Chad,

I think you are a great guy, I respect you as a coach and a general good guy, and usually enjoy your posts, but the situation in Ark City does not match ours in Wichita and probably other metro areas. Sweeping generalities are usually wrong; I think yours are here.

In far west Wichita alone there are 4 high school choices, Maize, Goddard, Northwest, and Bishop Carroll. Add other nearby towns and you have many, many school districts in a very small area. People live, move, play, and cris-cross between those school districts all the time.

For example, I coach one son in baseball. I have kids from all over the metro area: Maize, Goddard, Haysville, Andover, and Valley Center. I coach my other son in football. I have kids from Goddard, Maize, Wichita Northwest, and even Kingman, KS.

Since my boys have been wrestling, we have lived in Maize and Goddard districts and our children attended/will attend Bishop Carroll. Not all of us have just one school.

Your opinion on this subject, and many others for that matter, are skewed due to your extra-ordinary talents and accomplishments. Not every coach is a Chad Beeson. Not every district has a Chad Beeson. Not every wrestler is lucky enough to move to a district that has a coach or program that fits that particular wrestler and where he can live from cradle to graduation, wearing the same school colors the entire time.

Here's a mental exercise. Pretend as though you moved to Wichita, Topeka, or Kansas City. Throw a dart at a metro map and you are stuck with the result. Pretend you could not coach at all, not even at home. You are telling us that you would blindly send your 8 year old son to a team that was not a good match, all just for high school pride? Even if there was a perfect fit just down the road in another school district? If so, I guess you win the argument.

We have options here in Wichita and exercising those options does not mean clubs, coaches, or dads are doing something wrong.