Iowa Style,

I want to thank the Cougars for putting on a pretty good Novice tournament. I was really impressed with how it was ran given the weather and the number of scratches. I agree with Smokey's comments.

Here are a couple of recommendations for the future...

1. Maximize the use of 4 or 5 man round robin brackets. This maximizes the number of matches a wrestler gets. 8 man brackets seemed to be the norm for this tournament. I would rather stay longer at the tournament and have the kids in a 4 or 5 man round robin. This concept has a couple of advantages.....a. It maximizes the number of matches for the wrestlers, b. It allows kids to feel they earned their medal by placing the top 4 in each weight (I know participation medals were given, but getting fourth in a 4 man RR seems to carry a little more with these beginning wrestlers).

2. Buy medals that have the ribbons included. Don't make the parents buy ribbons for the medals. The wrestlers at Novice tournaments are new to the sport, as such, so are most of the parents of those wrestlers. Please don't make them have to buy the ribbons for the medals next year. It comes across as just another way to try and raise $$$$.

3. If we have to get their early in the morning for weigh ins then please weigh the kids in. 6 and Unders didn't even have a scale for weigh ins. They took the coaches word for it. This sets a bad example for the kids and the parents. Another option is that if you are not going to weigh kids in and you are going to take our word for it then let us know so we don't have people coming that early just for weigh ins. In our case those kids could have slept for at least another hour or two before driving down.

Thanks again for giving us the opportunity to compete and providing a venue for our wrestlers to gain experience. I know these are hard to pull off and we appreciate everyone's effort.

Shawn Budke