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