With the numbers this year,(which are down) why not just hold districts only? Bump Drate up a week and be done. LOTS of brackets with 1, 2,3,maybe 4, kids, out of subs. Now to fill distinct brackets your 5/6 placers get to move on. $20 for subs, $20 for districts. Doesn't matter if you wrestle or not you still pay. Make a big bracket per district and let's go. Yeah seeding meeting will be hell, but numbers are down.

Something to ponder.

Sounds like your trying to save people money also? But remember only having 1 qualifing tourny is that everyone has a bad day so you may lose some of the best competition due to being sick or something. I pesonally like subs and then districts just because the stud can be sick and place 4th at subs but then come back and healthy and get the 1st place at districts. Yet its not bad at all to take 4th at Districts!!

I'm all for having only one qualifying tournament. Just have it be a Saturday / Sunday tournament, just as the State tournament is. You want them to get ready for State, what better way?

I know it won't save that much money, but it's a great way to prepare for the way it will be in high school (for small schools) and their qualifying tournament but that's another dead horse debate.

If you really wanted too, just have it be Saturday in a split session / or regular tournament your choice. You will probably have a few 32 man brackets but they will even themselves out pretty quickly.

On the bad day note, that's life. Everyone has a bad day but not everyone gets a second chance. There is always next year.

District 1 Numbers:

2011 - 1125 2012 - 1116
14/32 HS 14/32 HS
27/46 14 21/46 14
22/44 12 14/44 12
12/40 10 12/40 10
11/36 8 9/36 8

35% of the brackets had 4 or less competitors this year as compared to 43% in 2011 even though we had 9 fewer wrestlers.

Only 7% of the brackets had a total number of wrestlers greater than 16.

Our Bracket in the DS 1 South - Had two kids wrestle 5 times, one 6 and another 7 and that is not including byes. Some age and weights would be tough in DS 1. (12 and Under)

think subs is a developmental tournament, maybe not fo th the older weights but for the younger ones.

I think they RR are good for them also, how many 5th placers got 4 matches?

I might be stuck in thae past a litttle but I like the subs, maybe the HS kids need a pass right on to districts.

I also think the facilities are a little hard to handle this many in 1 district tournament.

Salnia and Hutch maybe be the only ones that could handle 1000 kids. (D3 anyways)

I agree with you Tracy for the younger ages it is developmental as they can see how and what it takes to get to the "big show". I can see that 14 & HS could easily be combined into two (district & state) whereas if you would drop to two qualifiers I could relatively see decreased participation in our state series by the younger youth ages that we're trying to 'grow' & 'keep' involved within wrestling.

$.02.

District 3

2012 Data

District 3 Data (after scratches)
919 Competitors

23/32 HS 4 or less competitors
31/46 14U “ “
24/44 12U “ “
16/40 10U “ “
11/36 8U “ “

Only 11/198 brackets or 5.6% had more than 16 competitors when you combine the two subs.

919 would be able to be handled a few places.

There are alot of kids that make it to District, and not so many make it to State. I think giving the one that wouldn't make it to state year in and year out a good sense of accomplishment getting to District.

Sometimes the small goals keeps them going, rather than getting beat out in 2-3 matched in a single District qualifier.

I am pretty sure that I wouldn't been able to talk 3-4 of our kids into staying out knowing they would go into 1 tougher tournament vs 1 medium tough (some brackets) then on to the tougher one.

You can pull the tougher kids make tougher kids, but these were 1st year novice kids that should at least experience the run to state.

I think helping the number stay up start with the younger kids and not getting to wound up about the HS kids. I would not even put them in a sub, righ ton to District.

District 2 – 846 Wrestlers

18/32 HS Brackets less than 4 wrestlers
30/46 14U " “
22/44 12U “ “
21/40 10U “ “
18/36 8U “ “

55% of these brackets did NOT require wrestling to see who moved on to districts.

Only 5 brackets or 2.5% of the total brackets had more than 16 competitors.

District 4 had 821 Wrestlers

29/32 HS Brackets have less than 4 wrestlers
32/46 14U “ “
26/44 12U “ “
23/40 10U “ “
11/36 8 U “ “

61% of the brackets did NOT require wrestling to determine who moved on to Districts.

Only 5 brackets or 2.5% of the total brackets had more than 16 competitors.

This is the key statistic...

JUST 3,702 wrestlers competed in sub districts but 11,145 purchased cards in 2010/11. That is JUST 33.2% of our members...

How many of the total are 6u?

I hate to be a Debby Downer, but there just are not very many venues in KS that can handle 800 kid tournaments in a one day format…and that number shrinks to almost none that can do it and stay within the sanction rules. You have to accommodate the right size wrestling surfaces for the age groups, have adequate safety areas, and give the wrestlers enough rest time between their matches. You also need to watch the facility occupancy numbers so that we don’t put people in uncomfortable conditions or worst case have people trampling each other in an emergency.

In earlier posts, some have said that a split tournament is the answer to some of the issues I raised. Have you ever tried to make the math work for a 16-man bracket wrestled in 1/2 day format? It’s tough; a 32-man bracket in a 1/2 day tournament would be impossible. The only answer that might work in some locations would be a 2-day tournament. But there are problems with that too. I am all for looking for better ideas, but before we change let’s make sure what we move towards is indeed better than what we have. The three weekend qualifying series has its own flaws which have been pointed out. But the sub-district, district, state format, is a system that has worked well for us for some time.

District 1 would have had about 1,100 wrestlers if it went to 1 tournament.

It might not work for every district in the state but it could work for District 2. We have several schools that could accomodate those numbers and still meet the requirements for qualifiers. BUT, if you eliminate subs there is no reason you have to do it all in one day. You could for instance run the H.S. and (6U ) and another age group if needed the traditional date of subs and run the remainder the following week when we normally have districts. Using this format should allow us to wrestle the entire qualifiers on no less than half mats for all ages and full mats for 14U and H.S. divisions.

2 day tournament, split the age groups between days. Too taxing for one club, still can have two hosting sites.

Just one week shorter = spring break for first time in a very long time for a lot of people!

I will say it was nice this year to go to subs and now qualify for district. My kid isnt the greatest wrestler on the planet. We have wrestled 4 years and we never thought about going to subs or district. I told him early on that if he really tried to be a good wrestler we would continue on and try for state. This was our first year to try and he does feel some accomplishment for advancing to next weekend. Although there were only 6 guys in his bracket.

Has anyone thought about have just District Tournaments with out allowing every kid to sign up. If there was some type of qualifier during the season. Win Loss ratio or average placement?

Never mind that concept is too complicated and would be very confusing.

I know that we fianlly stopped wrestling at 5:45pm on Saturday in Pitt and we were not the last. I think that is a long day for kid. I like having a separate Districts because you get the best 8 fully rested and ready to fight for State. Maybe it would work for just the HS group.