When your 10U and weigh in close to 200lbs in KS you are forced to wrestle up an age group in all but a few tournaments. The 25lb spread rules and weight limitations applies here and doesn't elsewhere. We had two tournaments in KS this year the rest were out of state(OK & NV). We can go to OK wrestle in our own age group in our own weight class with 7 plus boys in a bracket. Can't say all tournaments in OK are loaded with HWT's that way, but since they show who's going ahead of time in their series sign up system, we can choose to go where we get the most matches. Why so many HWTs in OK? They top out at #285 not #170 like KS and they encourage the bigger kids to wrestle and make a place for them not like KS. There were several boys that were even bigger than Nate to wrestle down there. So instead of 5 kids spread out across the state like in KS they have 15-20. Also, we live 15 min from OK border so the math is simple.
You have to understand the we've been dealing with this since he was a 6U, we did wrestle up for a few years in KS and learned it just wasn't doing anything for him except getting him beat half the time which is what you would expect if you have to wrestle up an age group against kids who were sometimes 3 years older. Maturity is a lot harder to beat than skill in my opinion especially with the younger kids. Learning to lose has already been taught, so we decided to take the advice given here and wrestle elsewhere. The other side of that was competition in KS, there just wasn't a whole lot of kids even wrestling up an age group to wrestle due to the rules, same kids over and over. Why because if your a big kid then you've probably moved on to another sport because the rules work against you in KS and you get left out or are forced to wrestle up. Also, there seems to be a mentality that if you can't go to the State Series in KS then you get treated like a leper. My feelings are that when he gets into HS he will have to wrestle older boys and I am cool with that, but then again so will others in his age group. Then it will be a level playing field for all of them.
We've had a good season this year:
20-0 record all pins. Most were State Champs i.e.. OK, WY, OR, MT, KS, etc... Many hadn't lost a match all season till Nate wrestled them let alone get pinned. Some were even State & previous National Freestyle & Greco Champs as well.
2010 USJOC Champion and Outstanding Wrestler Div#3
2010 Tulsa Nationals Champion
2010 Reno Worlds Champion and Outstanding Wrestler Div#3
He is going to be named to the Worlds All-star team and the list goes on.
So I ask where did we go wrong here? We took him to some of the toughest competitions in his age group that the country has to offer at great expense to us and friends just so he could wrestle the best there was to offer. We had a very limited budget this year for wrestling so I feel we did about as good as you could get under the circumstances. Would have loved to do more National Competitions this year but there was just wasn't the money or the support to do that. We did wrestle in a few tournaments in KS and we were very excited and grateful to be able to do that. But on the whole, it just didn't make sense to wrestle up an age group at home when we did have better options abroad. We move up to 12U this next season and hopefully he will get at least one year in KS before he is over #240lbs, depends on his growth. I am guessing he will be 6' tall and about 220lbs by his 12th birthday in Dec. Time will tell.
