Let me begin by hoping you all you had a wonderful holiday season and by wishing you all a healthy and successful 2010. It has been some time since I have sent anything out, since most of my efforts over the past 2 months have been focused on recruiting. As I write this letter I am getting ready to head to Wilkes for our first competition since the NYU match a month ago. I am excited to get back to the team and really wish that I could cut myself in half so I could recruit and coach simultaneously. Until one of our past, current, or future wrestlers makes such a technological breakthrough I will have to come to terms with being in one place at a time. Because of my absence from Lancaster I will only give updates on what I have first hand knowledge of, so please be patient, and a more thorough analysis will follow the tournament.
When looking back at the first half of our season, it is clear that our program experienced a series of up and down results both individually and as a team. Our first two tournaments were basically identical in the way they wrestled out with 3 or 4 guys performing well while the others performed, to be blunt, not-so-well. Our team came into the season about as fragile as a team could be, meaning perfect attendance was 14 wrestlers in the room…TOTAL. Due to the nature of our sport it would only be a matter of time before one or more of our guys would go down with injuries, skin issues, etc.
As the season started to move forward we began to get visits from some of our old friends and even some new ones. These friends are not the good kind of friends you have at work or from college, these are the ones that take things without asking and hinder your success. We had a visit from Mr. Ringworm more than once and I believe he will be back throughout the second half of the season. We also ran into that damn Injury Bug fellow who if I ever see in person I will shoot first and ask questions second. Then we had Mr. Mono, Mr. Sprain, and of course Mr. Flu. There are some new friends that are currently being identified, but they look like they could be relatives of that Ring Worm guy. So not only do these “friends” show up at our wrestling room unannounced but they almost always leave our room with one or two of our wrestlers for an extended time period. It doesn’t take a mathematician to figure out that if you start our with a base of 14 and cannot add to that base for a year but that base can always lose numbers from it at anytime, that we are in a tough position as a team. I can say that this troubled scenario has also yielded some positives as well. For example, 4 of our wrestlers have taken it upon themselves to step up and be the leaders of the team. They are working out every day and constantly trying to get better. They are the ones who are pushing their teammates to get better and to keep fighting through the hard times. This core group is made up of soph’s and jr.’s which means they will be back next year to continue our building process. I am excited for them and for the program because I really believe they are the key to building the F&M program back up to where it should be.
The major issue with our program is the size of the team. It would have been very difficult to run the necessary practices and create the necessary training environments with 14 wrestlers, most of the time we were working with 7 or 8. I know what you are thinking: “Why does this cause major issues with the success and growth of team?
Allow me to answer. With so few wrestlers in the room it becomes very difficult for our guys to get different partners. This limits their exposure to different styles of wrestling and retards their development. It also causes complacency do to the fact that there is nobody threatening their spots on varsity, literally no-body. The worst thing you can be in our sport is to become complacent. This slows down the learning curve of our wrestlers, kills the warrior mentalities they have built over their years training and competing, and worst of all, it opens the door for “self-doubt” and “why am I’s” to creep in. We are trying to keep things fresh and exciting for the team but there is only so much that can be done with our depleted roster. It has become clear that we need to bring in large recruiting classes over the next 3 years to build our room back up and beyond what a college room should be.
Which brings us to recruiting. I have been doing everything in my power to get the recruiting process moving while also working to create buzz and hype around the future of our program. Along my travels I have been met with enthusiasm and excitement about the possible resurgence of F&M Wrestling and I have built a very impressive coaches network throughout the NJ-NY-VA area. I also learned that there are people out there who are looking to be a part of something special, and the rebuilding of a down program qualifies as just that-something special. Unfortunately we are that down program, fortunately we don’t have to continue to be. Over the next month I am going to be in and out of the office trying to lock in as many recruits as possible for next year but I am also open to any ideas or advice from the F&M Wrestling Family if there are things I am missing or not aware of, or you just might have a way to do it better. I really want to communicate with all of you and I feel this could be a perfect starting point.
This has been a very rough start to my coaching career performance wise (W-L column) but it has also been one of the most rewarding spiritually. I have helped some young wrestlers feel good about themselves on and off the mats and hopefully come closer to reaching their goals. For a specific few, I feel that I have them expecting to win, expecting to get through EIWA’s, and expecting to be at NCAA’s in March. These little changes are what coaching’s all about for me. It always starts with one or two guys but that quickly spreads to three or four. Given the size of our team I feel pretty confident predicting it will not take long for this attitude to infect our entire roster (bad joke?)! It’s why I wanted to be a part of F&M’s program even while we are struggling, and it is also why I hope to be a part of F&M Wrestling for as long as it takes us to become great again.
I look forward to hearing from some of you soon, and as always please email or call me anytime.
Happy New Year,
Matt Greenberg
