I know this is a well traveled subject, but how much interest is there in moving the age cutoff back to January 1st? I am for it. Having the same cutoff as the National tournaments and Missouri would greatly simplify things.

I would be for it. I agree that with us being so close to Missouri, it would simplify things. Also for National tournments, it would not put so many on the top side of the Kansas age bracket at a disadvantage.

Doesn't have any bearing on Kansas kids at a nantional tournament. No matter where the cut-off is someone is always going to be at a disadvantage agewise

I know a lot of Schoolboy division kids that would have fared better nationally if they had been used to wrestling older kids during the year.
How many states have the 1/1 cutoff vs. 9/1?

Agreed! The September date is the common date used by most youth organizations and is simpler. We used to have a lot of problems when signing up novice wrestlers because the parents weren't used to a January cutoff. If we ever did decide to go strictly by year of school, September would once again be in use. We had a lot more complaining when it was January. I say leave it alone.

9/1 is more simple than 1/1????

The overwhelming majority of states have 1/1.

Why should we care what other states are doing? Most of us live in Kansas.

I could be wrong here, but the age cutoff is the same one that schools use for beginning kindergarten. The problem with moving the date is that there will be a group of kids that are in 6th grade that may not have anyone to wrestle because say half of the athletes will be in junior high and wrestling for the junior high or even worse, in high school and you're stuck as an 8th grader with little competition

I don't have a clue of the impact it could have on our athletes numbers wise in those two areas, but I imagine it would be significant.

Here's how it works as I understand it. Lets say you have 100 wrestlers in the weight. At 6th/8th grade, using the Jan 1 vs Sept 1 cutoff, you will lose half of your participants So now we're down to 50. Granted, you will pick up 50 from the 5th/7th grade so it doesn't look all that bad.

Lucky for me, I was able to wrestle kids my junior year because of my birthday. I got a little more mat time against quality opponents. By moving the date back, we eliminate juniors in high school from competing. I think that's a bad step.

Conversely, at the 8th grade mark, 1/2 of the 9th grade will have had extensive experience working out with the high school and will have an advantage over their club counterparts. I'm not disrespecting clubs, but pointing out the freshmen that would be able to wrestle down because of their age have a distinct advantage because of older workout partners/more mat time in the practice room/ a higher level of competition, etc.

Some would say tough, but I think the reason so many sports follow the cutoff of schools is because they want to build continuity with the programs with school age dynamics. A 7th grader will be against a 7th grader. Of course there are those of us that hit puberty before, so I guess it's kind of discombobulated, but that's the theory. A more appropriate measure would be to have a cut off for teens who have reached puberty.

"Any underarm hair? Get in that line with the hair. Those without hair in line b."

simple because it goes along with the school year rules.

There are no school year rules. They actually avoid that in their discrimination statements. School starts August 16th. Why not a 8/1 cutoff instead of 9/1? The 1/1 date still makes more sense. We have kids wrestling in 2 age groups moving from Missouri to Kansas or any national tournament.

Renegade, I think you're wrong.

http://www.journal.naeyc.org/btj/200503/...x=500&rdfre q=1000&rwfreq=1000&rlead=1000&sufs=2&order=r&cq=&id=424d5f8c5

I couldn't find the stuff on the Kansas Board of Ed,but I went to a national site and pulled up this pdf. It says that Kansas' cutoff date is aug 15.

It is up to the individual districts to enforce it, hence you may see nothing about age for kindergarten. Theoretically you enroll your child at 3, but it's up to the district's consent. Age five is the "yep, you got to let 'em in" cutoff as long as they are 5 before the cutoff.

Not that it matters much but, from the USD 259 (Wichita) web site:

"Students may enter kindergarten if they will be five years old on or before Aug. 31, 2004. Students may enroll in first grade if they will be six years old on or before Aug. 31, 2004."

http://www.usd259.com/district/admissions.html#Kindergarten%20and%20New%20Students

Edit: this is post number 200 for me by the way. That puts me only 29 behind CoachEd/Miss Jenni. Since they both use the same user id it really isn't fair though!!

Chief, our son has wrestled in Nebraska on Thanksgiving weekend at the Metro Classic and the age is 2nd grade to 5th grade -and- 6th grade to 8th grade. He has also wrestled others that where like Missouri too.

The W.O.W. tournaments use the September 1st cut off date and I think that those tournaments are the toughest he wrestles all year.

I think that it's good to have multiple cut off dates in different states. The reason I say this is because when we go to other areas (states) our kids will meet new kids that they have not had an opportunity to wrestle. Thus giving a variety and not the same kids everywhere we go.

Regardless of the cut off date, someone will always benefit and someone will always be on the losing end of the stick. However, for the kids on the losing end of the stick he may take his lumps every other year and if he sticks with it when he gets to high school the age gap will benefit him or her in the end. This is where it counts.

This of course is just my opinion I am sure others may disagree.

Gibby, with that post you just made the argument for having high school wrestlers separate in competition from our grade school wrestlers in the Kansas USAW State tournament series. Old Illegalhold posted often a couple of years ago about how he thought that we should try to make the 8th grade year a springboard of success for them before they entered high school. One of the things he talked about was this unfair competitive advantage that a 9th grader had over an 8th grader due to the reasons that you detailed in your post. The situation now is even worse for the 8th graders than the one you described, because now almost 100% of the 9th graders have the advantage you described over the 8th graders. (a few older 9th graders are actually 16&U). So my question for you is, would you be in favor of an age grouping that would be set up for 1st & 2nd, 3rd & 4th, 5th & 6th, 7th & 8th graders, 9th and 10th, and 11th and 12th? Is there any reason why Seniors could not be involved in our organization State tournament series?

On this topic I have stated my support for the 9/1 date over the 1/1 date. I like it because it keeps the majority of the wrestlers every year wrestling the other kids in their grade. I definitely agree with Gibby and others that this is a good goal. The people who support 1/1 also have a valid point about making us one with some of the national and other state tournaments. I agree with sportsfan02 who said we don't need to have the same birthday cutoff as other states. We should do what is best for the majority of the Kansas kids. The majority of Kansas kids do not wrestle in national or other state competitions. The ones that do wrestle in national competitions are often good enough that the birthday cutoff is meaningless. For Marvio Tischhauser who won seven straight Kansas Kids wrestling State titles and a some National titles, I don't think it mattered where the tournament directors put the birthday age cutoff. I know he is a very extreme example but we have many kids who win State every year in their lst year in the age group. We even have some who are able to overcome that natural 9th grade advantage that Gibby talked about and still win State as 8th graders. So when you are talking about kids who are really good enough to be competitive at the national level, the birthday cutoff is not that big of a deal. The elite wrestlers can handle themselves. I say lets structure this in a way that is best for the majority of kids and I think that way is for them to wrestle with their classmates every year.

I've made other references about not dropping the 15/16 age, but shortening the season so that the younger kids have a shorter season and could get more involved with FS/GR. By shortening the season, the 15/16 age will disapear.

Problem is we don't have enough officials........