NYC public school program becomes first to sponsor freestyle & Greco

DATE: 6/5/2008 2:55:00 PM
New York City
Beat The Streets

Mike Novogratz, Chairman of the Board, announced at the Annual Beat the Streets Celebration in May that the PSAL would next year begin the organization of both a freestyle and Greco-Roman season for high school wrestling in addition to the existing winter folkstyle season.

PSAL Wrestling Commissioner Larry Cantor and Sports Coordinator Lance Hermus stated they would support that effort, which would make New York the first city in the nation, at the high school or collegiate level, to offer competitive seasons of both freestyle and Greco-Roman disciplines.

Mike Novogratz, who is also the President and Director of Fortress Investment Group LLC, was instrumental in raising more than $2 million, which went toward the purchase of wrestling equipment and the establishment of more than 40 new programs in the PSAL and 62 Middle School Programs.

"We can throw a lot of money at the thing," Novogratz said, "but our real genius will be finding, helping to place and then inspiring coaches. We really are a support group for coaches."

Al Bevilacqua, President stated "The year round program will help New York City “catch up” to its neighbors in New Jersey and Long Island. The "sleeping giant" is awakening through the efforts and leadership of USA Wrestling in the training and development of coaches in its Bronze and Silver Level Certification Programs. We have already registered over 90 USA Wrestling Clubs and all 1500 Middle School wrestlers are USA Wrestling League members."

Hopefully this will be the first step in converting ALL high school wrestling to freestyle and greco. The US is currently not as competitive as it could be, or should be, on the world stage. An earlier start towards learning the international styles would do wonders for our country at the olympics and other high level world competitions. It would also prevent this hesitation that most wrestlers have in learning freestyle and greco after they already feel comfortable in folkstyle. It's time to stop wasting our young wrestlers time doing folkstyle and convert all age level competition to freestyle and greco. No other country in the world focuses on folkstyle. The future of wrestling in this country would be greatly bolstered by converting to the world styles. And after we accomplish this...I am going propose converting to the metric system. Who's with me?

While I see the real value in off season wrestling as well as learning Freestyle & Greco Roman wrestling. Folkstyle wrestling is the basis for NCAA & high school competition. I also don't understand a scoring system where one wrestler can win on points the first period/match, then tie the next two and lose. That is what appeared to happen in the olympic tryouts to Cary Kolat in his semi-final loss. As for the metric system I was told in grammer school that we would be on the metric system by 1980. It just didn't happen. As an engineering student we used metric and standard and here we are in the next century still not using the metric system.

KIcoach, I can understand how difficult the freestyle scoring system can be to understand at first. Being unwilling to learn a new scoring system is one of the reasons so many wrestlers avoid trying freestyle and greco. However, I couldn't understand why some guys got three points for putting their opponent on their back in folkstyle while others received two. Then back points were explained to me and I haven't had a problem understanding it since. Change is difficult in all aspects of life. All the same, we must learn to adapt. As Americans, sometimes we think others should adapt to us (my point for referring to the metric system and the US being the only country that competes in folkstyle). There are economists that believe our unwillingness to change to an international system of measurement before may be partially responsible for our inability to compete in the global economy now. Could this comparison also be translated into wrestling and the USA's inability to win frequently at the Olympics? Something to at least consider, I think. It makes no sense to me to wrestle one style while the rest of the world wrestles another if we want to compete at world competitions. What if kids played t-ball right until the major leagues? What if basketball players played with an eight-foot high rim until the NBA. Isn't that kind of what we are doing? I would encourage the preservation of folkstyle. However, maybe reverse the roles of the other styles and go folkstyle as an afterthought. Introduce freestyle and greco first. Just one guys' opinion

I am not as against Freestyle as my post may have seemed. In fact I hosted the MD state freestyle tournament and had a free clinic to explain rules to wrestlers. Maybe school sponsored freestyle wrestling can benefit the sport. I think one of the limitations is the number of coaches that can teach greco-roman & freestyle wreslting is limited and that wrestler often have to travel further for competition.