This thread is meant for everyone that has, had or will have a middle school wrestler especially if you live in District 2 or 3 and participate in the Pioneer League. Over the years there has been several threads on why/why not wrestle for the middle school and while there are good points on both sides, one of the concerns locally is the timing of the season. Currently our middle school season in District 2&3 runs from Jan 6th to approx March 3 and is consider the late season. Unfortunately this occurs during the meat of the youth season creating for some, reason enough not to join their middle school programs. I think it is safe to say we would all like our kids to be the best they can be while giving them the opportunity to explore new challenges. It is my belief that should the Pioneer League adopt the “early season” (Oct-the 1st of Dec) like many other areas across the state the following advantages could be achieved.

Stronger middle school teams – In terms of participation and quality of matches
Better relationships between the club and middle school program
Provide an opportunity for the kids to also participate in Basketball at the middle school
Allow wrestlers to participate in the club during the critical part of the season
It truly is a win/win/win situation for the kids, school & club!

The purpose of this thread is to ask for your feedback, whether you are in District 2&3 or not, and ask you to consider sending an email to your Middle School AD voicing your thoughts/desire on changing the wrestling season. I have attached the contact information below to make it easy for you or you can also find this information at www.pioneerleague.org on the right side under directory. I will be sending an introductory email to each of the ADs advising them that this post and survey are out here for them to review and hopefully we can start a productive dialogue. It is my understanding that it is the ADs (21 of them) that make the decision on this and they could present this at the upcoming March Kansas Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association (KIAAA) meeting in Wichita. Just because it has been this way doesn’t make it the best option and together maybe we can make it better. Thanks for your help and feedback! Please see poll at bottom!

Any questions I can be reached at 316-734-8088 or jsmith462@cox.net

Derby
AD - Russell Baldwin
rbaldwin@usd260.com
Coach - Joaquin Zapata

Goddard
AD - Sean Hollas
shollas@goddardusd.com
Coach - Pat Easum

Haysville West
AD - Jeromy Swearingen
jswearingen@usd261.com
Coach - Dave Hull

Hutchinson
AD - Kevin Armstrong
armstrongk@usd308.com
Coach - Myron Ellegood

Maize
AD - Chad Cramer
ccramer@usd266.com
Coach - Jesse Harris

Maize South
AD - Jim Foltz
jdfoltz@usd266.com
Derek Schoenthaler


Prairie Hills
AD - Todd Fredrickson
todd.fredrickson@buhlerschools.org
Coach - Scott Clark

Newton
AD - Don Cameron
dcameron@newton.k12.ks.us
Coach - John Werner

Andover
AD - Brent Jones
jonesb@usd385.org
Coach - Kyle Oyler

Andover Central
AD - Jennifer Meitler
meitlerj@usd385.org
Caoch - Derek Tuttle

Eisenhower
AD - Greg Clamons
gclamons@goddardusd.com
Coach - Brian Means

Haysville
AD - Clint Shipley
cshipley@usd261.com
Coach - Jesse Shetler

Valley Center
AD - Vic Noordhoek
vic.noordhoek@usd262.net
Coach - Corey Jones

Arkansas City
AD - Cathy Vaughn
cathy.vaughn@usd470.com
Coach - Brian Reid

Augusta
AD - Doug Law
dlaw@usd402.com
Coach - Tom Zerr

Circle
AD - Gregg Walls
gwalls@usd375.org
Coach - Mike Longshaw

El Dorado
AD - Mr. Brad Hoy
bhoy@usd263.com
Mr. Dustin Rhodes

Rose Hill
AD - Brant Miller
bmiller@usd394.com
Coach - Martin Wilkes

Wellington
AD - Mr. Brian Aufdengarten
baufdengarten@usd353.com
Coach - Grant Smith

Winfield
AD - Randy Fox
randyfo@usd465.com
Coach - Kevin Hottinger

Middle School Season single choice
	Would you prefer the "early season" Oct-Dec?
	Would you prefer the "late season" Jan-March?
Votes accepted starting: 01/19/12 08:55 PM
View Results

From my experiance out here in nw kansas with the early season is it is great. The only problem is the kids that want to continue wrestling and play bball. We have three that are doing it here and it really wears on them if they go to all the wrestling practices. One or two a week is enough since they just went through middleschool. And also picking and choosing tournaments helps don't go every week if they decide to give the other sport a try. With the early season the best part is my two 9 year olds arn't in any sports at that time and there is no choosing where to go.

Just from my experience, you will have a hard time selling this to some AD's based on the fact that they have never and will never make concessions nor have much concern towards clubs in any sport. They do not seem to look at the club/scholastic relationship as that important. That being said, one more point of emphasis that can be brought up is one we suffer from here in Newton is a shortage of gyms. If we split the seasons and had Girls B-Ball and Wrestling go first and then Boys B-ball second then we would have no problem with gym space and our kids wouldn't have to hop on buses to go to other schools to practice. I have adamantly fought for this for quite some time. I just like the opportunity for kids to try our sport and also play basketball. The more you get kids involved the better!

One more thing, I have brought this up a couple of times and the AD 's response is, "Your the only one I ever hear say anything about this". So, sending the emails would help a bunch.

As a middle school coach at one of Pioneer League Schools I have heard from many other coaches including Club coaches that the early season would benefit both the school program and the Club program. I know this was sent out to my AD by me as something I would like to see changed at the middle school level. I have talked to our local club program and they have requested that all of their kids come out for the school but my problem in Goddard is that at my school we have kids in the junior high who wrestle for 5 other different clubs. As of today I have at least 4 club kids who are not out for junior high wrestling. Of those 4 kids 2 of them have personally told me it is because of 2 tournaments (Maize the belt and the Wichita Classic) that they are not wrestling for our Junior high program. 3 of them said they would have wrestled the early season for sure. Please email all your AD's and give them your opinion one way or the other as it would be great to know everyone's feelings on this matter.

Brian Means

I have fought this battle for many years only to be frustrated at the admin. Votes. To get this to pass forget about how it helps wrestling, we know that. Attack this from how it can benfit the school, save them money and gym scheduling. Several years ago, we almost got this passed but an AD made a stand and convinced another AD to change his mind. It ended a one vote win against change.
Get organized, contact Coach Zerr at Augusta, I think he has already been working on it. Get parents to back it, make phone calls to administration and be positve not combative in your appeals.
It needs to change and hopefully will those who oppose it, know it won't hurt basketball, but they are afraid it will help wrestling.
Coach Alley

Today has been extremely encouraging. I have received several positive emails from coaches, administrators and parents. In fact I have yet to hear one negative thing about changing the season. Coach Alley and several others have made excellent points on how this benefits not only the student/athlete but also the school and personnel and we will continue to focus on all of these. In order to have a meaningful dialogue I encourage those that have been against this in the past or maybe still are to share your rational. Together we might be able to come up with solutions to your concerns. If anyone knows where/who the roadblocks are on this issue please PM me their names or post it here as I would love to visit with them personally.

The only way this will get the attention it deserves is by making it known to those that make the decision. Please take the time to spread the word; contact your coaches/AD/parent and share your thoughts.

"I have fought this battle for many years only to be frustrated at the admin. Votes. To get this to pass forget about how it helps wrestling, we know that. Attack this from how it can benfit the school, save them money and gym scheduling." Quoted from Coach Alley


Very well said. I used to say that with any request you make in education you always had to end the sentence with "it will help to meet the needs of ALLL children". before an admin will even pay attention to you.

Also, stay on this folks because we are having our league activities meeting in May this year not August. I feel there is more support for this than ever before.

I have said it before, but I will say it again. The early (Oct-Dec) season is great. Then your wrestler can jump right into the Kids' Federation season ready to go. They really don't miss anything unless they are going out of state during that time. I would have hated to have the season after the first of the year, because then you would have to miss some very good Kids' Federation wrestling tournaments. If we had to do it in the late season, we would have done it because I believe in getting these wrestlers used to the team concept. For my son, it was a great experience.

If I was one of the AD's I would tell all of the CLUB WRESTLERS to "Get Bent". I officiated a dual in Ark City and Ark City was the only school that had all of its Club Wrestlers wrestling for the School. Shame on Maize, Haysville, Goddard and any other club that allows their wrestlers to wrestle for the club instead of the school. Why should these schools care what the clubs want when the clubs are not supporting the schools? The eight week school season is not going to hurt your wrestler, especially if everyone in the club goes out for the school team. Not participating, does hurt the school program.
I wonder if it is Daddy's not being able to give up power, fear, or just good ole fashioned apathy. Either way it is very disappointing to see the lack of school spirit and support.

You all wonder why the school charges you to use the facilities, maybe it is because you don't support or help them. Ark City has never been charged to use facilities for tournaments, but then we support our schools.

I have to disagree with clubs not supporting schools, I know for a fact all of the schools we have been with always supported the school, donated money from the kids club or purchased mats and things, so it's not fair to group everyone together. I also think it could "hurt" the wrestler because of the lack of decent wrestling in middle school, kids club tourneys are much tougher than middle school

Why is it that kids tourneys are tougher? Is it because when kids get to middle school their parents won't let them wrestle middle school? Just think how strong middle school wrestling would be if all of those whose say "its not tough enough my boy is wreslting club" would wrestle middle school. Just dreaming.

Hull

I have to disagree with the fact that middle school tourneys are weaker than kids club. In fact the Pioneer league actually fields some pretty competitive tournaments. Not to mention the amazing time these kids have wrestling in the dual format with all their team mates. I just don't see how that can hurt a kid? Finally, I had a kid that went on to win kids state but yet before he did that he lost his third middle school match of the season and barely pulled out a victory in the semi finals of the VC Tourney (Middle School Tourney). He has been one of my best PR guys in encouraging Club kids to come out. However, I am still missing about 4 club guys that are really good because this fallacy continues to be circulated by people that either "A" are from less competitive leagues or "B" are relying on an opinion they formed 10 years ago when it was less competitive. However, I don't know why I ranted like this knowing that the true issue at hand is we must get this season switched around to the early season and we would all enjoy a split season.

John Werner

Beeson
I wanted to come to defense of the Goddard club as one of the Junior High Coaches in Goddard. They have been excellent to me and have even requested all of their wrestlers wrestle for the junior high program. I do have all Goddard club kids wrestling for Eisenhower Junior high. The problem here is that we have many outside clubs that pull kids from our schools and then try to get them to stay out with the club during junior high season. I just wanted to make sure that the Goddard club did not get lumped into this. Thank you Brian Means EMS wrestling

Until such time as we get the season changed there is an easy way to handle the middle schoolers not wrestilng with their school teams. That is, do as some clubs do, have a club policy not to accept middle school wrestlers during the heart of their school season.

Having a club policy is great and works well. However there are a number of clubs in the metro area that are not associated with a community or a middle school. Some of these clubs do not care for their kids to be in middle school wrestling and so do not have or enforce such a policy for what ever reason.

A conceern that I have in the future is that if we were to get this past and changed, that eventually parents will figure out that their kid is missing tournament X and we will be right back to square one. And I still assume that we will not retain those kids in non-community clubs.

Hull

I owe the Goddard Wrestling Club an apology. I was misinformed and unaware that the wrestlers that were not wrestling for the school are wrestling for splinter clubs. My sincere apologies to the club.

Hull, I humbly disagree with you. To be quite honest, middle school wrestling only began to rise in district 2 after such tournaments as the Wichita Classic and The Salina TOC were already well established. Those well established tournaments that enjoy amazing support from surrounding areas took time to build their reputations. Of course wrestlers of the highest caliber will want to go to those as long as they are being staged. But to say that all of a sudden it would flip flop and there would start to be those type of caliber tournaments early in the year is probably not a very probable reality. I feel strongly that the early season would remain a time when most if not all wrestlers would want to be a part of their school teams.

Western Kansas went to the early season several years ago. It has absolutely toughened up the middle school programs. Almost all of the good middle school kids now participate for their respective school teams. Our middle school tournaments are much tougher than they were before the change, when many of the best kids chose to wrestle with their clubs during the late season.

I pushed very hard for this change for several reasons. We have had this conversation before, but I feel that TEAM should take precedence over individual success. With the early season, we have very little conflict with our more advanced kids wanting to wrestle the tougher kids tournaments before Christmas. Our team is not split, and I feel that is a very important aspect of building a wrestling program. The kids who want, have the opportunity to extend their season with their clubs and hit the big tournaments. Some of the smaller NW Kansas schools still go after Christmas, and I can assume that they have difficulty setting up a MS schedule. I understand that they may be moving their seasons to the early season, which will toughen up our tournaments a lot when you bring in some good kids from Hoxie, St. Francis and Norton, for example.

From an administrative stand point, kids who want to play BB can join those sports after Christmas. Girls BB plays before Christmas, during wrestling season. It works well. Academically, we all know of kids who wrestle for clubs when they would be unable to for their school because of ineligibility. That's another positive.

There are no negatives to the early season as I see it. It builds a team concept for MS wrestling and toughens those teams while allowing those more advanced kids to move on after Christmas. It does not hurt basketball. It allows the smaller wrestling schools to use their coaches more effectively as high school and middle school coaches. It's a win win.

Rick Cue
Ulysses