Sports waivers granted for Saugus seventh-, eighth-graders

SAUGUS – The Saugus School Committee voted 5-0 Thursday night to grant a waiver allowing seventh and eighth-graders to participate in varsity wrestling and winter track.Athletic Director Mike Nelson said the waiver will help make Saugus more competitive with other schools.?Especially in wrestling and indoor track, everyone around here is doing it,” said Nelson. “It helps with the numbers, it helps with enrollment down at the middle school and it helps get those two programs up to where they should be.”School Committee member Rick Doucette said he wasn?t worried about winter track, but initially had concerns about seventh-graders potentially wrestling high school seniors.?The toughest wrestler I?ve ever seen was 93 pounds and he was a senior and he was a state champion,” said Doucette. “He was pretty vicious. That would be my number one concern is putting him up against a seventh-grader. I?m not trying to cast any aspersions on the coach, I?m just concerned.”Wrestling coach Rudy Howard assured the School Committee that no students would wrestle beyond their experience level, and said coaches discuss those types of issues before each meet to see who would match up well with who.?We probably wouldn?t use many of them,” said Howard. “We?re really trying to build a program. I would certainly never put a kid in a dangerous situation.”Howard also said the waiver would be another option for students since there isn?t a wrestling program at the middle school level.?We though we could bring the seventh- and eighth-graders up and get them off the streets after school,” said Howard. “Because if they?re not playing hockey or basketball or track we could get them off the street and get them up in the program and get them experience. I?m a big proponent of having kids busy after school.”Matt Tempesta can be reached at [email protected]. You can follow him on Twitter @MattTempesta.