I know this is probably an old subject but I haven't heard on it much

I was at the Concordia tournament and it was a well run tournament as far as I was concerned. Alot of kids and small area but matches keep on pace and everyone was doing there best.

My only problem was- I had a 6 and under kid that wrestled in a round robin which started at 9 and ended at 4:30- a very long day for their parents. Would a split tournament get wrestler in and out of there better or not. You don't see many of them around and I have been out of the coaching for a bit.

Just wanted thoughts on it-

I would love to see more novice tournaments in North central kansas and I think with all the 6 and under there are it would work out good for everyone.

I have been to several split format tournaments and I think it is a very good idea. Usually, they run very smoothly and you are usually only there about 3 hours unless you have more than one kid in a different time bracket.

Concordia was very crowded this year in the stands and especially in front of the mats. Many of the younger kids had to sit for hours just to get a turn to wrestle. One of my sons was in a 16-man bracket and he is only 7. Too many kids and not enough facility to handle it. Maybe next year they can look at moving it to the college or cutting the number of entries. Another possibility is the split format. Gets some people in and out vs having to spend all day on a beautiful Saturday crowded in a gym.

I too would love to see more novice tournaments. I love the way Topeka handles it with Novice and Open on the same day. Novice is in one gym and Open is in another. We have mostly brand-new wrestlers in our kids program this year and some are getting frustrated losing all the time to experienced wrestlers. If they competed in a few tournaments against other novice wrestlers-it would help their confidence. After all-isn't everyone trying to get as many kids to try wrestling and to keep them in the sport? It is really hard when the kid and his parents spend almost 5 hours in a crowded gym just to watch him wrestle two matches.

Mom4,

I don't know if you realized this but here are novice tournaments just about every sunday. Of course you have to be willing to travel a little, but perhaps it would be worth it to you.

I posted that last June 2005 in the Mill Valley Split tournament topic that pretty much was the topic where most of last year's discussion on split tournaments took place. I think it is worth repeating here. It shows that there are wrestling people even at the collegiate and Olympic coaching level who recognize this to be a problem for wrestling.

mom4, Coach Douglas would agree with this statement that you made in your post:

"After all-isn't everyone trying to get as many kids to try wrestling and to keep them in the sport? It is really hard when the kid and his parents spend almost 5 hours in a crowded gym just to watch him wrestle two matches."

QUOTE]Originally posted by klint deere:
Vince,

Good post, and 100% absolutely true. You know my point of view on this topic. I was a staunch Kansas 12 hour tournament man. My eyes were opened after moving out of state and seeing it done differently.

I have the privlege of introducing the sport to new kids every year through the foster kids i work with. I work with their parents too and many times i get that total outsider P.O.V. expressed of "why the heck does it take so long" it is hard to justify it to them and i think we do lose many kids to burning out the parents with long waits.

The freestyle and greco rules are changing to make it a quicker, more fan friendly sport. I think we need to think about what we can do for that aspect to, especially for kids and tournament operations.

Imagine a 2 hour after-school tournament with 200 kids on a friday afternoon all getting 3 matches in.
or

A slotted block of time such as 11:00-1:00 p.m. when grandma and grandpa know their wrestling grandkid will wrestle during the time they are there.

or

A youth tournament held in conjunction with a major high school tournament that allows for families with multiple kids participating not to be in two places or make choices of who is going where.

All that is going on elsewhere--why not here? [/QUOTE]

That was a reply post that Klint Deere made to my post last June in the Mill Valley Split tournament topic.

Slotted tournaments is likely where all this is going to end up and for good reason. For that to happen though, there are a few things we have to do first.

1. Make sure tournament directors don't accept more entries than the slotted time will allow.

2. Look at decreasing the amount of time required before a wrestler can wrestle again, as long as the opponents are equal on rest time.

3. Run first available mat, instead of individual ones, in order to help with the rest time requirements. Do we really think this concept is too complicated for our parents to grasp?

Yes, as a matter of fact I do. I spent all of this past weekend fighting to get kids to the mat when they should have been there already. Its very frustrating having to wait on kids to show up to a mat. And then the kid shows up and they don't have a coach so we end up waiting again. All of this makes for a very long day.

Back in my kids wrestling days our coaches told us the find a coach about 5-6 matches before we were up and they would stand next to us by the mat until we came up. Now I realize that some clubs don't have enough coaches to accomplish that, but it would certainly help if coaches would do a better job getting their kids where they are supposed to be on time. This would make the tournament move a lot more smoothly.

Anytime you are trying something new, there are going to be some bugs that need to work through. There are going to be coaches and parents who are confused. But you must look at the long-term effect. My husband has coached at both open and split-tournaments. He much prefer's the split-tournaments that are run in Nebraska as he can focus on small "chunks" of wrestlers (making sure they are were they need to be, getting them ready, ect.) He doesn't have to spend valuable time trying to find wrestlers or worry about having too many kids wrestling at the same time. They gym is less crowded as more people are coming and going.

If you are going to use a first open mat available scenerio, can it be done like a high school tournament? Go by weight and display the weight number on the scoreboards. Have the younger kids (age 5-8) use 2 to 3 mats and the older kids (age 9-12) use the other 2 or 3 mats. In the afternoon, you would run the tournament the same way but with the older kids. Parents would just need to watch the posted weight. However, I don't know if this will allow enough time for the wrestlers to rest between matches.

Nigel, I know there are novice tournaments but most of them you have to drive a long distance to get there. It would be nice if there were some in the immediate area especially with gas at over $2.19 cents a gallon.

Things have really reversed themselves. It used to be the only novice tournaments were in the northern part of the state. Now there is a novice tournament almost every weekend in District II.

This is a matter of training the Parents, as well as the kids. I always make sure that I send my kids to find a coach about 4-5 matches before they are up. As a mat coach, I start looking for my next kid to come down from the stands with about 4-5 matches away.