Wrestlers must be between 4-12 years old. And they must be potty trained.

Once the kids reach 6th grade, they become eligible to join the Middle School wrestling team.

We can only accept wrestlers who are residents of Gloucester City or Brooklawn.

No. There are no tryouts and no cuts. The league is designed in a way that allows wrestlers of all skill levels to participate and compete in a fair and equitable way.

The current registration cost is $50. If you have multiple children, the cost for each additional sign-up is $40.

Maybe. We provide our wrestlers with singlets, headgear, t-shirts, and shorts. The t-shirt and shorts are yours to keep, but the singlets and headgear must be returned at the end of the season.

We may also require a cash deposit when we hand out singlets and headgear. The deposit will be returned at the end of the season when you bring them back.

The only thing you might have to buy is wrestling shoes. We have a supply of usable shoes in good condition thanks to parents who donate them to the team when their kids outgrow them. These shoes are available for our wrestlers to use at practices and matches. But, keep in mind they are made available as a courtesy and we do not guarantee that shoes will be on hand for your child.

Practice days and times may vary from year to year. Typically, there are two 1-hour practices per week for ages 4-6, and three 1½-hour practices per week for the older kids.

We will post practice schedules on the News feed, and add them to the calendar on the Schedule page.

Practices are typically held at Gloucester City Middle School in the auxiliary gym. Sometimes, we may have a practice at the high school in the wrestling room.

Kind of, but not really. We ask parents to leave the room during practices, but if you’re new to the sport and nervous or curious we’ll absolutely allow you to sit in.

The safety of our wrestlers is the top priority in everything we do. We conduct background checks on all of our coaches, and we have a zero tolerance policy regarding anything that could even remotely be considered potentially risky or dangerous to children.

Beyond just a background check, we have our own internal standards. At any point, if someone behaves in a way that we feel is unsafe, threatening, malicious, or inappropriate, we will have that person removed.

Matches will always be on weekends. Most years, there’s a pretty even mix of Saturdays and Sundays.

There is the possibility of one weekday event during the holiday break. We often participate in the annual holiday tournament hosted by a nearby school. It is possible that event may take place on a weekday.

The match schedule will be shared by coaches, posted on Remind, posted in the News feed, and as events in the calendar on the Schedule page. The matches are entered on the calendar at the start of the season when we receive the league schedule, but we don’t typically have actual start times until the week before the match.

Matches take place at a different host location each weekend. Depending on the league schedule, we may compete at any of the home venues for the teams in our league, including our own.

Our home matches are held in the Field House (new gym) at Gloucester City High School.

Yes. You need to arrange your own transportation to and from practices and matches. If you are unable to get to practices or matches by yourself, we encourage you to make friends with parents of other wrestlers on the team and work out carpooling arrangements.

Yes. At the youth level, there is no separation between boys and girls. It is entirely possible that your child may compete against a wrestler of the opposite sex.

Wrestling is perhaps the purest form of athletic competition to exist in the realm of organized sports. There are no bats or balls, or pucks or sticks. No pads or helmets or jerseys. There’s no time to rethink strategy, regroup, or even to catch your breath. There’s only you, and your opponent of equal weight and size. Experience, preparation and the will to succeed will determine the victor. There’s no doubt about it, wrestling tops the list of intense, highly competitive sports.

Wrestling involves a unique balance of practically every aspect of physical and psychological conditioning. Strength is as important as stamina. Speed as technique, strategy as intensity, and power as is coordination. However, it’s not always the natural athlete that ultimately succeeds in the sport – it’s the natural competitor.

Kids that are strong for their weight, well coordinated and naturally aggressive are usually more successful early on in the sport. However, it’s the highly competitive kids that really enjoy the sport, that eventually achieve the highest levels of success. True competitors come in all shapes and sizes, and in varying degrees of natural talent. Many of the best wrestlers the world has ever seen, such as John Smith, Dan Gable and Dave Schultz were not star athletes. They are and were ordinary people with an extraordinary competitive drive.

Gifted athletes, especially those that are strong and well coordinated, typically do well and take an early liking to the sport. Some kids that thrive on competition, with only average or below average natural ability, often surprise parents and coaches by eventually surpassing more gifted kids through hard work and preparation.

Although it is considered wise for parents and coaches to de-emphasize winning, victories can be extremely gratifying because of the strong sense of personal accomplishment. The effort put forth in practice and preparation is apparent in competition, and not lost in a team effort. This aspect of wrestling can be a great motivator and teacher, and can develop a person’s work ethic, self-confidence, and ability to achieve in all areas of life. Wrestling is great for exposing the “champion” within most any kid, but especially with those that love to compete.

Wrestling is considered an individual sport, but includes many of the benefits of team sports. Wrestling differs from most team sports in that during competition, athletes must rely entirely on their own individual abilities for success. Those that dedicate the time and effort will eventually achieve at a level directly proportionate to the investment they have made, even if their teammates prepare and perform at a different level.

Similarities exist in that teammates still depend on each other in team competition. Team victories in meets and tournaments are determined by the number of individual victories, and the extent to which each match was won or lost. Wrestlers also develop an appreciation and respect for teammates that have been through the same challenges, and a strong sense of belonging and camaraderie with teammates and other wrestlers.

Other team sports may be better for developing interactive player-to-player skills such as passing and blocking, but wrestling can offer benefits that other team sports lack. The individual nature of the sport provides an outstanding opportunity for young athletes to develop a sense of responsibility and self esteem while learning the relationship between effort and achievement.

Sports offer opportunities for children to improve their strength, flexibility and coordination, while having fun. Most sports activities rely more on some muscle groups and less on others. For example, most sports focus primarily on pushing motions (leg/arm extension) such as throwing, hitting, kicking, jumping and running.

Experts believe that unilateral (equal emphasis on all muscle groups) physical development is especially important in young athletes. Isolated development at an early age, over a long period, increases the risk of injury and limits long-term foundational growth. Swimming, gymnastics and wrestling are among the few sports that engage both pulling and pushing muscle groups.

Of all the sports choices a parent and child can make, wrestling is perhaps the best sport for overall physical development because it involves all muscle groups, and requires the greatest balance of athletic skill. In other words, wrestling does more to improve basic things such as strength, balance, speed, agility and intensity, and is not as specialized as most other common sports.

Aggressiveness, Yes. Violence, No. Wrestling is often referred to as the toughest sport, and in many ways it is, but it is certainly not violent, nor does it lead to unruly or destructive behavior.

One of the factors that makes wrestling so different from most other sports is that wrestling involves head-to-head competition. Each wrestler’s efforts work in direct opposite from each other as in a tug-of-war contest. Success in wrestling requires the ability to attack, as well as the ability to stop your opponent’s attack.

The same factors apply with boxing and martial arts, but an attack in wrestling is nonviolent. Wrestling does not permit opponents to strike one another, and imposes strict penalties or disqualification for violent behavior. In essence, wrestling is unique in the fact that it can be very aggressive without being violent. The objective is not to destroy or harm one’s opponent, but to out-maneuver them and to gain control.

The intensity with which wrestlers compete increases with age and experience. Kids wrestling, especially the younger age groups, in not nearly as intense as high school or college wrestling. It’s common for new wrestlers to feel somewhat intimidated at first, not knowing how they compare with other wrestlers, but that is soon overcome.

Wrestling, perhaps more than any other sport, is a great for building confidence while retaining a healthy dose of humility. The long-term result is that it develops the champion from within, and leads to greater success both on and off the mat, and does not turn kids into bullies or thugs.

Some parents feel that wrestling is too intense for young kids, and that it is better suited for post-pubescent teenage years. Denying a child the opportunity to participate in wrestling until high school greatly reduces their chance of success.

Wrestling is a sport involving very complex technique that can take many years to master. A great high school athlete with little or no wrestling experience has little or no chance against an 8 or 10 year veteran. Some kids can close this gap by their last year of high school, but like most sports these days, starting younger seems to be the norm.

There are two entry points prior to high school – kid’s clubs and middle school wrestling. Both are very accommodating for new wrestlers. Age and maturity level is not a factor by the time kids are in middle school, but at the club level, kids can enter wrestling as young as 4 or 5 years of age.

There is no easy way to know when a child is mature enough to be participating in a new sport. Some might be ready at three, while others might not develop an interest for wrestling until their early teens. The best approach is to introduce kids to the sport at a time and pace that is consistent with their interest level, backing off when necessary, and allowing more participation as their interest grows.

There is a common misperception among the non-wrestling public that wrestling is a very dangerous sport. Perhaps it’s the aggressive nature of the sport, association with “Pro Wrestling”, or perhaps fear of the unknown. Several studies have been conducted in recent years that show wrestling to be safer than many more common sports including football, ice hockey and gymnastics. Most notable in these reports, is wrestling’s low percentage of serious, permanent and life-threatening injury in relation to other sports.

A quote from USA Wrestling Club:

“Wrestling is a contact sport and injuries will occur. As would be expected, wrestling has more injuries than tennis and swimming, but most wrestling injuries are minor, consisting of sprains and strains. Wrestling has fewer serious injuries than football, basketball or ice hockey. There is a lesser chance of getting seriously hurt when wrestling than when riding in a car, skateboarding or riding a dirt bike.”

Perhaps the most notable difference with respect to the risk of injury, is the lack of high-impact collision that occurs in most other common sports. Wrestlers do collide, but never at great momentum or speeds as can happen with sports that involve running such as football, baseball, soccer, hockey and basketball. Also, overuse injuries from highly repetitive motions such as pitching are virtually non-existent in youth wrestling because of the variety of movement, and there is no risk of injury from hard objects such as bats, sticks, balls or pucks.

On the other hand, wrestlers are more susceptible to some communicable skin infections such as ringworm, but these incidents are quite rare, and can be prevented with the proper precautions, such as washing the mat and showering after practice.

Wrestling injuries can and do occur, but are more of a factor at the collegiate and international levels where match intensity is much higher. Most injuries occur during periods of horseplay or unsupervised activities such as before or after practice or competition. Parents and coaches can reduce this risk through proper planning and preparation.

NO! There’s no weight cutting in youth wrestling programs. It’s true that weight cutting does exist at the high school and collegiate levels, but there are quite a few public misconceptions.

Some parents automatically associate wrestling with excessive, out-of-control weight loss, akin to anorexia and bulimia. In reality, the opposite is true – wrestlers gain control of their body weight and body composition, and are able to set and achieve reasonable goals with respect to muscle mass, fat percentage and body weight.

This form of weight control is more of a factor in later years, when competing at high school or collegiate levels, but coaches and wrestlers at that level are well aware of health and safety factors, and not likely to engage in unhealthy or risky forms of weight loss. Furthermore, state and national governing bodies, such as USA Wrestling, now prohibit any form of rapid or unsafe weight loss.

To some, the practice of any sort of weight control for the purpose of competing in a sport may still seem extreme and unnecessary, however, at the appropriate age, with proper education, planning and discipline, weight control can be a good thing that caries into other sports and can be an asset in maintaining one’s health later in life. Proper weight control results in optimum body composition, allowing athletes to compete in peak physical condition, with the greatest ratio of strength, energy and power to body weight. These are factors in virtually every sport at the Olympic level.

With young wrestlers, it is only appropriate to discuss concepts. It can be a good time to explain how healthy eating can have an impact on performance, or to discuss the difference between healthy foods and “junk foods”. Virtually all kids can learn and benefit from this information, even at a young age.

Who would win in a fight between a world class boxer and a black belt kung-fu expert? How about an NFL linebacker versus a world-renowned jiu-jitsu champion? Opinions vary widely, but the truth of the matter is that each sport, or self-defense discipline, offers its own unique advantages that become more or less important depending on the situation. For example, boxing skills are quite valuable in a fistfight, but are practically useless if attacked from behind.

Most fight situations begin as a fist fight, but end up on the ground in a grappling contest with the better wrestler being the victor. Grappling, or wrestling skills, are actually more important in most selfdefense situations, than the ability to punch or kick. The highly controversial sport of Ultimate Fighting proves this point.

Ultimate fighting, much like organized street fighting, began in 1993 with contestants of virtually every discipline. More than thirty forms of martial arts have been represented including everything from aikido to wing chun kung fu. Win/loss statistics compiled since inception list wrestling as the most effective discipline. Always able to take their opponent to the ground and remain in control, wrestlers with no other martial arts training fared extremely well against world renowned experts in Karate, Jiujitsu and other similar martial arts disciplines.

Although wrestlers are relatively rare in the sport, past champions have included several excellent wrestlers such as Dan Severn and Mark Shultz, whom easily won matches against much bigger and stronger, internationally acclaimed martial arts champions.

Involvement in wrestling is a great way to build confidence and the ability to defend one’s self, without resorting to the violent tactics inherent in most other forms of self-defense. Wrestling skills are an enormous asset in a schoolyard brawl or even a street fight, however, wrestling’s non-violent nature does not prepare one for other aspects of self-defense such as disabling or disarming an assailant.