Okay obviously I am obsessive about this right now but I feel like this is a critical time for the Kansas wrestling community to step up in the fight to bring NCAA Division I wrestling to Kansas at one or all three of our NCAA D-I schools WSU, KSU and KU.

I believe that Ted Witulski has basically given us our first assignment as volunteers and that is to build a committed volunteer force of at least 500 Kansas wrestling community volunteers. If every Kansas wrestling community (Kids and high school) participates we should be able to surpass this 500 volunteer goal. It is time for us to step us and do this.

This has to be a statewide effort. Every Kids club and high school community needs to step up and be represented in this effort. Right now our job is to recruit. This topic introduction is an attempt on my part to put some organization to that recruitment effort. We need a person from every community to be the volunteer coordinator for their own community.

Basically as the volunteer coordinator you have three basic duties at this time:

First: let us know you are going to assume that responsibility for your community either by stating that here on this topic. Please give your name and community. Or by e-mailing me at: vlnowak@everestkc.net

Second: Start getting committed volunteers from your community to sign a list stating that they are volunteering to be part of Ted's volunteer group to bring NCAA Division I wrestling to Kansas. Hopefully there will be a PDF form list form from Ted available on the Breaking News Section soon which you can use. Basically you will just need them to sign their names and their e-mail addresses on that list.

Third: you will need to transmit the list to Ted Witulski.

Thank you in advance if you decide to be your Kids Club volunteer coordinator and remember we really need every Kids club and high school involved to be successful.

My suggestion would be that once you get a person to volunteer, ask them if they could also take one of those signup sheets and get some other committed people to volunteer.

You do not need to volunteer publicly on this topic or even to me in a personal e-mail to serve as a volunteer coordinator for your wrestling community either Kids club or high school. More than one person from a wrestling community can serve in this role. If you would like to help the effort you might consider printing out some of Ted Witulski's PDF forms from this link on the Breaking News section of the Home Page.

http://www.usawks.com/College/KsCollegePetition.pdf

Take the forms to the tournaments you attend this weekend and sign people up as committed volunteers to Ted Witulski's plan to bring NCAA Division I wrestling to Kansas (WSU, KSU or KU).
You might also hand out some forms to a volunteer you sign up if they are also willing to try to sign up a few more volunteers themselves.

If we can get a statewide effort this 500 volunteer goal should be very achievable. All you need from 100 communities is 5 volunteers. We know it won't happen exactly like that though so some bigger communities will need to step up with a lot more than 5 volunteers and they should be able to. 50 larger communities would only need 10 volunteers a piece. That could be 5 committed family couples. It will be achieved with a combination of effort from small, medium and large Kids club and high school communities. If we all work together, we should be able to get over 500 volunteers. See if you can sign up some people this weekend and over the next few weeks.

Thank you for volunteering and recruiting others.

I know personally here at Kstate i can get a thousand or more signatures, The community here in Manhattan is very supportive of getting at kstate...if we get together i guranteee quite alot of supporters and signatures.

Go for it. I would love to see you get that many supporters from the Manhattan wrestling community. I am very impressed with how the Manhattan community supports the KSU club and of course the strong Kids and high school Manhattan programs. It would be great to see Manhattan take the lead in volunteering for Ted Witulski's volunteer group in the push to go over the 500 volunteer mark. Take charge and be that leader in getting those volunteer committments for Ted's army.

Kris is not wasting any time on this. After I posted that last reply, he was immediately sending me e-mails on how he plans to start this volunteer drive. He plans on starting getting the volunteers TODAY. I think it is wonderful to have a young college wrestler take the lead in this effort. It makes you feel good about the future for Kansas wrestling. I highly commend you for taking charge like this, Kris.

I can bring this up at the next WSU
Intercollegiate Athletic Association
Board of Directors meeting, and
at least put a bug in the A.D.'s ear.

If you are on WSU's Board, it certainly does seem like it would be worth doing that.

I received an e-mail from Kris today that he signed up 27 volunteers in Manhattan yesterday and he says he has yet to hit the Kids and high school Manhattan wrestling community yet. Great work, Kris!

Miege let me set up a table today at Regionals. We had over 80 people sign up today at Miege 5A regionals. I also had several coaches take sign up sheets and say that they were going to sign up more in their wrestling communities. I know a couple of people were intending to sign up people at SM Northwest's 6A regional today too.

If anyone is interested in doing this, it is effective. I just asked the Miege tournament director for permission. We taped a NCAA Division I Wrestling Volunteer sign to the table and I sat at the table for most of the day. It worked very well. People came up all day long, asked questions and signed up as volunteers. I think this could be an effective way to recruit volunteers at Kids meets too. One gentleman volunteered to do this at the upcoming Metro Classic at KCK Community College.

There was a sign-up sheet at the SMNW Regional. They did a great job of making announcements during the day to encourage people to sign. I hope we can continue this momentum!

I am glad to hear that. Several people suggested that we have the announcer do that at Miege too. I probably should have requested that but my table was right there at the entrance/exit door and was very visible.

I think we are going to continue this mometum. When Ted Witulski first came out with his request for 500 volunteers I was a little doubtful but now I think we are going to surpass that number. Kris Fitzgerald as of Friday 2/17/06 had signed up over 100 volunteers in Manhattan alone. If we keep working the tournaments like we did yesterday, it should happen.

What about the state tournaments next weekend? Will there be sign-up sheets available?

I don't know if there will be a table at the State sites or not. I am not going to be there myself. Perhaps someone in Wichita and other sites could see if the tournament directors would allow a table to be set up there.

I think if someone works a volunteer signup table at the State tournament sites that we could sign up a very high number of volunteers especially if the announcers would also give a few reminders like they did at SM Northwest yesterday. I know it is tough for someone to just sit at the table and miss the action so it would be good to do it in shifts. You can always just leave the table vacant with the signup sheets too for a short period of time. I did that several times at Miege yesterday so I could watch. People came up and volunteered when the table was vacant too. More volunteers sign up when someone is at the table.


Raider wrestling mom, if you are going to be there at Wichita you could take some signup sheets on a clipboard and maybe come up with some volunteers that way, even if there was not a table setup.

It is best to have them just print their names and e-mail addresses so we can read them. If they do not have an e-mail ask for their phone number.

I would be willing to help with a possible club team at WSU. I was the NCWA Director of development 3 years ago and Coach at Letourneau University club. Unless something changes, I will be starting at a position at Cessna in july. I have experience in starting a club team in a hostile enviroment so this would be par for the course. If this is a step others would support please contact me.

I brought up the subject of WSU wrestling
at the last meeting of the Intercollegiate Athletic Association Board of Directors.
A.D. Jim Schaus said the money just isn't there,
give Title IX requirements.

Starting with a club would work better.

...given requirements for gender equivalence,
I meant to say.

I don't think WSU has a hostile environment,
just no budget for another varsity sport.
But if having a club ends up boosting
applications and enrollments, that's fairly
convincing evidence that a varsity team
might prosper.

I wasn't calling WSU a hostile enviroment, I was just implying a friendly enviroment would be nice. For a club to be started the best thing would be to locate 10-20 former wrestlers that are in their freshman and sophmore year that would be ready to committ. Also someone should get them recognized by the student government and the rec sports people before the end of this year. This will make getting started in a new school year alot easier.

I would be more than glad to help organize and run such a program if there are motivated students.