I like everyone else in wrestling in very interested in bringing back grand state for wrestling. It is an entirely possible idea and can be done, but if we want it done, it is going to take hard work and everyone's participation.

One other thing everyone needs to consider is that there is also a dual state proposal which could affect this becuase obviously KSHSAA is not going to want to drag the season on forever. As part of this initaitive I have spoken to Rick Bowden, who is the assistant executive director of KSHSAA and works directly with wrestling. here is the email that I sent to him, as well as the response I got.

>To Rick,

First let me start by givning you a little background on me. I attended high school at Abilene High School from 1996-2000. I then attended the University of Missouri this past school year, I will be attending Kansas State University in the fall of 2003. As an athlete in high school I was
active in Football, Wrestling, and Track. Although I love all these
sports, Wrestling was by far my favorite sport. I have been wrestling for 12 years
now and am still active, in fact I had an opportunity to wrestle at Mizzou
but choose not to. Any any case, as a wrestler I was a two time state
placer losing only 1 match from my Junior year on until getting hurt midway
through my senior year. Wrestling is a sport unlike any other and I personally don't believe it can ever leave a true wrestler. I am currently
a coach for our local kids club here in Abilene and will continue to coach
and officiate at least until I graduate from College. Having been so attached
to wrestling over the years and watching an competing in the state
tournament has raised an issue that seems to be the hot topic as it always
is. That of course being the idea of Grand State for wrestling. I believe
this event is not only to prove who really is the best wrestler in the
state at their weight, but an opporuntity for those restlers to see even better
competition than they have previously. Kansas previously had a Grand State
for wrestling and it seemed to be well liked. At some point they no longer
continued the event. I know as a wrestler and spectator that I and every
other wrestler, coach, and fan in the state would like to see this brought
back. The wrestling community as I like to refer to it has the full
suppport of many high shcool coaches all over he state, as well as USA
Wrestling-Kansas which of course is the feeder program for most high school
teams, and the KWCA which I know you are familiar with. I am aware of some
of the rules that govern these sort of events but no quite clear as to how
they are enforced or anything that can be done to provide this event. I
also understand there are some other issues that factor in, but at this point my question to you becomes, What would it ake from Me, Other
wrestlers, Coaches, School, ect. for KSHSAA to approve and event of this kind? I know that almost all of the wrestling community is willing to make
great sacrifices for this "dream" to come true. Any information that you
can give me would be greatly appreciated. Also you may check out this site
listed which is the wrestlers forum located on the USA wrestling Kansas
website which is where many wrestlers, coaches, and fan voice their
opinions, there you will see some of the emotions and comments I mentioned
above. here is the site in case you don't know it already. http://www.usawks.com/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi
you should find the most usefull information under the KWCA forum.

Sincerely and thanks for your time,

Nigel Isom
Abilene Kids Wrestling Coach

And here is his response:

As you know for a period of two years there was a grand state in wrestling.
Although I was not on the staff of the KSHSAA at that time, I can relate a
little history as to why the idea was not continued by the KSHSAA. It is my
understanding that when the wrestling was instituted, it was the only sport
with such an event - which would identify a single winner from all classes.
Soon after adopting this event, the basketball coaches in the state
requested and the KSHSAA approved the creation of a grand state tournament
in basketball. After one year it was dropped and the KSHSAA Executive Board
decided to not continue the wrestling grand state. It is my understanding
that two elements were the prompting factors in this decision:
1) concern over which other sports would also seek such a grand state
event to identify the top team/individual in a sport. Would it be
swimming/diving, track and field, golf, soccer, etc. that would be the next
group seeking such an event. The KSHSAA Executive Board decided that it
would be best to continue with the class structure of identifying state
champions (team and individual) as opposed to identifying a single state
champion in a sport.
2) concern over the cost factors for schools. Once initiated schools
would be expected to send their teams/individuals to such events and that
would add one more cost factor to schools that are/were struggling to
balance the financial needs of academic and athletic activities. This
concern would be increased in light of recent actions by the State
Legislature to not adequately fund education needs.

As with any KSHSAA rule/policy, any KSHSAA member school could request a
change in any rule/policy. If the individuals in the Abilene
community/schools would like to propose such a change, a letter from the
school or BOE to the KSHSAA Executive Board would begin the process for
consideration. The KWCA could (and has) included such a request in the past
when it makes it's annual recommendations to the KSHSAA Executive Board.
Right now I think the wrestling coaches in the state are more focused on
having a state dual team tournament rather than an individual grand state
tournament.

Rick Bowden

So with this in mind if people are really serious about this we can get the ball rolling but we need to know if you are interested. So for right now although I don't claim to be a leader in this thing I am more than willing to be so. What I need from everyone who is interested is for you to send an email to supercowboy34@yahoo.com. This email should include your name, your wrestling status (i.e. current athlete, coach , ect.) also I will need the high school wrestling coaches name in the city where you live. If we get enough interest I will start the process of what we need to get this ball rolling. This is all I can say for the momment but I will keep everyone informed.

My question is, why did the KWCA make a proposal on a Dual State tournament over a Grand State. There are only a handful of teams who really care about the difference the scoring would be if they dualed a team or were in a tournament with a team. Everyone knows people would be much more excited about seeing the individuals get a shot a proving they were the best in the state rather than seeing wich team would score the most dual points against other teams in their class. Did the KWCA ask the high school coaches and the high school athletes what they wanted? I garantee if you sent a petition to every wrestling program in the state asking for their opinion they would be more in favor of a Grand State, not a Dual State. With all the schools response we could approve a Grand State.

It should be pointed out, that the KWCA (Kansas Wrestling Coaches Association) membership is made up of coaches from across the state. Our officers, both current and in the past have carefully considered what is best for our sport, and work very hard to see to it that improvements are being made, and information is put before the members for feed back. The issues of Grand State and a dual state tournament have been taken to the KSHSAA on several occasions, and making changes is not always an easy task. Timing is important, and patience. Wrestling is not an isolated sport, and the executive board hears our proposals each year and passes down their decision. The coaches who are working on the front line for our sport are dedicated and capable. They understand the complexities of drafting proposals to the State. Whats more they know the history of these issues. They need to be commended for their work.

And to echo Coach Higley's comments, fans need to remember that the Dual State proposal went to committee based on input from the KWCA membership. It was the decision of the membership to pursue State Duals rather than Grand State. As Coach Higley stated, getting anything through the KSHSAA is difficult; not because they are unresponsive, but because when you trying to do anything that affects that many people, all of the "i's" must be dotted and "t's" crossed. No matter what kind of groundswell of support there may be, any proposal that is made will take time. Patience is the key, as always.

Jeff Holmes
Immaculata High School

To BigPin and all others concerned,

To me im not really concerned with what the KWCA did in terms of their proposal for Dual State, I think the "idea" of dual state was a sound one although I didn't see the point in it. Frankly I am proud that the KWCA took the initiative to even come up with the proposal. The fact remains that it was denied by KSHSAA for several reasons and they were good reasons. In fact they are the same reasons why the Grand State idea would face alot of opposition. We are not really here to debate which idea was better and turn our noses up at the other. The point is the both idea I beleive would be mutually benificial to our sport, and becuase one has already been turned down, we only have Grand State left to work with. I continue to wait to hear from Coaches and fans alike in my email. WIth enough support we can move on with this.

I think dual or grand state would be great but I dont think there is a good chance for them getting passed but what I would really like to see is a different way they come up with regionals. 1st thing I think that the classes should be adjusted just a little bit the biggest 36 schools would be put in 6a, the next 36 biggest schools would be put in 5a, this would leave 4a with 52 schools with wrestling, and then 3a-1a would not be touched and remain the same, what this does in redoing the regionals it allows 6A and 5A to have a 9 team regional this would sort of help make sure that the brackets are full and then in 4a they would have 13 team regionals instead of 15 team regionals like they have now and this would be a little bit more fair than what it is like right now. Now in setting up regionals I think they need to look at the number of state points returning for each team and divide the top 16 teams into different regionals and then fill in rest with area teams. This would help eliminate regionals like the one at Bishop Carroll this year. I think this would help get the people that deserve to go to state instead of them being in a stack regional and having to stay home ( ex. Luke Geske-AB, Alvin Metcalf-FS, Matt Shields-CH all of these were state placers and didnt make it to state this year)

The odds of getting BOTH State Duals and Grand State together are better than you'll ever get for bringing in non-geographic Regionals. It's never going to happen; the KSHSAA Board will never go for it, school administrators will never for it, and I doubt that most coaches would go for it.

Look at other sports; every year in every class you get basketball regionals that have three ranked teams in them, while others don't have a team with a winning record. Every year some football team goes 8-1 and doesn't make the playoffs while a 2-7 team does. Is it fair? No, probably not. But it's the way things are and geography is one thing you just can't fight.

Send Atchison to Colby for Regionals? Never happen.

Nigel,
Maybe you should spend less time talking about yourself and more time talking about Grand State. Why is it so important that everyone read your autobiography? It sounds more like an ad in the personal section of the newspaper.

To wrestler 2,

Well frankly if you had paid attention to what I was writing you would understand that I posted my entire email to rick bowden on here so that everyone could see what had transpried between the 2 of us. I made a point of telling rick who I was so he wouldn't think I was just some fan who was bored and wanted to come up with some crazy idea. It was not about talking about myself. Of course you wouldn't know that becuase you would reather come on the forum with a fake name and talk bad about other people. At least I have taken some initative rather than just complain.

Actually, part of asking someone important for something big is establishing credibility. It's not bragging or tooting one's own horn.

Exactly, as I stated before there was no bragging in that email to him, it was just for a matter of establishing credibility. But then again credibility doesn't seem to be of a lot of concern for many people of this formum who are consistanly belittling others, saying their team is the greatest with no support for thier comments and other nonsense all of this while under and assumed named. Of course for most users on here they don't realise that the moderators can usually find out where the post came from by cross referencing the ip address which is logged every time you post with your isp, but then again that has nothing to do with wrestling or this forum just a reminder to those who think we don't know who you are