If you have questions about Jr Patriots Wrestling, we have compiled a list of the most frequently asked wrestling questions. We hope you’re able to find the answers to your question.
If you need further assistance please Contact Us and we’ll be glad to help.
Jr Patriots Wrestling Team
The Jr Patriots Wrestling Team started in 1996, and we get bigger each year, with male and female wrestlers of every shape and size learning how to wrestle, and how to be a good sport while winning and losing.
No, Jr Patriots coaches are all volunteers who donate their time and wrestling knowledge to the wrestling club. We coach kids in the sport of wrestling because we love wrestling, and want all kids to have the same fun & character-building wrestling experience that we had.
Sure! We always appreciate and need help from parents or others who would like to help coach, or do anything else in the club. Every season we have a few parents who put on their old wrestling shoes and help out on the mat at practices, and also at the tournaments on the weekends. We are always looking for people to help, so if you have the time to help, please speak with one of the coaches.
We do accept, and very much appreciate any donations of time, money, and athletic equipment. Please contact Greg Mattison directly regarding any kind of donation that you would like to offer to the club.
Sign-ups
Please bring these things with you:
- A copy of your child’s birth certificate.
- A uniform deposit check (will be refunded upon uniform return.)
- A separate check for club fees (see cost question below)
Yes, we have girls wrestling on the team every year, and most of the time the girls are some of our hardest workers & toughest competitors. If you have a daughter that wants to wrestle, come out and try out the club.
All of the money that you pay the team is used on the kids. The price you pay includes a team t-shirt, 2 practices a week held at Parkway South High, AAU memberships for each child (needed to enter tournaments), and at at least 5 tournament entry fees.(most of the time we do 7-10)
The Jr Patriots St Louis Youth Wrestling Club is a non-profit club that only charges what it needs to in order to get the t-shirts, entry fees into the tournaments, and to pay for the AAU Wrestling membership that each wrestler needs to participate. Each person involved with the club donates his / her time and effort to the club, and are not paid for their participation.
If you have done any research into St Louis Wrestling Clubs, you’ll see that most other clubs cost far more than ours, and then you still have to pay for each of the tournament entrance fees, which will end up costing another $200, or more, on top of the club fees.
With the Jr Patriots Wrestling Club the signup fee is far less than other clubs and includes the tournament fees, AAU card, as well as a Jr Patriots Wrestling Club t-shirt!
Yes! We encourage everyone to have a friend join with them. If they are about the same size then they would be able to wrestle each other in practice. (We pair the kids up by size when we drill.) If they are not the same size, they would most likely wrestle in practice with someone else closer to their height/weight. There are many other chances for them to buddy up together when stretching, running, breaks, and games.
Practices & Equipment
Main practices are held in the Parkway South High Wrestling Room (Gym B) every Tuesday and Thursday 6:30 – 8:30 PM, and our K-4 practices are held at Parkway West from 6:00pm – 7:00pm. We also have an Advanced Wrestling Practice fro 6:30 – 8:30 on Monday night at Parkway South. Our wrestling season runs from early November through early March.
They should have gym shorts and a t-shirt/sweatshirt, socks, tennis shoes, wrestling shoes.
(head-gear, knee pads, and mouth-guard are optional)
Try not to wear wrestling shoes outside, and also, if at all possible, try not to wear gym shoes on the wrestling mat.
* NOTE
Please do not wear clothing with Zippers, Buttons, or Snaps to practice.
Please do not wear singlets to practice. Singlets are for matches only.
We know that kids often outgrow their clothes and sports equipment while the equipment is still perfectly usable. This is why The Jr Patriots have a wrestling equipment recycling program, where families can donate old wrestling shoes, headgear, and knee-pads to the club, and the Jr Patriots donate all of that equipment to other young wrestlers who need it.
We often have a couple bags full of different size wrestling shoes that we will distribute throughout the first few practices of the wrestling season to kids who don’t have wrestling shoes.
Tournaments
Some tournament fliers are available on our Schedule Page. We do not have all of the fliers, but we have many of them, and we post new fliers as we receive them.
We want all dedicated wrestlers who join the Jr Patriots team to attend every practice and go to every tournament, but we know this is not possible in most cases. Wrestlers who join our club are free to attend as much or as little as they like, so everyone should be able to fit some practices and tournaments into their busy schedules.
The Jr. Patriots wrestle in many tournaments each season, so we do not expect everyone to attend every tournament that we attend as a team. Some kids do go to all of them, and some others do not go to any tournaments at all. We do want everyone to at least try wrestling in a real tournament, but it is not required.
If you did sign up for a tournament, you definitely do need to do your best to show up!
If you can not avoid missing a tournament that you signed up for, you should contact a coach as soon as possible to let us know that you will not be there.
*** The Jr. Patriots pay $15-20 per wrestler to attend these tournaments, so if you do not show up, the club loses that money. Also, when you do not show up, the people you were supposed to wrestle will miss out on their chance to wrestle as well, which makes our whole club look bad.
So, if you sign up, you need to show up. (or contact a coach if you definitely can’t make it)
Wrestling is very fun sport, but it is also a tough sport where bumps and bruises do occur. Wrestlers can briefly be put in uncomfortable positions while wrestling an opponent, but it is not very dangerous at all. In fact most of the injuries suffered by high school wrestlers are not directly related to the sport itself, but to hygiene. These injuries / infections are 100 percent avoidable through good cleaning of the mats. Every now and then a wrestler may get a bloody lip or nose, but the practices and wrestling meets are all closely supervised, and overall very safe.
Lacrosse, Football, Baseball, Softball, Cheerleading, Gymnastics, Soccer, Ice Hockey, Track and Field/Cross Country, Swimming, and Basketball are all more dangerous sports than Wrestling.
Non-Profit clubs are involved in the sport because of a passion for wrestling and teaching the sport to kids who wish to learn. Non-Profit clubs, like the Jr Patriots Youth Wrestling Club usually cost less and are a bit smaller, allowing each child to get the maximum amount of coaching and instruction. The wrestling clubs that are ‘for profit’ are businesses, where the purpose of having the team is to make money, and teaching your child to wrestle is secondary.
Yes, we do. It’s called the Takedown Booster Club. We have a great bunch of volunteers that run the Takedown Booster Club, raising money for the Parkway South Highschool Wrestling Team as well as the Jr. Patriots. You may also donate to the Jr Patriots Wrestling club by contacting Beth Hale or Greg Mattison. Any and all contributions are used on the kids, and much appreciated!
Weigh-Ins
Yes, the wrestlers will be broken up into weight classes for tournaments. In practice, he / she will be paired with someone around the same size. Usually, for the younger wrestlers, the tournaments will not make them weigh in, but the older kids will usually always need to weigh in when they get to the tournament. At tournaments, your young wrestler will compete against other kids that are the same age and weight. * NOTE Even when a tournament doesn’t have weigh-ins, the Jr Patriots will still need to take the weights of each wrestler who wants to enter into that weekend’s tournament. Weights are usually taken at the end of practice on Tues or Thurs of that week.
NO! There will always be a weight bracket for them, no matter how big or small they may be. The Jr Patriots Youth Wrestling Club actually discourages any type of weight loss for athletes this young.
Hygene
Yes, there are a few personal hygiene issues that should be watched.
Fingernails – Wrestler’s fingernails need to be cut pretty short to keep teammates and opponents from being scratched while practicing or wrestling live matches. Fingernails can not extend past the end of the finger.
Open Cuts – Open cuts or scrapes or wounds need to be covered before attending practice or tournaments. This is very important, and wrestlers with uncovered open wounds will not be allowed to participate until the wound is properly dressed.
Ringworm – Ringworm is a temporary, but contagious fungus infection, commonly found in schools, day-care centers, and infant nurseries, that can affect the scalp, body, or the feet. The name comes from the characteristic red ring that can appear on an infected person’s skin. To combat ringworm, the wrestling mats are sanitized regularly, and anyone who has ringworm must have the infected area securely covered in order to participate.
If your wrestler has a communicable skin disease you may need to be examined by a Physician and have the Physician fill out a Skin Condition Report, in order to be allowed to wrestle.
For rankings, we use the chart below.
| Rank 1 | Finished 1st, 2nd, or 3rd at State |
| Rank 2 | Finished 4th, 5th, or 6th at State |
| Rank 3 | Three years experience or less |
| Rank 4 | First year wrestlers only |
Sure, we put together a Scoring & Penalties Page that will explain all of the scoring and penalty points that can / will be awarded during a match.
We do have a Wrestling Referee Hand Signals page which shows all of the referee hand signals and what they mean.
MMA Moves
The best MMA Fighters are former wrestlers. That is a fact. In order to be successful in the sport of Mixed Martial Arts at the highest level, the fighters must have a lot of good wrestling skills, so it is very possible that something we teach could be seen in an MMA match. The Jr Patriots focus on the wrestling application of the moves though and DO NOT teach any MMA specific moves.
School Addresses
Here are some of the addresses to places where we may wrestle throughout the year.