Good points Rick.
Some other benifits for the other sport. How many times have you heard that there is more concern about getting a good boys basketball coach than the girls. In my years of Education, I have heard this many times. With the split season, schools could make the best coach a Middle School Coordinator and have him/her over both the girls and boys. His season really would not be any longer than it is now but he could actually make a little more money coaching both. In the small schools where finding coaches becomes difficult, this could help them also.

Another factor is gym usage. With the split season, it would elimnate the early late practice that a lot of programs have to deal with. Girls would have priority before Christmas and Boys after. This would also allow the teams to possibly carry more kids. In the Pioneer League, thre is a home game two nites a week all season due to both programs going at the same time. This is because, if the Boys are home the Girls are away. Not much chance of building a lot of school pride. Where do the Cheerleaders go? It also means the school is paying for ticket takers and extra custodial help twice a week instead of once. Split the seasons and the Boys get to watch the girls and vise versa. This could also allow a girl to play Basketball and then Cheer for the Boys 2nd semester, or I guess a Boy could Cheer for girls and then be a Basketball player. Just trying to be Politically Correct.
We all know and understand the benifits of how it helps wrestling, as I said before, think of ways it benifits the school. You have to convince the administration that this change can help them improve what they already have in time and money usage and maybe benifit other areas as well.

Terry Alley

Bump! It seems to me if all middle schools went to the early season it would in turn make the middle school tournaments tougher due to more competition out there to choose from. Maybe Im wrong but seems this way!

Bump

Like I said before, there are no disadvantages for wrestling. Also, if your middle school and your high school share a room, the middle school team is out of the room by Christmas. One team probably has to practice late, most likely the high school team. I always feel like if a kid gets an hour or so to do something else, he may have a difficult time deciding to go to practice. I think starting a high school practice at 5 or 530 hurts the high school numbers, without a doubt. There is no doubt that it is the best thing for wrestling, and I do not see how it harms the other sport.

From my point of view

Starting wrestling after football gives the kids an option to experience both wrestling and basketball (that's what this should really be about). This would have a tremendous effect on the smaller schools participation in wrestling. Right now it is hard for some teams to field 18 wrestlers in different weight classes. I know the worst feeling for my wrestlers is showing up to a meet and having a open.

If they choose to split boys and girls BB it would also be much easier to schedule facilities and practices. As noted by others your coaches could do both boys and girls season. In wrestling this would allow high school and middle school coaches to work together or coach both seasons with only a couple weeks overlapping. Wrestling seems to be the hardest sport to find qualified coaches.

I will say I am not in favor of shortening the middle school wrestling season. We have a compressed schedule the way it is. The middle school wrestling season needs to go up till Christmas break, and boys BB needs to start in January.

The biggest complaint I have heard is that BB will lose practice time as they start about a month before their first competition. My wrestling team will also lose practice time which is were we we get better. However, I am willing to give up some practice to allow kids an opportunity to participate in both sports.

I don't believe many administrators are going to care about kids club wrestling so I would put my emphasis on the other positive things about changing the season dates.

My son wrestles in the MCL and he has only had 15 matches. If you add the 2 matches he will get next week in the league tournament, it will only give him 17. The majority of his matches have been against poor competition. The middle school season is very short and runs during most of the very high quality kids tournaments. I would really like to see our league move middle school wrestling to right after football. Give many of the kids a better opportunity to experience the team concept of middle school and if they want move on to the kids tournaments.

Myron, good to hear from you. Excellent points, by the way.

JAF, that's exactly what happens if the junior high goes after Christmas and competes with the kids club season. We usually had our best junior high age wrestlers skip their school season to compete in the larger tournaments, where they could get more matches and better competition. Now, I can't think of ANY kids in our part of the state that miss their junior high season with the exception of Michael Prieto from Holcomb who has no competition in that practice room and will end up in Garden City to wrestle for his Dad next year anyway.

I think you will see more of this happen with budget cuts because schools won't be able to afford Coaches for all the sports. Alot of Coaches in Western Kansas already Coach Jr High and High school!!

I am not sure on where all the MS stuff stands, but I would like to throw and example out there for Beeson, 2 MS kids came out after their season was done, one had 2 losses in MS the other had 1 loss. Neither won a match at district. So explain why when we have all traveled all over the country to find the tough places to wrestle we would settle for the lack of competition just because it is "with the school"

When your boy spends 8 weeks crushin kids in the first, I hope he doesn't regress.

For every example such as the one you list I can think of an example of a multiple X high school state champion that did wrestle for their middle school team. Apparently they didn't seem to "regress" any during those 8 weeks.

In what league?

The other leagues I would agree with you, but the Pioneer League I would bet is different.

You might want to do some checking, one of the more notable ones came from your own middle school/high school!

Forget the exceptions...

In GENERAL, if you have an experienced wrestler he will NOT get any better during MS wrestling. The only decent matches come from USA Kids wrestlers that meet up in a MS format. The larger percentage of MS wrestlers and coaches (not targeting head HS coaches who are pulling double duty) do not have a good foundation of basics. I don't think MS is a bad thing to get kids out that otherwise would never try the sport but experienced wrestlers DO NOT gain from this level of participation. Just the facts...

Logan Terril wrestled Middle School...State Runner-up in High School. Colby Watters 4X Placer....Middle School. Wyatt Villers Jr. 2x Placer....Middle School. Cody Eastman Jr. 2X Placer...Middle School. 95% of Ark City Wrestlers over the last 30 years...WRESTLED MIDDLE SCHOOL. Justin Ware, The Hernandez Brothers, Scotty Goodale, Brooks Travis, The Bahm Brothers, The Hankins Brothers...2 of Ark City's 4X State Champions, and All of the 3x State Champions wrestled Middle School...Hard to Argue those Facts.

The list of state champions from USA kids would be 10 times as long as the Ark City only list that you have provided. It is undeniable that Kids club wrestlers face tougher competition. This is really not debatable.

The Pioneer Middle School League meeting takes place May 16, 2012. Make sure all the AD's know that moving the season to before Christmas is supported by everyone. Split seasons are also desired based on money and gym shortages. Now to address some of the issues that have occurred. Mr. Cokeley your facts are preceded by you stating it is your "feeling". You also use generalizations of all middle school wrestling coaches so those are by no means facts. As for Chief's list. You could add just this year Miles Johns and Dillon Archer to the list of State champs that wrestled both years of middle school wrestling. However, you are right kids do face tougher competition in USA wrestling but that is not to say that we don't have an opportunity to make the Pioneer league a very competitive and fun league too. Now, as for will a middle school program help or hurt a wrestler..? It all depends on the wrestler and the program. I say, just ask the former wrestlers of that program, they will be honest...

Coach Werner

Newton Middle School

Middle school wrestlers can face better competition if their parents have the means to travel to find it. During the Pioneer League season here in southcentral Kansas the USAW competition is very limited at the district 2 tournaments.

Of Course the State List will be longer...but will the percentage be higher? I doubt it. 95% of Ark City's State Champions wrestled Middle School. I would bet the States list is more around 50%-65% that wrestled Kids.

I truly believe that it is imperative to get your kids to wrestle MS and be a part of a TEAM, yeah you might miss a "tough" tournament or two, but the end product (6 years worth) of program building is invaluable. Missing two tournaments is nothing, there are so many opportunities to get your kid to super tuff stuff individually that I don't see the argument. My kid will not get to go to a few RMN events next year big deal, he will still go to Salina, Hutch, Hays, state tournament series, FS/GR stuff, southern plains, northern plains, maybe Utah, and hopefully some of the National dual stuff, how much more does an individual need. The payoff for the program to have your best kids wrestle MS is huge. Now odviously this is more important for a one program town, like Hugoton or Ark City or Colby (no I really did not just compare us to Ark or Colby) but I believe my point is valid. If you are from one of these super clubs that feeds like 50 different HS then priorities change a little. (of course I think I would try to get all those studs to go to the same MS/HS)

I believe some of the aforementioned wrestlers didn't really believe MS wrestling was enough either as they ventured down to TN during AC's MS season... ALL of these wrestlers wrestled outside of MS as well (beyond the prescribed MS season). I think Coach Mahan hit it on the head, if you are in a metro area the SUPER club is a way better situation. Neither Reese nor Ryne participated in the MS program at the public MS they attended. It was their choice to attend club practice and go to tournaments that were availbable. Sammy participated in MS wrestling and was the only undefeated wrestler in a combined (7th and 8th) team. They wrestled about 12 matches and I think he had 9 pins. He had to skip 6 weeks of club practice and five tournaments as their league only had one Saturday event. He DID NOT qualify for Kids State this year. He had a good coach (he is also the head HS coach) but the competition was very under prepared. I would like to see all of you who are supporters of the MS programs go to your AD's and battle to release the KSHSAA control over MS wrestling. Most of these leagues and programs DO NOT wrestle on weekends so why shouldn't these kids be allowed to LEGALLY do both? If a kid wants to practice with his friends at school and then go to club practice why not? There are NO good arguments against these questions!! The seasons are inconsistent, team scores are often not kept, weight classes are completely ignored for the most part, and having these options would improve the overall situation trememdously. I agree with Coach Mahan's points regarding the need to build your program and I think those HS coaches who are pulling double duty are doing exactly that and I believe they would support both of those proposals.

(Coach Werner, I fixed my earlier post. We can put examples of kids who did BOTH all day long. They are motivated to be the best. Where are the examples of the Kids who JUST wrestled MS and went on to be HS state placers.)