By Mike Finn, W.I.N. Editor

Jude Roth first felt he had to apologize for sharing with me an idea he had to increase interest in wrestling.
“I’m kind of a guy who thinks outside the box,” said Roth, a former high school wrestling coach at St. Mary’s in Sandusky. “My assistant coach liked to tease me because I’d come up with some crazy stuff.”

One of those “crazy” ideas was the creation of the Ohio junior high state tournament, sponsored by the Ohio Athletic Commission, which will hold its tenth anniversary of this event which was featured on page 26 of this issue.

So it surprised me a bit when Roth said, “You might think this is crazy …”

It wasn’t a crazy idea. It was one that will literally bring more wrestlers together and turn this individual sport into more of a team competition.

“We’re going to start a junior high tag team championship in Ohio,” said Roth, who said he wanted to introduce this idea two years ago, “but the location did not work out so we put it on the back burner.”

But beginning in March 2009, on the same weekend the Ohio junior high and grade school state tournaments are held in Marion, Ohio, the Ohio Athletic Commission will sponsor its first tag team championship.
“When you enter, you have to enter at the same weight as your partner,” said Roth, whose rules are listed to on the right-hand column of this story. “It’s not like a little kid is going to wrestle a bigger kid. You can enter as a team or as an individual and then we would blind-draw you a teammate.”

Roth’s initial reluctance to share this idea might come to the phrase “tag team” wrestling, which is something the fake professional wrestlers do and provides plenty of humor as one “teammate” jumps over the rope to jump on an opponent who has his teammate in trouble.

That is not Roth’s idea as you will see in the attached rules.

Instead, Roth believes the OAC’s rules will provide some interesting challenges that wrestlers don’t have to worry about in an individual bout.

“The guy who normally is pounding someone, might enter the match down by ten points and he’s never had to come back,” Roth said. “That provides the excitement of your partner cheering you on while you are in there wrestling.

“It really draws strategy. It draws a lot of excitement for the wrestlers themselves.”

Ideas like these also would do wonders to draw more fans to wrestling; something this sport dearly needs.
I don’t expect high school or college coaches endorsing such an idea when they have their hands full enough training and motivating just one wrestler.

But this is a great idea for youngsters, who are not sure if they are tough enough to wrestle.
Roth also had that in mind when this idea was created.

“What I like about this is the kid who normally doesn’t get to experience standing on a podium is paired with someone who might get to get him there,” Roth said.

“Everyone I talk to says this will be awesome.

It’s all about advancing wrestling and giving kids more opportunities.

“It’s for the kid who’s been on the fence of wanting to get on that podium. It’s such a win-win situation all the way around.”

I agree. That also proves to me there are no such things as crazy ideas when it comes to wrestling and improving our sport.

(Mike Finn, who has been covering amateur wrestling for the past 20 years, was named Journalist of the Year by the National Wrestling Media Association last year. He welcomes comments to this and other features in W.I.N. at mikef@WIN-magazine.com.)

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