wrestlingparent Coach Prewitt
Wrestling Parents,

Thank-you for sharing your son with me this season. Wrestling is one of the oldest sports in the world and one of the best. Wrestling teaches self-discipline, hard work, very hard work, team work, self control and the ability to push yourself beyond your limits. We are looking forward to a great year. My assistant coach this year, for the second year is Jacob Gaydosh. Jacob was a four year wrestler at VHHS, two time state champion, Varsity coach at Brookwood, Mountain Brook and Pelham, and does a great job with the boys.

I hope your son brought home a schedule. In wrestling, the competitions are called matches. If the matches are scheduled to start at 5:00, we have to be at the school an hour ahead of time to weigh-in. If your son does not make weight, he will not be allowed to wrestle. I will try to get as many exhibition matches for the non-starters as possible.

Concerning away matches, we will take a bus to the matches. Once the match is over the bus will return to the school. If you would like to take your wrestler home, you may, but let me know he is riding with you. Board policy allows you to take only your son home – no other wrestler may ride with you.

The only equipment needed in a wrestling match are wrestling shoes, singlet and headgear. Your wrestler will not be allowed to wrestle if he doesn’t have a headgear. The spirit pack sweat suit is what they will wear at matches and tournaments when they are not on the mat. Their singlet is theirs to use during the season, but must be returned at the end of the season.

The money paid for the spirit pack goes for much more than just the sweat suit. Most of that money pays for the sweat suit, but it also covers the cost of Tournament entry fees, bus cost (every time we take a bus it costs $90.00), and singlet expenses. Thank-you so much for your understanding and support.

The weight classes we have in Middle School are as follows: 75 lbs, 85 lbs, 95 lbs, 103 lbs, 112 lbs, 119 lbs, 125 lbs, 130 lbs, 135 lbs, 145 lbs, 155 lbs, 165 lbs, 175 lbs, and Heavyweight class, which has a minimum of 176 lbs and a maximum of 285 lbs. On January 1st of every season, each weight class increases 2 lbs for growth allowance. My philosophy on losing weight is to find a weight class that fits their current weight, and wrestle in that weight class. The boys are going to lose some weight in practice. Please don’t encourage them to lose more than 1 or 2 pounds to make a weight class.

The way we determine who starts at each weight class is to have “Wrestle Offs”. All the boys in a specific weight class will have a “tournament”, and the winner of this weight class tournament will be the starter at that weight. Any non-starter can challenge the starter to a wrestle-off, and the winner of this will be the starter for the next event (match or tournament).

A word about tournaments: we are scheduled to have nine tournaments. The tournaments at Bumpus and VHHS is only one day. The other tournaments are two day affairs, Friday and Saturday. These two day tournaments are usually Friday afternoon until 9:00 PM and start back up Saturday morning at 9:00 AM until completion, usually Saturday about 4:00 PM. These are all day events, so come prepared.

I think that covers just about everything. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask me at anytime.

Yours in Wrestling,

Malcolm Prewitt

Last updated  2008/09/28 02:01:11 PDTHits  2350