The Kids Executive Board held its summer meeting on September 5th in Salina. The meeting was attended by 24 board members and lasted from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. A variety of topics were covered. I will provide a synopsis of what transpired. These are not the official minutes of the body but just based on the notes I took.

Officers’ Reports
Treasurer. Financially the USAW-Kansas Kids is on solid ground. We currently have over $69,000 in cash on hand in our checking account and an additional $80,000 in savings.

Asst. State Director. The State Kids Tournament went smoothly. They will look at streamlining weigh-ins for the 8U division and are working on a better system to run Track Wrestling.

Fresstyle Director. The Southern Plains Camp will be moved to Hays and Branden Jobe will assume responsibility for the camp. The camp will also be shortened to Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. This is to coincide with the fact that there will not be Folkstyle next year. They are also working to have Regional Training Centers during the summer but have some of those training periods to be held as clinics before actual tournaments.

Officials Representative. The program will continue that provides reimbursement for new officials of their fees. A point of interest is that officials that do not have a USA Officals card do not have access to USA Wrestling secondary insurance if they are injured while officiating at a sanctioned tournament. If they want that secondary coverage they will need to do a background check and purchase a USA Official’s Card.

District Directors. Annual District Meetings (Please Check for Updates)
District 1 October 27 at Noon Washburn Rural
District 2 October 6 at 1:00 p.m. Augusta High School
District 3 October 20 at 9:00 a.m. Salina VFW
District 4 October 20 at 12:30 p.m. Carpenter Building, Scott City

Kids Director. Encourage all tournaments to use split format. USA Wrestling has indicated that this single change to our tournament structure can have a very positive impact on our retention of young wrestlers in our program.

State Director. There is a new program from USA Wrestling that allows a high school team to register their members with USA Wrestling for a flat fee of $300. All members registered from the team must actually wrestle for that high school team. Each registered member will received a USA Wrestling competitors card.

Discussion was also held on potential restructuring of the USA Wrestling – Kansas Board.

Schoolboy Director. For the first time Team Kansas took two teams to the Schoolboy Duals in Indianapolis. The number 1 Kansas Freestyle Team finished 4th, which tied the highest ever finish by any Kansas Dual Team at a national event.



NAIA National Tournament
Bob Gonzales. Coach Gonzales spoke about the NAIA National Wrestling Tournament coming to Topeka in both 2014 and 2015. The board voted to support this program with a $2,000 donation and to provid six score clocks with riding time to the tournament.

Our Other State Tournaments and Folkstyle Dual Teams.
The 6U State Tournament was a success last season. The hope is to have a qualifying tournament for the Elementary School Dual Team at the same time in 2014. There was also discussion of having the Girls State Tournament in conjunction as well.

The Middle School Duals Team will take five teams next year plus an all 6th Grade Team as well to Des Moines. The Elementary Duals Team will take four teams to Nebraska.

Kids State Tournament Series
Discussion was held on whether to drop the High School Division from the Sub-District Tournament because of the small brackets at most weight classes. The High School division would then compete at District and State only. The topic was tabled until the board’s January 2014 meeting to review what impact the High School Team registration might have on participation numbers.

District boundaries were discussed with no decision made. The board will review the boundaries at the January 2014 meeting.

The board adopted a split format for the first day of the 2014 Kids State Tournament.

State tournament fees will remain the same as last year. Entry fee $20. Gate Fees Adults $4/day, 5-12 $2/day, Under 5 Free.

The triple crown award will be given to each wrestler who wins Folkstyle State, Freestyle State, and Greco State for all age divisions. Those wrestlers who are below Schoolboy may have their weights combined at both Freestyle and Greco State.

Team Award will continue and be recognized at the Kids State Tournament.

Officials Representative Keith Ashpole will be working on a grading and selection system for officials for the State Series.

Proposed By-Laws Changes
Each of the proposed By-Laws Changes were reviewed by the Kids Executive Board. These votes are advisory only. Each proposed By-Laws Change will be presented at the State Body meeting in November.

Expansion of weigh-in times for Sunday, Novice only tournaments. Board recommends the passage of this change.

State Tournament Bracketing for Brackets with 6-8 Wrestlers. A proposal was submitted to allow the State Tournament Director to Re-Seed those brackets. The board supported the concept on these small brackets, but decided to support a re-bracketing based on moving wresters up to the next open seeding on the bracket regardless of their originating District.

True second place match at Kids State. The board did not recommend passage of this change.

Removing the additional penalty for being ejected from the State Series. The board did not recommend passage of this change.

High School periods to 1 1/2 minutes each from 2 minutes each. The board did not recommend passage of this change.

Additional 8U Weight Classifications. The board supported the change of adding 3 additional weight classifications to the 8U Division. Currently there are 18 weight classes in 8U and this proposal would expand the division to 21 weight classes. There are now 20 weight classes in 10U, 21 weight classes in 12U, and 23 weight classes in 14U. The new weight classes would be 40, 43, 46, 49, 51, 53, 55, 57, 59, 61, 63, 65, 67, 70, 73, 76, 80, 88, 95, 110, 125.

Not allowing the new High School Team classification to count as part of our membership for quorum requirements. The board voted to support this change.

Proposed Slate of Officers
Matt Treaster – Kids Director
Mark Stanley – Kids Asst. Director
LeAnna Grater – Treasurer
Will Cokeley – Freestyle/Greco Director

LeAnna Grater announced that this will be her last year serving on the Kids State Board. We will need someone to fill some very big shoes next year.

State Body Meeting – November 3, 2013 at 9:00 a.m. Ramada Inn, Salina.

Matt Treaster
Kids Executive Director

Wow, a busy meeting.
Olympics has 6 weight classes, 10 college, 14 high school, 18-23 weight classes depending on age. It seems to me the talent is already diluted in the 8&u. Seems it would make better wrestling to go fewer weight classes than more.

Just my two cents


Eric Coates

I agree with you 100%, but we need to make sure everyone feels like a winner. Here's another for you 3 places in the Olympics(Worldwide), 8 places in College (Nationwide), and then 6 places in High School and Kids (Statewide). We should definitely hand out ribbons to everyone that places at state, wait I was being a smartass but we already do that. Ridiculous how we reward mediocrity.

Oops, I just realized that I was wrong on the High School numbers. It is actually weaker and has more weights than kids.
14 weights times 4 classes equals 56 weight classes and 24 placers per weight. I think High School needs to be fixed before we worry about the 8U.