Takedown Report

Increased High School participation

How one high school wrestling team dramatically increased participation by putting kids first
ROLLA, Mo. – Marty Hauck looks at the depth chart of his Rolla High School wrestling team in his office. Each name has a story. Hauck, who is passionately devoted to using wrestling to help build character, commitment and discipline in as many students as possible, starts rattling off the stories.
This boy is the state champion who travels nationally for meets and dreams of becoming an Olympian and majoring in biology. That girl convinced her skeptical Muslim parents to let her wrestle and hopes to start the sport for girls in Saudi Arabia when she moves back there soon. This boy never competes – he simply practices because it’s fun and worries he might get injured in a match that would impact his baseball season.
Those three on the depth chart? They moved out of their homes and live on their own due to difficult family situations.
“Some of these kids, when I ask what mom and dad did over the weekend, they say, ‘Well, they did a little meth,’” Hauck says. “‘What do you mean they did a little meth?’ ‘They’re not like a meth head, Coach. They just do a little to relax on the weekend.’ Some of these kids, it’s nothing for them to come home and the parents are smoking a bong and they want them to join. These kids are making choices bigger than I know.”
What stands out the most about Rolla’s depth chart isn’t any one story. It’s the sheer volume of names, each with his or her own story.
There were 113 wrestlers at the start of this season – a staggering increase from the 26 wrestlers on the team five years ago when Hauck took over the program and the most participants the school has seen since the 1980s. About 9% of Rolla High School students came out this season for wrestling, even more than football. …. rest of the story at https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/highschool/2020/01/30/how-high-school-wrestling-team-dramatically-increased-participation/2854356001/?mc_cid=0c135afe6f&mc_eid=2ef7cbca4b

February 17, 2020 - Posted by The TakeDown Report | Uncategorized