I attended the Missouri State Tournament today. We loaded up and drove to Columbia Missouri. Kansas wrestlers and fans really are missing out by not having all the classes at one site. The tournament set up and wrestling was really impressive.

Jeff is right! Rick and Gary should have joined him! With all of the budget cuts being handed out we are going to have to get serious and in a hurry to save money or we might not be able to save wrestling in all of the schools. In 5A and 6A there should be two 16 team regionals and state should only be 8 wrestlers. That is 25% just like 4A. If you did that and have state be from Thursday morning to Saturday night you could make it happen. One building would be cheaper than three! The event would be huge and cities would have to bid to host.

Nebraska and Colorado are very similar, I don't know about Oklahoma. Kansas is really missing out and it's unfortunate for wrestling fans. It would be in the best interest of the sport to make some changes. Wichita's new facility can seat 15,000 but I don't know how many mats they could put down.
Myron Ellegood

I know that it would be nice to see all the great wrestlers in one building but I can tell you I enjoy watching the best in each class as well and I can only watch one match as a time-

Scooby, you are correct it is nice to see each class in one venue. I attended the missouri state this past weekend and it was really cool to see Kyle meyer and Mac Bailey win their fourth title. This would not happen in kansas because they were in different classes. I also like it all in one place because there are so many fans there for the finals. Kansas is far behind missouri on this subject and i wish they would catch up.

AMEN!!!

Will, the only aspect of your suggestion that I do not see flying is that 5A and 6A only have 8 qualifiers going to state while 4A and 3-2-1A would still have 16. I understand what you are saying about it being the same percentage as 4A but it just would never be accepted that kids from bigger schools should only have 2 spots at their weight class to qualify for state from their regional while kids from smaller schools would have four spots. I would be stunned if the bigger schools ever allowed that to happen and I don't think they should.

What I would suggest instead to make it more fair percentage wise would be to make 6A, 5A and 4A all 48 teams. I think to make it happen you would have to move up 16 teams from 3-2-1A to 4A, 16 5A teams would move up to 6A and 32 current 4A teams would move up to 5A. This would mean that you would have four 12 team regionals instead of the current 8 in 6A, 5A, and 16 teams in 4A. I am not sure of the current number of teams in 3-2-1A so I do not know what effect it would have on that class to lose 16 teams. This should help make sure that you have at least 8 wrestlers at each weight class at regionals and improve the competition level. If you incorporated the Montana idea of allowing two wrestlers per school in each weight class it would make it even more competitive to earn one of the four state spots.

Having all four classes at one state tournament site seems to be an idea that most of the wrestling community likes. Personally I would not be crazy about a marathon three day event. I actually preferred the 5A one class tournament that we had in Hutchison last year. Like Scooby mentioned there is only one class that I focus on anyway and I thought it was better for viewing the matches that I wanted to focus on. It seems like I am in the minority with this opinion.

I also talked to at least one college wrestling coach today who went to the unified Missouri format looking at kids from different classes. His comment about this coming weekend to KS state was "I am not sure where I will go. I want to see several different kids but I can't be all places at once."

Straight from the horses (recruiters) mouth....

24/7

I attended several 3 class State tourneys at the Kansas Col. Great atmosphere--especially the Grand March. But, as for watching multiple classes wrestle, not so great. We were alway in the 4A area with the 2 and 1 mat configuration. Could not hear the 5A and 6A announcement, nor see much of the 5A and 6A matches without binos. Unless you are a die hard wrestling fan, how many would sit through every match for 3 days. I will bet in MO, CO or other states where they have a one site state tourney spread over several days, that when your class/school is through for the day, wrestlers, coaches, and fans go home or to the motel. Also, never been to a KS 321A State but wonder about what all those out west people want to do. That seems to be a very close knit community that may just vote to stay near home at FHSU. Understand plans are to take 4A back to Kansas Col.

Change for the sake of change--or because the other guy does it--does not make sense.

Added: Mo has a whole lot more people and schools than Kansas, but Kansas has a whole lot more space. Plus MU is located in the center of the state---about equal disant from the 4 corners. Looking at a Kansas road map and the I-70 mile markers, to find a true central point in Kansas you have to start looking somewhere between Great Bend and Ellsworth.

I knew this subject was going to be coming up again. Being a former Nebraska state champion and coming to Kansas and seeing how it is handled here just makes me feel sorry for the wrestlers. As stated below, how do you get the attention and recognition from the college scouts if the wrestlers are in three locations (and four locations last year). The last time this subject was brought up, the problem was space for enough mats to accommodate all of the wrestlers. I don't know if the problem has been remedied or not but it doesn't matter because the problem isn't going to be "fixed". 3-2-1A will remain in Hays, 4A will not be changing locations from Salina, and 5A and 6A are going to stay in Wichita. How PITTIFUL!!! It's unfortunate but that's the way it is. I would complain more if I thought it would do any good but it won't so I will stop and thank everyone for allowing me to vent my frustration.

SHIP-MAN -- you make me laugh! ;-)

Looking forward to seeing you soon. Pray that puny-boy stay healthy.

[quote=Husker Fan...Will, the only aspect of your suggestion that I do not see flying is that 5A and 6A only have 8 qualifiers going to state while 4A and 3-2-1A would still have 16. I understand what you are saying about it being the same percentage as 4A but it just would never be accepted that kids from bigger schools should only have 2 spots at their weight class to qualify for state from their regional while kids from smaller schools would have four spots. I would be stunned if the bigger schools ever allowed that to happen and I don't think they should....[/quote]

I got to thinking about this and I realized that I was incorrect in my statement about the bigger schools only having two spots available at their regional to qualify for state in each weight class. I forgot we were down to just two regionals in Will's proposed new system so they would in fact be going for four spots at each weight. However, I still think that the bigger schools would not accept their only being 8 man brackets at their State tournaments while 4A and 3-2-1A would have 16 man brackets.

The bigger schools who are getting their budgets cut the most won't agree to have fewer regionals (cost savings) and fewer participants at state (cost savings). You prove to me that there are, per capita, more wrestlers in 5A and 6A than 4A and I will agree that they should have 16 man brackets. You can't because it is not true! Look at the number of losing records going to state in 5A and 6A!!!! They didn't just get better the last week before regionals!! Was there a 4A or 321A bracket that had 50% of its spots filled with BYES??? NO!!! The liberal minded, socialistic education system where everyone has to be a winner should step aside for wrestling a put something together that makes sense! The Montana system would allow those teams who have numbers to fill some spots but is that the answer, to water down state even more? I hope not.

Will,

How would the Montana system be watering down competition at state even more if it allows teams like Wichita Northwest and Olathe North that have state placing quality guys like Heithaus and Page, Vincent and Venegas at the same weights to have both of these wrestlers from the same team wrestle at State? Aquinas had state qualifiers from 3 years ago who were not able to make the starting varsity lineup two years ago and I believe they would have placed at State two years ago if we had the Montana system in place. Now maybe logistically you need to limit it by only allowing a team to take 18 or 20 wrestlers instead of 28 but I think it could work and it would definitely increase the level of competition at Regionals and State and allow more opportunity for quality wrestlers to make it to State.

I know in Missouri there are about 52-58 schools per class with four classes of wrestling. The start in considerening going to two classes with two qualifying tournaments and medaling 8 at state. How many schools are in the Kansas classes, is Kansas considering any changes?

6A- 32
5A- 32
4A- 60 (with wrestling, I think)
321A- 86 (with wrestling, I think)

I agree with Husker Fan. If you take a large school such as Aquinas that has on any given year between 40-50 wrestlers on the team vying for 14 Varsity, 14 JV and 14 Freshman spots, the internal pool is crowded. A good wrestler at a big school might not ever make Varsity until his Junior or Senior year, but at a smaller school he probably would have had the advantage of wrestling Varsity all four years. So when you are comparing the total number of wrestlers per class 123A vs. bigger school's total numbers of wrestlers, the comparison of totals does not accurately reflect the depth of competitors per school. The only way Cokeley's question can be proven is by taking into account each school's wrestling team size.

Also the MO State Championship is run very differently than the KS one. Each has it's pros and cons depending on one's perspective. A MO District championship, especially on the Kansas City side is much more difficult than a KS Regional. The biggest difference is between the depth of competitors. At most KS Regionals there will be a few tough opponents and then the rest are wrestlers with a break even or less record. In a MO District there are twice as many competitors and the depth of quality wrestlers is 4, 5 or more deep.

By stating this I would like to clarify that I am not saying that MO wrestlers are always better that KS ones. The best of each state can hang with each other and the quality wrestler prevails.