Coach Buckbee,

My opinion is that we should give all kids, especially those in the 6,8, and 10 under age groups, as much mat time as possible. If we put 32 kids in a single bracket there are going to be many kids who will only get two matches. When I bracket the Paola tournament I try to group these ages into five man round robin brackets to give the wrestlers a guaranteed four matches. The weekend, club sponsored tournaments are about getting experience. In March they will get a taste of "high school varsity" action. Believe it or not, more than 70% of the 6U wrestlers will quit before they get into the 14U group. We need to give all of the kids an opportunity to learn and to experience success and defeat in hopes that they will not quit.

I group based on the ratings and I try to seperate those from the same club. My goal is to give opportunity to wrestle lots of matches within the confines of the time and mat space available. There are lots and lots of big time tournaments to take your kid to if they want to go against the best. I have a list of them and their associated web sites. All of them are straight double elimination. Just shoot me an email if you would like the list.

Hope this helps.

Merry Christmas