Next I gave a brief history of how the Alabama Takedown Academy came to be. I explained the background of Tiger Youth and how it has evolved over the past 20 plus years. I talked about how North Alabama Wrestling Club has grown out of JP’s club.

See below for an in depth discussion of this. Next I went through several frequently asked questions:

• Will my son wrestle bigger kids?
• Will my son have to lose weight?
• Isn't wrestling dangerous?
• How long is the season?
• How much will my son practice?
• Will we have to travel?
• What does my child need to wrestle?
• What is required of parents?
• What does it cost to wrestle?

• Will my son wrestle bigger kids?
  • This was answered by showing the Class and weight class breakdown from the SYWO rules and procedures book.
• Will my son have to lose weight?
  • This was answered with a resounding NO! I did talk about the reason some people cut weight and how the National Wrestling Coaches Association is battling the problem of wrestling cutting weight. I covered the SYWO’s position of non-tolerance of weight cutting and my personal position of youth wrestlers cutting weight.
• Isn't wrestling dangerous?
  • This one is difficult to answer. Obviously, wrestling is a physical sport and carries risks. I discussed, anecdotally, how we have had very few serious injuries in the 10 years I have been with Tiger. I talked about how, for the most part, wrestling is a low impact activity and most serious injuries in other sport come from the high impact nature of those sports.
• How long is the season?
  • USA Season
    • November into February
    • Practice Starts November 1st
  • SYWO Season
    • February into March
    • Practice Starts January 9th
• How much will my son practice?
  • We will hold practices Monday through Thursday, 6PM – 8PM
  • Practices are set at different levels on different days
  • Everyone should have at least 3 practice opportunities per week.
  • See the calendar on the website for practices
• Will we have to travel?
  • Some tournaments are out of town
  • All tournaments are optional
• What does my child need to wrestle?
  • Shoes ( $19 - $140)
  • Singlet ( < $50 )
  • Headgear (we have these)
  • Mouthpiece
  • All of this is optional with the exception of the mouthpiece for wrestlers with braces
• What is required of parents?
  • Mostly, be supportive of your wrestler!
    • I let the parents know that the coaches would take care of whether their child did well or not. That we would use poor performances as teaching opportunities. And let them know when they needed to be disappointed loss and when they did not.
  • Help in some capacity with our tournament
  • Some fundraising possible
  • None of this is optional
• What does it cost to wrestle?
  • Our new fee schedule is as follows
    • $65 per year club fee, $20 per month practice fees
    • Additional children from the same family will pay $35 club fees
    • Club fees cover SYWO fees (registration and tournament) as always
    • USA registration and tournament fees will be parents responsibility.

First time USA registration are $10 this year only. This is something USA Alabama has arranged. If your child has never had a USA card, he can take advantage of this one time opportunity.

For those of you that are not quite up to speed, we are combining Tiger Youth and what was 6MoH Wrestling into one organization. We have always worked together and are now combining our resources. As part of the transition, we are calling the practice facility ‘The Alabama Takedown Academy’ instead of ‘The Tiger’s Den’. We are offering two season for all wrestlers, the USA season and the SYWO season. The first USA tournament will be Nov 19th and the final one will be February 25. SYWO tournaments start on February 24th – 25th and conclude March 30th – 31st. The astute reader will notice that the last USA tournament and the first SYWO tournament are the same weekend. They are in fact the same tournament. It will be an SYWO tournament that we (the Alabama Takedown Academy) will host. It is the last in a series of tournaments that USA Alabama is running called the ‘Tour of Alabama’. More on the ‘Tour’ in a minute.

We will register under the team name ‘North Alabama Wrestling Club’ for the USA season. Our SYWO season will be under the name ‘Tiger Youth Wrestling’. Kindergarten through 4th graders will wear a singlet that is orange and black. 5th through 8th graders will wear a singlet that is red and black. We are designing team singlets that will be nearly identical except for the color scheme and a team detail specifying either NAWC or TYWO. Our reasoning is that we hope to remove the separation that has crept in over the last couple of seasons between the boys that wrestled the USA season with 6MoH and those that did not. Also, we want the k through 4th guys to see the NAWC singlets as something to look forward too.

Back to the ‘Tour of Alabama’. This is a series of 4 tournaments hosted throughout the state. Each tournament will have a unique medal that resembles a puzzle piece. When all 4 pieces are put together it will make a map of Alabama. Pretty cool idea, I think. The final tournament of the ‘Tour’ will be Tiger’s ‘Brad Posey Memorial’. This was worked out between the USA board and the SYWO board in an effort to get more wrestlers into both organizations and create a smoother transition from one season to another.