Once high school practice starts is it legal to wrestle in outside tournaments?

Yes and no. If you have started practicing with your HS team it is NOT permitted by the KSHSAA. If you do NOT join your team. That means attend meetings, go to practice, turn in your physical, etc. then you can participate in open events such as the Cliff Kean Kickoff or Oklahoma Open.

Is this also true for Jr. High? I know a kid who has wrestled in at least three pre season tourneys. His middle school coach wants him to wrestle for the school in the league tournament this weekend and then go to the Kick Off classic next weekend. He has attended no school practices but this sounds highly suspect to me.

I may be wrong, but in most states the junior high/middle schools must follow the same rules as the high schools. In some cases you must have been on the team and competed for set number of weeks to even be considered allowed for competition for honors like being at the league or state tournaments. I think a situation in 6a level like this happend last year to a kid that was pursuing football and couldn't decide what he wanted to do until it was too late.

You need to speak to both the coach and the parents and tell them what they are doing is NOT allowed.

The parents have no intention of letting their son wrestle the Middle school tourney. The boy is not interested either. The coach is the one who is pushing it. Do you know of a specific rule that addresses this?

I would be pushing it too if I were the coach because the kid needs to be with his middle school/junior high team, but he can't do both. I do not know the specific rule by number but it is very clear about outside competition during the season.

Rule 22 Section 1 Art. 1 pg 33 in the KSHSAA Handbook.

How many matches does a typical middle schooler get in a season vs not going out for middle school? Some larger metro areas don't even have Middle School wrestling, so kids that want competition get to go far and wide if no school attachment.

Garrett had 38 matches in his 7th/8th grade middle school career. He finished 29-9 with 18 pins and had some quality matches, and some not so quality matches. The "team concept" of wrestling experience he got was priceless and I am glad that he had the opportunity to wrestle in middle school. I actually feel bad for the kids that don't. The camaraderie that these kids developed during the past two season will show during their high school seasons to come.