In reply to: Our coach did the same - and wanted wrestlers on the lines posted by graNDfan
as a former wrestler I always disagreed. It takes a certain personality to really like that grind.
team go out for wrestling in the winter...learn great leverage, core workouts with pushups/situps, and just being physical with dudes their size. Then I'd have them kill it in the weight room in the spring/summer (I'd actually encourage some of them to play rugby in the spring to stay in great shape and keep up the physicality but would not require it)
This could not help but make my football team better.
As I see it, the trend today has been to encourage elite athletes to concentrate on just one sport. Granted, in this context we're not talking exclusively about elite athletes, but still . . .
I'd bet they weren't even close.
Our wrestling team used to dominate our league, for the most part (back then, the Catholic schools played in the same league as the city schools. But the really elite wrestling programs were in outer ring suburbs and rural areas.) But our football team was only mediocre.