I apologize to all of the parents and coaches who are more than likely chomping at the bit to blast us for this year's event. We learned lots of valuable lessons. No 16 man brackets in a split session! We are going to cut off the entries at 600 wrestlers. 817 was just way too many even though we had 77 scratches. We had three officials no show on us so I ended up on the mat all day instead of in the room running the track wrestling. This caused lots of problems in the afternoon session as inexperience caused a a plethora of problems and mix ups. Don't blame the software or greed, you can blame me. I don't like to turn away wrestlers because it is a great tournament with lots of bi-state competition. I like the track wrestling software but each tournament has to adapt to its use. I know it was too hot in the gym too. Again, I apologize and thank all of the parents and who came and helped us set what will undoubtedly go down in history as the longest OPEN kids tournament is USAWKS history! Not something we are proud of so give us another chance next year.

I think that as far as lenght wise, this makes 2 years in a row. From what I remember, last year's second session didn't start until around 2 or 2:30.

However, thank you for addressing these facts so promptly. Don't know if we will give it a third try, but nevertheless, your attention to this matter is greatly appreciated!

Will- I was just happy to see so many kids having a good time. Yes, it was hot. When don't we go to a tournament during the year that it is too hot or too cold. Yes, The tourney was delayed. When don't we go to a tourney during the year that a tourney is delayed. Almost weekly. It seems to me that the track wrestling is going to speed things up in the future. The truth of the matter is that wrestling is always going to be an all day event. I can think of a lot worse things to be doing on the weekend. Bottom line is I am one parent that appreciates the wrestlers, the volunteers, and the parents. As a kid wrestler, I don't remember having a bad time at a tourney. I guess I'm the same way as a parent. Thank You and look forward to next year!

will, i think everyone done a good job myself including the refs (unlike salina) but then again we wern't in the main gym . and we was out of there by 1.. eric had some great competition especially in the finals with darien. i for one appreciate all the hard work everyone put into making this a good tournment..if eric wasnt going to be in high school next year we would deffinetly be back.
john mason

It was a long one...but my kids really enjoyed seeing competition from both sides of the state line. Thanks for the efforts by all involved.

Will,

I know you are willing to take the blame for any and all problems with todays tourney. Not anything you did affected problems that arose as we endured this long day of wrestling.

I, as a Tournament Director, want to first "thank" all of our parent and kid volunteers (high school athletes included that did not have to spend their entire Saturday in a hot gym) for the effort they put forth today. Without your help we could not have watched over 200 "A" wrestlers compete against each other.

I also want to say "thank you" to the group of referees that we had, who worked above and beyond what was expected, (when 3 other referees did not show up).

Parents and fans of wrestlers - I know today was a tournament that lasted far longer than what we normally put forth at our facility and we will always try to improve from one year to the next!

Trackwrestling is a fantastic program that we used today and all problems we encountered with this system was quite honestly due to lack of resources at the school and a bit of inexperience in a live tourney using this program. The guys at Track will bend over backwards to work with you and were quite helpful with the setup of our tourney. I know many dont care to hear why the problems arose but want all to know it had nothing to do with Trackwrestling and the program they provide! Keep up the good work Trackwrestling.

Wrestlers - Although I did not get to see a lot of the competition today, due to the time spent trying to work around problems that arose throughout the day, I want to say we will always try to provide a tournament that gives you the opportunity to compete against some of the best competition in the entire area,(Kansas & Missouri combined).

George - I do want to personally apologize to you for being an absolute embarassment, as you so kindly put it. You are absolutely correct, at a point in time today I was a bit embarrassed, but realized that "whatever" it took, I had to continue my efforts of correcting problems as they arose.

To the lady who wrote the "To whom it may concern letter" that was given to our High School-Head Wrestling Coach. I personally did not get to see the letter, but if you would like to PM me or for that matter reply by US Mail - My name and address is listed on the documents that are on this USAWKS website.

Once again, Thank You to everyone that came today and I hope you were able to see some great competition!

Jeff Broadbent - MVWC Director
Home address -

7118 Brockway
Shawnee, KS 66227
913-422-3016 Home

Jeff, Will and everyone involved in this tournament,

Please know that you did have a great tournament. We really did enjoy ourselves and Connor had six great matches. Like blaise said, you are going to have issues at any tournament and as long as the tournament director and staff address them, which you did, it makes for a good tournament. We will definitely be back as a club next year.

Will- Thanks for being honest about the Mill Valley tournament. I have involved with charity and amateur events for years and they all have the management issue in common- it is tough to do something once per year and do it smoothly and professionally. Just doesn't work that way. I do have a couple of comments: 1. The gym is too small for that many people.

2. Trackwrestling is the future and we need to do it.

3. This is a great local tournament and just keep working to make it better.

4. Will Cokeley has no involvement with Mill Valley- his kids do not wrestle there and he does this for nothing, so if you criticize him just know that.

5. The main problem in starting late is not with the tournament directors, it is with you the parents and coaches. When you have 1000 kids, like we did a couple of weeks ago at Johnson County, and 100 of the entries were submitted wrong, the right thing to do is chnage them so these kids and parents who travel can get on the mat. But people, that is 10% error, and there is not excuse for that. We all make mistakes, but entries with no weights, ages, etc just makes it a nightmare to bracket. I am sure Mill Valley had the same issues. So if you complain about late starts then now you know why- the parents and coaches are so sloppy on their entrants that it takes hours to fix all the mistakes and you do not know who is where until weighins the morning of the tournament.

Had to vent a little.

Tom Williams

This is an issue that has been near and dear to my heart for some years. As someone else stated in another thread recently, and I'm paraphrasing, "you do not inconvenience the 90% of clubs, coaches and parents who did it right because of the 10% who didn't." By adding and rebracketing you only increase the problem in the future. Why should club directors, coaches or parents take the time to make sure their entries are correct? If they make an error, it will be corrected at the tournament at the expense of the rest of us. Now, if there are errors that can be corrected without delaying the tournament then by all means take care of those, otherwise scratch them and their entry fees, and move on. By continuing to correct these errors we are simply compounding the problem in the future.

I wasn't there and not sure about how long the tournament lasted, but I am certain that it couldn't beat a tournament a few years back when my son was an 8 year old. His first match was at 9:15 am and his last match was at 10:45 pm with several matches to go to finish up. I believe several wrestlers in our club still had matches after we left at 11:00 that night. I won't mention the club tournament but I am sure they hold the record for length.

Good competition, above average officiating and nice people running the tournament. Yes, I did not get out of there until 7 pm. But, with a split session we didn't get there until 11:30. And, that is better than Salina (an excellent tournament) where we get there at 8 am, and don't get our of there until late in the evening. And, the competition at Mill Valley was almost as good. The main problem was the heat. Overall a good tournament and you appear to already be addressing the problems.

And special thanks to the coaches from Ottawa who came over to help my son when he almost fainted. As he was wrestling one on their kids, that was true sportsmanship.

John,

You too went above and beyond by coaching my son who is not with your club. You would have left sooner than you did had you not done that good deed. Please thank your wife for me! People like you are what we are going to miss the next year and half.

We have been very fortunate to meet so many wonderful people throughout the wrestling community. It was very evident yesterday from the kids and parents from many different clubs.

Several times I have thought about saying "NO" to a correction or not letting a kid move up a weight class but at the end of the day most of the errors and mistakes are made by adults and the ones who have to pay the price are children. The day I am not in it for the kids is the day I walk away. In fact, if you can't say that the kids are your number one priority then you should walk away.

John, you are very welcome, we are a team that prides ourselves with good sportsmanship but really that was just concern for your son. Hopefully anyone would have done the same and in the wrestling community most probably would have.
Like coakley said if your not in it for the kids you should walk away!! Thanks for your cudos and good luck to you & your son.

Will, great tournament. Thank you for allowing me to ref. Jeff Broadbent,his wife and all of the Mill Valley Club folks run a class tournament. The table workers at mat 8 were great and made the day fun. It was a blast to see all my friends from District 1 and the western missouri coaches and wrestlers were good to work with. I was able to watch some of the kids from MOKWC and I hope I can work for you next year. Coach Gonzales.

My boys had a great time at the tournament. We had one in the a.m. and one in the p.m. We didn't leave until 8pm but I have to say strangely enough this was one of the less stressful tournaments for me even chasing after a 2 year old all day. I think the heat kept my wrestlers warmed up and they did well. Good competition, ice cream, moon-walk, tv's energy drinks everything a family needs for a day of fun.

Jeff, Will, and the rest of the Mill Valley folks,

Thank you for a great tournament! The competition was very good. Our club definitely appreciates all the hard work you put in to running this tournament.

Yes, there were issues.....all in all not really that big of a deal. I respect Will and Jeff for coming on here and discussing some of the issues. These are all valuable lessons that can be carried forward to other tournaments.

I PERSONALLY FEEL THAT BOTH WILL AND JEFF ARE BEING TOO HUMBLE IN THE CRITIC OF THEIR TOURNAMENT. YES THERE WERE TECHNICAL ISSUES BUT FROM MY PERSPECTIVE THE REAL REASON FOR A LOT OF THE ISSUES IS BECAUSE WILL, JEFF AND THE MILL VALLEY CREW BENT OVER BACKWARDS TO ENSURE ALL THE KIDS GOT TO WRESTLE. THEY ACCOMODATED WEIGHT CHANGES, MISTAKES ON ENTRIES, ETC. IMO they were absolutely doing what was best for the kids! They could have ran a flawless tournament and we all could have gotten out early but it would have been at the expense of some kids either not getting to compete or having to compete in a wrong weight class. THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR KEEPING THE KIDS FIRST!!!!!!!!!

Lesson Learned and a Request from a coach's perspective.....

We have been to a couple of tournaments this year that have used track wrestling, personally I like the tool for tournaments like subdistricts, districts and state. My vote is still out on using it for open tournaments (now, I am not about to cast stones here because we have not ran a tournament and so I can't speak from and administrative perspective).

My request is that if we use track wrestling can we please increase the time between the posting of the brackets and the start of wrestling? The challenge I have as a coach is that we do not have enough time to get the matches for our kids, let the kids know what mats they are on, and assign coaches to the mats. It gets very hectic. We usually take between 50-70 kids with 20-25 coaches to a tournament like this and it is very hard to get the info out with only 1 hr between the posting of brackets and the start of wrestling. I am sure there are other options available and I am open to any ideas.

Again, thank you Jeff, Will and Mill Valley for a great, tough tournament. We will be back!

Shawn Budke
Leavenworth County Spartans

Enough already!!!!!

Answer the most important question.

How was the Hospitality Room!!!!!

Nedly

hospitality room was great!

I'm sorry it wasn't that great two years in a row? Parkhill tourament ran the same way for a few years lost alot wrestlers. If you are going to have that many wrestlers you should use the middle school also thats where I parked. It's a local tourament I would hate to see lose wrestlers. Better luck next season double the refs. pay they be there start planning earlier if you want to run a tourament that size.