Hey does anyone have any idea why the Salina thread was deleted? I thought there was a lot of necessary info on there and Rich Zimmerman was taking the thread as constructive criticism. If someone posted something that was not appropriate isn't it possible to delete that single post and not the entire thread?

Seems like kind of a flakey forum if we can't have members state the obvious and help these tournament directors understand what the expectations are. Furthermore, if a moderator deleted the thread it probably would not hurt if you contact the party responsible for starting the thread with an explanation of why you deleted it.

Um put it back up please.

Bret Stouder
bstouder@sunflower.com

There were a lot of pretty nasty, personal, comments and attacks that probably resulted in it getting pulled. There are forum rules, and if you don't want to read them, live by the rule - "be polite" and you won't violate them. You can express almost any point you want to make, but you have to pick the right words. Hysterics and name-calling end up being unpersuasive and a turn off.

Thanks Rford. Certainly not my intent when I started the thread.

Everyone loves free speech until they disagree with what another has to say...

If you want to make a change you have to stick to your guns. Here is what was sent to one of the directors of the Bicentennial Center. If you agree feel free to cut and paste it and send it to them. In the end this should help Rich Zimmerman help us.

Cbird@bicentennialcenter.com

Mr. Bird:

I am writing this email to voice on overwhelming displeasure with the rules and regulations in which you have in place for renting your facility. I attended an event their last weekend and have to express how disappointed I was with the security, concessions and quality of the Bicentennial Center.

I will address each of the issues independently and briefly:

Security: We were at a kids wrestling tournament. Your security officials were rude, and showed no compassion for our youth athletes or the parents/coaches that are putting in volunteer time to continue to show our kids the benefits of youth sports and what we bring to the community. This needs to be addressed and they need to be told that people that are attending events at the facility are customers and need to be treated accordingly. Give up the bag checks as well. Let families bring in coolers and drinks to keep our athletes hydrated and fed. If you have to charge a gate to get in make your $3 a person that way, but don't take away the food etc as your concessions were horrible. I address that next.

Concessions - GREED - We were not there for a rock concert or a supertruck event. We don't charge $100 for a ticket to get in. Your menu is grossly over priced and your selection was horrible. Wrestling is a sport where your body needs to be conditioned. A healthy menu is important and $3.00 bottles of water and $5 hamburgers are beyond anything that we see at other events. In fact your entire menu was out of line. Your facility is nothing close to the Sprint Center and you should not be gouging the parents and youth athletes that travel for hours to attend the event. Most of us travel over 2 hours, stay in your local hotels, eat at your local restaurants and pay a pretty price that the City of Salina must benefit from. Show some respect and we will all continue to return. If the trend continues, we will either start a new event or find another event that respects us as much as we respect our youth athletes and the parents that make the financial sacrifice.

Your facility: This is 2013 - Your lack of a nice sound system and more importantly lack of a computer network that connects us to the outside world is troublesome. Your computer network is an extremely easy fix and needs to be addressed immediately. You should have a wireless hot spot set up for activities and a separate network set up for attendees of events at your facility.

I provide this data to you in a constructive setting. If you would like to discuss any of these short comings, I am glad to speak with you and you can reach me at 913-485-3195.

I look forward to the opportunity to speak with you.

Bret Stouder
Eudora, KS.

Maybe hitting up the Chamber would help also?
http://www.salinakansas.org/
http://www.facebook.com/salinachamber

Security is a must but the attitude that came with it was crazy.

Agree that prices of concessions must be taken into account with the type of event. Prices come down more people will buy it versus hauling their coolers in.

Technically this is a non-profit right? Money goes back to the club, kids and community? Pretty sure no one is making their house payment from running this club.

Also found The City of Salina is the primary owner of the Salina Bicentennial Center, so Chamber may be a good idea, I'm sure they would be concerned that people are considering not returning.

If you are one of those people that only sends hate mail and not any realistic solutions I suggest you just don't send anything, don't make the situation difficult for the Salina club in case there is a opportunity to correct some of the issues. My 2 cents.

Good post Sig. Good info and good suggestions. The intent here is to help Zimmermans club and not pad the pockets of the venue. This tournament brings enough revenue to the City.

Anyone who has gone to national tournaments has seen the high prices, inadequate concessions (bad nutrition foods with long lines). The referee quality, however, is not acceptable. We have been to Brute, Iowa, Nebraska, and others and have never seen such inexperienced referees or so many bad calls or confrontations between referees and coaches. At some point in the evening, the concession stands had nothing left but a few powerades, popcorn, and nothing in the way of a meal. Three solutions for next year... 1. Only use top-rated referees (if it takes more pay, please advise and maybe we can sell cookie dough to raise the money)... 2. Insure the concessions are well stocked until the tournament ends. 3. Get track wrestling up and running... Result... tournament goes from a C- to an A... very simple.

The fact that the original thread was taken down is TRULY sad. Apparently, even in THIS forum we have some of the hyper-sensitive types! SMH!!!

The fact is that Stouder NAILED IT in his original thread opening post! In fact, I had MANY of the same thoughts and was prepared to launch at some point on Sunday, but he beat me to it. Probably a GOOD thing though, because I guarantee, given the hyper-sensitive nature of some (apparently) would have yanked that for sure!

About the ONLY thing that I don't recall (can't refer to it since, due to hyper-sensitivity, it was taken down) Stouder referring to in the original note, but he has now down in the redo... was the BEYOND PATHETIC "WiFi". However, in "fairness" it was actually "usable" about the time they started rolling up the mats...at the end of the tournament! REAL helpful THEN?! SMH!!!

The OTHER thing that I STILL don't get is that this tournament was NOT operated with Track Wrestling last year either, it was only used to register, WHICH was/and IS extremely annoying! Like it or not, people have grown accustomed to tracking tournament happenings before, during, AND after, via Track?!

Btw, can SOMEBODY enlighten me how "security" was helping to secure us all on Saturday with their, near "anal probes" when going in the "facility"? From my view they were only saving us all from the lethal threat of bottled water and gatorade?! While I'm at it, I guess I should "thank" them for their service to our community, saving and protecting us from outside food and drinks! WHEW, that was close! "Thanks" guys/gals! You people are imposing this restriction on a "culture" (wrestling community) in which nearly everybody bring some food and drinks with them to pretty much every tournament?! How do you think they're going to react?

The other thing, and probably the biggest reason I had the negative experience at Salina this year, is that THEY'VE HEARD MOST, IF NOT ALL of these things BEFORE! and yet they just apparently haven't cared what anybody says or thinks. Apparently making the calculation that people will deal with all the crap in favor of the level of competition.

This tournament is probably THE toughest tournament in Kansas, in fact, on par with State, and I'd even say you could refer to it as a regional/mini-national-level type tourney, but these issues simply MUST be dealt with!

Btw, great follow up post by "Sig"!

Disagree Ford. However, in the hyper-sensitive era in which we live, you may be on to something. NOT to me, I tell it like it is, AND ALWAYS WILL! and care little for any of you hyper-sensitive types on ANY level!

BE REAL, NOT FAKE! Don't be SOOO afraid of getting (reading or hearing) somebody's TRUE opinion!!! Grow a thicker skin! (GEEZ)!!!

Well I'll throw in a positive comment; I certainly appreciate the online, free podium pictures. After a very long day, it's nice to not have to wrestle the other moms for a picture or pay $25 plus shipping, sometimes times 2 for me, for a mediocre 5x7 like at USJOC or Tulsa.

-Derby Mom

Thanks for the support Rough. This is the response I received at 7:46am this morning from the Bicentennial Center. I would guess Salina rakes in close to $1M in revenue on this tournament. One would think they would be a little more open to discussing change.

Bret,
Good morning. Thank you for your email. The Bicentennial Center is one of few multi-purpose facilities of 6,500 seats or more in Kansas. We reference our policies and pricing on regional standards and proudly position ourselves cheaper than alternative locations. To address your comments below specifically:

Concessions - Outside food and beverage are not permissible in other arenas.

Quality - We agree there are necessary upgrades to bring the facility up to standard of other facilities in the country. New sound system and IT upgrades are categories we will address in the near future.

We will forward your comments to the event promoter so they can decide whether to address this further.

Thanks,
Chris

Where can you get a picture of the award stand. My son placed but I was not able to geta picture.

The pictures should be up sometime within the next week.

Couldn't agree more!!! Deal with the problems individually. If we're going to start deleting whole threads then shut the whole damn forum down! That's ridiculous.

Just like many forms of government, they let us see what they want us to see and not the truth - uber-sensitive and non-confrontational - thin-skinned - I know I'm one of the reasons why they deleted that thread and apologize for offending anyone with my truthful opinions... Maybe we need to start teaching our kids to wrestle online in some cyber stadium instead of in reality, Lord knows we don't want our kids to verbally battle each other, but let's teach them to kick the crap outta each other physically... Makes no sense.

Ya I agree with you guys. If you must delete a single post by all means do it, but taking down the entire thread is wrong. Wrestling is a passionate sport and without input (both positive and negative) we really would not have a means of continually trying to make things a little better.

Don't get me wrong, the level of competition at Salina is first class, and other than the poor officiating the venue really seems to be the big problem. When you break down what the issues were 1.) No Track Wrestling, 2.) The Security and 3.) The concessions, they all point back to the people that run the Bicentennial Center. It seems that the only real way to fix this is to either find another venue or when next year comes around, contact Mr. Zimmerman and confirm that the facility has good internet service for Track, has modified the rules for bringing food and drinks in and he has taken some control of the concessions. If those things are fixed and he rounds up a good officiating crew then he has the foundation of a great event.

Oh, I forgot to mention that the female table worker at Mat 11 needs to be tossed. She sets a horrible example for our kids and has no idea how to control the clock. I was not able to get her name, but could certainly point her out of a crowd if I see her again.

I do appreciate the words of support on this thread and hope that we don't have to have another thread like this next year.

Cheers!

Bret

Do the high school teams take coolers into the facility during high school state? I believe they do? If they can make an exception for high school, certainly they can make an exception for this event. Do not use their "policy" as an excuse to do what's right for the kids. A bottle of water at least.

The competition alone is not worth it for me when you have to face poor officiating, hostile "Fort Knox style" security and price gouging and be forced to eat Chili Cheese Pies, Hotdogs or Hamburgers. I myself emailed Mr. Bird at the Bi-Centennial Center and copied each board member of the Chamber of Commerce in attempt to atleast garner some attention to this. If we can help them understand that this is not a normal event, ie: concert or sporting event that is 2-3 hours long, but a youth athletic event that lasts well over 12 hours, maybe they will see the importance of being able to bring in water and healthy snacks for our wrestlers. I would be happy to pay $5 a head to enter if we were allowed to do so and believe that it could be a win win for all. Below is a list of the email addresses to Mr. Bird and the Chamber of Commerce that i have contacted. I would urge anyone reading this to atleast throw a couple of lines down in an email to let them know the volume of people that are unhappy with this venue.

Scott

cbird@bicentennialcenter.com, dlauver@salinakansas.org, dweiser@salinakansas.org, lpowell@salinakansas.org, ebrown@salinakansas.org

Brent,

At the high school state tournament you are not allowed either. Coolers have to be stored in another room outside of the venue.

Policy must have changed then, because I remember taking our cooler into the center for our wrestlers. It would be nice.