Richard:
I do not find your comments offensive. I really try not to take offense to anyone's comments on this forum. You are correct all of our communications would come across better in person. I have met probably at least a half a dozen people this year from my forum postings. They did not always agree with me but I feel that I have made friends with all of them. I truly believe that all of us who are posting on this subject (You, Nigel Isom, Illegalhold, Jeremy Roberts, Mike Juby, Olathewrestlingmom, myself, and anyone else who has posted on the topic) no matter what their side on the issue are expressing what they believe is best for wrestling in Kansas.
I never said the split tournament was my idea. I started posting in favor of it after I read Mike Juby's post that he said he was a proponent of it because it saves about 80% of the people about 50% of their time. I also remembered how much we enjoyed the format at the Ottawa District meets. It wasn't my idea for the the split format at State either that was Coach Roberts who put up that opinion poll. I thought about it and I believe it could work even there.
I am not familiar with illegalhold's specific format. I am sure I will learn more about it when the group gets together. If you mean by round one just the first match, I doubt that is what the format is. It probably means as many matches as you can get in during the designated time period for each age group. Hopefully you would be able to still get the same 2 front, 1 back, and maybe even a third front in the time period. I would like to ideally see each age group at least go through those matches the first day, but I do not think it would be so bad for the finalists to wrestle two matches on the second day. I don't think it runs in a way that you go beyond the alloted time for the period, but if you have to wait up to 30 minutes to start that is really pretty normal. I have been to regular tournaments before where the start has been delayed well over an hour.
That is great about the attendance at the Wichita tournament but how much of that is just the same people who always go and/or families and friends of the participating wrestlers? Are we really getting as much of the general high school student body attending that meet as they do high school football and basketball games? I went to the regionals at Blue Valley West. There was plenty of room to find a seat and I did not see a whole lot of the general high school student body there either. How much live TV coverage did the event get? I did not see any live coverage in KC. I saw basically coverage towards the back of the sports section in Kansas City for both the Missouri and Kansas State championships. These other sports that you compare us to favorably with the length of day issue (golf, tennis, swimming, gymnastics, track, etc.) as you said they too are minor sports with the American public and most of them also are losing college programs too. We need to compare wrestling instead to football and basketball. These two are not losing college programs and they certainly get a great deal of media coverage. I believe that wrestling collegiate programs will not grow again untill wrestling recognizes that it has a problem attracting the general sports public and it needs to change some things to achieve that. Otherwise, I guess wrestling is doomed to be a minor sport. Is that what we want?
I realize I am a novice to the sport with no actual high school participation as a youth and only six years watching my son. I believe a new person can sometimes offer a different perspective that might be constructive. I am trying to offer the perspective of a parent. Also of a parent who still remembers what it is like to be a real new parent in those first 3 to 4 years when it was uncertain if this was the correct sport for my child and family. I believe these are the people we need to attract and keep in our sport. What do these parents like and dislike about youth wrestling in Kansas today? If the new parents do not like it, they will not keep their children involved. If most of these new parents do not like something, they are probably more likely to just depart than to express themselves on this forum like I am. I know most of the people who are on this forum are not going to listen to me though because of my inexperience. I think you should listen to illegalhold though, because he does have a lot of experience and he thought like the rest of you on this issue until he saw something different work better.
Finally yes you are right that my family needs to pick our tournaments a little better. My son has only wrestled at Salina once and I was not there so I do not know about that one. We have pretty much decided as a family that we are going to have our son wrestle at Maize instead of the Park City/Wichita Classic next year due to the Maize split and the three hour delay for the final and third place matches at the Park City/Wichita Classic. That three hour delay has become our stumbling block with the Park City/Wichita Classic. We may want to go see the high school finals next year after the Maize morning session. I think it is great your club does a split. What club and tournament is that?
