Dear Parents,
Welcome to the wonderful world of wrestling. Your son/daughter has taken on one of the biggest challenges presented at the high school level. Throughout the season you will witness your child’s growth as a person and as an athlete. The sport of wrestling can be compared to a physical game of chess. The discipline and mental toughness that it takes to complete one season is the type of dedication that will prepare them to be successful in the competitive markets of today.
What you should be seeing:
My guess is that your child is coming home tired and a little sore. This is to be expected. This will continue through the first couple of weeks, as it takes the athletes a couple of weeks to get used to the intensity of practice.
Knowing the Sport:
We encourage you to come to all the events and learn all you can about the sport. The more you know about the sport and the more athletes you know competing; the more fun the tournaments are to watch. As far as popularity, wrestling is always in the top five in the World’s sporting events. Unfortunately, it has some growth to do in the United States.
Coaching Staff
Head Coach--Chip Ufford
This is Coach Ufford's 5th year as Head Wrestling Coach. Chip is a former
prep school wrestler from Paola High School. He has an Undergraduate Degree
from Mid-America Nazarene University in Physical Education and a Masters
Degree from the University of Kansas in Sports Administration. Coach Ufford
is a 2-time Regional Coach of the year and 2-time All Sun Coach of the year.
Chip teaches weights, physical education and also coaches FB at SME.
eaufford@smsd.org
Assistant Coach --Jason Filbeck
This is Coach Filbecks 5th season as a wrestling coach at SME. Jason has
an undergraduate and Graduate degree from Baker University in Art
education. Jason is also an assistant football coach and teaches Art at SME.
eafilbec@smsd.org
Assistant Coach --John Carr
This is Coach Carrs 2nd year as a wrestling coach at SME. John wrestled
for the Lancers from 2004-2007, he was a 3 time state qualifier and placed
at state his senior year. John will be working with the JV.
Assistant Coach --Eric Woofter
This is Coach Woofter's first year as a wrestling coach at SME. Eric is a
former East wrestler and has been involved in the Kids program for the past
few years. Eric will be working with the Varsity.
Practices:
Currently the varsity and jv practices should last until 5:30, there are many reasons for this, with a few listed below.
1) Many of the athletes have never competed in the sport
2) Our first competition is in less than 2 weeks
We will back off towards the middle and the end of the wrestling season. This is because the athletes will learn the system and will be able to get everything done in a more timely fashion.
Our Season is broken up by the holidays and unfortunately the nature of the sport requires peak conditioning, which makes these breaks tough. We do require that our athletes make it to Holiday practices. If they miss practice, athletes will participate in extra conditioning to make it up. If an athlete misses too many practices they may have to miss a competition until missed practices are made up.
Parents Meeting:
We will be having a parent’s meeting November 23rd at 7pm in the auditorium. We are excited to meet you and welcome you into our community. This will be an opportunity to meet the coaches, meet the other parents and learn more about our team. It is also a good opportunity to inform us of any special circumstances that we need to know about.
Additionally parents that want to be apart of the email distribution list please email me and I will add your information. This list will be used to notify parents of important information and cancellations.
eaufford@smsd.org
So far this has been a great kick off and we look forward to a great season.
Sincerely,
Coach Ufford
