By Maddy Carroll
Geyser Staff Writer
Another new wrestling coach is in town, and with him comes many changes to the program. He hopes to increase the participation and bring in a new form of uniforms. The new health enhancement teacher, Ben Hahn, is the new head wrestling coach.
Coach Hahn referred to this year’s team as the “New Ranger Wrestling Team”, where they are going to have a lot of fun, show off some new uniforms and get more of the public involved. This year, Hahn’s goal is to have at least 15 wrestlers, which is a little more than what the team ended with last year.
He also has a goal to have a full dual team, meaning that each weight class will be filled. Along with this he also hopes to have a greater number of home meets.
In years past, the wrestling team was lucky to have a single home meet, to give their seniors a senior night. This year there are two home meets set up, but this could potentially change.
Hahn referred to other sports like basketball and volleyball where each team plays a team at home, and plays them away. He believes it should be the same way for wrestling, and wants other schools to travel to Park High since Park High travels to all of the other schools.
Some may have heard the rumors about the singlets being changed to uniforms. Although this is true, Hahn is going to give his wrestlers the option of wearing the singlets from the past, or wearing the new uniform which wrestlers in Montana are now allowed to wear.
“The new rule says that wrestlers can wear an alternate uniform, and the alternate uniform is a tight fitting t-shirt and fighting style shorts, which are much more popular.” said Hahn.
Hahn believes that the new uniforms will get more people to participate in wrestling, he believed that they would help with the participation rate all around. “We saw in 20 other states who test ran it that participation numbers doubled.” Hahn said.
Hahn has also dedicated a lot of time recruiting people and one way he did this was by incorporating a wrestling segment into his health enhancement class. Within this unit he taught his kids basic wrestling moves and skills, and also taught them about scoring.
He hopes that this will help with students coming to support the wrestling team when they have a home meet. This unit also got girls involved, showing that this is a sport even girls can take on.
Not only is he recruiting high school aged kids, but he is also recruiting younger kids. November 6 through November 10, Hahn held a wrestling camp at the middle school. The middle school does not have a wrestling team, and this was a way of getting them involved and allowing younger kids to learn about wrestling.
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