Real first class act Mr. Cokeley, you yourself are man amongst boys apparently. You make so much more money than I do, and your son is so good you must go on your way to make it right he betters himself. Get over yourself. I pay taxes too, plenty of them, for no one.... I have no kids thus I get nothing for paying for the KSHSAA. I am done with this discussion about nothing more than how important you think you are or how good you feel your son/son's team is.

Alex (Bronco Wrestler) - I felt your were "out of bounds" on your OW comment, which is how I got involved in this topic to start with, but I have to comment one more time.

You obviously do not know what it took to get the Colby team the approval, funds, and transportation to Texas the ONE time that they went. It was an extraordinay effort by eveyone on the coaching staff, (Cudo's to then Coach Beims, and Ric Williams (aka RJW@1) their connections, and the donations of the community itself.

This was basically a PRIVATELY FUNDED trip. JUST AS IT COULD BE FOR ANY SCHOOL. Just like the movie, "Build it and they will come" - "Want it, and you can raise the funds" Seriously, that is what happened.

You continue to show your lack of knowledge of Cokely in your posts. "sorry you feel your team is so much better or whoever, that they must travel to find the best competition because apparently Kansas can't provide it." That is not even remotely his concern. If you would check, his "team" sent ONE person to the state tourny. It is not a powerhouse like Bishop Carrol, Derby, the "old" Hoxie teams, etc.. His interest is NOT PERSONAL, it is for the STATE AS A WHOLE.

Your last comment about about showing you how traveling to a large tournament makes wrestling in Kansas better... do you really need an explantation as to how an athlete gets better competing against better competition than they see on a normal basis? Are you serious, do you really beleive you do not improve by competing against top level competition?

Lastly, YIKES!! Am I reading that correctly? Are you saying our coaching is sub par? Is this your opinion "in general" or in western Kansas, or what exactly do you mean by that?

I read an article in the salina journal a week ago that said education will be cut. I have no problem with you going out and finding better competition. Coach Beims planned a long time for the trip and finally happened. Coakley times are going to get a lot harder than they are rite now. Also fhsu created a holiday classic why cant we bring outa state teams into that the thing didnt go over very sad, why cant we create a bigger one in kc.

mr cokley, are you a kwca member? i do agree with some of your points.(travel restrictions esp.). but just complaining on this forum wont help you. get in touch with mr. stouts about becoming a member. then you can take your issues to to the board and put into action your desires.

Tim Horgan

http://www.intermatwrestle.com/college/coverage/2008/2008championships.aspx

http://www.intermatwrestle.com/college/coverage/2008/d1_homestate.aspx

I'm sick of hearing this as a BS excuse. Kansas boys made up 5 out of 330 qualifiers in last year's NCAA D1 Championships. 1.5% !!! We had one All-American out of a possible 80. 1.25% (Congrats again to Tanner Gardner, 5th, Josh Baldridge, Tyler McCormick, Jake Kreigbaum, and Jesse Strawn)

Now, read that list and tell me which of those boys didn't travel A LOT to seek out the best competition? Do some research and you'll find that all those guys put a lot of time on the mat and the road.

California--27/330 = 8.1%
Iowa--20/330 = 6%
Illinois 17/330--5.1%
New Jersey--29/330 =8.8%
Ohio--31/330 = 9.4%
Pennsylvania--46/330 = 14%

Oklahoma and Missouri also both sent 5.
Colorado and Nebraska both sent 3.

All of these top 6 states have D1 programs and limited travel restrictions (except Iowa I believe, but it also has 3 D1 programs). If you notice, the top four states represented (PA, OH, NJ and CA) make up over 40% of the qualifiers in the NCAA D1 Championships last year. Those states allow travel and it shows.

I'll do some D-2 breakdown work sometime soon too.

160 NCAA D2 Qualifiers

PA--20/160 = 12.5%
OH--15/160 = 9.4%
Kansas, Nebraska and Colorado sent 13 apiece = 8.1% respectively
Missouri sent 8.
Oklahoma sent 4.

Lot more respectable numbers. However I believe this is what should be changed.
http://www.intermatwrestle.com/college/coverage/2008/d2_homestate.aspx

You will notice that out of out Kansas boys represented, only 4/13 (31%) represent a Kansas school. You will also notice that the other teams represented by Kansas boys lie in our neighboring states of Nebraska, Missouri and Oklahoma.

I would not call this getting good recognition. D2 athletes are near as good, if not better than a lot of D1 athletes. I think quite a few of our D2 guys should be D1, as they do trounce those fellas in opens and duals quite often. If you notice the D2 qualifiers by state, most of the guys represent a college from their home state. This is because in places like CA, PA and OH, the D1 level guys are going all over that nation, because they have that recognition.

Kansas guys have a hard time even getting their neighboring D2/D3 schools to give them a look. We have our state series divided up all over the place (Hays, Salina, Wichita, Olathe, Wherever it is this year), no real one tournament (Bobcat?) that brings together all the best teams/individual competition so a college coach could scout it, travel restrictions that limit our best from getting scouted at those tournaments, not to mention the fact that we have only have 2 NCAA D2 schools, 4 JUCO's and soon a NAIA program for our kids to compete for, or go to a camp at, and get coaches attention.

A few of the states Kansas high schools have an opportunity to travel within the 500 mile travel limitation: Colorado, Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, and Oklahoma.

While the travel limition may limit opportunity I suggest there are plenty of opportunities within the onerous 500 mile perimeter travel restriction.

There are times when one must seek out opportunity, and there will be more than adequate competition at high school tournaments in the Denver, CO; Kansas City and St. Louis, MO; Lincoln and Omaha, NE; and Oklahoma City and Tulsa, OK; metropolitan areas.

Several years ago I was contacted by The Clash Tournament in Rochester, Minnesota inquiring about a Kansas team participating at their respected dual team tournament. I contacted KSHSAA and was informed the tournament would be acceptable as Minnesota was within the 500 mile travel restriction. I contacted several Kansas high school wrestling programs (the high school wrestling coaches, not the A.D.) with full rosters and they were uninterested in traveling to Rochester.

Richard: I somewhat agree. There are opportunities around home, however, they are not the best. Now read, I didn't say they were bad opportunities/tourneys, just not the best.

As human beings, it is nature to try and be the best, or belong in the grouping of "best" participants in whatever activity we do: at school, work, and sports. We want our children to be the best at school so they will get scholarships to college to learn even more to become the best at their jobs. If one is the best at their job, they get paid the most: don't we all want that?

Sure, some may say that sports are not that overly important in the larger whole, and I also somewhat agree. The points scored and who scored them doesn't matter, but the off-mat/field experiences are what people need to become better human beings.

That being said, if our children can not even be exposed to the best, how can we expect them to beat the best to be the best? Sure it's cliche, but America is the land of opportunity: if only given the chance.