2011-2012 A Individual State Rankings (92 posts) (25 voices)
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As a former coach of Manassas Park I can honestly say that anyone that wants to take the reins there will be doing a heck of alot more than just coaching wrestling; if they want to keep there best team together.
I can't begin to describe how difficult it was to keep the nucleus of those beginning championship teams together.
By the time a kid is a senior at that school (some)families are pushing there kids to quit school to enter the work force and start earning money. Gang activity had to be strictly monitored. Greedy bigger schools trying to bribe some of our top wrestlers away. Inelligabilty was an ongoing issue. Parents fighting amongst themselves over there kids on a few occasions (early on). And of course back then the football team was always playing games until mid december.
On the plus side, it was my priviledge and honor to be a part of some of the most mentally tough kids I had ever witnessed and would do anything you tasked them at to succeed.
I think history has shown us that the "Manassas Park" way of life cleary benefits the sport of wrestling. If you are going to succeed with the Manassas Park folk, one needs to understand there way of life, who the are, and what type of people you are dealing with.
After our 2nd year there we realized we had to teach wrestling the same as the way they conducted life. Tough and simple. Which I have carried over the same philosophies to my own son.
We ran a practice exactly the way in which we wanted a match to be wrestled. Instead of being good at 50 things we decided we wanted to be great at 10 things. We perfect very basic things that single A simply wasn't ready for. We scrapped all the time consuming rolls from bottom and had a philosphy that if you can't stand up on your opponent then you DO NOT deserve to win! 90% of our time in practice was dedicated taking down an opponent then having a very strong way of pinning him.
Most importantly we kept as many kids active for as long as we could in the off season.
We spent alot of time hanging out with the parents(behind the scenes).
They respected us and we respected them so that they trusted us for pushing there kids to the brink and beyond.
Unfortunately, every thing changed when Fitzsimmons left for Richmond. I could no longer endorce what was transpiring and refused to be a part of anything that was not a recipe for success. This is in no way an insinuation that Coach Murphy runs things like what was happening my final year.
If Coach Murphy reads this then understand that I am nothing but truthful here and has probably already experienced some of the same hardships that we did. Trust me when I say that if the leader of this pack runs it with caring and passion they will succeed.
I also think that you can look at history and see that Manassas Park can and will dwindle to nothing if the wrong hands get a hold of this squad for too long. MP was horrible for the better part of two decades prior to us taking over.
It was a great part of our lives to work so hard and achieve so much so quickly. It was the most difficult thing I had ever been apart of but would not of traded it for anything.
Posted 1 year ago # - -
Well I guess this is the MP thread.
Posted 1 year ago # -
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