October 9th - State Body Meeting FYI - let your club leaders know.

What are going to be the big voting issues this year?

I hear from 3rd and 4th hand sources that there are some big changes that have already been made from the July meeting.......

Here is the survey I received today

1. Do you feel the USAWKS folkstyle season is:
Too Long
Too Short
Just Right
2. Do you favor having the state folkstyle tournament earlier in the year?
Yes
No
No Preference
3. Would you support moving the Kansas Kids State Tournament series to an early date on the calendar (such as February or early March)?
Yes - February
Yes - Early March
No
No Preference
4. Should USAWKS add the 6&U age division to the Kansas Kids State Tournament series?
Yes
No
No Preference
5. Knowing that there is no facility in the state that could handle the 6U age group added to our current state tournament format, if we added 6U which option would you support:
Create two tournament series (for example: 6U, 8U, 10U in one and 12U, 14U, and HS in another).
Lengthen the current format by adding an additional half day to the weekend of wrestling.
Other (please specify)

6. Would it be feasible and supported by you to have the 6U, 8U, 10U age groups complete their state series in February?
Yes
No
No Preference
7. Do you support balanced districts which should have nearly equal number of participants?
Yes
No
No Prefere

For those that haven't heard or seen, the districts lines have been re-drawn again.

New District Lines

Will the results of the survey be shared with everyone at some point?

Regarding moving the state series..... there are still a lot of middle schools that start wrestling in January. Pratt starts their season in the middle of January, and it appears our last scheduled event is March 4th. I sure do wish all middle school's would start their wrestling season after football, and finish in December. Those of us who are less fortunate will be forced to make a very tough decision if the kids state series conflicts with middle school wrestling..... Supporting your school and getting your buddies who don't wrestle out for wrestling in middle school is very important for our HS programs. I have a feeling that a majority of kids who wrestle the kids season will choose to not wrestle for their school if it conflicts with the state series, and consequently their buddies are less likely to wrestle as well.

Having the middle school seasons consistent across the state seems like a fairly logical idea to me. Whoever allowed a few schools to change their seasons in the first place needs thumped. There needs to be some uniformity..... that's my .02.

Looks like the NCAA college season is getting moved a month later - more like a one semester sport. Strong possibility in the 2017/18 season. Not sure how that will affect the thought process of folkstyle wrestling across the board.

Yes, the results will be shared.

Why did they change the district boundaries again?

Balance.

Sportsfan02's response, while brief, was substantially correct. The board of directors for USA Wrestling-Kansas, as part of its attempt to maintain an equilibrium in size for our four districts for state qualifying series, reviewed the current district boundaries to determine if any adjustments were needed. After review, and considering travel distances while maintaining an equal number of competitors, the board has made some changes to the boundaries. These changes will be effective for the upcoming season.

As populations shift, the board will continue to periodically review these boundaries and, where appropriate, make changes. If you have any thoughts on this, please share them with any member of the board of directors.

Cmon you don't consider travel distances. Population maybe but not the other. If you did why in the world would cloud and Ottawa county be in the same district as finney county or others that far south west.

The east/west boundaries of District 4 were heavily influenced by a significantly low number of participants from the southern counties. There were several counties in the south part of the district which had 0 participants. There are a few counties in the south that were the exception, but the majority of the participants were concentrated in the north.

It could be worse, Elkhart could host a qualifier!

Could you elaborate on the travel distance and number of participants formula used by chance? District 4 in the North gained 101 miles of travel space but only increased participants by 13 district wide.

How in the world did they consider travel? Totally nuts having concordia which is 4 HOURS away drive to Garden City or such for districts!!! Obviously the board dont consider anything west of salina and wichita to matter. The board must really enjoy pissing people off because i know they sure the hell have done it the past two years.

While I wouldn't totally disagree with you and I am not a board member, I would say that good decisions need to be made within the district. I would say holding a district tournament in GC would be a bad choice made within the district.

There is no system that is going to satisfy everyone. The purpose of re-districting is first and foremost to level out the competitor numbers between districts. Western Kansas natives are fully aware of the distance issues living there brings, and they accept that. Considering the continuing concentration of the population to the eastern regions, I would expect D4 to only increase in geographic size in the future.

Considering i live in District 4 and know all to well the travel time and expense in it. Honestly i have seen more parents pull kids out because of the travel time honestly and Expense. if they keep gauging the districts by numbers, District 4 will basically take up to topeka here in the next ten years. Is that how they are looking at growing the sport? The only true good places to host a district tournament, (that are available at the time) would be Goodland, Garden City, Dodge City, Pratt, Beloit. Gross Colosseum most likely would not be available within a reasonable price. Either way you are still looking at 3 hrs one way most likely followed by the trip to state. I am waiting to see the results from the survey they put out. Waiting to see how many people agree with the changing of district boundaries.

District 2 had clubs that had to drive 3+ hrs for districts the last two years.