State Body Meeting October 9th

October 9th - State Body Meeting FYI - let your club leaders know.

What are going to be the big voting issues this year?

I hear from 3rd and 4th hand sources that there are some big changes that have already been made from the July meeting.......

Here is the survey I received today

1. Do you feel the USAWKS folkstyle season is:
Too Long
Too Short
Just Right
2. Do you favor having the state folkstyle tournament earlier in the year?
Yes
No
No Preference
3. Would you support moving the Kansas Kids State Tournament series to an early date on the calendar (such as February or early March)?
Yes - February
Yes - Early March
No
No Preference
4. Should USAWKS add the 6&U age division to the Kansas Kids State Tournament series?
Yes
No
No Preference
5. Knowing that there is no facility in the state that could handle the 6U age group added to our current state tournament format, if we added 6U which option would you support:
Create two tournament series (for example: 6U, 8U, 10U in one and 12U, 14U, and HS in another).
Lengthen the current format by adding an additional half day to the weekend of wrestling.
Other (please specify)

6. Would it be feasible and supported by you to have the 6U, 8U, 10U age groups complete their state series in February?
Yes
No
No Preference
7. Do you support balanced districts which should have nearly equal number of participants?
Yes
No
No Prefere

For those that haven't heard or seen, the districts lines have been re-drawn again.

New District Lines

Will the results of the survey be shared with everyone at some point?

Regarding moving the state series..... there are still a lot of middle schools that start wrestling in January. Pratt starts their season in the middle of January, and it appears our last scheduled event is March 4th. I sure do wish all middle school's would start their wrestling season after football, and finish in December. Those of us who are less fortunate will be forced to make a very tough decision if the kids state series conflicts with middle school wrestling..... Supporting your school and getting your buddies who don't wrestle out for wrestling in middle school is very important for our HS programs. I have a feeling that a majority of kids who wrestle the kids season will choose to not wrestle for their school if it conflicts with the state series, and consequently their buddies are less likely to wrestle as well.

Having the middle school seasons consistent across the state seems like a fairly logical idea to me. Whoever allowed a few schools to change their seasons in the first place needs thumped. There needs to be some uniformity..... that's my .02.

Looks like the NCAA college season is getting moved a month later - more like a one semester sport. Strong possibility in the 2017/18 season. Not sure how that will affect the thought process of folkstyle wrestling across the board.

Yes, the results will be shared.

Why did they change the district boundaries again?

Balance.

Sportsfan02's response, while brief, was substantially correct. The board of directors for USA Wrestling-Kansas, as part of its attempt to maintain an equilibrium in size for our four districts for state qualifying series, reviewed the current district boundaries to determine if any adjustments were needed. After review, and considering travel distances while maintaining an equal number of competitors, the board has made some changes to the boundaries. These changes will be effective for the upcoming season.

As populations shift, the board will continue to periodically review these boundaries and, where appropriate, make changes. If you have any thoughts on this, please share them with any member of the board of directors.

Cmon you don't consider travel distances. Population maybe but not the other. If you did why in the world would cloud and Ottawa county be in the same district as finney county or others that far south west.

The east/west boundaries of District 4 were heavily influenced by a significantly low number of participants from the southern counties. There were several counties in the south part of the district which had 0 participants. There are a few counties in the south that were the exception, but the majority of the participants were concentrated in the north.

It could be worse, Elkhart could host a qualifier!

Could you elaborate on the travel distance and number of participants formula used by chance? District 4 in the North gained 101 miles of travel space but only increased participants by 13 district wide.

How in the world did they consider travel? Totally nuts having concordia which is 4 HOURS away drive to Garden City or such for districts!!! Obviously the board dont consider anything west of salina and wichita to matter. The board must really enjoy pissing people off because i know they sure the hell have done it the past two years.

While I wouldn't totally disagree with you and I am not a board member, I would say that good decisions need to be made within the district. I would say holding a district tournament in GC would be a bad choice made within the district.

There is no system that is going to satisfy everyone. The purpose of re-districting is first and foremost to level out the competitor numbers between districts. Western Kansas natives are fully aware of the distance issues living there brings, and they accept that. Considering the continuing concentration of the population to the eastern regions, I would expect D4 to only increase in geographic size in the future.

Considering i live in District 4 and know all to well the travel time and expense in it. Honestly i have seen more parents pull kids out because of the travel time honestly and Expense. if they keep gauging the districts by numbers, District 4 will basically take up to topeka here in the next ten years. Is that how they are looking at growing the sport? The only true good places to host a district tournament, (that are available at the time) would be Goodland, Garden City, Dodge City, Pratt, Beloit. Gross Colosseum most likely would not be available within a reasonable price. Either way you are still looking at 3 hrs one way most likely followed by the trip to state. I am waiting to see the results from the survey they put out. Waiting to see how many people agree with the changing of district boundaries.

District 2 had clubs that had to drive 3+ hrs for districts the last two years.

Jeremy - I get it, grew up out there in the sticks. I would think Hays High or even Russell both of which have 2 gyms might be able to host it. Packed full sure but not crossing 3/4 of the state to get there.

The numbers are a bit confusing however. Here are the changes with the new boundaries:

D1 -11
D2 +15
D3 -17
D4 +13

I only checked the mileage in D4 because lets be honest all others are close. 101 miles was added to the North part and 33 less miles in the south.

And you could be right about reaching Topeka soon. Johnson County, Wyandotte (KC) and Douglas (Lawrence) are projected to have the most growth over the next few years (84% of the states growth). Riley and Sedgwick are the other two in the top 5 growth. Dodge City is the only real Rural area with growth projections.

[sportsfan02] I could drive diagonally from corner to corner of District 2 in 3 hours and D-2 was held in centralized Mulvane if I'm not mistaken. Sportsfan, I think somebody stopped for breakfast or it was granny slow driving an LTD wagon for grandson in order for it to take +three hours for those to get to the tournament in D-2. The counties being added to D-4 like Cloud or Ottawa aren't going to be the "Western Kansas natives" that expect travel times they are getting thrown at them. Hutch is more "western" than Cloud or Ottawa. Those two counties should be in District 3. Regardless, someday Hutch will get sucked back into District 4 kicking and screaming because of the head counts growing in Districts 1-3.

The "exceptions" Mike Juby speaks of in the southern counties are likely the Hugoton and Liberal clubs. Yes, we understand longer travel times are expected but to ADD to travel times for us let alone those in Ottawa and Cloud (specifically) is a large stick in the eye. It appears more so that the lesser populated counties were thrown under the bus after Hutch people ground out a long drive to Goodland ...just my two cents. A spade is a spade...and Bones1768 is calling it.

[To Daniel DRW] As J.Sekavec has noted, very few facilities are capable of hosting D-4. Beloit might be capable (I haven't been to their facilities in +20 years) but it is approaching a 5 hour drive for us. Liberal has a capable facility as well but hosting the district tournament would be an injustice for many in D-4 given Liberal is less than a 5 minute drive from Oklahoma. I would feel really bad for those in Concordia packing for a SOLID (and I mean very SOLID) 5 hour drive. Sekavec is spot on about Gross Memorial cost/availability. No offense to the great Goodland people but that location was rough on those in the far SE corner of D-4 ....and Goodland was splitting at the seams for seating with a fire marshal that was harassing a couple of our parents about them standing. There was no more seating... After Hays' Gross Memorial coliseum, facility capacity concerns pretty much leaves Garden City and Dodge as the most centralized AND CAPABLE facilities to host the D-4 tournament. It's not like we want to throw down some mats at the bottom of a hillside pasture outside Ness City in early March on account of centralization (although I could probably arrange such!). It's not an easy situation but you are trading one county's travel time being moderately shortened (assuming Dodge or Garden or even Pratt is hosting) for a handful of new counties added to D-4 having travel GREATLY increased when placed in D-4.

[To Sekavec]A survey can be misleading. Who is responding? A mountain of Hutch people? You know how that survey is going to turn out They won't have to grind out a long drive to Goodland! You are also spot on about travel costs discouraging competition in western KS. Not quite half our kids in the club regularly travel to tournaments largely due to travel costs.

Just the view from an unaffected party...unless Concordia or Beloit hosts a D-4.

While they did a good job with the tournament, Goodland was very undersized for hosting districts.

B. Mannel - I agree with pretty much everything you and Sekavec have said and would try to advocate for D4 even though I'm not in it.

If you reference the numbers I listed above the district #'s changed so minimal that I don't understand the logic at all. All it really did was make D4 travel worse than what it was. I think most in D4 understand there is going to be travel but to add 101 miles for extremely minimal changes in #'s is odd.

As for places to host a District I agree not a ton of locations. What's your thoughts on Hays High with 2 gyms and a wrestling room? Russell has 2 gyms and a wrestling room also, main gym has lots of seating. Could put the heavier HS kids in the wrestling room with a few chairs, we have done that before. Typically they don't bring as many fans as the younger wrestlers. Based on D4 #'s last year and a quick swag I think those options could work to be more central.

Curious...

Who all got these surveys? I don't believe our club got one.

Pratt could physically handle D4. In addition to all of our smaller motels, we have 4 newer motels out by the college giving everyone options. We also have 3 gyms all in the same general vicinity of one another. Gym 1 our current HS gym, gym 2 our middle school gym which is down the hall and connected to our current HS, and gym 3 our old HS gym which is approximately 70 yards across the parking lot to the west of our current HS. Each gym would provide ample seating.

W/out any research, HS division & bigger 14u kids in the old HS gym (2-3 surfaces), 14u & bigger 12u kids in the middle school gym (3 surfaces), and the rest in our current HS gym (6-7 surfaces).

We could start weigh ins super early on Friday like 1:00pm. Weigh-ins wouldn't be such a congested cluster Friday night giving everyone ample time to slide by the Chapeau and snag a pizza taco and a cold beer.... . We would be done by 3:00pm on Saturday, and those traveling back to Goodland would be home in time to watch the NCAA finals....

I got a survey emailed to me a couple of weeks ago.

Josh Parker

It's whatever email address that is listed by the club director when they submit their excel to Kathy for card purchase. Some clubs just use one single club email address for their entire club, therfore none of the members will recevie it.

Matt said to have people contact Joe Knecht if they didn't get it.

Pratt has the facilities and past tournaments are well run. Only negative is Pratt location being almost as brutal for travel times for those in the NW as Goodland was for those in the SE of D-4. Pratt's separate gym not very convenient for a parent or coach pulling double duties however gym 3 is not really needed either. There is enough capacity with gym 1 and 2.

It is my understanding that Hays outgrew its high school facilities seating capacity for hosting and why their tournament is held at Gross. Someone like Geyer would be better qualified to answer that question.

Russell isn't the worst of geographical locations IF there is indeed seating capacity. You need the mat space of course but also physical capacity to put butts in seats....with the additional questions of if the Russell club would WANT to host, volunteers, etc. Like Hays question, only someone from Russell club or history with therein is qualified to answer that question. D-4 geographical expanse is what it is...Cloud and Ottawa getting the shaft IMO. Leave 'em in 3.

BTW, our club didn't receive a survey either. Is this the senate or the house style of survey? Should one get more clout by number of emails a club has or one survey per club? Hutch might have a lot of email addresses...with Cloud and Ottawa needing/wanting a lot more email addresses tied to their clubs now. Like I wrote before, a survey can be misleading.

When clubs purchase cards for their members they send an excel document to Kathy Juby, if the club doesn't enter the individual email address of each wrestlers parents then they won't get the survey unless you contact Joe Knecht, that document is the only way for them to have that info at the state level. Some clubs leave it blank others use the main club email address for all members.

Thanks for the kind words Mannel. You might be right about the 3rd gym, however if the HS division stays, and we add the 6u division to the series, I think we probably would need the extra surfaces. The 2nd gym isn't terrible. The stroll down the hall gives you a chance to cool off and enjoy the silence....

You are correct we changed to Gross Memorial when our tournament started pushing 1000 entries.

Has this been done already and I missed it?