I have always said, "Put everyone in the same bracket and wrestle." I am not a fan of Novice. I see it as a necessary evil. If your kid is doing it for the "Bling" they are doing it for the wrong reasons. The Series is a bad idea in my opinion....Kansas wrestling will suffer.

its not all about the bling for me but that does make a huge difference to the kid. its kinda funny how the biggest and best tournaments in kansas give the best bling and have the toughest wrestling. so say its not about the bling but to the kids it makes a difference. Chad you and I know that its about the competition but the young kids really dont understand that like we do. Yes you can sit there and say you teach them its not about the bling. So next year ask your kid if he wants to go to another tournament the same weekend as one of the bigger tournaments. tell him what the awards are and tell me what he says. All I am trying to say is the series will help alot of kids wrestle that much harder because it is about the competition. That kid will not want another kid to beat him out in points. That in return will make for better matches and the kids get better. Why is that so hard to understand. Chad explain to me why you think Kansas wrestling will suffer. Like Spexy said it suffers because its a too darn long and half the tournaments you go to you get stuck wrestling 2 matches.

bockman, we have explained it over and over. Saying it more, obviously won't make you believe what we are telling you.

It will give the series tournaments a monopoly. If you are not a series tournament your tournament will suffer. The club will not make money. Without money there are less opportunities for kids. Smaller clubs will wither up and die. This will make Kansas wrestling weaker.

As far as the Bling, they become dust collectors.

I don't think we went to one tournament this year where we did not get three matches. That is a 16 man bracket with a bye. We do not need bigger brackets. Most schools cant handle more than 700 participants. If you want more or different competition, go to Oklahoma before our season. Go to a different District every week. There is plenty of competition, you just have to go where it is.

so starting a month earlier and making the season would be the answer. Football runs into november these days and its going to make it harder to do that. I really dont think the series will affect the smaller tournaments because alot of those kids would probably opt out of doing it. not all but most. I dont know the answer to it but somehow oklahoma does it and they are still one of the top states in the country in wrestling. they have large and small tournaments weekly just like kansas. i honestly dont think it will affect most of the tournaments. guess without at least trying it then we wont know. if we try it and it doesnt work then we just go back to the way it is now. How long has oklahoma been doing it. I see kansas kids wrestling down there for that series anyways.

Starting a month earlier is what Oklahoma does. They also end a month earlier. So if we want to be so much like Oklahoma and have a series, then we need to start and end a month earlier also.

If most kids will opt out of the series, like you state, then why do it? Are we only having the series for a few of the kids? How will that improve Kansas wrestling as a whole? You are contradicting yourself. I do not believe we need to make up another "TITLE". State Champion should be enough.

Chad
I want Ks wrestling to grow as much as the next guy. I love this sport and I am very thankful for what it has given back to my sons and the awesome relationships that it has given me.
I am more then willing to be a team player. When I first started kicking this idea around last year my purpose was to help struggling tournaments grow. Use the series idea to draw people to the smaller tournaments. Be kinda like the Robin Hood of Wrestling. lol
Then I tried to look at it from every side and thought that it just wouldnt work for some of the smaller tournaments. Some of them are break even as it is. Could they afford to chip in to final prize pool and I also want this to go over big so I was also looking at some of the better ran tournaments.
My idea was to start out by taking some of the bigger D2 tournaments and get the ball rolling there and then once it was rolling the right way start to spread out.
The one thing that I see that is choking this sport is all these tournaments stacked up on the same weekend. You can wrestle a good tournament almost every weekend and never leave your own district. I also want to use the series to maybe motitvate people to get out of their little box and travel to other districts and see new competition. I know everyone can't afford to travel every weekend and that's ok. But let's try to give people some incentive to do that.
Anytime you get a few strong kids from different districts in a SUPER bracket it creates buzz and excitement for our sport.
That is a good thing.
I know I know...
There are some true hard core wrestlers out there that would wrestle for bubble gum. But they are the minority. We cherish those kids and those are the ones that usually go on to bigger and better things. But for our sport to flurish we need to appeal to the masses.
I don't want to take away from any club that holds a tournament but the truth is if we don't start seeing clubs Co Op their tournaments that they will start to choke out and die anyway. Look how many people canceled this year.

a few times now i have heard co-oping as an answer to changing the current trend of over scheduling. i haven't heard any solution or possible change from some of the opposing voices. i have always been told "if you're not part of the solution, then you are part of the problem". sportsfan/ chad/ others.....we all agree that over scheduling and issues with profits are both a problem. do you have any suggestions to help fix it? again i'm not saying, the triple crown or a series is the end all answer, i'm just trying to think into the future.

The soulution is simple, but it is going to hurt alot go egos. There are too many clubs. District 1 has at least 18 clubs that should join together with other clubs, bringing the total club count to around 62 instead of 76. District 2 has about 17 clubs that should join together with other clubs, bringing the total club count to around 32. District 3 has 7 and District 4 has 4. I am guesstimating on District 1, 3, and 4. There could be more.

If District 2 had a club count of 32...2 clubs from the District could have a tournament each week. Take out 3 clubs for Subs and Districts and there would be more than enough weekends to go around.

The problem is people can't get along and divide off into way too many clubs. I believe that the more wrestlers and coaches that are in a club, the stronger the club. Examples; Brawlers, East Kansas, Garden City Greater Gold, Goddard, Derby, TOHK, Ark City, Salina, Bonner Springs, and SEK Jr. Comets. Those were the top 10 placers at State or the top 5% of clubs. These all have a good number of kids in the room with Coaches that get along.

If we want Kansas wrestling to get better, we need to quit dividing good wrestling partners and good coaches up into so many clubs. Bring them together to make each other better. So what if your kid is not the best in the room. Don't divide off so that he is, be grateful there are kids better in the room to push him. As East Kansas motto goes, "Steel sharpens Steel".

Tournament gets to big it will have to be a two dayer if you follow the rules. As for D4 having 4 clubs that can combine WHAT????? Out here off the top of my head I can only think of one county that has two clubs. That would be Finney with Greater Gold and Southwest Grapplers. Ulysses combined this year so were do you get 4. To go to another club would be at least a 25 mile or more drive.

Look up the clubs in District 4...there are 2 more.

You SAID IT brother! Someone doesn't like the way we do things, well "screw that", we'll go off and do our own thing. Doesn't matter how it effects everyone else's kid, rather just my own. Of course we use the ruse of saying "it's best for the sport or the state". Everyone is for "raising the entire state up", that is, until it's their time to actually pull.

here are my ideas for making kansas a better wrestling state. Start at our normal time of the year. kids state needs to be done the week before highschool state so those little kids can actually go watch the highschool state and that would generate quite a bit more money for the highschool programs. then after highschool state the freestyle and greco could get started and i think you would get more kids to start doing those 2. i for one would do freestyle and greco if the regular season was shortened up. I think the series is a good idea but has lots of questions. I really dont think it will change the way we run tournaments right now. All we do is get 5 or 6 tournaments to be ran as the series. I dont think a tournament every week needs to run part of the series because yes that would probably kill a couple tournaments each week. those big tournaments are where the kids are already going so i really dont think it will hurt any of those other tournaments if its not already doing that. Clubs just need to watch that they try not to get too close to those big tournaments on that same weekend. These are the tournaments that would be a good choice and shouldnt hurt anyones numbers. Derby, Maize, Sprawl, Salina, West kansas classic and Park City classic. Then if someone on that east side would get the east Kansas Classic that would be great. You dont have to add it as a tournament but just change the name of the tournament you already run. I still state that Pittsburg state would be a great place to have it. surely someone in the Kc area could find a place to have it. As far as having several clubs run a tournament. Chad is probably right about not getting along because some people just have that ego and do not listen or want to be told what or how to do something. I do like the idea of getting the kids in the same room at times. other times I like the small club we have cause we have 5 coaches and 15 kids. that one on one is great. I would also love to be able to travel out of state as team kansas and not 20 kids all from different kansas teams.

I give up!

These tournaments are already well attended, with great competition. Making them a series will not make a difference. All it will do is give another AWARD or TITLE. Let's not make up an award just for the sake of giving out more awards. Would you rather be a State Champion or Series Winner? Either way you are lessening the State Championship. A kid can say well I didn't win State, but I was the Series Champion. Is that what we want?

well you have a good point on that one. So now I am done. Now lets get the season shortened up so the kids can watch the highschool state and get freestyle and greco started earlier so more kids can compete at these tournaments and make Kansas overall a better wrestling state. You are our d2 rep and you have the power to help do this. I dont think starting a month earlier like Oklahoma is the answer because football already goes into wrestling. I dont want to be like Oklahoma. My goal is to beat the crap out of Oklahoma. When I wrestled Oklahoma kicked our butts. At the highschool age I think they still do but from what I saw this season at the Oklahoma tournaments and Nationals Kansas is holding their own.

Lets leave it the way it is. Yes some kids want more "bling" and other kids don't care about the "bling". The State Tournament gives all kids a chance to go and get the Title. Parents who can not afford to travel the state would be left out the of the seris thing. IMO this would hurt Kansas Wrestling. I know plent of families that budget the trip to Topeka into the budget but don't have the money to travel all over the state like some of us are fortanate enough to do for the whole season. Lets keep Kansas Wrestling a cheap as we can. It's expensive enough not.

I do agree that there should be more mixing of clubs during practices. Here is an idea. Neighboring clubs rotate an open room one night a week for the two or three club within 20 or 30 miles. This would really help make better wrestlers.

A. Steele

Scott
IMO the reason OK starts to run away from KS is because they have less strict rules at the MS and HS levels. Their MS/HS kids can still go into the kids club rooms to work out and assist with coaching and can wrestle kids club events even during the regular season. So the JV kids that are not dueling or in a tournament can still get great mat time and wrestle on the weekends. The HS/MS coaches can also coach them at these events. They get way more mat time in a shorter season then Ks.

Ok Beeson I found Pratt and Finney counties with two clubs who am I missing? Maybe you are thinking some are closer than you think let me know.

bling blang. I'm just pi$$ed the season is sooo short. 5-6 months is just not long enough. Can't we just go 10+? Screw that, how about year-round? Don't know about anybody else, but after reviewing expenses for the season, I am left wondering if I've spent enough on gas, hotel rooms, and concessions. And can we get more tournaments with the Salina Bicentennial Center/Topeka Expocenter type full-body cavity searches!