Aaron, Dingbat, KSU had a softball team in the early 80's. The field was east of the baseball stadium. I think the Brandeberry Indoor Complex
was built on that land. I'm not sure if softball was a club or if it was a sport, but I remember watching games there. Dingbat, about your senior year, a group of people met to discuss starting a wrestling team and a softball team at KSU. In less than a month, we had pledges of almost $2 million. We also passed flyers at the kids state asking for support. When a rep from the group met with KSU administration, he was told there was no chance of starting either program.
I am a KSU alum, I root for KSU football, but the rest of the year I'm a husker fan because they have wrestling and softball. Dingbat, I have seen over 1,000 people at the Neb softball stadium.(warm day).
Nigel, I was in Abilene last week at the Eisenhower Center. I asked some of the employees how the Abilene wrestling team was doing this year. One of the people thought they were probably good but he wasn't sure and the others had no idea. I guess you could go to any town and find someone who doesn't know or doesn't care about the high school wrestling team. I know we have our share in Manhattan, but if they take the local paper and listen to the local radio station, they should have a pretty good idea of what going on. Our paper does a good job of reporting the matches and doing an article on almost every senior wrestler. Our radio station will broadcast the regional and state tournaments.
If we use the local media for a guide for top 10 towns in Kansas, I would have to nominate Norton. Every dual or tournament consists of almost two pages in the local paper. You can almost picture each match in your mind as you are reading the article. The Norton radio station broadcasts all of the Norton events and the man giving the move by move is very knowledgeable. Also, based on the Newton tournament, the Norton fans are numerous, knowledgeable and loud. (very loud,right llg)