No I did not do the Derby tourny, however I was at the WWC tournament the day before, I also did Haysville. I do tournaments all over really, I like to get a good variety, several in D3 and a good number in D1 including sub district and district in D1 this year. But you would know if you saw me i'm not too hard to miss.

Nigel, which sub? North or south?

North @ Holton

I believe Coach Douglas of Iowa State University would be an advocate of Split Tournaments. Go to the College Forum on this website and see the topic I started today on: Coach Bobby Douglas Pushing For Changes Article. You can see the entire article on that topic. He was quoted saying this in an article in the February 8, 2005 Ames Tribune :

"Wrestling people are very slow to change," Douglas said, adding that he feels the sport is stagnant. "In order to keep your sport alive you have to tweak the rules, you have to make changes. You have to experiment.
"Society wants something that's more exciting and shorter. Do we need to shorten the matches? Yes, because parents aren't going to sit in the stands for four or five hours. And you can't expect them to do that. They'll become soccer moms instead of wrestling moms."

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?

In Oklahoma we used to have the kids club dual right before the high school duals sometimes. I know OU and OSU have even done this and at times if not a dual, have what they call "Feature Matches" where they bring in some of the best kids in the area to wrestle each other. It was a lot of fun and brought in a lot of extra people to the High School duals.

I have to add my 2 cents here since I do spend a lot of time at tournaments with my kids. And since I also have a novice wrestler not only do i spend All day Saturday at a tournament I also get to spend all day Sunday at a tournament as well a lot of times. I enjoy all aspects of athletics and Last year was my first year as a wrestling dad and we went to just about every tournament that we could. I enjoy watching other kids from our club and other clubs compete during the tounaments. I admit there were maybe a couple of times that I would get bored or tired. But, hey, If I got too tired and my son wan't wrestling for a while I would either go to the van and take a catnap or spend some time with my son working on some moves. But there I go again, I myself grew up either in a gym or on a playing field all the time so I am pretty much used to doing sports all day during competition. Call me a gym rat I guess but I enjoy watching competition. But what I REALLY enjoyed this year was watching my son (when he wasn't wrestling) go around mat to mat making friends and watching teammates and other competitors wrestle taking it all in. I am already excited for the folkstyle season to begin as are my sons even though FS/GR just ended for us with State.
I may be new to the wrestling community and I certainly do not have the same "me" attitude as a lot of society today. I believe that our children are our future and we should take the time necessary to spend with our kids and supporting them as much as possible. I also believe that with our society the way it is (with the "me" attitude) in the long run longer waits and drawn out tournaments will burn out the parents so that they won't involve their kids anymore which will hurt the sport. I've heard many parents of former wrestlers talk about how LONG the tournaments were and how torturous they were to spend all day at a tournament to watch their kid wrestle for 10 seconds before either pinning a kid or getting pinned themselves. (this was coming from a friend of mine whose kid wrestled in high school and placed at state his senior year a few years back) I can understand that frustration, however, if all you go to a tournament for is to watch your kid wrestle then you arent a fan of the sport and you should probably drop your kid off to wrestle and go shopping or something. Heres something to consider from a rules standpoint: to conform to society's faster, quicker, now attitude lets revamp a couple of rules in the state constitution. I have listed 2 rules considering tournaments below that we need to take a look at modifying.

Rule 1-2-2
There is no limit to the number of matches per day per wrestler. Wrestling will not continue past 10:00 P.M. and no more than twelve hours per day.

Rule 1-2-3
No contestant shall wrestle in two (2) consecutive matches with less than thirty (30) minutes rest between matches, unless both of the coaches and wrestlers involved agree to waive the rest period.