I'm not typically a complainer, but today something (however small it may seem to some) needs to be pointed out. Perhaps other tournament directors can take note.

We paid our money and drove the 2 hour trip to Linn County in hopes of getting some much needed mat time. Strangely enough we found only 1 other kid in my son's bracket (10u 79lbs). Apparently the other 2 kids who originally intered, scratched. The weight above us had two 5-man round robin brackets and the weight below had two 5-man round robins. The two kids at 79lbs could have easily been bumped up 3 pounds and made two 6-man rr or three 4-man rr before the brackets were posted. But hey, I understand if it was overlooked. So I went immediately to the Director, pointed out the problem and requested a change. Not unreasonable considering we paid our money just like all the rest. I even offered to move my son up an age group where there were 7 wrestlers in an 8-man bracket. Simply plug us in to one of the bye slots in any of those other brackets, take 5 minutes to write a few new bout cards and it's done.

To my surprise, the Director was totally unwilling to work with us in any way. He claimed it would cause the whole tournament to start hours late and run into the evening! They were using "TrackWrestling" this year and a simple change like that just couldn't be done. We were out of luck. He wasn't making any changes, even though it should have never been bracketed that way in the first place.

We went out and wrestled our 1 opponent 2 times, learned what we could and left before noon (without waiting around for our meaningless silver medal). I don't know what to suggest except to jettison the whole "TrackWrestling" program if it is truly as inflexible as they claim. I couldn't imagine an easier problem to fix before a tournament even started, and if "TrackWrestling" can't accomodate it, then find a better system. One that keeps the kids and what we are there for in mind.