It’s part of the culture. Coach Dresser, the Martins and Coach Swink have all made quite the impact on high school wrestling in Va and a lot of successes coming out of Va can in someway be tied back to them.

The thing is those other states have guys like that all over. They have college(not necessarily D1) all Americans coaching the elementary school aged kids.

From my experience in most areas across Va a school may have 4-5 years of a strong team and that’s usually attributed to a dad who was a good wrestler who pretty much coached all of their kids teams from school boy to high school and helped make other kids good in the process. Once that kid goes to high school the youth development takes a hit and soon after the high school does too and there’s another drought.