Vince,
Not sure what your point is. I believe the aforementioned wrestlers achieved greatness in spite of the system not because of it. The East Kansas Wrestling Club provided an opportunity that hasn't been replicated since Kevin Klemm left. That opportunity filled the gap. Those who want to be great will do whatever it takes to get there. It is a problem when taxpayers support a group and a system that they have absolutely no say in. Did you not read the list of conditions that have to be met to change a KSHSAA rule? In a recent dialogue with Rick Bowden he disagreed that not much has changed in Kansas High School wrestling and he pointed out the fact that they use software to run tournaments now. It is that sort of mentality that will continue to keep pushing the top down instead of bringing the bottom up. Sure I would love some D1 programs and I have placed some of my energy in that effort too. I know you don't like the weight options but at least they can be explained. When they added women's wrestling they took away some of the weight classes to fit the number of scholarships. They did this by looking at the distribution of athletes overall and unfortunately there are fewer wrestlers on the right side of the curve. Those athletes have many other sports opportunities. You will not find many 145 to 171 pound football, basketball, hockey D1 starters. It is odd to me that in Iowa they have just a greater number of inhabitants by just a small percentage but they have several D1 wrestling opportunities. They have several venues to host large scale events. For goodness sakes, North Dakota has a venue far superior to anything Kansas has to offer and there are probably more deer than there are people in North Dakota! All of these things bother me too but my tax dollars support the KSHSAA and they don't do ENOUGH to improve the sports opportunities for our athletes. They block the ability to choose to improve and that is just plain wrong. They are governed by the minority instead of a simple majority which is not how a democracy is supposed to work. Vince, you can find exceptions to every situation but the overall oppression cannot be denied. That is my point.

I think you will see Johnson County high school wrestling hit a low point next year. Just get out your program from last year's Classic and see who is returning and who the incoming 8th graders are. For being the most populous county in the state we are going to have a low quality of wrestling and largely due to the oppression and continued philosophy of letting everyone be happy by making it easy to go to state and easier to place at state than a large majority of the rest of the states in the country. KSHSAA's members do not, apparently, want to educate our youth by telling them you get rewarded when you work harder. Instead they give more opportunities to feel good and hold back the best from gettng better so the bottom doesn't have to work hard. The coaches who don't want to coach won't let those who want to, those who don't want to travel mandate that those who want to can't, surely you see the picture.