Wednesday is still for wrestling
I spent a bone-numbing day in the office today, taking wrestling score after wrestling score. Actually, other folks carried most of the load until about 9 p.m., when I thought they were going to drown. Then I started picking up the phone.
Wrestling is a weird sport. My dad wrestled in his days at Woodrow Wilson, so I grew up with a respect for the sport, but as an adult I look at it kind of like it's a dinosaur, especially because it makes no room for girls. I'm not certain most girls would be interested in wrestling -- though there are several girls competing in the area -- but there is definite value in that sort of visceral, one-on-one kind of competition.
My idea is to replace wrestling with martial arts, whether it be taekwondo or judo or kendo or whetaver. It would preserve the lessons and values that wrestling espouses, while leaving the door open wider for girls. Plus, the spiritual, life-management lessons inherent in martial arts would be a benefit beyond the mat, and these athletes enjoyment of the sport could continue after high school, in any area of the world.
Obviously, it wouldn't be all that great for girls' basketball because hoops pretty much has a monopoly on the wintertime freelance team-sport athletes in a given school. In the fall, girls pick soccer or field hockey, and the spring offers softball and lacrosse or track. In the winter, swimming gets its share, but most swimmers are swimmers only all year round and aren't in circulation the rest of the school year. The addition of martial arts wouldn't touch the type of players that start for top 20 teams, but the sport's depth would be affected.
Of course, any discussion of such a thing is pie in the sky. Nothing like it is in the works or probably even in the minds of the NJSIAA. Even if a buzz were to start today, nothing would happen for years and years. So wrestling, a slowly dying sport, is here to ruin my Wednesday nights for the forseeable future.
Tomorrow, I'll be at Cherry Hill East, and the first thing I'll do it try to figure out why Abiona and Vespe didn't play against Paul VI. I'm not sure how much difference they would have made, and as far as the rankings go it doesn't matter: the team that plays is the team that plays. I was scheduled to cover Willingboro-RV II on Friday, but a death in my wife's family will prevent that pleasure. The relative who passed away was just 44 years old, a good guy and a good Democrat; he was a ward leader in the Fishtown section of Philly, a throwback political foot soldier. All that is undoubtedly contributing to my strange mood the last couple of days. Hopefully, the funeral will do what it's supposed to do and provide a place to put those feelings.
Anyway, I'll see you at the gym.
Wrestling is a weird sport. My dad wrestled in his days at Woodrow Wilson, so I grew up with a respect for the sport, but as an adult I look at it kind of like it's a dinosaur, especially because it makes no room for girls. I'm not certain most girls would be interested in wrestling -- though there are several girls competing in the area -- but there is definite value in that sort of visceral, one-on-one kind of competition.
My idea is to replace wrestling with martial arts, whether it be taekwondo or judo or kendo or whetaver. It would preserve the lessons and values that wrestling espouses, while leaving the door open wider for girls. Plus, the spiritual, life-management lessons inherent in martial arts would be a benefit beyond the mat, and these athletes enjoyment of the sport could continue after high school, in any area of the world.
Obviously, it wouldn't be all that great for girls' basketball because hoops pretty much has a monopoly on the wintertime freelance team-sport athletes in a given school. In the fall, girls pick soccer or field hockey, and the spring offers softball and lacrosse or track. In the winter, swimming gets its share, but most swimmers are swimmers only all year round and aren't in circulation the rest of the school year. The addition of martial arts wouldn't touch the type of players that start for top 20 teams, but the sport's depth would be affected.
Of course, any discussion of such a thing is pie in the sky. Nothing like it is in the works or probably even in the minds of the NJSIAA. Even if a buzz were to start today, nothing would happen for years and years. So wrestling, a slowly dying sport, is here to ruin my Wednesday nights for the forseeable future.
Tomorrow, I'll be at Cherry Hill East, and the first thing I'll do it try to figure out why Abiona and Vespe didn't play against Paul VI. I'm not sure how much difference they would have made, and as far as the rankings go it doesn't matter: the team that plays is the team that plays. I was scheduled to cover Willingboro-RV II on Friday, but a death in my wife's family will prevent that pleasure. The relative who passed away was just 44 years old, a good guy and a good Democrat; he was a ward leader in the Fishtown section of Philly, a throwback political foot soldier. All that is undoubtedly contributing to my strange mood the last couple of days. Hopefully, the funeral will do what it's supposed to do and provide a place to put those feelings.
Anyway, I'll see you at the gym.
posted by SMc. @ 1:36 AM
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