I think a trip to Reno, HS nationals in Virginia Beach, or Iowa with our All Class team would be better. That would encourage them to wrestle the kids' series to stay in wrestling shape, and of course get us some of those matchups we are looking for to spice up the HS division.

If the competition level isn't better in Colorado this year I would hope this trip would be discontinued in the future.

The competition is very good. Last year, Conklin had a great OT match with a nationally ranked kid, Alex Bontz lost his only match all year and Ryne Cokeley lost a match, two state finalists Newport and Strauss got 5th and 6th, state champions Baird and Anderson got 3rd and state champion Blackwell did not place!

The competition in Colorado is TOUGH.

So out of how many duals you can point to 4 or 5 matches that were tough??? This is a problem that has been talked about before on these boards about other tournaments. Calling this a "national" tournament or describing the competition as "tough" is salesmanship at the best and a bold-faced lie at the worst. While it might become "tough" at some point, if the past is any indicator it is neither "tough" nor "national". Tournaments like this act as only a mini vacation for the participants and further serve to separate parents from their hard earned money. This is money and time that could be better spent keeping these kids in state and be beneficial to the clubs hosting qualifiers.
I have no problem with these kids going but let's have a little truth in adverising when trying to gather a team.

I'd agree with Doug on this. While not taking anything away from the Colorado tournament, it's hard to imagine it is on par competition wise with VA Beach or Iowa.

If this whole point of this post started about getting kids to seek out the best competition maybe we should be looking at getting these All-Class kids to one of these tournaments instead of Colorado.

Greg Boucher,

You are reaching for a story here. Separating parents from their hard earned money? Are you kidding? Salesmanship at best? What am I selling? I am volunteering. I'm missing three days of work and have spent many hours on this event. I can't change the name of this event, it's called the Rocky Mountain Nationals and has hosted almost every state in the country at some point. Gold Medalist Henry Cejudo was a 2X champion of this event. Last year, there were a handful of Division I wrestlers there. It is not the NHSAA Nationals. It is not the USAW Junior National Duals and it is not the ASICS/Vaughan Junior & Cadet National Championships. It is a folkstyle dual event that draws from our surrounding states and others such as Montana and Idaho. It is followed by a large bracketed two day tournament. Some of our wrestlers get as many as TWELVE folkstyle matches against competition they haven't seen before and is a FANTASTIC tune-up for Virginia Beach.

You need to either retract your ridiculous statement or admit that you have over dosed on your meds before you posted.

This is a perfect tune-up for Virginia Beach! Many are using it as just that.

The kids series is too long for the HS division. At most you need a district and a state. You have to make up your mind what weight you want to wrestle within five days of your last HS weigh in. Most HS wrestlers want a break. They may only want to wrestle one event such as the RMN.

Va Beach is different now too. They are up against Flo for competition. NHSCA allows HS wrestlers to drop weight classes as does Flo. I haven't even checked the calendar but perhaps Reno and USA Nationals are the same weekend. You can call them watered down because the elite are not gathering at one watering hole any longer but not because they don't have numbers. All of these events are getting 40 plus wrestlers and in come cases 60 plus.

At the end of the day no one is tricking anyone. The ability to educate yourself before you write the check is readily available. Kids and parents have the right to choose. That has always been the beauty of this sport. You can take your gear and go where you want to, you don't have to follow anyone. As to wether or not RMN is hurting USA Kids?? Who really knows? It is all speculation and opportunity.

If you want a great post season HS event then allow walk ups to a HS district the Saturday after HS State and qualify the top four for the next weekend. Two weeks of wrestling while they are still in shape instead of four weeks of ridiculous sub districts with 3 man round robins and tons of scratches.

I do think Sport0 is way off base throwing around accusations and ridiculing those who invest their time and money to support a kids wrestling opportunity. If you want the kids to stay in KS build a better mouse trap.

i wasn't trying to single out one opportunity over the other, rather stating that unfortunately these event tend to overlap.

chief i think the colorado trip is great, but unfortunately coincides with KS kids. i think the middle school state tourney is great too, but truly believe that more would participate if it were held any other date.

as cokeley said these tourneys are what they are, and are becoming less than expected as others fall on the same date. with the economy the way it is, a "national" tournament has sometimes become regional at best.

perfect idea, hold it at park city, the following week, then let the 6 and under division into the state series.

Once again...Bronson you said it all right the first time..

I had a conversation today with someone about whether we even need subdistricts for ANY of the kids divisions. I didn't go thru and look at all of the districts' brackets, but didn't see very many brackets at D2 with more than 8 or 10 kids in it. For us to run only a District tourney, it would take a place that could handle a 900-1000 kid tourney. Maize manages to run a good tourney with that many kids, as does Derby. Of course Hartman Arena would be perfect. Speaking for D2 only of course. I assume other districts could find a place for a single district tourney as well. We could move district tourney to last weekend, same as Subdistricts, and move state up a week, to shorten the season. Kids will be able to get into FS Greco earlier, or get ready for the duals, Iowa, Reno, etc.........

The season is WAY too long IMO. And of course I am not telling anyone how long they should or shouldn't wrestle, but if you want to start earlier, and finish later, there are plenty of opportunities out there to fix you up. Pick any one of the 200 "National" tourneys !!! haha

Doing away with Subs, and charging a bit more for Districts, would probably raise enough extra money to rent a place like Hartman. I don't know this for a fact though. THere could be some kids that don't go to districts because they think they won't move on to state. I wouldn't let my kids think that way, but it will happen. So if we have 450 kids in each subdistrict, we may only have 750-800 at a single district tourney.......

And it would probably save some money on entry fees for most people, and of course save a weekend of gas, concessions, hotel, etc.

I don't know how much Reno, Iowa, Rocky Mntn, MSND, etc. pay attention to Kansas' kids' series schedule, but maybe they would move around a bit if we shortened our season by a week. Again, I appreciate all that Chief does for KS wrestling, but maybe this idea of no subs (which I am sure plenty of other people have talked about) would help keep some of these things from overlapping. I do think that we don't have anything to prove as Team Kansas, but proving it at Iowa, Reno, or Virginia would mean more......that just my opinion.

Perfectly said Doug! IMO, With the number of wrestlers in each weight class for the most part, subs is a waste of time and money. My son is a freshmen, so it does not make a difference to me any more. But for the good of Kansas Wrestling this should be done. I believe Olathe East High School is big enough in D1 to handle the crowd.
Joe Pratt

there were 600 wrestlers in D1 north and south. some would not register, because they felt they couldn't compete, but not sure that number would drop too much. not sure OEHS could handle that crowd, but there's only one way to tell.

i see the biggest problem being 8u brackets with 32+ kids..... more than 5-6 matches in 1 day.

Only 3 age groups really require two weeks of qualifying. 6, 8, and 10. There might be a few 12's but the majority could be handled with a district event.

This is a contraction idea and from a business perspective it is a recipe for failure, just like the existing format. We have reached capacity and we need to think "outside of the box" to create ideas that will allow us to GROW. It is pretty basic, if you are not growing your organization is dying. We are growing from a card purchasing view point but how long can we count on only delivering a product to less than 50% of our card buyers? Many people agree that we have reached the point that to grow we have to split our state tournament. Many also agree that having the state tournament earlier for the younger kids would achieve growth in participation which would then require subs, dist, and state for 6, 8, 10 for one state tournament (preferably happening the weekend before HS state) and then eventually the same for 12, 14, Cadets, and Juniors. (No KSHSAA state placers allowed to compete in 14U, all HS eligible wrestlers have the choice of entering as a Cadet or Junior.) Remote weigh ins would be instituted and last weekend would have been the last weekend for a Folkstyle event.

This opens up the opportunity to move the state tournaments to venues around the state which would be more economically just to our membership as well as not allow a city's hotels to hold us hostage.

I think this idea will boost our participation to 70% of the membership. I cannot be sure until we do it but I can be sure that we will not boost attendance at the state qualifying series until we make some changes to the current process.

I do agree that the sport needs to grow. We should not try to cut back opportunities for wrestlers of any size, we should be trying to find ways to get more involved and keep them competing throughout the year. I, as I stated before, don't have the answers. I do believe that I know what should be happening, but I will leave the details of making it happen to those that are a lot smarter than I am.

I have been a proponent for some time of wrestling off the 16U (now H.S.) division on the Friday night before Subs or Districts. For the most part the mats are already set-up and it would take maybe 3 hrs. at the most. In addition to eliminating some of the congestion on Saturday, it would give the younger kids an opportunity to watch the older kids wrestle. Some, maybe most, of these younger kids, go through the entire season without ever getting to watch a high school match.

Amen! this hurts as much as anything.

We don't have a dog in the fight either this year. We will in two. He will either be the top half of 14U or HS because of his birthday. I agree with Steele. I will let my son decide and his brothers after him. I do not step on the mat, they do.

I have always been a strong advocate for our high schoolers to participate in the kids series, and not leave the state for a duel tournament. I do agree that we need to do away with Subs for HS, and maybe even for 14U, as some Middle Schools go late. I like Subs for the other age groups. I think that only having a couple of days to decide if you want to cut weight, and to wind down after the state tournament, detours many HS wrestlers away from the kids series. If I remember correct when I wrestled MS and HS we would walk on to districts, but of course that was a few years ago. I think if we allowed that extra week for the wrestlers to decide we would have many more HS wrestling the kids series. JMO.