Just wondering what time most of you got out of there?

6:15, we were the last match in the upstars gym.

I GUESS THAT I SHOULD OF ADDED, NO BIG DEAL THE WAY THE TOURNAMENT WAS RAN WAS EXCELLENT WITH THE NUMBER OF ENTRIES. WAY TO GO TOPEKA TORNADOES!!!!
CONGRATS TO A FANTASTIC RUN TOURNAMENT.

How many times does an announcer have to tell people to take a knee at matside? From the stands you could not see the matches going on, particularly the ones that were closest to the stands. Eventually it forces you to be at matside ( on a knee ) just to watch your own kid wrestle, which only makes the matside even more crowded.

I would recommend that in the future, tournaments treat these people just like we treat our kids - one warning and then you suffer the consequences for not listening in the first place.

On a positive note - I thought that the tournament was well run!

We wrestled 6 matches and were gone by 2:30.

I also thought for the number of kids it was well ran. BUT....you can only hear "If you are bored, we need table workers" so many times. I had nightmares with that going through my head last night!!! lol
Good job Topeka.

On behalf of the Topeka Tornados, I want to thank everyone that came to our tournament on Saturday. I hope that you enjoyed the wrestling. I especially want to thank the many area high schools who loaned us mats and the individuals who volunteered to help. With 98 teams, 1311 wrestlers and 17 tables, we could never have pulled it off without the support. Thanks again. John Houston, President of Topeka Tornados Wrestling Club.

My son placed first in a 16 wrestler bracket that had 14 wrestlers show up. His first match was on Mat 14 was #7 and his championship match was #113. I believe his last match finished about 3PM. My son's mat was moving a lot faster than the other mats in this old gym. I'm sure they moved matches to it from the other mats after we left. He is in 12 & under, 120 and they had him for the first time in the old Whiting Gym with the 14 year olds and the bigger 12 & unders.

Our family really liked the change to the old gym. The seating was plentiful and very roomy. You could stretch out and almost take a nap if you wanted. There were four full sized mats which made it great for the wrestlers. It was not nearly as loud as our previous years in the newer gym which we found to be noisy and more crowded. You did not have all the announcements during the day. We are looking forward to returning to compete in that gym for his last two years of grade school.

can anyone tell me who won the 8 and under 55 brackets

We got out about 3:30 or so. We only had two matches, but a first round bye. I thought for the number of wrestlers it was not too bad.

I believe Jace Roy from paola won the 55. He beat hood from Louisburg in the finals, but I do not know whether that was "a" or "b". Roy is a state qualifier from 2 years ago. Good kid.

i thought it was a good tourney overall.
probably the toughest 12under 100 bracket i have seen all year(bar none)
i do think they should cut off at 1000 kids or move more brackets to the other gym because of limited seating. congestion on matt-side will always be a problem as long as people are there normal rude selves.
if you are going to have a 1000+ kis tourney you need to have the bronze card rule in affect and inforced!

"The Buck Stops Here"
First, I wish to thank everyone for their participation in this tournament. When the entry forms went out they said the first 1000 wrestlers will get in...We got almost 1200 entryies in two (2) days and I felt I could not turn anyone away.. I continued to accept entries several days after the deadline. I had to learn three new words "Just say No". I had one goal...Pull this off. I had accepted the position of Tournament Director primarily to appease Bill Stanhope, a frend and leader in the wrestling community. I could not let this fail.
Next, I need to thank all of the many people that helped with this ( I can't name everyone, Henry, Sandy, Joselle, Ken, Linny, etc). We could not have done it without all of you, table workers, everyone.
I have had discussions with some of the other local Topeka Clubs to see about the possibility of a "Topeka Tournament" with the resourses of all of the clubs I feel we could run a "Class Tournament" we'll see. Please continue with the feedback cause we can't fix ix...

I thought the competition at this tournament was good, but as for the way it was ran, I didn't think it was that great. I'm glad that some people got to sit in the stands and I quote "had enough room to lay down and take a nap". I, along with the rest of my club, had to sit on the floor all day until my son's last match at 6:00. There were also alot of other people sitting right there along side of us who were not happy that there was no place else to sit. I don't know where this old gym was that was mentioned before, but obviously they should have had more kids wrestling in there, where there was more room.

If all the topeka teams were to do something as a combined effort, would you look at doing something like the Classic. I dont know other than the expo if there would be room to run it anywhere, but I think we would all like to see tourneys that are strong in competition even if it does mean staying for a little extra time.

First I have to point out that there are two different people who have posted on this topic with similar names - husker fan (me) and huskerfan. I was reading huskerfan's post this morning and I thought did I write that. huskerfan, our names are too close. I'm going to have to start signing off. You even quoted me which is definitely OK. Many of the ideas you expressed I would have agreed with over the last couple of years when my son wrestled in the gym that you were in. We thought we were going to be in that same gym this year and we were not looking forward to another long day in that crowded and noisy gym. But like jrob1982 has stated for the stronger competition sometimes you are willing to put up with the extra time and other inconveniences.

The problem I would see with moving more matches to the other gym would be that you would have to lessen the wrestling experience for the older boys to make it effective in reducing the overall tournament time. You would have to run half and not full mats up there. That makes it kind of tough to wrestle for the older, bigger and faster wrestlers who would be going out of bounds too much.

Our mat in the old gym (which by the way was upstairs attached to the new gym I believe a little to the northeast of where you were) was way ahead of the other mats in that gym. As you can see from jayhawkmom (they finished at 6:15) not everyone finished as early as we did.

TIII, you asked for more feedback. My suggestion is that you consider some form of a split tournament format, maybe even a two day event if you want to keep the numbers that large. You might check with Scott Biddle of Winfield to get some insight on their experiences with the split tournament format which they have used for several years. Anything you do to lessen the congestion and time spent in that new gym, I believe would make for a better wrestling day for the majority of people involved.

Vincent Nowak

I was very disappointed for two reasons. First of all I didn't go to this tournament thinking that I had to spend 11 hours on the floor. It is one thing when there isn't any possible way to add seating in the gym. But when I see all bleachers against the wall, that pissed me off. I should have known I was in trouble when I saw people carrying blankets and pillows into the gym. Spoke to a couple of people and they said that it was the same last year and they came ready. Second, my son was in a 8 man bracket and it wasn't very good competition. He wreslted 3 matches and spent 10 hours and 55 minutes on the floor. He was in the A bracket.

My son's first bout #'s were 120, 165, x118 or should I say his first match around 10:00 am(2 hours later), second match 1:30 pm(3 1/2 hours later), and the last match around 5:30 (4 hours later) and after waiting to get his first place medal and wall bracket, we got done around 6:15.
The time spent there was a complete waste of time. If we could've gotten out around 3:00 pm, that would've been acceptable compared to the number of matches he had. I guess I should be thankful that he didn't have a bye/stratch. I don't think I'll be going back next year. The only thing my son and family enjoyed was staying at Residence Inn in the Studio rooom (the tv had a/v jacks so my kids played thier Playstation2).

In closing, I can live with the competition, you can't always get what your looking for. But to spend 11 hours in a gym to wrestle only 3 matches, that is down right ridiculous.