During the past few seasons, the city’s high school wrestling coaches have wondered aloud and worried quietly about the low number of athletes participating in their programs.

A recent move by the Lawrence school board figures to go a long way toward putting their minds at ease.

Monday night, at its regularly scheduled meeting, the board approved a proposal that requested the elimination of ninth-grade wrestling from the city’s four junior highs and allows any ninth-graders interested in wrestling to join their corresponding high school teams.

The benefits of such a move — from financial and physical to a rise in participation and performance — are many, but according to Lawrence High coach Pat Naughton and Free State High coach Paul Lappin, the most positive aspect of the change is what the new setup can provide the athletes.

“We’re looking forward to having the freshmen with us,” Naughton said. “The biggest advantage is that it gets our freshmen into our setting at the high school and puts us on an equal level with all the rest of the schools in 6A.”

Under the old system, ninth-graders were allowed to move up to the high school level, but only after the completion of the junior high seasons. That, Naughton said, made for a pretty taxing few months.

“Freshmen who played junior high football then did junior high wrestling then did high school wrestling were going August through February without a break,” Naughton said.

Added Lappin on the toll such a schedule took on the developing bodies: “It’s tough going from beating up on little kids to being beaten up by men. That’s a big transition. Hopefully getting (ninth-graders) into our program earlier and allowing them to develop with the rest of the team will make that transition easier.”

Both coaches said the push to integrate ninth-graders into the high school programs dates back to well before they took over. Both also said they expected the change to be smooth and benefit all parties involved.

“Having the ninth graders come up late was not only tough on them, but it was also kind of tough on the older kids because we had to go back and reteach our entire system,” Lappin said. “Having the freshmen in there from the beginning will eliminate that and will help a lot with the camaraderie of the team. Now the ninth graders won’t be looked at as outsiders when they join us.”

It’s not just awkward feelings that will be eliminated by the move. Naughton said getting rid of the four ninth-grade wrestling programs and having the two high school programs absorb them likely will ease some of the tension felt by the district because of the current budget crisis.

“We’re cutting anywhere from $3,000 to about $10,000,” said Naughton, alluding to the money the school district will save in transportation costs, payment of officials, cost of uniforms and extra-duty salaries.

In addition to the financial gain and developmental advantages associated with the move, the coaches stressed that ninth graders now would enjoy increased practice time and would see the number of meets they attend during a season increase from six to around 13.

“We will not have to change our schedule at all,” Free State athletic director Mike Hill said. “The wonderful thing about this is you can take as many wrestlers as you want to a JV meet, so if a lot of these ninth graders don’t become the varsity guy at their particular weight, we’ll be able to load them all up and send them to a JV meet. We’re going to be able to get them a lot of competition.”

As one of two remaining districts in the state that does not allow ninth graders to compete at the high school level across the board, this move figures to put Lawrence on the fast track toward complete integration in the coming years. Coaches of other sports at both LHS and Free State have been working together on proposals to move their athletes up, as well.

Hill said he did not know when, or if, that would happen. But he did say the district has had preliminary talks about it.

“The Board of Education is beginning discussions about a lot of long-range goals,” Hill said. “And one of them is moving ninth graders up to the high school level. First and foremost, they’d be doing that for academic purposes. But that certainly would make it easier for athletics to do, as well.

“This whole thing is part of a bigger picture, and the board will give us marching orders on what to do when we get to that point.”