I crunched a couple numbers on the upcoming regional qualifiers in FS/GR...The Southern Plains tournament this weekend that we are a part of has less than 200 entries. The Western Regional tournament has 992 entries . If you factor in population of the states involved we should have 668 entries to be equal. Based on population KS should have about 46k kids going. I believe we have about 20. Heck, I might have flown my son to Oregon for a tournament like the West is having if it was an option. The Tulsa Kick off only had 1100 entries last year. This leads to alot of questions??? Heck I am part of the problem now. I pulled my kid out of Southern Plains because I was not going to put the time or resources for him to go 700 miles for a bracket with 2-3 kids. I will help him get anywhere available for big tournaments that will help him and we feel we get a good return. Next year we are supposed to be allowed to go to any regional like they can for Fargo. If that was the case this year, there is 30 entries in his weight in the west. How many would love to have 30 kids in a bracket for a summer tournament? And if they are still wrestling in the summer odds are most of them are pretty decent.

That leads to the question do we place to much emphasis on Folkstyle in KS and not enough on FS/GR?

How are we going to compete in the long run in Fargo and as they get older, giving up these types of numbers?

If your child has any dreams of college wrestling...Where do you think the college scouts are...Fargo! And who does it seem is better preparing for that? I fully realize only a very select few will be wrestling in college, but you want to at least give them the best chance you can. Families in the west certainly are.

I know we have had better numbers in the past, but this looks bleak. Hopefully next year Southern Plains will be in Hays, but even if it is. If there is this type of low entry, from the surrounding states we are still far behind.

I don't know the answer but I am frustrated with the low participation we have as a state (and from the looks of it in this region) in FS/GR this year. One final thought to think about...

Do you think KS is a stronger supporter of wrestling than Idaho???? I know I do, but Idaho which has 1/2 the population we do has 105 entries traveling an average of 890 miles (if you use the center of the state) to it's regional. We are sending just over 20 and they have to travel 790 miles if you use the same center of the state starting point. Just something to think about. If you want the quickest example of how this effects us look at the SchoolBoy duals last week. Idaho had TWO full teams with backups, and we had to scrap to get one and still have 4 open weights.

Thanks to those that are participating but we need more.

Thanks for listening,

24/7

Idaho had their kids folkstyle state tournament in December. I couldn't find when the season started but assume it was in October. They had their freestyle state tournament in late April. Kansas starts wrestling folkstyle in November and it doesn't end until the end of March. That is 5 months. It is simply too long. Only a few want to keep wrestling after the folkstyle season. And since it goes so long kids have to choose between baseball and wrestling. Kansas Kids should have their folkstyle state before high school state. When high school state is over the freestyle/greco season should begin. The freestyle/greco state should be no later than the end of April. That would give us as a state a 4 month folkstyle season and a 2 month freestyle/greco. Those who wanted to go longer could then hit the national tournaments in the summer.

The problem is the structure, the time and the costs. You have to wrestle in New Mexico to go to Green Bay. You have to go to Hays to wrestle in New Mexico. Both are all-day drives one way or plane trips. The time allocation is almost two weeks. The costs are, at a minimum, hundreds of dollars per event. How much are parents supposed to pay for young kids to participate. What you are asking is that the kids drop everything else and for the parents to cough up thousands of dollars to participate. Obviously it overwhelms most people. That doesn't even factor in the possibility that the brackets may be minimal. I think all of this needs to be restructured. Why is our regional so far away?

The factor of distant regionals may be solved, at least for Kansas, if a vote in the Southern Plains goes as planned.

USAW-Kansas is going to propose to the region that the new Southern Plain be held in June at Hays, Kansas for the next three years.

The fact of the regional being in Carlsbad is not going un-noticed by Southern Plains!

Right on Barry. This would have a dramatic impact in participation for FS/GR. It would also give us a true Kids State tournament instead of two High School State tournaments. As long as our freestyle state is pushed to within one week of the Schoolboy National Duals, we will have low numbers making that trip. This will weaken our future Cadet and Junior teams with the Schoolboys having less experience. As soon as we can all agree that this is NOT a competition of Freestyle vs. Folkstyle, the quicker we can move forward to our goal of giving our Kansas kids the best opportunity to excel in this great sport!

I agree with the initial feedback, and we need to fix where southern plains is at. Having it in Hays will help KS for sure.

But the question still remains as the West has the same travel and money concerns, why are they pulling over 3x more wrestlers per capita?

24/7

Why Hays people that travel want to have some sort of attraction no offense to hays but why not Wichita or Topeka

Unfortunately, this is a financial question! While Topeka and Wichita both put in bids, they were not as competitive as Hays was!

I agree with williams, my son just finished wrestling at schoolboy duals, a 3 day camp and four days of wrestling. We would of went to Carlsbad if not for the new rule that you must attend the camp in Hays to be eligible. In order for him to go I would have had a 5 hour drive to Hays to drop him off a five hour drive back home plus the cost of the camp. We went to southern plains a couple of times before the camp became mandatory, I think people are getting priced out of wrestling, I spend 2-3 thousand between folkstyle and freestyle season .
Now in order to go to Carlsbad I have to shell out more money for a camp in Hays plus the gas to get him there. Until this rule is changed we wont be going, he will attend schoolboy duals again next year. I would love to take him to southern plains but I think a mandatory camp is ridiculous and just gouging people for more money.

Guys, there is no rule that says you have to go to Southern Plains camp to go to the tournament! It was talked about but never implemented. I know the Eck's are all at Carlsbad and none of them went to the camp. You have bad information. That is one of the problems, we need better communication.

BadBo

I'm not sure the powers that be wanted that communicated.

One thing we need to keep in mind for my son was a victim of this rule when in junior high. If we have kids state before high school state all the brackets that include 7th grade to 12th grade will be ineligible for school wrestling under the KSHSAA Rules if they wrestle kids club.You cannot participate in the same sport while being involvled on a school team. The way we where told this can even go as far as making everyone on the teams disqualified if the coach knows it happened and allowed it.

Under the plan outlined above there would be no participation in the kids state by high school wrestlers thus making it a true kids tournament. Moving the date to before high school state does eliminate many middle schoolers as well because their leagues don't finish up till the first week of March.

I understand your concern tbau. I lowered the price for any wrestler that was going to the schoolboy duals and the cadet duals to 150.00 and 195 for all others plus I let parents ride the bus to Carlsbad for $75.00. I have tried to make this camp as affordable as possible. Next year with the tournament in Hays we can cut the cost to maybe 150-160. Where else can you go to a 4 day camp and tournament at this price?

Bob,
The problem is still that you are making parents spend an extra 150$ for the camp just to be eligible to wrestle at a tournament where the kid might get 4-5 matches. My son practices at KCWC with coaches Eric Akin, Gonz and Mike Medina and Travis Phippen, These guys are some of the best freestyle coaches in the state. Why would I want to pay for a camp when I have already paid to join this club and my son gets top notch instruction with excellant practice partners.I think you are just trying to boost attendance to your camp!! I am sure it is a good camp but in no way should it be mandatory to wrestle at southern plains. By the way will Cokeleys 3 day schoolboy dual camp was 25$. I think this camp needs to be a voluntary camp as in years past and more kansas kids would participate at the tournament.

Tom Baughman

Thought I would re-iterate and quote myself from another discussion regarding this very problem in order to delve deeper into the discussion to try to solve some of the problems that people are discussing regarding this topic:
Now that I have re-quoted my self from a different discussion topic lets start to look at WHY our numbers this year in FS/GR are down.

Several viable reasons are already listed in the above quote as to why we don't have as much participation in the state as we do during folkstyle. Let's face it, this area is predominately a folkstyle region (including the surrounding states) I am not sure of the total numbers for the surrounding states, but given that there are considerably less number of tournaments for FS/GR as opposed to Folkstyle tournaments in the surrounding states in this region (Colorado, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Kansas) that must signify that there is quite a disparity among the membership participation in the surrounding states as there is here in Kansas as well.

If you look at the total membership for the Kansas Folkstyle age group this year alone on the home page you will see a total of 7870 members participating from ages 6-under to age 16. I know that there are probably more than that when considering those wrestlers in the state who wrestle for thier respective High School teams and never get a membership to USAW-Kansas, and this information was only updated as of 3/17/06. Granted, some of these numbers are inflated due to the difference between Open and Novice wrestlers being included in the overall statistics. I would like to take this time for everyone to think about this next statement: With such a large participation in Folkstyle, where are we going wrong when it comes to bringing those numbers over to Freestyle and Greco-Roman?

I also noticed the level of commitment and participation seemed to drop off as the FS/GR season continued even in our own club. At the start of the season back in April, there seemed to be 50+ kids at the practices 3 nights a week, as the season progressed that number started to drop until the week before the state tournament i think I saw maybe 20 kids practicing in the room. I also noticed a smaller number of participants from our own club at all of the tournaments we went to this year. One factor in this was that many of the kids (and parents i talked to) wanted to practice but not go to tournaments (especially first year FS/GR participants). Also, I was dissappointed in the lack of tournaments throughout the state, and I am not sure for the reasoning behind this, but many tournaments were cancelled or unable to put a tournament on for whatever reason. So much to the point that myself and a few others were so frustrated with the lack of tournaments for our kids to go to this summer that we at Derby (folkstyle) Club used our resources and decided to put on a tournament the week before State. Say what you will about Derby, because we always seem to get a bad rap when it comes to finances and fund raising when it comes to hosting tournaments, but we put this tournament on for the kids not the money, and I will tell you, the 6 hours the day before and the 12 hours the day of the tournament, setting up, running and tearing down on Memorial weekend was worth it all for the kids to be able to compete in preparation for State.

With our base of 7870 kids in the state with membership cards, we should have at least a 10% participation in FS/GR that would meant that there would be at least 787 kids at FS/GR state. With 104 total weight classes in Folkstyle there should be a total of 1664 participants in the State Folkstyle championship I believe the total number to be 1515 participantswhich is 19.25% of the total membership. I count 177 placers at the FS/GR state tournamentfor freestyle, now that doesnt take into account brackets that have more than 3 in a bracket, but when i was at the state tournament i saw a lot of 3 man round robin brackets, but we can round that number up to 250 and be safe to say that there were at least 250 wrestlers wrestling for FS/GR state. Given this number, this is a 3.17% participation from our original 7870 membership. Now, heres something to think about, the numbers for Folkstyle decrease as the kids get older:

6 & Under 1,759

7 & 8 1,603

9 & 10 1,459

11 & 12 1,251

13 & 14 1,087

15 & 16 620

Over 16 91

whereas, in Freestyle/Greco the numbers are reversed with more participants in the older age groups than in the younger groups. We all know what causes this and hopefully those younger wrestlers in that group of 1700+ will grow to enjoy the sport more and more as they get older and hopefully today's 6 year olds will be tomorrows juniors with strong numbers. We all know that we need to act now in order for this to happen for the future.

But the real question is what do we do to keep our kids wrestling as they get older?

Many have suggested a shorter Folkstyle season with FS/GR starting earlier to catch the high schoolers as soon as the high school season is over. I suggest that we combine the seasons a bit so that folkstyle wrestlers at a young age can get some exposure to freestyle and greco as well as folkstyle without having such a long season. Or here's a thought: combine Greco-Roman with the Folkstyle season for the exposure to the different styles, but keep Freestyle seperate so as not to get the younger kids confused with the locking hands issue since Freestyle is so much closer to Folkstyle than Greco is.

Another point that was brought up last year was the possible creation of a "Triple Crown" award for winners of all three state titles Folkstyle, Freestyle, and Greco-Roman. I think this is a great idea and believe that it would generate at least some interest from the Folkstyle State champions in each age group to try to win that triple crown award.

Media relations: we need more cheerleaders for the sport in the general media. Maybe we need some sort of State directed media relations committee. I know of many people that look at wrestling as "dangerous" and "not fun to watch" until they have a child or grandchild in the sport and see the dedication and the pure athleticism it takes to be good at this sport, heck just a few years ago I was one in this group, and now i believe this is the purest form of sport there is.

There are a few things to think about and I am sure that there are several other people out there with good ideas, comments and such that can contribute, but I hope this gets the ball rolling on this discussion and I hope that more people will read and respond.

Thank you for your time.

Craig Gash
Tournament Director
Derby Wrestling Club

Absolutely Great Post Crash99! Once I get my rested up from a great weekend I will give my thoughts!