I thought about this over the weekend. I wrestled in high school (Binghamton area), which meant I’d end up wrestling PA kids in tournaments (especially from Scranton and Lehigh Valley area). At the time, I’d say wrestling in NY/PA was almost exclusively white kids.
I live in PA now, and was at the end of year tourney for kids 6-10 on Saturday. Cael Sanderson taking over at Penn State and turning it into a dominant program has had a visible impact on the sport in the state. For one thing, primarily minority school districts that either didn’t have a wrestling program when I was in school or had one but couldn’t field a full team now have huge participation at the youth level. It was amazing to see black, Asian, and Hispanic coaches and participants now - wouldn’t have seen that when I was a kid.
More related to this thread, the celebrations and behaviors in other sports don’t fit the culture of wrestling. I’d see kids behave in a “unsportsmanlike” way and immediately or right after their match get corrected by their coach. It was a lot of fun; being in the hotel common area watching the Iowa - Penn State match with diverse wrestlers and coaches from across central PA honestly gave me the most hope for the future I’ve had in years. (And while I get that Penn State doesn’t get a lot of love here, and all these hundreds of kids are dreaming of wrestling for Penn State - at absolute most one or two will. Even that is unlikely. But the pursuit of that dream is going to help build the character traits and skills we need in the men and women they will grow up to be - and for that reason it’s a noble pursuit).
