In the next eight days the Kansas Kids Folkstyle season will wind down and wrap up with the awarding of the plaques to the top six in each age and weight group. This culminates a long season of driving to practice, traveling to tournaments, blood, sweat, and many tears. I want to congratulate not only all of those who will place but all of those who set foot on a mat this year.

On the Monday after the state tournament time the readership of this forum will fall drastically and most of you will go into wrestling hibernation. Before you go into that well deserved slumber read this and send email to our leadership about the things you support and the things you would like changed.

Each year for the past three years the number of card buyers has increased but the number of sub district participants has fallen. The majority of parents site the length of the season but little has been discussed at the Executive Board level to implement changes to the present schedule. How many of you would like to have a spring break that didn't involve three or four nights of practice for districts? How many of you would love to take your wrestlers to the Big 12 or NCAA wrestling tournament (Next year the NCAA's are in Omaha)? How many of you (and clearly the number of card buyers speaks for this) would like to see a 6U Division at State? How many of you would like to eliminate subdistricts for 16U (the largest group of no shows EVERY year)?

In April the Executive Board will be voting for a state tournament site in 2010. I am advocating and looking for all of you to support a 1 year contract that will allow us to explore some options that will REALLY make a difference. 6U, 8U, 10U State could be held the weekend before high school regionals which would allow it to move around the state to each district. This would allow our current tournament to grow.

Believe it or not we are at capacity folks. Wichita is the ONLY city that can comfortably host our existing event. There are hotel room issues, parking issues, mat space issues, etc. We couldn't add an age group if we had to!

Eliminate subs for 12U, 14U, and 16U. After high school state have a district tournament the FOLLOWING WEEKEND for 12U, 14U, 16U, and 18U. Use high school weights for 16 and 18. This tournament would be able to move around the state as well. Gross Coliseum in Hays, Lee Arena, Expo Center, Bicentennial Center, Kansas Coliseum, etc.

This would close our Folkstyle season two weeks earlier eliminating spring break conflict, NCAA Conflict, USA Middle School Duals Conflict, Baseball conflict, soccer conflict, etc.

Nobody on here loves wrestling more than I do so I am not saying kids should stop wrestling earlier. There are plenty of other wrestling options. Wichita could host a national kids tournament, so could Hays. More FS/GR tournaments could be created. There are lots and lots of wrestling opportunities YEAR ROUND. Our season is too long for the majority of our members and this is causing a shrinkage in the participation level of state tournament series.

If your organization is NOT GROWING then it is SHRINKING. Please believe me, we are SHRINKING at this time. Our state tournament cannot grow in its present state, IT MUST CHANGE. When you fail to change inside your organization faster than the changes outside of your organization then your organization will become obsolete! The idea above will promote growth and capture a larger percentage of our card buyers into our two state tournament series. I don't want to hear that people cannot afford two state tournaments because those same people would be going to a tournament somewhere every weekend just like they are now. This proposal eliminates two weeks of mandatory wrestling for the present state series for the older kids and four weeks for the younger kids. We have to figure out how to GROW and how to RETAIN our members from one year to the next.

Remember, only an idiot thinks that improvement will happen without change. I want to believe we have NO idiots in our organization so it is time to IMPROVE our sport. Encourage your District's leadership to vote for a one year contract and start generating some ideas to grow now. If we keep shrinking sooner, not later, it will be too late.