Remember there are four things that come not back: The spoken word, The spent arrow, The past life, And the neglected opportunity.

Among loving to watch wrestling I am a avid hunter - There is also a saying "Take your kid hunting, and you will spend less time hunting your kid" This can work with anything in life a child enjoys, letting a kid take every chance to sign up and get involved in something he enjoy's to better himself is by no means any type of disadvantage for the others, the disadvantage has already taken place years before high school when the one kid decided he did not just want to wrestle but be the best he could be in his sport with people maybe not reconizing them by their face, but their name is well known . Not just kids but anybody even adults when deprived of being able to do the things they really enjoy, allows them to look for other interests that occupy their time, and sometimes with things that do not have a positive impact on them, their family's, their friends, or their school.

And as far as sports being a past-time and education the future of the world I don't thing for one minute anyone in their right mind would disagree. But when a young high school athlete has a well educated teacher with years of college making "chump change" and a half-ass professional sports figure making mega bucks - with our nations top colleges paying coaches millions a year and a professor making a small fration of this we have already gone far beyond a over night fix putting education back on top in some athletic young peoples eyes. The only way to get all that back in check is for eveyone to stop watching, buying tickets, or attending any of these events. Even Wal-Mart with no shoppers would be nothing more than a empty building.

But back to the original issue the KSHSAA rules, and a D-1 college wrestling program in Kansas. For the KSHSAA I believe there is to many factors in the equation at this time that will not make anyone happy in the short term - 1) They would drag their feet so that by the time change is made none of us in this discussion would really care. 2) And no matter what is done it will be too much for some, and not enough for others. There are allot of other angles to look at also. But for the D-1 issue as I said earlier about opportunity should I say Minnesota, Ohio, Nebraska for a few and I'm sure I left out some, and there is more to come. Has maybe just passed on a very near future National Championship with Kansas home grown men.

RJohnson