Promoting High School Wrestling

by Ray Nunamaker Printed in the March 1, April 15, and September 15, 1999 issues of Wrestling USA Magazine Reprinted here with permission One of the strong points of the Nazareth Wrestling Program in Pennsylvania has been its fan support. Our opponents might call it fanatical, as it is not unusual to have 2000 or more people at a dual meet that is both televised and being broadcast on radio. Rarely do we have less than 1000 people at a meet, of whom up to 750 are season ticket holders. Obviously, it was not always this way. I spent 34 years as head coach and chief promoter of Nazareth Wrestling. I always focused first and foremost on the coaching aspect, but I also recognized the importance of promoting the sport as a whole, and my program specifically. What I did as chief promoter over the years changed as the program progressed from a team that had only one winning season before I arrived, to one that has not had a losing season since. The following is a list of things to do to promote your program. Mat Maids. Mat Maids are girls who support wrestling. They are actually more than managers. They perform necessary duties such as score keeping, posting of lineups, and cleaning mats prior to matches. They also do valuable extra tasks such as selling programs, video taping matches, calling scores to the newspaper, and countless other jobs that come up before, during, and after matches. Generally we have six to ten girls, making sure to have at least two from each class (sophomore, junior, and senior), to insure continuity. They are selected based on how they score on a wrestling knowledge test and on their creativity in a poster contest. For many years I handled the Mat Maids myself, but later had an advisor work with them. Cheerleaders. Cheerleaders are common in the Lehigh Valley for wrestling. There are generally separate squads of girls for different winter sports, and there are also separate squads for Varsity, Junior Varsity, and Junior High teams. The more noise the better at matches! The cheerleaders also provide support to the team in other ways. They make posters to put up in the halls in school before matches, decorate the gym for home matches, decorate the buses for away matches, and help with Pep Rallies prior to the biggest matches of the season. Cheerleaders definitely generate enthusiasm for wrestling, both in school and at matches. Faculty Members. Ask members of the faculty to help at matches by working the clock or introducing the wrestlers of both teams prior to the start of the match. Someone may enjoy being at the microphone and want to provide brief commentary about the match on a routine basis. Student Contests. Have a "Predict-a-Score" contest the day of a match. Create a form the students can quickly fill out guessing the score for the upcoming match. Have tiebreaker criteria such as who will have the quickest pin with further criteria being time of the pin. Have the Mat Maids hand out the forms during lunch to as many students as possible. Obviously the winner is the person who predicted the score closest to the actual outcome, using the tiebreaker criteria if necessary. Announce the winner over the public address system in school on Monday, and present them with a wrestling T-shirt. W.O.W. Have a "Wrestler-of-the-Week" program. Each week of the season select a different Varsity starter to be the featured wrestler. Create a poster to display in the gym lobby that has an 8"x 10" photo of them and a brief write up about them and why they were chosen. You are generally able to feature everyone at some point in the season. This helps to let the students know who the wrestlers are, and allows all of the starters to get some publicity. Takedown-a-thon. Have a "Takedown-a-thon" for the season. This can create extra fan interest for the sponsors, and can also put some gentle pressure on the team to perform. Encourage the wrestlers to get as many sponsors as they can (friends, teachers, parents) who are willing to commit to a small contribution to the wrestling fund (perhaps 25 cents), for every takedown they score during the season. Create pledge forms so this is rather easily tracked. After the season have the wrestlers collect on the pledges and add the money to other funds you might have. Use it for something the team needs or for some fun event. Pep Rallies. Have a few Pep Rallies at the end of the school day before your bigger matches. They don't have to be long or elaborate, but they should be loud. If possible have a "Pep Band" of four to six musicians, and really get the gym rocking. Turn the planning over to the Cheerleaders; they'll do a great job. Gym Classes. Lobby to have wrestling be part of your school's physical education curriculum if it is not currently included. This will expose the entire male population to the sport, and will allow your to learn who may have an interest or aptitude for wrestling. When you're first getting started you often have to talk to boys about trying wrestling. They may be a good athlete and just need a little encouragement. Support other teams and school activities. Be supportive of all school programs and teams. Congratulate individuals for successes at whatever they enjoy, including non-athletic pursuits. Generally if you support them, they will support you. Maintain positive relationships with all of your school's coaches. Many schools have a limited number of athletes. Therefore, you must be friendly with as many of the other coaches as possible in order to promote mutual benefit. You do not want to build your program up by tearing another one down. Faculty support. Maintain a good rapport with your school's teachers. Their support can aid in identifying student athletes who need academic assistance. All of the coaching in the world won't matter if members of your team are not eligible to compete. It never hurts to have support for wrestling among members of your school's administration or school board. Encourage them to attend matches; try to make them fans. If that doesn't work get fans to run for school board. Either way, their support is very important. Off-season activities. Wrestling is hard work, and it's a long season. Even if you haven't had the level of success you worked for and hoped for during the season, do something fun when it's over. For many years we had spring spaghetti dinners and summer swim parties for the coaches and the team members. These things don't have to be expensive, but they can be memorable. Speaking engagements. Speak at any and every local organization that will have you and some of your kids. The Kiwanis, Rotary, and other civic groups are often looking for speakers for their meetings. Make yourself available to tell them about the upcoming season, the season in progress, or the season just past, and encourage them to come to your events. Wrestling stationary. Have special wrestling stationery printed to use for all of your correspondence. Include your name as the coach, the name of your school, and some type of wrestling logo. Also, a catchy phrase at the bottom of the paper is great. For instance, "Your enthusiastic support is great encouragement to our team" was on my stationery at Nazareth. Meet the Team Night. Have a special event to introduce your team to the public before their first competition of the season. We have a "Meet the Eagles Night" each year that attracts parents and many fans. Advertise this event in the local newspaper, have it in your school's cafeteria, and serve light refreshments. People just may be anxious to know who is on the team and at what weight they will be competing. Introduce and recognize everyone - the coaches, the wrestlers (including the boys who aren't in the starting lineup), the Mat Maids, and the cheerleaders. Give a season outlook, and keep the evening upbeat, as well as short. Generally the guys are tired from practice, have homework, and just want to get home. Varsity wrestlers as youth coaches. If your community has Youth Wrestling (K-6), allow your varsity wrestlers to be guest instructors at their practices occasionally. The young wrestlers will love seeing their heroes, and you may gain some young fans and their parents for your high school matches. Organize a Wrestling Booster Club. Generally you will have a core group of fans or parents who will relish being the driving force behind a Booster Club. Be an advisor to such a club and provide direction. Sometimes these groups can get out of control and may have a different philosophy from you, so stay involved. The purpose of the club should be to increase the importance of the sport in the community and beyond, and to show support for the entire wrestling program. The club should not be there to just provide rewards to the team, even though many of their activities revolve around fund raising. A membership fee is optional, but the more people involved the better. There's plenty of work to go around. Here are some things a Booster Club can do for your program: Produce a Wrestling Program for your home matches. Include pictures of coaches, wrestlers. Mat Maids, and cheerleaders, plus articles, previous statistics, and any other relevant information. Solicit paid ads from local businesses. Base the cost on whether the ad is for a full, half, or quarter page. Use your ad money to cover printing costs. Have the Mat Maids sell the programs at all your home matches. This can be a good profit maker. If they're really ambitious, they can create an insert page for each match, giving lineups of both teams and some information about the opponent. This can't be done much in advance, which makes it challenging, but you'll sell to the opposing fans as well if their team is in the program. Solicit Wrestling Patrons. Everyone involved in wrestling can do this - boys, girls, coaches, and Booster Club members. Prior to the start of the season everyone gets a list of names at $2.00 per name to be published in the program as Patrons. Not only does this generate revenue, but it reminds people that the season is coming up and lets them know who is involved with wrestling. People may know who your "stars" are, but they may not know that their neighbor's daughter is involved as a Mat Maid or cheerleader until she comes knocking on their door asking for patrons. Other Fund Raisers. Depending on your needs and of course, time, there are always the traditional sales the Booster Club can do - pizza, hoagies, candy, whatever. A unique fund raiser, and one we love at Nazareth, is our annual Lip Sync Contest in the Spring. We charge admission and pack the high school auditorium for this event. The contest is open to all (from 9th grade to the parents), there are sign-ups and a rehearsal, judges, cash prizes, and lots of fun. Everyone enjoys this event. (For some additional revenue, videotape the contest and sell copies of the tape. People can sign up to buy them when they enter the auditorium.) Refreshment stand. Run a refreshment stand at meets and tournaments. If no other school group performs this function, the Booster Club can step in. Everyone seems to want to snack during sporting events. Hot dogs, sodas, candy, and snack food all sell, and the Booster Club can make some money. Sell 50/50 Tickets. Get some rolls of tickets printed and have club members sell them before and during the JV match. Have someone draw a winning ticket, announce the winner before the varsity match, and give them their cash prize. You can do it weekly, and it's easy. Purchase Additional Equipment. Once the Booster Club has made some money, they can purchase extra things you need for the program. One thing we have at Nazareth is additional, different tournament singlets. It gives the wrestlers a special feeling to wear one uniform for the quarterfinals, one for the semifinals, and yet another for the finals. It becomes a subconscious thing that they already plan to be in the finals and know what singlet they will be wearing. It's part of the whole visualization process of winning. Sell Wrestling Clothing Items. Each year I designed a T-shirt for the season. The team wore them under their warm-ups and the Booster Club sold them to the fans. If you don't date them, you can sell the leftovers (if there are any) the following season. We eventually expanded to sweatshirts, jackets, etc. Horrible Hankies. This was a takeoff on the Pittsburgh Steelers' Terrible Towels. We had cotton, men's handkerchiefs printed with the school's colors and some victory message on them. They were sold for the express purpose of being waved in the stands during matches. You can create some serious cheering and unity with these. Sponsor Fan Buses. When you get to the point where you're competing outside of your geographic area on weekends, you'll want your fans with you. Anyone who is going to the event anyway would rather relax and let someone else do the driving. Club members can also arrange hotel rooms at group rates for multiple day events. Fans will appreciate the convenience. Sponsor an Annual Wrestling Banquet. This is an end of the season event for the wrestlers, mat maids, cheerleaders, parents, coaches, and fans. Have it at as nice a place as you can afford, and make it "classy". Not necessarily coat and tie, but no jeans, no T-shirts, and no hats! Charge guests to attend, but cover the meal costs of the wrestlers, mat maids, and cheerleaders from other funds. This is their recognition for providing the school and community with wholesome entertainment all winter. If you had a successful season, celebrate. Determine specific awards in advance, such as "Most Pins", District, Regional, or State Champ, etc. The awards should only be for significant achievements, not just for the sake of awards or because the club has the money. If your team wins a championship (League, Districts, or States), splurge and get everyone, including the girls, windbreakers or jackets. Now all of these people become walking advertisements for wrestling whenever they wear those garments. For some humor at the banquet, I always took (or had someone else take) color slides throughout the season. I then turned the slides over to the seniors, and they put together a Slide/Tape presentation. They were always very innovative, and viewing their production was a much anticipated part of the banquet each year. I'd also recommend having the Seniors or captains speak near the end of the banquet. This is always memorable and much more meaningful than having an outside speaker. Make it a Family Affair. Try to make your program the equivalent of a big family. Generally the parents will get involved, and it's helpful if they share not only in the successes, but also in the trials of the program. It's wonderful when parents continue to attend matches and support the team after their children aren't in the program at all. Winning won't hurt either. People cannot refuse a winner. If you're lucky, the routine and excitement of being at events will become a way of life for many, not just the parents. Once people live and die with each win or loss you have Fan fever, and it is great!! Wrestling Room. Have a permanent room that is at least large enough for one full mat (42' x 42'). If you can get more space, take it. Keep the room clean and orderly. Create specific places for jump ropes, time clocks, score flip-cards, announcements, newspaper articles, running shoes, extra doming, etc. These items should not become safety hazards by being scattered around the room. Make sure you have sufficient heat in the room to avoid injuries and to allow the kids to get a good workout. Everyone should take pride in the room. Summer Wrestling. The Nazareth Recreation Commission always sponsors a summer wrestling program. It is basically an open wrestling room 2 or 3 nights a week, where there is no regimen of formal instruction. It gives wrestlers a place to work out, and often also attracts former wrestlers who are now in college. It's a nice informal atmosphere where boys can focus on weak areas in their style yet have no pressure. The room should be supervised by a responsible adult at all times. Summer Wrestling Camps. Encourage wrestlers to attend a technique camp or team camp in the summer. About seven years ago we moved to a team camp. It's great for camaraderie. Some camps also allow you to bring your junior high team. This is a good way to expose the younger wrestlers to their future coaches and teammates. Out-of-Season Tournaments. If your wrestlers participate in other sports, that's great. If they don't, and they are interested in competing in open tournaments off season, encourage them to do so. This may mean taking them yourself and spending long hours in the gym, but it provides necessary support for them, and helps them develop their skills more quickly. Out of season tournaments should not be required, because if the boys don't really want to do it, they won't really benefit, and everyone is just wasting time. Match Atmosphere. Play music during your team's warm-up, between the JV and Varsity matches, and during time-outs. There are some great songs that will pump-up the crowd and keep everyone enthused, including the current Jock Jam series. Allow the team to pick the music, but maintain final veto power. Junior High Matches. When schedules can be arranged, have your junior high team wrestle at the same time as your JV Team, prior to the Varsity match. Put two mats out and let them compete right next to each other. It's great for the junior high to wrestle before a crowd and get some recognition, plus it brings more fans to the gym. It also means there is rarely a dull moment, since something exciting is probably happening on one mat or the other. Wrestling Yearbook. Find someone who's interested and likes math, and start compiling all sorts of statistics. Do research, and get as much historic data as possible, then keep things current each year. At the end of the season give each wrestler a book containing highlights and stats from the season, plus some history of your school's program with records (team and individual). Our yearbook also includes photocopies of significant newspaper articles and box scores from the season. Wall of Fame. Devote one wall in your wrestling room to display a photographic history of the boys who achieved a specific level of success on your teams. Determine the minimum requirements, and hang an 8 x 10 photo of everyone who meets them. Include their name, years, record, and accomplishments. Every day the current members of the team have only to look as far as that wall for inspiration. Every wrestlers' goal should be to make "The Wall". Wrestling Records. Select another wall in your wrestling room to prominently display all of your school's wrestling records, team and individual. These records should include things like career wins, most season wins, most falls, most technical falls, most takedowns, etc. Let your team know what's possible, and also that records are made to be broken. For major accomplishments such as State Champion, hang banners in your gymnasium for everyone at every athletic event held in the gym to see. Attend College Matches. Take your entire team to a local college match of the highest quality available. Our team goes to a Lehigh University match together each year. Call ahead to find out if you can get a group rate or reduced admission fee. Watching college wrestling provides the boys with a glimpse of what they can expect at the next level. Open for a College Match. Wrestling before a college crowd provides your team with an opportunity to promote itself to a new and often very responsive audience. Fans of college wrestling are able to see the type of program you have, and the caliber of kids who compete for you. This year Nazareth's team had the unique opportunity of opening their season in a twin undercard at Hershey Park Arena with Lock Haven and Nebraska as the feature event. This is exciting for your team, their parents, and all of your fans. Host a College Match. Nazareth was fortunate to be able to arrange a dual meet between North Carolina State and Wisconsin at their high school gym a few years ago. Both teams were at nearby Lehigh for the Sheridan Wrestling Tournament, and agreed to come to town one day early for this match. There were four local young men wrestling for the two Division I teams that night, which sold out the gym. The fans really enjoyed seeing top college wrestling so nearby. Get Connected. Over the years you will probably meet and get to know many coaches at all levels. Use your connections to help boys have the opportunity to attend college and wrestle. Write letters and promote your kids. Help them be realistic about the schools they consider, because obviously academics are the real deciding factor. You can provide valuable guidance beyond what they can get from the school's counselors. Do whatever you can for the kids; they will be grateful. Treat Everyone with the Same Respect. It doesn't matter if it's a bench-warmer, a star performer, a Mat Maid, cheerleader, parent, newspaper reporter, fellow coach, or fan in the crowd, follow the Golden Rule. Your reputation is critical to the program because you are the most recognizable person in the program year in and year out. Your reputation, once established as good and positive, will draw quality people to the program. Everyone wants to be part of something good, and you're in the position of being a catalyst for that. Over time, it works! I hope there has been some information in these articles about promoting high school wrestling that you can use as you work to reach your goals as a coach, and as you strive to make every boy who participates in your program the best wrestler and person he can be. Click for information about my five video series "Inside the Nazareth Wrestling Room". Top Return to Home Page