Wrestling Is a Marathon, Not a Sprint

A Personal Message From Coach Hogan

TBTWC Parents,

With tournament season getting underway, I wanted to share some thoughts on something I’ve become more and more passionate about over the years. It’s something that drives a lot of the decisions I make as a coach, and I think it’s important that our parents understand where I’m coming from.

I started wrestling when I was nine years old and continued through my senior year of high school. I started coaching in 2012, and here we are in 2026. In a sense, I’m on my third trip through the developmental process. Once as a wrestler myself, once watching a generation of kids grow from young wrestlers into adults as their coach, and now again as a father with kids of my own in the sport. If there’s one thing my experiences as a wrestler, coach, and father have reinforced, it’s something I’ve said for years: Wrestling is a marathon, not a sprint.

My own youth wrestling experience was almost entirely recreational. I wrestled because I loved it. I was fortunate enough to find success early, winning a state championship in my second year, and continued to have a lot of success throughout my career. I’m certain being good at wrestling helped fuel my love for it. But something else was probably even more important. For my parents, effort and attitude were all that mattered.

They expected me to work hard and conduct myself appropriately. Winning was great, but it wasn’t the expectation. Losing didn’t mean I’d disappointed them. That gave me the freedom to develop a genuine passion for the sport. I wanted to get better because I wanted to get better. Nobody had to manufacture that desire for me.

When I started coaching in 2012, I brought a lot of that same philosophy with me. And I’ll tell you, it wasn’t always popular. There were plenty of people in those early years who wanted me gone. I heard that I played too many games, didn’t teach enough technique, and wasn’t hard enough on the kids.

Looking back, I’m sure some of those criticisms had merit. I’ve learned a tremendous amount about coaching, teaching technique, structuring practices, and holding kids accountable since then. I’d like to think I’m a much better coach today than I was in 2012. But the foundation of what I believed back then hasn’t changed. The goal was never to make wrestling easy. It was to help kids develop a love for doing something incredibly hard.

Fourteen years later, I’ve had the opportunity to see what a lot of those kids have become. We’ve had kids wrestle in college at every level, including Division I. We’ve had kids become coaches, teachers, successful professionals, and great parents. And now some of those former wrestlers are bringing their own kids into the sport. That’s pretty special to me.

I’ve watched late bloomers turn into outstanding wrestlers. I’ve watched naturally gifted kids stay among the best throughout their careers. And unfortunately, I’ve watched talented kids walk away before ever coming close to what they were capable of. I don’t buy the idea that youth results mean absolutely nothing. Natural ability matters. Some kids have a higher ceiling than others, and many of the best young wrestlers remain the best as they get older. The best young wrestlers often remain the best older wrestlers—IF THEY DON’T QUIT.

That’s the part I think we sometimes lose sight of. And on the other end, we have to be careful about assuming we know what a struggling eight-year-old is capable of becoming. I’ve seen too many late bloomers to ever write a kid off because they weren’t winning at a young age. Our job is to give both of those kids the opportunity to find out just how good they can become.

That brings me back to our mission. TBTWC exists to develop young people in mind, body, and spirit. We want our wrestlers developing discipline, courage, character, confidence, integrity, and a work ethic that will serve them long after they’re done wrestling. But I have a personal mission that goes a little further. I want to give as many kids as humanly possible the opportunity to change their lives through wrestling.

I believe with every fiber of my being that this sport can do that. I’ve experienced it myself, and I’ve spent years watching it happen for others. But they have to stay in it long enough to experience what it can give them.

Our club’s structure is a good example of how we’ve tried to approach that over the years. We didn’t always have Little Hammers, Novice, Open, and Elite. For years, we simply had Novice and Open. We’ve tried different approaches, made changes, learned from mistakes, and continued adjusting along the way. I won’t pretend we’ve got everything figured out today either. We’ll continue to evolve as we learn. But we’ve arrived at our current structure because we believe it’s the best way to execute our mission.

A six-year-old who has never wrestled before doesn’t need the same training environment as a twelve-year-old who has been wrestling for seven years and wants to compete against the best kids in the country. Both deserve great coaching. Both deserve to be challenged. But the approach shouldn’t be the same. We’re not going to sacrifice opportunities for beginners in pursuit of elite wrestlers. And we’re not going to hold our most committed kids back in the name of keeping everything recreational. We need to be able to do both.

Wrestling itself has changed tremendously, too. I recently came across a post by a coach that I thought was one of the better takes I’ve read on the subject. His point, essentially, was that wrestling has evolved and will continue to evolve whether we like it or not.

The technical level of young wrestlers today is remarkable. The training opportunities available year-round are nothing like what many of us grew up with. And we can’t pretend that wrestling two or three months a year is going to provide the same preparation as kids training consistently throughout the year.

That’s not a knock on multi-sport athletes or kids who simply want to wrestle recreationally. I want those kids in our program too. But if the goal is to compete at the highest levels, we need to be realistic about what that takes. We don’t need to demand elite-level commitment from every kid. But we absolutely need to provide the opportunity for every kid who wants to pursue it. And ideally, that level of commitment grows out of their own desire to improve, not because someone forced it on them at eight years old.

Which brings me to something I think we sometimes get wrong as parents. We’re in too much of a hurry.

I get it. I’m a wrestling parent myself. I know how exciting tournaments can be. I understand wanting to watch your child compete, wanting them to succeed, and wondering whether they’re doing enough. But more tournaments don’t automatically make a better wrestler. Fundamentals matter. Proper drilling matters. Quality technique and thousands of correct repetitions matter. Practices are where we build wrestlers. Tournaments are where we test what we’ve built.

I’ve watched kids win matches while doing just about everything technically wrong. I’ve also watched kids lose while doing exactly what we’ve been teaching them. From a developmental standpoint, which kid had the better day? It’s not always the one whose hand got raised.

Sometimes your kid needs another few months of good practice before their next tournament. Sometimes they need to get out there, face their nerves, and compete even when they’re not confident. Knowing the difference is important. And so is knowing when to push and when to back off.

I’m a big believer in pressure. I think appropriate pressure is one of the greatest tools we have for developing discipline, accountability, toughness, and resilience. Kids need to learn to do hard things. They need to show up when they don’t feel like it, work through frustration, and understand that improvement takes effort.

But there’s a difference between challenging a child and overwhelming them. There’s a difference between holding them accountable and making them feel like they’re constantly disappointing you. And on the other hand, there’s a difference between protecting your kid from unnecessary pressure and letting them avoid every difficult situation. Neither extreme does them any favors.

Some kids need a push. Others are already putting more pressure on themselves than we ever could. That’s where knowing your kid and communicating with their coaches becomes important. Because eventually, if they’re going to reach their potential, the desire has to come from within. Mom and Dad can’t want it more than the wrestler forever. Neither can Coach.

We can guide them, encourage them, challenge them, and hold them accountable. But we can’t force a genuine love for the sport into existence. We can absolutely help develop it, though. And we can absolutely destroy it if we’re not careful.

Another thing I want our parents to understand is why we distinguish between team-sponsored and non-team-sponsored tournaments. HAVING THE RIGHT PEOPLE COACHING YOUR CHILD’S MATCHES IS PARAMOUNT. I cannot stress that enough.

After decades around wrestling and now having my own kids competing, I can tell you there aren’t many people I would personally trust to coach my children during matches. I know that’s a strong statement. I mean every word of it. And it’s not meant as a slight toward people who volunteer their time. We need those people, and I appreciate them.

But coaching a wrestling match involves a lot more than sitting in a chair and yelling instructions. There are so many variables. Technique, tactics, scoring, time management, rules, positioning, recognizing what an opponent is doing, and making adjustments on the fly. And that’s just the wrestling part.

You also need to understand the kid in front of you. Their personality, confidence, maturity, experience, emotional state, and how they respond to pressure. Sometimes a kid needs a technical adjustment. Sometimes they need to be challenged. Sometimes they need encouragement. And sometimes they need someone who knows when to shut up and let them wrestle.

The decisions a coach makes in that corner can have consequences well beyond the outcome of that match. I want someone coaching my kids who understands not only how to win today’s match, but how that experience fits into the next ten years of their development.

That’s why we make an effort to have experienced coaches at team-sponsored tournaments. It doesn’t mean your child can’t compete elsewhere. But I strongly encourage parents to think carefully about where, how often, and with whom their children compete. If you’re unsure whether your kid is ready for a tournament or who might be available to coach them, ask us. That’s what we’re here for.

And I certainly don’t want to give the impression that coaches have all the answers or don’t make mistakes. I’ve pushed too hard. I’ve misjudged situations. I’ve allowed my competitiveness to get the better of me, both as a coach and as a father. I’m sure I’ll make more mistakes along the way. I hope I’ve learned from the ones I’ve already made, and I fully intend to keep learning.

When I think back to those early years when people questioned my approach, I understand some of those concerns better today. I’ve changed tremendously as a coach, and our program has changed right along with me. But seeing what our former wrestlers have become has given me a great deal of confidence in the principles we’ve built this program around.

I’m proud of our champions and college wrestlers. Of course I am. But I’m equally proud of the teachers, coaches, professionals, parents, and good people who have come through our program. Those are the outcomes that remind me why we’re doing this.

I don’t want to sacrifice what a child could become at eighteen for what we can make them accomplish at eight.

I want our kids to win. I want them to work hard, embrace adversity, develop outstanding fundamentals, and find out just how good they can become. But more than anything, I want them to stay involved long enough to experience everything this sport has to offer.

Because in the grand scheme of things, our greatest accomplishment won’t be how many youth wrestling matches our kids win. It’ll be who they become through the experience. That’s my mission. And I hope you’ll help us accomplish it.

We’re building this thing the right way, and we’re building it to last.

Coach Hogan • Director, Topeka Blue Thunder Wrestling Club