Welcome to the new Spartanwrestling.com. We hope some of the changes here will help make for a better viewing experience. Most of the changes are aesthetic, but there are some big new features that we believe will help strengthen the club and keep everyone better in the loop. Let’s look at a few of the changes.
Now Accepting Donations (coming soon)
Now you can donate to the Sparta Wrestling Club. Your donations will help fund renovations to the wrestling room, the purchase of new singlets and warm-ups, transportation and hotel costs for tournaments and the sponsor-a-wrestler program for the end-of-the-year banquet. Funds also will go to help support the middle school wrestling program. We believe an online donation system will make it even easier for alumni all over the world to help make Sparta Wrestling the best wrestling program in the state. Currently, the system does not work as the account is still being set up, but this should become functional in the coming days.
Newsletter
Feedback on Facebook overwhelmingly suggested that people would be interested in a Sparta Wrestling newsletter. We plan on launching one in the coming weeks and now you can sign up. Check out the sign-up form along the sidebar on the left. Simply enter your name and email address, click submit and that’s it. You’ll receive our introductory newsletter just before the state tournament. In the future, the newsletter will likely go out once a week during the season with highlights from the youth levels up to the high school. Summaries of how the team is doing as well as the most popular posts of the week will be included.
During the offseason, the newsletter will help keep families, supporters and wrestlers updated on camps, tournaments and more. We believe the newsletter has the opportunity to reach people in a place they check regularly–their email–as opposed to the website or the Sparta Wrestling Facebook page where one might not think to see what’s happening when the season is out.
Aesthetic Changes
A few of the other changes are merely aesthetic. For the past couple years, we had sliding sidebars that were not readily viewable or obvious. Within these sliding sidebars was a quick summary of how the season is going, the Coulee Region Power Rankings and information on our Facebook page. Those items are all contained within the fixed sidebar now. Viewable from just about every corner of the site, the sidebar information is arranged in a cleaner and more viewable place.
You’ll also notice three large thumbnails at the top of the page below the main menu. The schedule and results page and the records page are among the pages with the most traffic outside the homepage. As such, they are receiving more prominent placement. That placement also includes our sponsors who have been generous with their donations to the club and who help make the varsity and youth tournaments a success and ensure our club is financially strong and able to support a growing program.
Along the sidebar, you will also notice a search box. This may come in handy if you are looking for information about a specific match or wrestler or anything else. You could also check out the category and archive dropdown box just below the search box, which breaks down posts into such things as dual results, tournament results or in the case of the archives, by month.
Let us know if you notice anything weird or something is not working. I realize some of the videos from the live streams may be cut off in older posts and I’m working to go back and adjust those so that they fit, but if you notice anything else, be sure to send us a message using the contact form at the top of the page. Thanks!
– Derek Montgomery
