District 2 - Cancelled sub-districts?

I wasn't able to attend the meeting this weekend, but I was told we cancelled the Sub-district tournament. Is that true, if so what is the reason behind this move?

Yes

okay....but what are the reasons/benefits for this decision???

I am just trying to get some info to form a better opinion on the matter.

So we can listen to people complain more about seeds in a huge bracket and get home later after the district tournament. Any other benefits??

I voted against having Sub-Districts for several reasons.

1. Brackets are small...more brackets than not do not even have 4 men in it.

2. Distance...3 hour drive to Pittsburg for Ark City people and if it was in Winfield or Ark City it would be a 3 hour drive for Pitt. Save on food, gas, hotel, wear and tear on the car. Especially for a bracket of less than four.

3. Save Money for the District on medals.

4. Save Money for Parents...not having to pay $20 for Subs and $20 for Districts. Get a family of three or four wrestlers and that is quite a bill. Especially if the $20 is for an empty bracket or less than four wrestlers in a bracket.

5. Evens the playing field. Big Brackets instead of one sub having twelve kids and the other having two.

6. Opens up a weekend where we don't have to wrestle. Could shorten the season if the other three districts get on board.

7. Main Reason...to me it was COMMON SENSE.

I can not come up with a reason where it would benefit the kids or parents of Kansas wrestling. Think carefully before anyone says it gives wrestlers that can't make it to state a sense of accomplishment. I can argue that point all day long.

Good points!!!

I think Beeson makes good points but some of the 8u and 10u brackets are going to be huge. I don't know how you wrestle them in one day or a split session event?

How many schools can host a district event with unlimited participants; I think very few, that's why I think split session.

These are my concerns for elimination of Subs when we go to vote next weekend in D1.

Just a couple of things to think about...

I know that Derby and Maize run 1100+ tournaments during the year, and Ark City tries to keep it around 800 and we get out by 6:00 pm. So this can be done, with a big enough school and a crew that is experienced.

Sub-Districts as they are now, are unlimited tournaments.

I don't think the 8U and 10U brackets will be as big as you might think. First and Second year wrestlers and "D" wrestlers may not sign up for Districts knowing that it will be a more competitive tournament.

I am pretty sure D4 and D3 could follow suit and eliminate subs. District 1 is the only District that might have a concern as far as numbers go. I'm not so sure that more re-districting is not in order to help with their numbers.

I think if the districts can find anyway to eliminate the extra cost and weekend they should.

Finally common sense prevailed. I have been talking this up for 4 years. Between food, gas, entry and misc. stuff that crops up on wrestling days you can easily see how this would save parents at least $100.00 that could be better spent on the State Tournament. Also state brackets are 16 man so all that whining about bracket size seems pointless. Glad district 2 is leading by example.

Does anyone have an estimated number of participants/registered wrestlers for a District tournament using this format? Will there be any 32 or 64 man brackets? How long of a day will the tournament be? Could this discourage kids from trying to get to state? I get the cost saving as mentioned above.

Good Job DII. I hope the other 3 districts will follow suit. End the season a week earlier. Start Freestyle and Greco sooner which will make KS wrestlers better in the future.

My son and daughter the have only had brackets with more than 4 kids at sub-district twice. Couple of times they were the only ones in the bracket at sub-district.

Josh Parker

Looking back at 2013 since D2 did not hold a sub for all age groups last year. There were 446 wrestlers in the North and 375 wrestlers in the South. With those numbers just about any club could pull off a split tournament without much effort and be done by 6ish. All but maybe 5-10 brackets in all age and weight groups would have been a 16 man or smaller, and the few that were bigger than 16 still would not have filled a full 24 man bracket.

This by far is one of the best decisions our district could make.

I'm telling you. One BIG bracket, 3 day tourney called State for all the marbles.....Just need someone to build a building the size of Texas to hold it, Bahaha!!!

If bawoody's #'s are correct and I have no reason to believe they aren't then D2 made the right decision. Thats less than a 1,000. My club ran a tournament a few years ago with 800, last match wrestled around 6. Beats having to spend the gas and time for 2 seperate weekends.

Those numbers would appear to be accurate and have been steady for many years. However, with the new clubs moving in from D1 (which should now be known as "refugees"), I would expect district tournament entries to be approximately 1000. This number would have been very manageable had we voted to utilize an arena. I predict in the 15-16 season that will be what D2 elects to do.

Going back and looking at the numbers. D1N had 601, D1S had 497, D3E had 461, D3W had 398, D4N had 298 and D4S had 394 wrestlers. There is absolutely no reason to not get rid of Sub-Districts. D1 obliviously has the greatest numbers, but with the size of some schools in that area, they could pull it off as well. Will it be a little longer than the rest of the districts, yes, but with experienced parents and a good Track Wrestling coordinator it is possible. Every district would have less than 10 brackets with 16 or more wrestlers except for D1, they would be closer to 15-20 brackets greater than 16 man.

This is a no-brainer for the entire state! There are enough clubs in each district that can host a 1000 entry tournament and still get out at a decent time. EVEN if a tournament runs long, it’s still less time than 2 separate Saturdays!!

Another advantage of ending the season a week earlier is High School State Powerlifting is usually the same weekend as kids state. I know of a kids placer from last year that is thinking he will do state powerlifting this year instead of kids state wrestling. Usually wrestlers a very strong pound for pound and have success in powerlifting as well.

Just to be clear...This is not going to shorten the season anytime soon. The State does have a contract with the City of Topeka. If we can eliminate subs in all Districts, then and only then can we work on moving the State Tournament back a week or even two. This is a step in the right direction.

It should be noted that if we move our state tournament back two weeks that would require that each district eliminate subs anyway because that would put subs on the same weekend as high school state. Also, that puts all of the arenas off-limits to us, should we ever split the kids state tournament up, because the arenas will be in use for that other winter sport's high school state.

Here's an idea, eliminate subs in all districts. Replace that date with the district tournament. Keep the state date the same and have the weekend of the NCAAs open for our young athletes to see the pinnacle of our sport. We are one of the vast MINORITY of states having their youth compete on that weekend. We need our young athletes to see what they are striving to be. I doubt you'll see a youth Football game on Super Bowl Sunday...

THAT is an idea I would whole-heartedly get behind.

I am new to the Kansas youth wrestling scene. How do the tournaments work? Was the sub-district a qualifier for Districts and districts a qualifier for States? How many wrestlers advance in a weight class to the next tournament? It seems the setup is much different from where I came from (NJ) so just trying to understand it. Thanks for your help!

4 Districts. Top 4 from each Sub District to District, top 4 there to State. Seeding meeting is held prior to 1st qualifier, then by place after that. State seeding is rotating yearly between the 4 districts for example one season D1 1 seed gets D2 4 seed and D3 1 seed gets D4 4 seed, then the next year could be D1 VS D4 and D2 versus D3.

Thank you Daniel for your response.

Kansas is divided geographically into four (4) districts. Each District is further divided into either a North / South or East / West to create the Sub-districts. The Sub-district tournament is open to all member wrestlers participating with a USAW Kansas chartered club within the boundaries of the appropriate Sub-district. Bracket size at the Sub-district is only limited by the number of entries and the top four (4) place winners advance to the District Tournament. The top four (4) place winners at the District Tournament then advance to the USAW Kansas Kids State Championship Tournament.

I am not disagreeing with the numbers - but the season will not end sooner if the State Tournament site is reserved for a year or two out - in the short term. some other clubs will host tournaments on that subdistrict weekend (if those tournaments do not happen) if there is an open date prior to The District.
Just my opinion -



USA Kansas Kids Schedule
Mar 14 Subdistrict Tournaments TBA
Mar 21 District Tournaments TBA
Mar 28-29 Kansas State Folkstyle Championships Topeka Expocenter

NCAA D- I Tournament
St Louis - Scott Trade Center
March 19-21

Coach Beck you are on the money with that post. Just for that reason alone would be good to get rid of Subs.

Josh Pakrer

This has been my point all along. You can move the state tournament back as much as you want (even though there are logistical obstacles to that), but you are NOT going to shorten the season. You will simply have your first invitational tournaments in November as opposed to December. And more importantly you will have invitationals on those same dates you just vacated in an attempt to shorten the season.
In regards to the NCAA's, I do not believe that is a reasonable goal for several reasons. 1. Ninety-nine percent of our kids, even if the biggest fans of college wrestling, are not going to be able or willing to wrestle at that level. 2. Right now the NCAA's are in our backyard so to speak, there is no guarantee that that will always be the case and even if it is, it is still beyond the reach financially for the majority of our kids. 3. Probably the majority of our kids have little or no contact with high school wrestling/wrestlers but they are expected to somehow develop an appreciation of college wrestling just by attending the NCAA's?
I would suggest it is far more important to both our kids and our high schools programs for the kids to attend high school events. Also, our local college programs could use our attendance as well. We expect to get a D1 program in this state when adults and kids alike do not attend a relatively cheap and local college event?

I feel like a these reasons are some of the things holding our athletes back in the first place. 1. By your logic 90+% of our athletes will never become HS state champions, so therefore we should eliminate exposure or goal setting to help that become a reality. 2. Attendance is the only way to have an influence or exposure to the sport. ESPN last year aired every single match of the tournament. The tournament returns to STL in 2017. Our athletes also have little contact with NFL, MLB, and NBA athletes, yet I feel like we are the only sports that use this as an excuse. Actually, our sport has one of the largest chances to contact our most elite level athletes on a very frequent occurrence.

We need to stop aiming low and hitting low. The holy grail of KS wrestling can not continue to be a kids or HS state championship. We need to have loftier goals and set actions into motion to accomplish those goals. I am realistic, I don't expect all our athletes to wrestle in college, especially at a D1 level. But who is it for us to say that they can't or won't. I was lucky enough to have an opportunity to wrestle in college and pursue my education at a higher level through that avenue. I will not be the reason my athletes goals aren't high. Our sport is way too hard for kids to not be fans of it first. I have strong feelings that opening this date is important to the beginning of said shift.

You have NEVER heard me say we are "hitting low". In fact I have argued for years that Kansas far exceeds on both a regional and national level. Sorry, I don't buy the old "we don't have a D1 program, so we suck" or "we don't do things exactly like other states, so we are lagging behind". I would love to have a D1 program at WSU but then again, I will be the crazy one who actually has his youth wrestler at their home events rather than at the Acme youth invitational that day.


And there will be at least 4 youth tournaments that weekend and they will be full of all of our Kansas youth!

This is the last time I'm going to post on this topic. The previous post wasn't aiming at anyone's opinion but my own. I am saying we are missing low. We are behind multiple states within our region, let alone nationally, results clearly show that. Neither of the states leading our region have scheduled competitions per trackwrestling.com, March 21.

I don't buy the we don't have a D1 program so we suck opinion either. There are a vast number of monetary, logistical, social, and political issues leading up to the addition of a program. I also feel that being one of the lone states to compete on the weekend of the Division 1 wrestling tournament wouldn't look like a positive to a committee looking at the support levels for a prospective program.

Finally, I agree that there would be at least 4 tournaments that weekend full of Kansas youth, which is tremendous. Though, it could have to do with the fact that it is a mandatory qualifier for the state tournament. Those same four tournaments would also be full if they were held the weekend prior.

I'm saying even if we end our season before NCAA's there will be at least 4 invitational youth tournaments that same weekend. If we want to create fans of the sport, we need to do it on the local and state level first and foremost. The vast majority of our kids never get to see a high school match until they themselves are in high school. I have for years advocated a statewide moratorium on tournaments the weekend of high school state in order to encourage our coaches and parents to attend. Doesn't matter to me either way, because that is where my youth wrestler will be.