Great job hosting State FS/GR Circle group! Tourney was well set-up, well organized, well run, and a great day for all involved.

Good wrestling and let's kick butt at nationals TEAM KANSAS!

I agree, when wrestling was going it was going good! There was a few breaks that had some people frustrated but I have a different opinion on that than most. When the wrestling is not happening, use that time to get to know or talk to someone at the tournaments. Enjoy that communication with other parents, coaches, athletes, directors,etc. I personally love to talk to everyone and enjoyed the downtime that we had.

This might be a little spoiled, but we might have to find a venue that is air conditioned some day!

Looking forward to FARGO!!!!! Dual teams, get geared up and ready to whoop the nations butt!!

Train hard men asw 20 matches over 4 days is not a joke!

Coach Church

They did a great job!

Sean McCarthy

Yes ups to Richard and all involved at Circle High. Even the officiating was good, not great but hey 1 man mechanics are tough! I had some bad calls but I also saw many that went my wrestlers way due to angles of the official. But it all seemed good.

Tom Peterman

Yes coach Peterman, there were a few bad calls. I know you couldn’t have liked the no takedown call against Forrest. It sure looked like a takedown to me.

Ok. I will probably get blasted for this but I really don't care at this point. I don't know what tourny some of you people were at but it wasn't the same one that i was at. I thought that the reason for all the remote weigh-ins (which i don't feel can be used due to the lack of integrity in some adults) was so that the tourny could be started on time. But then i also understand that some were allowed to walk up and register (which is fine but don't say "no walk ups allowed and then let select wrestlers in. It's not fair to the others) Don't tell people friday weigh-ins from 6-7:30 only and then allow another club to weigh in on thurs. it's not the wrestlers fault but to my understanding the coach had already been told that it was not allowed and went ahead and did it anyway. What about a 1 1/2 - 2 hour delay. I thought that the remote/early weigh-ins were to prevent this. Trackwrestling can be a wonderful thing, although I have yet to be impressed by it for freestyle/greco tournys. But there comes a time when a pencil and piece of paper seems to make more sense. I won't even go into one of the biggest opponents of freestyle/greco spending running our state tourny. You can all call me all the names you want-hothead,loudmouth, idiot whatever you want but someone has to start saying something about the state of our sport. It seems that every year there is less discipline and integrity in our sport and it is very sad. So go ahead and blast away.
Jerry Dale

I never thought I would say that I agree with Jerry Dale...but I have to agree...I ran a weigh in and I had a boy come to weigh that didn't "get it" and didn't sign up online...when I called and asked, I was told absolutely no...I was even told that another wrestler should not be allowed to weigh in because he was not registered...well imagine my surprise when I go to the tourney and that exact wrestler WAS wrestling and even others were allowed to walk up that day and be placed into the tourney...but the boy I asked about the night before was denied. Not cool.

Just my side of the story. Very disappointing though.

Ms. Jenni

Add this to the list. Waiting three hours on your greco metal.And waiting till the end of the freestyle tournament to wrestle your finals match only to find out they didnt have a bout card for it because they gave the guy the wrong scratch and waiting another hour to finally wrestle your finals match. Super hot with the no a/c tons of delays.

Thank goodness! this is the first time I have had a chance to check this board since the State Tourny and I see "good job circle!" That was the worse run tourny of the whole greco/roman - freestyle season! How can that happen at the State Championships? I saw the tourny director yelling at someone or the other more than a few times, and I mean yelling, screaming. No good. The gyms were too small and no AC, at least in the small one, it might have worked in the big at first but not in the end.
And if you think I might be just some bitter parent, no... my kid did win 2 State Titles that weekend, but a State Championship tourny run like that at a place like that does not help the spread of greco/roman and freestyle in this state.

What really got to me was my oldest son was wrestling novice 105 & there was 1 wrestler at 100---1 at 105---1 at 112. I got to the tournament one hour early & told the 100 pound kids dad we were moving up to 112 & if he wanted to wrestle greco he should do the same. I go to the director & he says he will try but it is not likley because the freestyle brackets are much different than folkstyle. A few people posted that we wanted to know if we did not have a match before the tournament. If we would have been informed we could have moved up a weight or two to make matches for all three of these wrestlers. They did move us up for freestyle & we got matches. Thank you for that. If a wrestlers have no match please call & give them a opportunity to move up to get matches. My son got up at 5:oo am & we came over 100 miles to wrestle, not to get a medal. Is there a rule that you cant wrestle up in weight at state? If there is then I understand. If not then dont make people drive across kansas for nothing.

Richard and gang did a great job. The facility and setup were great. We need to abandon having a state champ at every age group and weight below schoolboy. Then the kids could be grouped and given matches. Kids from other states could participate as well to bolster the numbers. The kids group would be an open tournament using block wrestling to get all kids three or four matches.

Schoolboy, Cadet, and Juniors should be one of two options. Put some teeth in the state tournament by making the champion the wrestler of choice for the dual team. The only way they could be unseated is by a two out three challenge at a Dual team prep camp.

1. Move the tournament back into May.
2. Eliminate age and weight classes for Kids.
3. Make the event a REAL Dual Team qualifier.
4. Create a dual team prep camp for all three dual teams to attend. It could be as simple as a weekend, on night gathering.

Cant find any results from this tournament, have they been posted anywhere?

Will,

I agree with most of your idea as far as your 4 recommendations. The only one that concerns me is #2. I understand your position on that and tend to agree with, my concern is that in order to promote the kids wrestling freestyle/greco we have to figure out a way so that a 1st grade or 2nd grade 70 lber doesn't end of wrestling some of the 4th, 5th, and 6th grade 70 lbers. There is a huge difference in the mental and physical ability. I am worried that we could lose some of those younger kids or scare them off from even trying if they knew they would have to wrestle kids that much older.

I don't have any good recommendations...the only one I can think of is to divide them into larger groups such as 1st, 2nd, and 3rd graders together and 4th, 5th and 6th graders together or group them by years of experience wrestling such as 1-3 years of experience being one group and 4-6 years of experience being another group. I defer to your knowledge of Trackwrestling and using Block wrestling as to how we separate kids based on experience.

In order to do #3 then we as a state have to accept potentially not taking our best kids as part of the dual and therefore accept not doing as well at the duals. I think there are a lot of factors that come into play with kids not participating in freestyle/greco state, I am not sure that doing #3 will have a significant impact. I think it may increase the numbers a little but not sure it will a whole lot......I really hope that I am wrong on this one!

I wholeheatedly concur with #1. We had way more kids from our club participate last year when it was in May.

Shawn

If we make state a real qualifier for the Duals, our dual teams will suffer for the first few years but in the long run it should strengthen our state participation as well as our dual teams. The challenge matches could be arranged and every effort could still be made to take our top kids. I believe it would dramatically increase our numbers at state.

Why do we have a state FS/GR tournament? Especially when Southern Plains is being held in Kansas. I was told the main reason for the tournament was it was a part of the triple crown award. An award I'm sure was created solely for the purpose of promoting more FS/GR participation. Well, it doesn't appear to have had much of an impact on numbers. Are there such numbers at some weights wanting to compete for the dual teams, that we need a method to rank them? If so, couldn't we use one of the FS/GR invitationals to accomplish the same? My point is, is there a better/easier way we could accomplish the same goals?

Chief,

I agree with your assessment. I hope you are right. I think it would increase in the long run also.

Shawn

[quote=shawnbudke]Will,
I understand your position on that and tend to agree with, my concern is that in order to promote the kids wrestling freestyle/greco we have to figure out a way so that a 1st grade or 2nd grade 70 lber doesn't end of wrestling some of the 4th, 5th, and 6th grade 70 lbers. There is a huge difference in the mental and physical ability. I am worried that we could lose some of those younger kids or scare them off from even trying if they knew they would have to wrestle kids that much older.

When you do block wrestling on track the program matches ages & weights the best it can with what it has to work with. The person running the program enters the max weight % allowed. You can pick from 1% to 10%, then after the program matches all the wrestlers it can you can move kids up and down a bracket or more to get all possible matches. As for the age difference you can move kids up or down in age brackets with a click of the mouse. The point I am trying to make is the wrestlers will not be just thrown on the bracket randomly. They will be placed with wrestlers as close to the age & weight as possible. Will said remove all age & weights. This is the best way. This would allow the program & operator to make the most competive brackets for all. I will assume that the person running the system would not allow say a 6&under 90 to wrestle a 12&under 90. This is a extreme example but you get the point.

Addressing the kids age issue...
This spring kids were divided into Kids and Kids2. Kids could be 9 and under while Kids 2 12 and under. Schoolboys are 13 and 14, Cadets 15 and 16, and Juniors 17 and up.

I am really not fired up about any 6 year olds and under wrestling in the summer. If you have an exceptional wrestler then they can handle wrestling a nine year old.

Michael is correct about setting up parameters to restrict the matchups.

If more empahsis was placed on mat time instead of winning at the younger age it would help out tremendously. The JC Coaches do a great job with prioritizing that goal. I applaud Brett and Mike's efforts to get new kids into wrestling by using summer wrestling to expose them to our sport.

The Dual Team situation will have to work itself out but I have always believed the BEST should be there to wrestle their way onto the team. Those spots should not be gifted.

Sports0...Eric Akin actually brought up a plan such as you mentioned. Points would be assigned to placers in all of the spring tournaments so it would be a qualifying series. A good outside of the box solution.

The removing of all PREDETERMINED ages & weights for 12 year olds & under is what Will is suggesting. Ages & weights will be taken into consideration as stated in my previous post.

tourney had the good and bad. lets go yankees, beat the redsocks tonight!