I know there are injuries/sicknesses that happen during the grind of the season, but how was there only two full teams?

I agree...That's embarrassing. Doesn't sound like we need to add more programs if we can't man the ones we have.

Two teams only bringing three, one where I wrestled at. One with five, one with six, and two with 7? How, why?

Try showing up.to a duel where one of these teams only brings 5 guys. Makes for a short, boring duel.

The investment in College wrestling in Kansas is AWESOME!
Financially, educational opportunities for future coaches and teachers

Go to the states where youth and hs numbers are growing _ their biggest problem not enough qualified coaches or colleges with wrestling programs.

College. Girls, and College womens wrestling are the growth areas of Kansas Wrestling.



The Kansas wrestling community needs to support these programs. It your job as wellas the clubs and high school coaches to let wrestlers know what opportunities are available. Wrestlers that come from other states is acctually better for the Kansas Economy

College Wrestling nation wide is way under served or lack of opportunities for HS wrestlers to continue at the college level

Look at it this way 12 of the 20 finalist this year were on teams that did not even exsist about 15 years ago. That is great. 15 years ago Fort Hays was the only 4 year College in Kansas with wresting - totally unexceptable. Now there are I believe 9 / 4 year colleges and 8 community colleges. It is going to make the coaches more competitive to get solid recruits and build their programs. Get involved and help grow the sport - polishing talent is not creating new opportunities.

Out of 6 teams, possible 60 wrestlers, 31 showed up. Sounds like some coaches need to work on their recruiting.

Get involved with some of your buddies and spend 300-500 hours volunteering. Be sure you get many people involved and be positive not negative and don't run them off. The foundation is still in place and I know you can do it. Get out and grow the sport not just the talent.

The investment in College wrestling in Kansas is AWESOME!
Financially, educational opportunities for future coaches and teachers

Go to the states where youth and hs numbers are growing _ their biggest problem not enough qualified coaches or colleges with wrestling programs.

College. Girls, and College womens wrestling are the growth areas of Kansas Wrestling.



The Kansas wrestling community needs to support these programs. It your job as wellas the clubs and high school coaches to let wrestlers know what opportunities are available. Wrestlers that come from other states is acctually better for the Kansas Economy

College Wrestling nation wide is way under served or lack of opportunities for HS wrestlers to continue at the college level

So how would it be if there were only high school programs at Ottawa, Wellsville, and ArkCity?

You are comparing apples to oranges,and it looks like talented apples to organized oranges. Unfortunately the trees do not have the opportunity to decide if the grow apples or oranges. Because of the confusion, some grow very few pears.

It is going to make the coaches more competitive to get solid recruits and build their programs. Get involved and help grow the sport - polishing talent is not creating new opportunities.

The issue that many of the college coaches have isn't that they are against more programs (it allows for in tons of cases for shorter commutes and less dollars being spent for travel).

An issue is the athletic directors at a majority of these colleges want 80 percent or more being Kansas kids on scholarship (which isn't feasible).

They are comparing Pumpkins (basketball) to Apples. Nearly every school in the state at the high school level has basketball...not the same for wrestling. Lets say we have 600 schools in the state basketball may be at 550...wrestling on the other hand could be closer to 300. Now take into consideration you have to have 5 guys on the court to play basketball so state wide you have at the absolute minimum 2,750 players state wide (which we know is way more, because basketball usually has double that).

Now with wrestling we have 14 weights and let's assume we have the 300 programs. 64 of those are large schools in 5a/6a which should have 14 kids at minimum on their team (if not then coaches need to work on recruiting the hallways). So it would be 896 wrestlers...
The smaller classes may have closer to just half (7 on a roster), (grant it some smaller programs are full rosters), but we will say 236 programs with a minimum of 7 in this scenario would equal 1,652.

Now let's go back.... only a 1/4th may be seniors (out of 4 years in high school)... so with the minimum of basketball of 2,750 would be 687.5 seniors.

Wrestling (given the scenario)... 896 + 1652 = 2548...to then (taking 25%) would be 637. Now we all know not 100% of seniors will go do basketball or wrestling or any sport at college, so I would say maybe a 1/3rd of seniors go on to do those sports (football and other things may take away, military, or other opportunities).

1/3rd of 687.5 = 229.2 basketball players out there... we have 45 college programs which equals a bit over 5 per team, if every kid is recruited (which doesn't happen).

1/3rd of 637 = 212.3 wrestlers are seniors. We have 17 programs college wise for around 12.5 wrestlers per team.

An issue that exists is need and quality. At 4 year programs you can take gambles on kids and have a few walk ons, but some of these kids think they are owed full scholarships with 2.5 gpas, 18 acts and a 5th place finish twice in Kansas. The other problem is kids are homesick very easy and so many don't spread their wings to go wrestle. 20 years ago in Kansas you had Colby, FHSU, Labette and Hays as the option and those teams were doing extremely well. Kstate had a really solid club team as well. But the saturation of programs and the standard Athletic Directors want to have (with success) is not that easy... let me be honest with this...of the seniors it may be 25% of the total....

Thus basketball 229.2 equals 57.3 athletes for 45 programs = 1.3
Thus wrestling 212.3 equals 53.1 athletes for 17 programs = 3.1

But wait there is more....... you are recruiting for 5 positions in basketball....10 in college wrestling...


Basetball you would have maybe 45 teams vying for .25 of a person.
Wrestling you would have maybe 17 teams vying for .31 of a person....

However let's face it many of these kids just love the sport and won't be a world beater, hell you may have a kid that is national honor society and never qualified for state but has 100 wins in career (very feasible with amount of competitions these days)...but always had tough luck at regionals.

College coaches are trying to recruit the best from the state ...that is their job!

It is the job of the athletes, parents, and coaches (in high school or clubs) to make sure college coaches know about the kids that love the sport but don't have eyes on them because they may have never made it to the big events or maybe ran into injuries on a promising season... I will say for a fact that NO COLLEGE COACH will turn away a kid that wants to wrestle...but as a fan base we need to help the kids not getting recruiting opportunities. It all starts with asking if the wrestler would like to compete in college? If yes then connect them to programs... if you aren't sure about where they would fit well, there are many of us out there as former coaches/athletes at that level that can give guidance to those wanting to move on.

We have a broad state in Kansas, so seeing everyone is impossible. We have to be the voice for those that want to move on so we can ensure all teams have full rosters. However, athletic directors on many of these schools need to realize you can't make chicken salad out of....well, you know.

Neighboring Nebraska, Missouri, Colorado and Oklahoma have a combined 3 NJCAA programs in wrestling. Other nearby states like NM and Arkansas have 1 (if you can even count Ark Baptist since they average 1 wrestler per year with no support).

We need to be the voice as a community to ensure success is reached. You can't win on Kansas kids alone (no matter how much you love them). However, I do know when you look at 4 year schools in Neighboring states, almost all have at least 1 KS rep. We are battling outside states that can offer big money to lure kids away. We aren't going to have success if pigeon holed in to investing $$$ on Kansas kids only.

I think we need to get people together from all parts of the wrestling community and work on what we have...we have had the most growth in the United States, but programs west of the Rockies need to emerge to save the sport. We need to not add any programs until each program has a 2nd semester minimum of 10 wrestlers. Also NAIA is a different breed, you can have open weights in a dual, but have 12 wrestlers go on to nationals because the ability to double up at weights.

Duals don't really matter, they are designed to just get home competitions in all honesty. Maybe everyone can just host 3 to 4 team scramble tournament on a Friday at 5 pm or so and lure fans to competitions as high school still typically does Thursday and Saturday events. The other way to get exposure is to have a college dual in place at the conclusion of a high school tournament or something too. We need to think outside the box on how to help. I hear the pains and struggles of the coaches at the college level, however as a fan I get it too. We should come together and everyone educate each other and solve how to save what we have and help it grow.

I know many coaches chose to go to Missouri Valley Invite (which is the top NAIA competition outside of Nationals), They did have back ups for 2 DIIs there, but Kansas' Central Christian tried to get in and was denied...due to that school not being able to compete on Sundays due to their college's rules, they had to drive to Minnesota that weekend to get mat time.

Ottawa was at MVI, but sent a slew of kids to Kansas Cup, so they were in more than one place (also they have a women's program to juggle so it was appreciated to see them send folks. However I hear complaints that it isn't that easy to send backups to an event, although I think that is why you have GA's and so on. Get everyone match time. This could be the premier tournament for your back ups....however, NAIA has a rule about GPA and percentages on who can compete. You can only wrestle so many elite kids with low GPAs, after that you have to have above a certain GPA for things to balance out on who is really allowed to compete.

Again a lot of hurdles, but we need to come together to discuss.


The crowd for the cup is great, but I know many college coaches believing this competition will be in existence for much longer...but again, to save events and programs we need to understand the frustration on both sides as coaches, officials, fans, and administrators.

Nice post Aaron. I am sure every program would like to have 20 guys on each team - and two guys/gals (all carrying a 4.0 GPA) deep at each weight ranked 1 & 2 every year and - this is probably not going to happen. Please do not use apples and oranges - having as many options as Kansas has for college opportunities is awesome! Get innovative an get out and support the College programs in Kansas and around the country. I know for a fact there are many many current and former wrestlers helping coach that have a college wrestling background either coaching or competing now giving back to the sport. That is helpful for the sport. Having a teacher who was a college golf athlete coaching HS wrestling or biology teacher with no wrestling back ground coaching the wrestling team it is tough for young athletes to gain the needed skills.
I know that happens - Middle school and/or HS Athletic Directors or principals will ask a new faculty member/teacher to coach wrestling - not always a great combination - but I am thankful that those teachers stepped up to give future wrestlers a chance. Without some type of wrestling coach there is NO (ZERO) chance to grow the sport.
Therefore a college teaching degree and maybe a coaching minor or some college wrestling exposure is a huge plus!!! Wrestling also needs many more wrestlers to get a Master's Degree in Education and get into Administration at the Middle School , HS and University Level.

There shouldn't be an expected percent of Kansas kids on a team. If you can get 35 kids which is asking a lot for not having support staff, you should be able to recruit as many kids from wherever you want. Maybe specially mark x amount for Kansas (like 7 of 20 must be from Kansas).

Smokey, I believe that you took my post in the wrong way. I was just curious, why the numbers were so down. I wrestled for Colby and Hays from 03-08. I would have loved to pick from all the Kansas schools that offer wrestling now. I love how far our sport has come in Kansas. But, then again I was just wondering why/how for such low numbers. I have read your posts from today in high school tournaments about full teams, and I am with Beeson. I don't really know where your going with it.

Kyle,

Young guys like you need to get involved in promoting the Kansas College Wrestling Programs - you benefited from them. It will continue to develop if the Kansas Wrestling community gets involved and supports it- POSITIVELY. A lot of people can think up ideas, give suggestions, etc., but until more than a few people step up an actually do something and donate lots of time and resources promoting it - just saying - it is no different than people who gripe about how a club RUNS wrestling tournament. - in 19 out of 20 gripes by a parent, coach, or club about how a wrestling tournament is run - A VERY LARGE PERCENTAGE OF THE COMPLAINERS HAVE NEVER VOLUNTEERED OR BEEN IN CHARGE AND ACTUALLY ORGANIZED A TOURNAMENT, ACTIVITY, ETC.

I totally agree with you, but I was never complaining I just wanted the reasoning behind the low numbers is ALL.

There have been several reports for years that show the number of males going to college keeps dropping. What Kansas has done to add college wrestling is huge, keep up the great work.

I complain, but at the same token I help a lot of the coaches in Kansas to get recruit names and to connect them with contacts in other states that may get them wrestlers or want their wrestlers (in the case of juco guys). I helped with the creation of Kansas Cup with Ryan Smith putting it on to solve a need of an open week. I have worked numerous events to keep fans entertained, and I have worked with opportunities like the ALL IN Camp which helped to bring attention to programs at all levels of college wrestling (which Labette participated in when Joe was at the helm). The problem is if you live within 30 minutes and aren't going to support, then shame on you. Maybe some of the schools should quit doing free live streams and not post results for a few days so people may be inclined to go in person.