Wrestlers must adjust at college level
By ROSS MARTIN
Collegiate wrestling coaches faced many changes in 2001 when the NCAA mandated a weight-certification program for all its members in response to three wrestler deaths in 1997 linked to unsafe weight-cutting techniques.
Gone were the days of allowing wrestlers to cut weight at their own discretion. Coaches now had a concrete system to determine how low is too low.
“I like the hydration rule. I like the fact we do the body-fat rule,” Central Missouri State coach Robin Ersland said. “What it takes away is kids walking in and telling me what they want to wrestle. Now, I can tell them, ‘You can’t do that.’ In high school, they could do it if they wanted to. In college, a weight class that a kid can go to is determined by the test. All the argument is out of it.”
According to an NCAA memorandum dated Aug. 17, 2001, the test requires wrestlers to pass a hydration test “no sooner than the first official day of classes in the fall semester, trimester or quarter and no later than the first official practice.” Once that is passed, a body-fat composition test is performed and through a mathematical formula, the lowest allowable weight class is determined. First-year wrestlers must do this again during midseason to establish a permanent class for that season.
Without a nationally mandated rule for hydration/body-fat testing in high school, Ersland, in his 10th year at Central and 21st overall as a head coach, has encountered problems with first-year wrestlers from states, such as Missouri, that do not require weight certification.
“The biggest thing is that they don’t understand it,” said Ersland, whose roster is comprised mostly of Missouri wrestlers. “In college, they have to pass a hydration test and be down to weight to certify. They think they just have to be down to weight. They’re not used to that.
“The difficult part is getting them to understand they need to come into school somewhat into shape, but they need to be down close to the weight they need to wrestle. They can’t balloon in the offseason like they did in high school.”
Truman State coach David Schutter has wrestlers on his roster from six different states outside of Missouri. He doesn’t see a major difference between kids from states with different rules.
“I don’t know if it matters from state to state, but it is just a big adjustment anyway from high school to college,” said Schutter, in his 15th season at Truman. “I do see it though, where kids aren’t used to people looking at them or urinating in a cup. The high-level kids that you get out of high school, those kids are used to it, they have no trouble adjusting to it.”
First-year Central Missouri State wrestler Joe Drake agrees with his coach to a certain extent, but he believes that playing multiple sports in high school is a big factor.
“In high school, you went from one sport to the other and rushed into things,” said Drake, a Maryville graduate. “It was actually a pretty big change, pretty different. (At the beginning of this season), you could slowly get into cutting weight. Once you get down to that weight, you have to do that urine test again and make sure you’re still hydrated. In high school, you thought you could do whatever.”
In high school, some wrestlers are tempted to cut extra weight to get to a lower weight class, where there is a better chance to medal at state.
“It really doesn’t matter who’s where now,” Drake said. “It’s not such a big deal now. There are good people everywhere now, so you can’t get away from them.”
Other high school wrestlers would be forced to cut extreme amounts of weight to deal with a schedule that regularly includes Tuesday and Thursday duals along with a Saturday tournament. In college, teams generally have only one meet per week.
“A kid can not cut the same weight in high school, because they don’t have the recovery period,” said Maryville coach Joe Drake, father of Central wrestler Joe Drake. “They can’t cut the extreme amount of weight that a college kid can. If they are losing the weight (in high school), they probably aren’t being very successful.”
Ersland and Schutter agreed that no matter what the differences between levels, the program has helped to alleviate concerns about weight-cutting techniques.
“I definitely don’t think (wrestling) is unhealthy,” Schutter said. “I think wrestling is a great sport, and we’re doing (weight loss) right. Most people in this country are way overweight. We teach wrestlers to eat healthy, lift and train. Wrestling’s a great sport in doing things right for young athletes.”
But the weight-certification program isn’t all black and white and does create certain problems for coaches. Ersland insists that, though he agrees with the testing, there are numerous gray areas. He indicated that it depends on the exact moment when the test is performed or how hard the physician pinches a wrestler’s skin when performing the test. For instance, if a wrestler’s lowest allowable weight is just 1/10 of a pound over a specific weight class, his lowest weight class must be the next one above.
“I think it takes out some of the (ability of a coach to move kids around,” Ersland said. “Body fat doesn’t indicate how much a person is willing to sacrifice to do something. There’s no allowance for the borderline kid. A lot of (how low a wrestler can go) has to do with whether they come in down to weight and in shape.”
But most coaches know that something had to be done to ease growing concern from the general public after the deaths in 1997 related to dehydration and unsafe weight-cutting techniques related to wrestling.
“No matter the intelligence level, there are always people that are uninformed,” Schutter said. “They don’t know everything about the sport. They don’t have enough information or inside knowledge to form an accurate or correct opinion.
“I think that’s definitely some of it ” appeasing the overreaction of the masses. But I also think there was definitely a need for some of this. It’s definitely not a bad thing that’s going on, because it keeps people from going to extremes.”
Wrestling Gear
