In my opinion the tournament should be held in one location if at all possible. Several good points could be made.
1) in regards to it affecting college recruiting I agree with Bill Johnson in terms of college coaches prefering kids who are competing in Fargo an on the national circuit. However, I think that is primarily with the Division I schools and particularly the more competitive D-1 schools, say top 30. However, I don't think that is as true for
Non-Division I schools. Most of the kids are not going to go D-I. They are going to primarily go D-II or JUCO and some NAIA. Maybe a few D-III. Those schools are going to compete largely for the better "state level" and not as much for the national level kids... with the exception of you elite D-II and maybe elite JUCO schools. So having it in one location will help bring college scouts in to some degree, but you would mainly be looking at schools that are in bordering states. Most likely the will have some knowledge regardless, but I think you could get some of those colleges scouts in. No probably not Nebraska, OU, MU etc.... but maybe Kearny NE, UNO, UCO, Northern CO, etc.
2) I don't know all the costs but financially I can't imagine it costing more to run it in one venue. If all the venues have four mats, and I assume they do, that is 4X as many venues 4X as much preparation and at least 2X as many officials, and at least 2X as many workers (I say 2X because you have to assume you would be running at least 6 mats instead of 4.... if not 8. ) so I can not imagine the cost being any more. If anything it would cost less.
3) The biggest problem obviously is finding a place with enough floor space. You only need a place to hold 6 mats. That is all you need. The way you do it is to add one day. so it would be run over 3 days instead of two. There is no reason it can't be run over the course of three days. Basketball runs 4 days.... wednesday till Sunday. So any argument for time out of school would simply be a bogus excuse by the state. We start plenty late and get done plenty early on the first day. Plus the time between finals and the medal rounds is rediculous. I think it was like 2-1/2 hours in class 4. No reason for that much down time. An hour should be plent of time to set up for finals. According to National Federation and the kids can get up to 2 pounds for consecutive day weigh-ins so they would be able to get another pound on that second weigh-in.
You could run all classes in three days on 6 mats. Run from about 8:00 in the morning till about 9:00 or 10:00 at night. That gives about 3 hours per class on 6 mats. On day one all classes could run two rounds, If not three. One frontside One Backside...at least. Each Class would have a time session. Example: class 1-2-3 would run from 8-11:00; class 4....11-2; class 5...2-5; class 6...5-8 (or you could do two classes at a time and make the time slots a little longer. On Day two from you would run quarterfinals and two backside rounds in the morning on three mats for 2 classes at a time. You could probably run it in 5 hours... at the most. So the 2 small classes would run from 8-1 and the larger classes would run from 1-6. That way class five and six who had to wrestle later don't have to get up as early. You would then come back and wrestle semi-finals for all classes at 6:30. The smaller two classes use 3 mats and the larger two classes use 2 mats. That would get you out at about 8:30 or 9:00 most likely. On Day three the only wrestlers left would be the medalists. In the morning all classes would have the same start time and use the mat format that was used for the semis with the two small classes on 3 mats and the 2 larger classes on 3 matsh. You would start around 9:00 and run consolation semi's as well as 3rd-6th placement matches. That would probalby be completed no later than 4:00. You could then come back and wrestle the finals at 5:00 and everyone is heading home by 7:30. The only grey area would be day two. I just kind of ball parked the times. If you had to you could start that third day at 8:00 in the morning and get the 3rd consalation round in to get into the consolation semi finals (the medal rounds).... But I am pretty sure you could ge that on day 2.
I know Missouri did this a couple years ago when they first went to four classes and were in the old hearns center. It actually worked pretty well.
This for mat would definitely work for all four of our classes. Financially it wouldn't cost any more. Of course you would be paying for three days instead of two, but you are paying for one location instead of 4. Cost wise it would probably be a little cheaper. The only argument that the state would be able to make is that kids would miss another day of school, but obviously that isn't a big deal as basketball uses four days to run their tournament.
Having one venue is much better for the sport and it is better for the kids. It makes it seem more like a big event and less like just another tournament. We wrestled in tournaments this year that had more mats and appeared bigger in terms of appearance than the state tournament. That is unfortunate for the kids. They deserve to be in front of a crow of THOUSANDS which is what it would be if it was in one location. Aside everything, (i.e. college scouts, financial reasons, etc.) the kids absolutely deserve it.
