I agree with Topmiller that we should think outside the box here. I believe considering whether we should have a 16 & Under division in Kids wrestling is thinking outside the box. I did not say to drop 14 & under, maybe just 16 and under. I am not sure that just because kids have been wrestling since they were 6 to 8 years old or that many of the coaches and others have invested thousands of hours to develop them and want to see them more in action are quite good enough to keep this division active. Remember they have their high school season. We adults and our children have the opportunity to watch them there. I really do not believe that they should be mixed with the younger kids in practice due to the safety issue. I know you can have separate practice sessions but just like we are trying to shorten the time for the district and state tournaments for the participants, coaches, workers, and spectators, how can I ask our hard working coaches to devote more of their time by doing extra practice sessions especially at this time of the year when everyone is starting to wear out. I wonder how many of these older wrestlers really want to do this after an exhausting high school wrestling season? Could this be a case of it is really being done more for the adults? My high school experience was with football and I cannot imagine going back to a
CYO season after our high school season was over.

Wrestling Mom, I agree that it is a great experience for the six year old and his family. I also agree that it probably does not add 10 people to the audience, and that you probably only lose 1/2 a mat. But it also takes extra planning, table workers, referees and coaching time which can be critical with two gyms being used. We had a 6 year old in our club who participated and won. I enjoyed watching him and seeing him and his family enjoy his medal and winning. But the question is what do we do to make this a shorter wrestling day. And I think that is a worthy goal. The worst aspect of wrestling in the five years that my son has participated is the length of some of these tournamemts. I know a lot of people feel the same way and I hope we do find some out of the box thinking to work on this problem. I think some of you have made some good suggestions already. Maybe the first step is just to admit we really do have a problem that should be addressed and not just accepted as that is what wrestling is about.