Wrestling writers

In my state, they went to random draw a couple of years ago, then move up from there. So if 130 was pulled, then it went 130-135-140 and so on. Poor heavyweights always either a) wrestled a meaningless match or b) wrestled with the weight of the world on their shoulders.

 

That's pretty much the basis of what you've got to do. In addition to the teams' trends, try to find the patterns of the individual wrestlers. This is much easier if you've got only a couple teams to cover or you're reporting a tournament -- follow the winners and the underdogs. There are excellent stories in there just about every time.

When I'm covering a dual meet, I'll focus on one match, generally the turning point. Maybe it's the match-clincher -- when the pin puts the team up by 20 with three bouts to go; or it's a quick pin that generates two more; or it's brothers feeding off one another in the middle. Generally, there's one turning point unless, of course, it's 72-6 or something in which case, your story writes itself.

You certainly don't need to include information -- play-by-play, key moves -- on every match. I'd just highlight two or three, maybe a fourth or fifth if you really need it. Otherwise, it'll get too bogged down with detail, and before you know it, you've got 25 inches of the same stuff, more or less. If Cory "The Cory" Matthews and A.C. Slater clinch the win with back-to-back pins in the 12th and 13th matches, you don't need to mention anything other than "Drew Carey (103) and Bud Bundy (112) notched consecutive decisions to build a 6-0 lead. ..."

And it could have been strategy that led to the win. A lot of times, kids will bump up a weight class to defend against an easy pin to save some points, often swinging the win in the team's favor.

Just look for the story, Jay, and let it do the rest. You'll be fine.

 

It's been random everywhere I've been, too.

 

Ours is random, at least during the regular season.

When it comes to state finals, it goes straight through the classes starting at 103.

 

When I saw the thread title, I thought maybe Doyel had tracked down another SportsJournalists.com member in the press box.

 

Very true. I never understood the logic in breaking up individual sports into classifications. In wrestling, track, golf, tennis, etc., you can have a really good competitor from a small school just as easily as he/she can be from a large school.

Likewise, you can have a great performer even if the rest of the team stinks. It is really is an individual sport.

 

Remember: Wrestling, above all else, is a manly sport.

 

I did get taken to task by a reader once for focusing too much on one or two wrestlers (who were both sectional finalists and one a champion) in a story once.
It's a TEAM, you know.

 

Another bit of advice: Let the coaches know you're not experienced with the sport and most will be glad to explain anything you need.

Believe it or not, wrestling is a fascinating sport in terms of strategy, particularly in a close dual meet. Wins and losses often are determined beforehand during the weigh-ins -- with certain kids either bumping up or dropping down from their normal weight to create better matchups and roster flexibility against a particular opponent.

Then there is strategy of wrestling the matches themselves. The best individuals in most states already have scouting reports on each other -- usually because they already faced each other in some freestyle tournament in the summer -- and therefore have a specific plan going in to take advantage of their own strength or their opponent's weakness.

I can go on and on here, but you get the idea. If you're not a homophobe who thinks wrestling is half or three-quarters gay (some people I know seriously think it is, but most just joke about it), you'll find that the more you get to know about the sport, the more you'll want to go back and cover it.

I have an NFL beat and I've covered two Super Bowls, two World Series and an NBA Final, but I get just as big a rush covering a great dual meet or great individual matchup in a state tournament as I ever have with anything else.

 

Here it's a blind draw. The match I covered last week started at 119.

 

Our new policy is that we write a weekly feature or two, go take pics, maybe have a stringer write a gamer, but the FTers just write roundups with called/faxed/e-mailed info.
The same goes for swimming, vball and anything not football or basketball.
The reasoning I was given by the ME was because the people that where there don't need a long recap to read since they know what happened and for the most part, if someone didn't go, they probably won't read more than the final score anyway, so why waste the space.
We are still in the phase of moving away from gamers and focusing on features (about one a day if we can) and notebooks.

 

One of the best stories I ever got at a wrestling match was a kid who was 2-for-the-season and in a district tournament dual meet, he was able to keep from getting pinned about four times in his bout and he saved his team two points by only allowing a major decision. I talked to the kid and it turned out he and the kid he was wrestling were best friends growing up all the way until high school until the losing wrestler moved to the next town over. It was the first time they had wrestled and it was an entertaining match.

Long story short, don't undervalue the ability to keep from getting pinned. In a tight dual meet, that's often more valuable than your state place-winner stud who picks up 6 points with a fall in :37 seconds.