I often hear people complain about the lack of coverage wrestling receives locally. In truth it is rare that it receives as much publicity as basketball or football, particularly in the South. However, it pays to be aware of the limitations your local media outlets have; most would consider themselves understaffed; newspapers in particular are fighting financial solvency nation wide. If you are complaining but not taking any other action, are you part of the solution or part of the problem (sorry to be cliche')?

The advent of electronic news allows your local media outlet to harness the power of the people to provide news. 910Rec and 910Preps are two sites that have little financial overhead and provide a coverage outlet. They do have the same constraints as the newspaper that owns them; a lack of reporters. The good news; they will print it if you will write it. Take the time to understand and get to know your local media outlets and find out how you can leverage them. Once you make this initial investment, taking five minutes to write a short article weekly can pay big dividends. If you are not comfortable writing, enlist a parent, a staff member, a student, or a student athlete. Chances are, there is someone you know looking for another outlet for their literary talents.

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It is the end of September and the sports media is all about football. The obligatory article about volleyball and other high school sports dot the sports pages but football dominates.

Stories about wrestling...not many, believe me I know. I get them delivered to my inbox daily and then I post them on a very popular forum in NC (www.ncwrestlingscoutreport.com) to share with the community. I haven't posted an article since 3 September and that was about a coach being honored. This week three North Carolina wrestlers commited to or were accepted to the Naval Academy and a fourth committed to Penn State. This is a big deal here, heck it should be a big deal anywhere. Military Academy's are very tough to get into and it is an honor to be accepted and honourable to commit to the Service of our Nation. I haven't seen anything in the news, of course that doesn't mean there hasn't been anything written. And yes, I know that the media usually waits for the signing ceremony for publicity but come on, this is North Carolina's second wrestler to commit to a Big Ten school. That makes this pretty darn historic. For those of you that don't know the Big Ten is college wrestling.

It wasn't that long ago I wrote about publicizing your own programs. If you don't understand why you should publicize your program, team, or club; youth, high school, or college; please stop reading you probably should get back to doing whatever it is you were doing.

So wrestling news is slow but that doesn't mean that there isn't wrestling news, particulary here in the great state of North Carolina. The Super 32 isn't around the corner anymore it is right in front of us and our Nation's best will converge in Greensboro, NC to compete. We had four BIG commitments to collegiate programs. Parkland High School is perched to stretch their record holding dual win streak to new heights as well as defend their dual team and individual state championship titles for the fifth straight time and the second time after moving up from 3A to 4A. There are numerous clubs and high schools accomplishing things worth publishing. Our state affiliate of the national governing body just had some significant changes in its leadership and revalidated its commitment to folkstyle wrestling (which was a big change in the middle of last season).

So there is plenty of wrestling news but not enough of it being published. The answer is simple; write you own stuff! It is not hard and it does not take a bunch of time. Write it and send it to every reporter or media outlet's email address in your area, be sure to include a note that says you don't need a by line and they can modify the content as needed for a story. You may not make the front page of the sports section but that shouldn't bother you. Get one person or outlet to publish it and then send that link to everyone you know (including your principal and AD). Take advantage of local and national media blogs and post away, by the way they are free.

There are 32 days until the first day of high school wrestling in North Carolina. Don't wait until 1 November for your wrestling news, get it out now.

<originally posted at Team Rhino LLC>

Over the years we have developed a lot of things that worked and some that didn't. We didn't give up on the things that didn't work but figured out why, tweaked them, reworked them or dumped them. The result is a lot of ideas that were put into practice that paid dividends for us. From marketing to club rules to parent tips, all of this stuff has helped. We hope that if you can't use any of this that it at least sparks an idea for you that pays off down the road. READ MORE