programs in both volleyball and softball.
But I’m not just picking on Hardin Northern though. Arlington has to cancel a girls JV game because of lack of numbers. Several area boys basketball programs don’t have freshmen teams -- something that was relatively unheard of 5 years ago.
In wrestling, several area schools have low numbers Cory-Rawson is down to five wrestlers this year. I can never remember the Hornets having less than 10 and when Bob Abbey was in charge of the program C-R always had at least 20 kids and sometimes even more.
Swim teams like Fostoria and Ada don’t even have enough competitors to field relay teams.
So what’s it all about? There was a good column about the situation in yesterday’s Findlay Courier by veteran Northwest Ohio sports journalist Dave Hanneman that you can read here.
Are winter sports too hard? Is there just too many other things for kids to do like working, playing video games or hanging out with their friends?
Here’s my take on it. For girls, volleyball is much easier than basketball. The prep season is shorter and a lot less running involved.
For boys, only 7-10 kids get to play a lot in basketball so many boys don’t want to make the sacrifice of practicing each day if they know they aren’t going to get much of a chance to play.
In wrestling, it’s a difficult sport, you have to make weight and there’s no one to fall back on because it’s just you out there on the mat and if you haven’t prepared yourself properly it will show when you step out there. Plus it’s very demanding physically.
Swimming? Those gosh darn Speedos they have to wear probably keep a lot of boys from participating.
So what to do? Find coaches that kids like and will compete for. Winning shouldn’t be the ONLY thing. Having fun is a key to. Administrators better start finding coaches interested in building numbers first and winning second for the survival of their athletic programs.
NOTEWORTHY:
GIRLS HOOPS: Findlay won big over Whitmer last night in a Monday Night Special. Assistant coaqh Shawn Lyon was in charge of the program as his wife Connie was home sick for the night. Here’s hoping Connie gets back on the FHS bench real soon. Also last night, Vanlue girls basketball coach Mark Willard picked up his first career head coaching win as Vanlue pummeled Lima Temple Christian 66-26. The Wildcats should be improved the next couple of weeks with the return of three players who have been injured.
SAVING CREW: I got this email the other day:
<
http://gobearcats.cstv.com/genrel/112806aab.html
I was on a rowing team that got cut last year and we were able to get support from the media. Covering this story gives the issue the attention it needs for changes to be made. Hopefully, other universities will realize that cutting sports is not something they want to do.
Thanks,
Michelle Nolan>>
The last thing I would do is cover a story about a college cutting it’s women’s crew team. Talk about a waste of athletic funds. It’s all about Title IX women’s crew teams are large and help balance out football. In what other sport can you never have participated in during you lifetime and still get an athletic scholarship….crew. With mainstream men’s sports like track and field, wrestling and swimming being cut in the name of Title IX each year, excuse me if I don’t shed a tear for the crew team.
NEWSWORTHY:
Findlay wrestlers looking to take the next step
Tuesday’s Findlay Courier local sports
Bettsville girls beat Monclova
Crestline basketball team looks for improvement
Ottawa-Glandorf’s boys rock Bryan 75-47
Today's Wrestling Stories can be found on the NW Ohio Wrestling Blog
posted by --J-- @ 7:39 AM
5 Comments:
At 12:55 PM,
Anonymous said…
Coach b
How about a blog on future enrollment numbers in the BVC and the potential effects? C-R for instance is getting smaller and could end up with HN-like numbers before too long.
At 8:47 PM,
Anonymous said…
Good blog topic today. Very timely. The main reason for the numbers crunch, kids just aren't dedicated.
I grew up in the 80's. Being on a sports team was an honor and accomplishment. Also, each season was just that one season. Now, you have sports that nearly go year around.
Football players lift year around, do 7-7's in the summer, linemen go to competitions.
AAU sports for volleyball and basketball can go year around.
Club volleyball is killing girls basketball. The Hardin Northern girls lost 84-7 tonight to Riverdale! I hope any of those girls who quit feel very guilty that they let their school down. I feel if you start or play alot in jr. high, you've made a commitment to the school that you'll be there all the way through.
JDee
At 8:55 PM,
Anonymous said…
I think some of the blame goes to the coaches. Sometimes coaches just have to go to the kids and ask. I know, as a coach, you don't always want those kids out there that you had to ask, but I tell you what, sometimes it pays off. We routinely have 25-35 kids out for wrestling at my school, a lot of schools struggle to get 15. We are only DV in football, smaller than LB I think, so it can be done. Have the kids get their friends out, they did that at Stritch this year. Also, last year, Eastwood's wrestling coaches knew they were losing A LOT of studs, so they told the kids that each of them had a job to do in the offseason (before last season, as those kids were seniors last year). Each wrestler needed to bring one friend to wrestling to take their spot the next year. Guess what, they lost like 9 seniors out of 14 weight classes and they are going to fill out the weight classes again and again be in the top five in the state. It's tough to get them out, I agree there are a lot of things they think could be better, but it is possible.
Rob
At 8:24 AM,
Anonymous said…
HN kids got lured to softball...some under the false pretenses of college $$, etc. Small schools (or even big schools for that matter) should be aware of other programs, and not try to build their own at the expense of another. I applaud those girls who are trying their hardest to keep the program alive. At least that kept the school from being punished by the BVC (or kicked out) for not fielding a team. Wouldn't that have been interesting for their softball and volleyball teams? And the effects on football would have really been interesting.
At 12:03 PM,
--J-- said…
I'm looking at the enrollment numbers and there have been some surprising trends I'll share later in the year when I put it all together.
JDee was right there weren't offseason club teams back in the day. You played your sport for that season and went on to the next one. Maybe you went to a basketball or football camp during the summer for a week but that was it.
Specialization is killing athletics at the small school level...PLus there aren't as many kids dedicated as there once were in my opinion
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