First of all, on behalf of the Cougar Kids Wrestling Club I'd like to thank all the wrestlers, parents and workers that attended our tournament today. Our tournament is not perfect, but we aim to give novice wrestlers as many matches as possible, be home at a reasonable time and have a positive wrestling experience. Our tournament is one of the longest-running novice tournaments in the KC metro area due in large part to clubs that like how our tournament is run and want to come back.
I will address the complaints.
Yes, our tournament started about 45 minutes late, due in large part to re-bracketing because parents and wrestlers were trying to check in after 8:30. Again, our goal is to promote wrestling and shutting a few wrestlers out of a day of wrestling because of inexperience is not the right thing. They'll learn for the next tournament.
If you've been to Shawnee Mission Northwest, there is plenty of seating, most choose to not use it and stand by mats. We understand, it's part of a novice tournament.
We did have some computer glitches, no doubt about that. We prefer the technology, though. It makes for a faster-running tournament but with technology comes some problems, no doubt. We apologize for that.
Yes, we did roll up a few mats before the final matches were done. In hindsight we should have waited until those few matches were finished. We apologize if that made people feel as if we didn't care, but that wasn't the case.
Again, thanks to all that attended and we will learn from our mistakes and make next season's version of the Cougar Novice even better.

Jerry Schmidt
Cougar Kids Club