If they want a triple crown go freestyle and greco. This is disipline where you can have the honor of some day posibly joining the ranks of the greats Gable, Brands bros, Sanderson etc. and of course representing the Red, White and Blue. The triple crown to me represents a more well rounded wrestler. Not to mention ITS A BLAST.

As far as All American Status? In my eyes USJOC, Kickoff, tulsa, Usa Nats. But Brute, Liberty, ETC. Are fun but really no tougher than any weekend tournament across KS, MO, OK, IA but not worthy of AA status.

agreed

Doug said it best. Depends on what bracket your in on each tournament. Joc, liberty, or kick off, depends on who is going. saying they are no tougher than a local tourney is crap! You place at any of these you've earned it. Don't demeaning the kids by saying, placing at one of these events isn't any tougher than placing on any given weekend. Want to make them tough show up, don't look for excuses not to go, they all have national status, no matter how you look at it!!!!

Tulsa Nationals is one of the biggest and most highly represented Nationals in the USA. I would hazard a guess that many of the 1st place finishers this last weekend would have been sitting in the bleachers after their second match there.

Get a grip, people don't fly or drive from CA, GA, NY, OR with kids who are wimps to go to these things. They are generally the best of the best or as good as it gets.

I'm not knocking Kansas Kids. I think we have good programs, wrestlers and supportive parents. The problem is we need to step outside the rectangle that is KS and open our eyes to the possibility of wrestling against people who challenge us not wrestle the same set for 7 months. How dreary is that. Weekend after weekend wrestling the same people over and over. Mind numbing and not very constructive. There are like 8 national tournaments within a easy days drive from just about anywhere in KS. Pick one and test your mettle, see what others do and learn to adapt. Hey if you lose out so what, your a lot better off with the experience than if you'd stayed at home and played it safe beating the same kids over and over.

All to often, I hear of the stage fright thing esp with the younger kids. They wrestled little tournaments all year did really well, get to district or state and bomb out. Why, most kids never had to stay overnight anywhere for tournament let alone wrestle two days in a row. Add to it the huge crowd,loud environment and a full bracket with lots of possibilities. They get overwhelmed and stressed out early. You go to big tournaments like USJOC, Big Horn Nationals or Tulsa Nationals your gonna get that experience and learn to deal with it well before state time.

That is the only reason I support having the 6U wrestle up at State, at least they get that type of experience out of the way when they are young so that when they are 8U they don't freak out when it counts. Other than that I really don't support it because it's a money thing and these kids with some exceptions are generally filler and fodder for the 8U group.

I know that if I had money and time we would wrestle every National Tournament possible just so we could get that kind of experience and exposure. Once you do a few of them you see how much they really improve your wrestler and their outlook on the sport.

There are several National Tourney Series or equivalents already. Anything we would do would pale to those. It might be nice to have a series situation like OK does, trying to get kids to at least wrestle in different parts of the state throughout the season would be a good start.

Greco and Freestyle are important and should be supported especially if your wrestler thinks they want to go to next level. The problem I see with that is there just aren't enough kids doing it to make it feel ligit. Aside from wrestling up a couple of age groups, my son prob would never have any competition in this state in his own age group. That means more travel more money and very little support from a club. Not a good formula for success, which is sad because of the experience that could be gained would be invaluable. If the Folkstyle season was about half as long or Greco/Freestyle ran concurrent with Folkstyle you might see an upswing in these other programs. But with baseball, swimming and other outdoor sports in the spring, your looking at a lot of conflicts and that is why those programs are on the short end of the stick. Kids want to be outside and they want to enjoy the weather. I agree these programs should be supported but not with a Triple Crown emphasis. It would be a hard sell to tell people these are the best kids out there when most are just who's available or left. Still a hardcore group and I salute them for their tenacity.

I agree AA status is too common. Lets just call it a series champion and leave it at that.
Sportsfan...
At 6, 8, maybe even 10 the "bling" matters. It might not be all about the bling but any kid that wins a Maize Belt or a Haysville or JOC Ring sure takes pride in their achievement and that why we give awards.

You said: "The problem I see with that is there just aren't enough kids doing it to make it feel ligit. Aside from wrestling up a couple of age groups, my son prob would never have any competition in this state in his own age group. That means more travel more money and very little support from a club. Not a good formula for success, which is sad because of the experience that could be gained would be invaluable."

Some brackets, I agree, but if you don't do it "in state", you don't get an opportunity to go to the likes of the Schoolboy, cadet, or Junior duals, where you WILL have all the "legitimacy" that you want and then some. Try 16 grueling FS Greco matches over 4 days, and two things will happen: 1- your kid will be sore 2- he will be a much better wrestler.

Spexy I was not talking USJOC, TULSA, KICKOFF being just like anouther weekend. But Liberty, Brute etc. For Instance Liberty this 70lbs Gamble, Spexarth, Joint, Jurgens, Lloyd, Trowbridge tough bracket yes but not near as tough as we all saw this year at Cliff Keen. But what about this years Sprawl nationals is it OK to just give your tourny a NATIONAL STATUS

K, give the bling to the 6 & 8 yr. olds and let the rest wrestle for fun and pride.

BLT,

I got an email from Jerry Scott who runs the Series in OK. He already has something set up for us (Kansas) as a series if we are interested. Might be well worth the time to discuss it with him and see where it leads. Email me at troy_fowler@hotmail.com and I will forward that information to you or anyone else who is interested.

doug747 said: Some brackets, I agree, but if you don't do it "in state", you don't get an opportunity to go to the likes of the Schoolboy, cadet, or Junior duals, where you WILL have all the "legitimacy" that you want and then some. Try 16 grueling FS Greco matches over 4 days, and two things will happen: 1- your kid will be sore 2- he will be a much better wrestler.

I agree and would love to wrestle in state. Tell me what am I to do with a 5'8' 200lb 10U HWT when the weight group stops at 140 and we have a 25lb weight spread limit. He wouldn't qualify anyway to move on unless he was the only one who showed up. This is just another instance where the weight/age rules are slanted against a wrestler who might otherwise be involved. I have also made it pretty clear that we will not wrestle up for the sake of doing so. Especially when the end result will be him sitting at home when the big meets roll around.

Sorry for the mix up. We all know tulsa is a beast. But Joc liberty panhandle etc. Are well established tournaments not saying for every bracket the comp is there, but take liberty 10u 70lb lots of tough kids. As for sprawl I would say no. Give it time and it could turn into a Joc or liberty but none stack up to tulsa. Also depends on what side of the bracket you wind up on, it does make a difference, on the outcome.

all I can say is that most maybe not all kids will wrestle a little harder to get that 4 inch medal, that belt, that trophy and so on more so than the 2 inch medal so yes it does make a difference. if thats what we have to do to get these kids to wrestle their hardest and make them better then so be it. i dont see how trying to start a series would not be making kansas wrestling better. sorry if you guys think i am against freestyle and greco because im not. I just know after folkstyle my kid is done and its time to move on to baseball. so for kids like that the series could be a good thing. something a little extra to shoot for and not have to go an extra month or 2 and not miss out on baseball. all i can say is those that dont want or like the series thing dont have to do it. its not mandatory just like i choose not to do freestyle and greco.

also would this not help some of you guys that are involved in dual teams select who you want to wrestle for you. some of these tournaments are tougher than the state tournament. i know nothing about the duals and how the kids are selected so i am not going to throw myself to the wolves but i dont see how a series would not help in that also.

Just wondering,what 3 tournaments in Kansas are tougher then the State Tournament?

Here is something to mull over. If you run a series, it will need to be spread out over a three month period. Divide that by the four Districts, because to have a "TRUE" State Series, each District will need to be involved. That means once a month the "Series" will be in your District and the other three weeks it will be in the other Districts. If your tournament does not get the nod as the Series Tournament you are SOL that year. Every District would only have three tournaments a year. Throw in Kickoff Classic, USJOC, Tulsa, Sprawls, and Liberty, the window for club tournaments closes even more. Having a series will not grow Kansas wrestling it will choke it out. The only Series we should have is the one we have now, The State Championship series. The series tournament you all are proposing does not give you the best wrestler as a champion. It gives you a champion whose daddy can spend the most on Hotels, entry fees, and travel expenses.

Beeson,

I know you know how the OK series works. The series tournaments are the club tournaments with a contract with the series. They simply agree to abide by a few additional requirements. So club tournaments would not be affected. You could do the series with as few as 4 tournaments or 11. Whatever, they decided is right for us. Moving the series tournaments around and allowing the different clubs to host would benefit them as well as the wrestlers. OK clubs don't run from one end of the state to the other for 9 weeks doing these. Some are well attended and others aren't. So it pretty much evens out in the end.

As far as the bigger national tournaments are concerned. They are not well attended by KS wrestlers as it is and I don't think that is going to change next season. I wish I was wrong about that, but no. For that matter, Sprawls, Hays, Salina or Park City some of our bigger tournament could be considered a series tournament if they so choose to be a host or are selected.

There are a lot of possibilities here and it should not be disruptive to anything that isn't already working. We have done the OK series stuff for 2 years now and my son has gotten shirts both years. We are poor and we make do, so the money thing is a bit arbitrary. We go where the competition is not the other way around.

Thanks, Troy

Mull this over...
The tournament schedule is already jammed packed.
If you have a tournament that is 600 kids right now.
It runs the same weekend as another tournament in the same area that draws 400 kids. Why can't those two come together and make one big tournament and be a part of a series.
The cost of one tournament is much lower then two so the profit is higher. Two clubs equal more man power to run a better tournament.
It cleans up the already over crowded schedule.
This thing could work with just a little support. The Oklahoma series has grown into a big deal. I just see more positives the negatives.
This is something we are already seriously kicking around for next year. If you or your club are interested please feel free to PM me.

Couple of more questions.

1000 entries?....most high schools do not have the room. I love Derby and Maize, but every year people complain about space.

If it wouldn't make that big of a change and people will still wrestle the tournaments they always have, why do it? For more Prizes? Last year a kid does well at these tourney's and gets his medals. This year he wrestles the same tourney's and performs the same, but this year he gets.....a shirt, a singlet, a hoodie, a big trophy, and a bike. I don't see why we reward kids for doing what they have always have done. Looks like pampering to me.

Its not big prizes every weekend.
At the of the year we award people that have aquired the points.
Plus1000 kids...
Split format
14 wrestling surfaces
Satellite weigh ins on Friday Night Only
Plenty of table workers
Maybe run 14 year olds on Friday Night

If you can meet those requirements then 1000 should be no problem.

what tournaments are tougher than the state tournament patrick. this is not true for everyones bracket but in my sons case at wichita classic he had 2 tulsa national placers in it. Maize he had a national champion in it. Derby brings several kids from out of state. Salina is just as tough as state due to the kids wrestling in different weights. so in my opinion the state tournament is not always the toughest. It is the most satisfying to win because it is called the state championships.