Introduction
Wrestling is very different from many sports your student may have participated in. It can be very overwhelming at first. From scoring, to the difference between meets and tournaments, to the way your student is matched up with other wrestlers, there is a lot to learn in your wrestler’s first year. This page was designed to help you understand the sport of wrestling and answer many common questions first year parents have. As parents, these are all things we learned on our own, and hopefully it will help you through your first season.
Best Advice: ASK, ASK, ASK!!!
Don’t be shy, wrestling is not an easy sport to figure out. We have a very friendly group of knowledgeable coaches and parents in our school, and NO ONE will think less of you for asking lots of questions. With everything involved, there really is no dumb question. No one expects you to go to the first practice or meet or tournament and be a wrestling expert after reading this guide. Please, please, please ask people questions, you will learn more from that than anything else!
Besides learning, asking questions will make you familiar with the coaches and parents, in turn making us more closely knit. Before you know it, you’ll know all the parents in the club and be cheering for their student on the mat at meets and tournaments. As a parent, I can say one of the greatest aspects of wrestling is how close everyone is, from the wrestlers, to the coaches to the parents. The bonds you form in wrestling are unlike those in any other sport.
Attire
At practice, wrestlers wear shorts, a t-shirt and wrestling shoes. After the first few weeks, we recommend bringing along head gear when we start live wrestling at practice. The school may have a collection of hand me down wrestling shoes to use, but we ask that you return them at the end of the season. If you buy your own shoes and your wrestler grows out of them, we greatly appreciate donated shoes for others in our school to use. You will be responsible for purchasing head gear, which you can get at any local sporting goods store like Frys Action Athletics in Forest Grove.
At meets and tournaments, your wrestler will be required to wear wrestling shoes, head gear and a singlet. The school will provide your singlet, and it must be returned at the end of the season.
Practice
Practice will always be indoors on wrestling mats which are cleaned on a regular basis. Practices consist of warm ups, conditioning, instruction and occasionally, games (which are actually “conditioning in disguise”). You will probably notice right at the first practice there is a lot more conditioning, specifically running, than most other youth sports. This is because wrestling is an extremely taxing sport physically. In competition at this level, bouts consist of three two minute periods. During these six minutes, your student will exert every ounce of energy they have, and they will have up to five bouts in a day. The better conditioned they are, the better a chance they have of lasting through (and hopefully winning) all their bouts.
Because physical contact is a part of the sport, and several skin conditions are generally associated with contact sports, we highly recommend your wrestler shower immediately after practice, in addition to any competition. As was already mentioned, our mats are cleaned on a regular basis, and coaches are always looking for possible skin conditions in our wrestlers (and opponents), but it’s best not to take chances and just get them in the shower right away when you get home after meets and after practice at school.
Competition
So we’ve already used the words “meets” and “tournaments” pretty frequently in the previous section, so what are they anyway?
Meets
Sometimes called “Dual Meets” or “Team Meets”, these are our team competitions, the equivalent to a “game” in other sports. Novice wrestlers will generally get 2-4 bouts, in which they are matched up with opposing wrestlers by weight by coaches from all teams.
Tournaments
These are generally individual competitions, but on occasion, we will attend tournaments as a club and have coaches available for your wrestler. The club will send out notifications and post on the web site when we are attending a tournament as a team. In any tournament, your wrestler will be assigned to a bracket, which is a grouping of wrestlers with similar weights. Most tournaments award trophies or medals to wrestlers who place first in their bracket. All tournament fees will be paid by the school.
You may have noticed the word “Novice” in the paragraph above, this is a special type of tournament where only first, second or third year wrestlers are allowed to enter. As a first year parent, you’ll probably want to focus on this type of tournament. The most common type of Novice tournament is first and second year experience only. The Novice classification is based on experience only. You can enter Novice tournaments at any age as long as you meet the experience requirements. You are still grouped by weight.
Varsity and JV tournaments are limited by number of wrestlers each school and enter per weight. All tournaments require weigh-ins. Most Varsity and JV are Double Elimination Tournaments where each wrestler competes with other wrestlers the same weight class. Bracket sizes can range from 4 wrestlers all the way to 32, however, 8-16 is much more common. In Double Elimination, there are essentially two brackets, Championship and Consolation. Everyone starts in the Championship bracket, if they lose, they drop to the Consolation bracket. If they lose in the Consolation bracket (which would be their second loss), they are eliminated from the tournament. The championship bracket will culminate in the Championship match, where 1st and 2nd place are determined. The consolation bracket culminates in the Consolation final, where 3rd and 4th place are determined.
Scoring
At first, you will have no idea how your student’s matches are being scored. It is very confusing and somewhat overwhelming during your first year. However, it’s much simpler than it seems. The main objective of wrestling is to pin your opponent. In the process you will get points for different things that you do. If no one is pinned at the end of the bout, the wrestler with the most points wins.
There are three positions a wrestler can be in during a bout: offensive, defensive or neutral. The offensive wrestler is in control and usually on top of the defensive wrestler. The defensive wrestler is fighting to become the offensive wrestler by gaining control. Neutral is when neither wrestler has control (no one is clearly offensive or defensive yet). All bouts start with both wrestlers neutral. Second and third periods in the bout, each wrestlers gets a chance to choose to be on offense (top) or defense (bottom).
Ways to Score
Takedown - 2 points - Scored when a wrestler gains control and becomes the offensive wrestler from the neutral stance. Control is defined as getting behind the opponent and taking them to the mat or taking them directly to their back without getting behind them and becoming the offensive wrestler.
Reversal - 2 points - Awarded to a wrestler when they go from the defensive position to the offensive position and take control away from the opponent. If a wrestler is on the bottom and gets to the top without an escape, they are awarded a reversal.
Escape - 1 point - Scored when a defensive wrestler gets away from the offensive wrestler and becomes neutral. This happens most commonly when a wrestler chooses to start on the bottom in the 2nd or 3rd period.
Near Fall (3 second) - 2 points - When you have your opponent on their back, and their back is at an angle to the mat of 45 degrees or less, the referee will start waving their hand to signify a count. If the angle is maintained for 3 seconds, the offensive wrestler is awarded 2 points.
Near Fall (5 second) - 3 points - Same as a 3 second near fall, but the 45 degree angle must be maintained for a 5 second count. After a 3 point near fall is awarded, no more near falls will be awarded until the defensive wrestler gets off their back, and then is moved back into a new near fall.
Penalty - 1 point to opponent - There are several penalties which would cause a referee to award a penalty point to your opponent. Locking hands is most common, and you will see the ref clasp their hands together in the air right before they award the penalty. Other penalty points can be awarded for things like stalling (not trying to get a pin, doing nothing to maintain a point lead, not trying to gain control), swearing, kicking, scratching, biting, hitting, body slamming, or bending any body part beyond it’s normal range of motion (you may hear this referred to as “potentially dangerous” and it will stop the bout temporarily). Some egregious penalties can cause a wrestler to be ejected from the match or competition.
How Score is Kept
At the beginning of a bout, each wrestler will put on a green or red ankle band. You will also notice the referee has two wrist bands on, green and red. When a wrestler scores points, you will see the referee raise the hand with the corresponding color of the wrestler’s ankle band and hold up the number of points scored. There are two scorekeepers at the table, one running the scoreboard and another tracking the bout on the scorecard or computer to ensure accuracy. The scoreboard will always have green and red scores, and the person running the scoreboard will adjust the score based on the color wristband the ref is holding up and the number of points he is indicating.
Types of Victories
Based on how you win your bout, the win can be categorized in several ways.
Pin/Fall - Can happen at any time in a bout and ends the bout. At the referee’s discretion, if both shoulders of the defensive wrestler are touching the mat, the wrestler is pinned.
Technical Fall - Also can happen at any time in the bout, when one wrestler takes a 15 point or greater lead, the bout is over and the wrestler is awarded a technical fall.
Major Decision - Can only happen when the match is over, awarded when a wrestler wins by 8-14 points.
Decision - Can only happen when the match is over, awarded when a wrestler wins by 1-7 points.
Forfeit - A forfeit victory is awarded when a wrestler does not have an opponent to wrestle (usually because their opponent didn’t show up).
Disqualification - A wrestler wins a match by disqualification when the opponent is disqualified from the match because of too many penalties or when a wrestler is illegally injured by an opponent’s illegal hold and cannot continue wrestling.
Bout Length
Bouts at the high school level almost always consist of three two minute periods. In tournaments, consolation brackets usually have a one minute first period. If the score is tied at the end of the match, then overtime periods are added. The first overtime (4th period) is one minute and starts with both wrestlers in the neutral position and is an instant win. Whomever scores the first points wins the match. If the score is still tied after the 4th period, the referee flips the token and gives that wrestler the choice of top, bottom or neutral for the 30 second 5th period. Regardless of the points after the 5th period, the second wrestler has the choice of top, bottom for neutral for a 30 second 6th period. IF the score is still tied after the 6th period, the wrestler to scored the first points has a choice of top, bottom or neutral. If the wrestler on the bottom escape, they win. The wrestler on the top wins if the wrestler on the bottom does not escape.
Recommendations
Wrestle as much as possible. Try to make all the team meets, and try to attend as many tournaments as you can. In wrestling, practice can only do so much, and the wrestlers who excel are usually the ones who have the most bouts. If you are only getting 2 bouts at team meets and your child is doing well in them, talk to a coach about what you can do to get a third or fourth bout.
Don’t be discouraged. In the first year of wrestling, .500 is an amazing record. Your child may have been on an undefeated football or baseball or soccer team, but it is very rare that a wrestler goes undefeated in a season, and they will learn to win and lose on a whole new level in wrestling, because the outcome of a bout is based 100% on them. Make sure to encourage them, win or lose, and teach them that they will learn much more from a loss in wrestling than they will from a win. After a loss, make sure to tell them “great job” and to keep at it.
Record your student’s matches. We try to record all of the Varsity and JV matches and upload them to Hudl. Even if it’s just with the video camera on your phone, this serves several great purposes. First, you can use the video to learn what your child did wrong or what they could have done differently. Second, it’s a lot of fun to watch later on! Finally, you can upload the video to YouTube and share it on Facebook or any other social media.
Conclusion
Again, best advice, ask, ask, ask! Next best advice...patience. You will not get wrestling overnight. When you do, it’s almost addictive. Making the transition from a parent asking questions to a parent answering questions is also a great feeling. Wrestling can be a HUGE commitment as a parent, but if you make that commitment to your child, I can guarantee it is worth it for both of you.