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I was very saddened to learn that my former school district in which i grew up will no longer have a wrestling program as it was cut due to low numbers (few participants) and the budgetary restraints that our school districts across the state are faced with. Back in the days of my youth, we had one of the strongest kids programs for a town our size in the entire state which was headed up by Kenny Upham and Galen Lay. This of course helped to feed the school programs and there is strength in numbers but as the Coaches changed and interest wore off--the low # of participants didnt warrant keeping it afloat and it is very sad to see this happen as i know how much it meant to many of my peers and I back in the day.

This goes to show you how important a little kids program is and how thankful we all should be for the coaches and parents who devote so much time keeping the kids active and off the streets. You can't blame the distict for dropping it with such poor participation. A BIG than you to all you kid coaches and volunteers. Thanks, Matt

Does Hiawatha even have a kids club? If not, it is understandable why the numbers were so poor at the middle school. Be prepared for more of these types of cuts even at the high school level.

501 school district in Topeka (the largest school district in Topeka) dropped middle school wrestling 4-5 years ago & it shows. Look at Topeka West, Topeka High(Larry Perez) & Highland Park (Melvin Douglas) wrestling from Topeka now. They have become irrelevent in Kansas High School wrestling. Very sad. That's a big part of the reason we commute to Silver Lake every day. The kids are getting a much better education as well.

While I believe all school districts should offer about the same basic programs even at the middle school level, did Topeka ever have any strong high school wrestling teams? Any public school system can produce the exceptional athlete here and there, but to produce strong teams is a better guage of success. I don't remember the Topeka schools ever being competitive team-wise in my time around wrestling. Maybe they were and I have just forgotten it.

Keep in mind all on this forum might be biased about wrestling. Most schools cutting programs are looking at huge budget adjustments all over the country. I am talking between $100,00 and excess of a million. Middle school wrestling might account for $2000 to $5000 (ballpark) so another 40 to 100 likewise cuts?
Adminitstrators and schoolboard members need a minimum 3hrs. of Business class credit. Maybe a workshop on "bang for the buck".
4 day school weeks (same amount of total hours) $80,000 a year savings.
Middle School athletics is more than preparation for high school athletics. Kids doing nothing structured after school at this age is dangerous.
Kids wrestling is close to imperative for most individual champions but not absolutely. Lyons is usually 50/50 kids and late starters on the high school team. We won league and regionals a few times. We have been 4th to 10th at state a few times.
An occasional placer or champion might not save a high school program but a winning team cannot hurt.

If you begin to cut middle school wrestling, cut em all. Think about it. We all coached football, wrestling, basketball, gymnastics and baseball soccer before middle school. We just do it through 8th grade. They get better competition anyway.

Once again what middle school wrestling does here in Lyons is helps fill our HS team. Tourneys and duals are better when folks bring close to full teams.
By the way, we are fighting to keep our MS program here. My advice to all is when you begin to hear such rumblings get after it. Do not wait until it is on the table and 3 people might make the meeting to gripe.

That is what I am encouraging our parents to do here. Attend every BOE meeting and wear your wrestling shirts and hats.

My name is tom stone and yes Hiawatha does have a wrestling program for kids, and we go by the team name of team hawks and the reason we use that name is because a few years ago we had two ladies that though they could run the wrestling club and so Bridget and I started a diffent club and we go by the name of team hawks and by the way the other club lasted two years and lost all the kids but there own. My son Donnie was the middle school coach for two years and had 20 kids out then and he moved out of town and has a new job and most people will understand that is few jobs that pay good in Hiawatha.
That leads us to the middle school wrestling they had a new coach and for what ever the reason the numbers have fell off real fast and the school took wrestling out of the school for what they say is a money saving deal. well we both know that wrestling does not come before football or basketball and if you new our A.D. that does not ever go out of town to a wrestling meet you would understand then that for him it was not hard to say cut it.
Hiawatha was a charter member at the Eudora wrestling tourmament for years and my oldest son wrestled in 1980-81 and so its hard to understand why we cut Eudora out last year after a person told the school that he would pay the bill and he was turned down. When you have no idea what it means to wrestle in a tourmament of that size even if you get beat its still great to see how good you have to be to go on to state later on. A lot of you know my grandson who wrestled for Hiawatha last year and set some school records and he placed all for years at Eudora and my other grandson place two years and Ryan Carlson his junior made the finals and the school took him home because the weather was getting bad, this shows you how bad our school wrestling has gotton and with no help from the boster club its going to get hard to keep the club and school team going. Ryan junior year I wanted to get new singlets for the high school team and asked the school if I could buy them and the A.D. said he would have to ask the boster club and I said I was going to pay for them and I did not need to ask them, well any way we bought them and the team liked them because they picked them out.
Back on the club we are sending seven kids this weekend and hopefully a few will make it to state next weekend. You will find that wrestling clubs have parents that don't get along and times change and just take a look at Holton they split this year and things will work out there to, but I would like to be able to tell you that the middle school will have wrestling next year but thats a dream of a lot of people like yourself and I can tell you one thing we will play football and basketball no matter if were broke or not.

I know that it can take a lot of support to keep a program growing.
In Holton this past Jr High Wrestling season , the Parents and Grand Parents fund raised enough money to purchase new singlets for the entire JR High team at roughly $65 per singlet for over 32 kids on the current team.
The Jackson County Wrestling Club has also purchased for use by the Holton Jr High and the Holton High School wrestling programs:
a Dollarmur Mat at roughly $8000, a new weigh scale, mat mop, and new score clock. Our kids club also provides at NO COST to the school all table workers, towel tappers and gate(money) takers at all JR High and High School wrestling events! This helps to save the school system alot of money in hourly wages! We VOLUNTEER constantly!!! We want to keep wrestling in our school and we are dedicated to the cause! Please go to your school board members and rally around your program! Get your parents involved! I know in a community that Wrestling takes 3rd seat most of the time..to Football and Basketball...it does in Holton also! But we do have an awesome AD and he is an avid Wrestling Supporter! Mr Beims works with our jr high/high school and kids programs to promote and support wrestling in our area!
Don't give up...just reach out to those around you. You can do it!

Kim Lovvorn
Holton