Ed Hatch recalls the days barely a decade ago when wrestling flourished at Bucksport High School during the winter months.
“When I first started teaching here, we had 30 kids on the wrestling team, and there were kids who wrestled off every Tuesday and Friday for the Wednesday and Saturday matches to see who was going to be the starter,” said Hatch, who is the school’s athletic administrator.
But it’s not just smaller Class C schools such as Bucksport that are feeling the pinch of declining wrestling numbers.
Even traditional Class A powerhouses such as three-time defending state champion Marshwood of South Berwick and neighboring Noble of North Berwick have experienced similar trends within their wrestling programs.
“As teams win, the numbers usually get larger, but I can say we’ve won the Class A state championship the last three years, and our numbers declined this year,” said Marshwood athletic administrator Rich Buzzell, chair of the Maine Principals’ Association wrestling committee.
“Noble’s had a tremendous wrestling program over time and their numbers are down, too. I think across the board the numbers are not where they have been in the past for numerous reasons.”
That statewide drop in wrestling participation is linked initially to the steady decline in Maine high school enrollments. But many coaches also believe student-athletes aren’t as willing to endure the sacrifices required of wrestlers — particularly the challenge of making and maintaining their weight classes — or to wait their turn if they can’t immediately earn a starting varsity roster spot.
“The numbers are down because of lack of interest, kids not wanting to make weight and not wanting to work as hard just to be part of something,” said Patrick Kelly, head coach of three-time defending Class B state champion Camden Hills of Rockport.
“And there are so many other things out there. There’s video games, there’s work, there’s hanging out and doing nothing, there’s trying another sport, all kinds of things that these kids can find to replace it,” he said.
The participation decline has prompted the Maine Principals’ Association wrestling committee to recommend by a unanimous vote reducing the number of classes in the sport from three to two beginning next winter.
That proposal is making its way through the Maine Principals’ Association classification committee and will be subject to final approval by the organization’s full membership at its annual spring meeting scheduled for April 30-May 1.
The recommendation came as no surprise. A similar proposal was defeated by a 3-2 vote of the wrestling committee two years ago.
“There’s not really a reason not to do it any more,” said Hatch, also a member of the Maine Principals’ Association wrestling committee. “Two years ago when we considered it, myself and a couple of others spoke up with the fact that we had put some things in place just trying to find ways to keep Class C going at that point, so hopefully it would help the numbers and we’d see what happened in two years.
“After two years, it really hasn’t changed anything. The numbers are still declining, and we have fewer and fewer schools in Class C, so it doesn’t make sense to have this [state] tournament where you hardly have any wrestlers left. I don’t know that we’re going to do to fill out a complete 12-man bracket in any weight class this year,” he said.
It’s likely just Dirigo of Dixfield and Dexter, the No. 1 and No. 2 finishers at last year’s Class C state championships, will field anything close to a full 14 weight-class roster for this year’s state meet.
Kelly also indicated that some of the top contenders in Class B, including his Camden Hills squad, will be unable to fill all the weight classes for the upcoming postseason tournaments and will have to rely more on the quality rather than the sheer quantity of their squads as they pursue state championship gold.
Such lack of depth also can exacerbate the challenge of keeping younger wrestlers interested in the sport if they don’t immediately earn starting berths because there is little subvarsity competition available, particularly in Class B and C.
“If you’re two kids deep in a weight class, and one kid’s wrestling all the time and the other kid can’t win the wrestle-off, how can I keep him happy?,” said Kelly. “There are no JVs out there.”
Another dilemma involves scheduling regular-season competitions, particularly the two- and three-school meets traditionally held on Wednesday evenings.
In many cases, those events prove not to be worth the cost of such meet expenses as travel and officials because numerous forfeits result when teams with less than full rosters square off and participants from one team don’t match up weight-wise with wrestlers from the opposing team.
“A few years ago, Sanford went up to Portland to wrestle a dual match,” said Buzzell. “Gordie Salls, the Sanford athletic director, got a call from his coach telling him the meet was supposed to start at 6:30 [p.m.] and it was done at 6:45 [p.m.]. They ended up only having three actual matches.
“The joke went around was that the national anthem took longer than the meet,” he said.
One small source of optimism for those who track the sport closest is the realization that the number of classes has fluctuated several times since wrestling was introduced through the Maine Principals’ Association in 1959.
Just one class existed for the sport’s first three years in Maine, followed by two classes from 1962 through 1967. A third class was added for the next two years, followed by two classes from 1970 through 1972 and then just one class from 1973 through 1979.
The sport was bumped back up to two classes from 1980 through 1989, then has held at three classes since then.
“There’s a pulsing system that’s gone on over the years, so we’ve just got to weather the storm as far as I’m concerned,” said Kelly.
Whether the sport can avoid further erosion remains to be seen.
One step being taken by the Maine Principals’ Association that may help sustain some opportunities for high school wrestlers is allowing for cooperative teams involving multiple schools as is done in several other sports, most noticeably ice hockey.
Individuals from multiple schools may practice together — as is the case with wrestlers from Brewer and Hampden Academy, for example — but when it comes time to compute scores at meets, their results are assigned separately to the school they attend during the day.
The move toward allowing cooperative wrestling teams is advancing through Maine Principals’ Association committees and likely will be approved this spring.
“I think what the [Maine Principals’ Association] is doing now in allowing cooperative teams with wrestling might benefit some of those Class C schools in doing combinations in their area,” said Buzzell, “or even for B teams to get together and be able to thrive and survive. We shall see.”
Buzzell remains cautiously hopeful about wrestling’s future in the state’s interscholastic sports arena, as does Kelly.
“I think we’re going to make it, and I’ll tell you why,” said Kelly. “I just came from a Midcoast Wrestling Club [event] where there were 52 kids from [kindergarten] through grade eight in our wrestling room, and that shows there’s interest. Now whether we’re going to have 20 or 22 of those kids at the high school level from that group like we usually have, I don’t know.”
But Camden Hills and Marshwood are among the healthier and most successful wrestling programs in the state, and nearly everyone involved in the sport admit that by itself a reduction in the number of classes statewide won’t guarantee increased participation.
“I don’t know if there’s a lot we can do,” said Hatch. “I just really struggle to know what we can do differently to bring some of these numbers back. Enrollments are declining in the schools, and I think you see the effect in other sports but wrestling seems to be hit by it the hardest.”