I have saw some discussion about the split format and many people seem to like the split format. After seeing how many people liked it I started to wonder how many people would be in favor of at least trying this once at state.

jrob1982,

I really liked the split format idea and I just voted yes for trying it one year. However, I'm not sure how it would work at State with 16 person brackets. Would you try to run 8, 10, 12 on Saturday and then 14 & 16 on Sunday? Is that the scenario on how you would envision it working?

Edit: Actually it would probably have to be 8,
10 and 16 on Saturday and then 12 & 14 on Sunday since I think there are less 16 years old normally and that might even out the two days some.

We could talk about that later vince if it would ever get passed to try it once, maybe splitting it like that or else splitting it to where the younger kids wrestle in the morning and older kids in the afternoons

Here are some things I think would be positive if we split it up

1 mat space
2 less cost for clocks
3 less cost of officials
4 less time between matches
5 younger kids could stay and learn from older kids and not have to worry about wrestling on their mat
6 if we wanted we could use a head and assistant ref after the first round

I never heard of this befor but i like the idea lets give it a try for one year if it dont work go back.

dont they always just wrestle the front side of the brackets. then everybody has to come back the next day. seems like a money thing. ill go with anything that shortens the amount of time we have to spend at any tournament. and with split formats you dont have to wait 60 matches to wrestle again. how about having 8u at the same time as 6u

silver1,

The 11/3/02 Minutes from the USAW Kansas Kids Wrestling State Body Meeting indicated a change for this year's format. It stated that this year the format will be: Main front door round, front door, back door, front door (semi-final matches) on the first day.

The last two years the format was three front doors and then the 1st back door. You are correct that two years ago many had to wrestle their first back door on the second day. I believe last year though just about everyone did get to wrestle at least two matches the first day. The first back door matches though were pretty late in the day and a long wait from the first match. The wait for the first back door will not be as long this year and the last front door (semi-final matches) will be the last matches wrestled on the first day this year.

There is no 6 & under at the State Meet.

You can't talk about it later, your not going to get anything passed unless you have a plan on how it will work. I'm not saying it is good or bad idea but if you really want to try it you have to have it all mapped out on how it will work better and sell people on the idea.

I know coach, I just wanted to see if people would be interested in the idea. Before I started looking at to much planning. Here is what my original plan was though

Saturday AM
8 and under 18 weights
10 and under 20 weights
12 and under 22 weights
Run 12 mats which would give you 5 brackets per mat

Run first round, then front side first round, then backside first round (In a full bracket that is 16 matches. Which would give you 80 matches per mat if all brackets were full. I figure 20 matches per hour so that is four hours)

Saturday PM

14 and under 24 weights
16 and under 20 weights

You could break it down to however many mats under your original 12. Eight mats would probably be plenty gives you a little over five brackets per mat.

Run same matches as AM


Sunday AM

8,10,12

Cross Bracketing, Wrestle Semis, then backside quarters, backside semis. (Gives you 13 matches on sunday per bracket If you subtract the 3 placing matches thats 10 per bracket on 12 mats.) Break it down for your parade of champions to nine mats for medal rounds. So that each weight would be able to run all at once like they currently do.

Sunday PM
14, 16

Run same as AM

jrob1982:

I like your concept of how it might work a lot better than the possibility I put up there. I can see you have given it some thought.

Twenty matches per hour is not realistic. Remember, in this organization even the best ideas take three years to get passed by the body.

sportsfan02:

You are no doubt correct about the 20 matches in a hour not being right, especially with the 12 & unders in there (1.5 minute periods) and you should not have the scratches at State that you might see in another tournament. The planning for jrob1982's proposal would need some adjustment but it is just his initial thoughts.

I'm not sure about your three year wait statement though. A few years ago I made a proposal for an additional weight class for 8 & under (88 lbs.). It was approved within a few months and implemented the very next season. I know this proposed change is way more significant, but it might not take three years to actually get approved by the State Body. I agree though with Coachjt that it would require some fast planning for any hope of any change for next year or the following year. First though like jrob1982 said maybe the poll over the next four weeks will give indication if there is enough support for this type of change.

Whats realistic? 15 matches an hour even at that rate it takes five and a half hours, so the younger kids would be out by say we start at nine by 230 older kids start at 3 are out by nine saturday.

bump

Richard:

If what you are saying is true, taking the average 7 matches per hour that would mean it would take 12 hours to get to match 84. Even the best number you used 8 matches per hour would mean 12 hours to match 96. I know that is not the norm for a regular tournament. Maybe that is the norm at the State tournament, but if it is that is part of what needs to be corrected. I would think that going out of bounds would have to be a major factor in that length of time per match at State. If we could get bigger mats that would help shorten the time per match. I would be hopeful that bigger mats would be part of a new format.

I suppose change is good. I personally don't like the idea of messing with our State Tournament. Every year someone is on here trying to make it better, make it shorter, less matches on the backside, quicker on the front, finish it as fast and best we can and do what? There were many a time I got very nervous hoping the cutoff would come guaranteeing we would get to wrestle the second day. The kids, the coaches and the families, I have worked really hard (not really but I have invested a lot of time) getting to this point. Why not as Kevin Klemm said the other night, savor it like it was the finest steak. Bite by bite, enjoying every bite, every minute of it, enjoying every kid. Make it last! Luck on our side and a bunch of good hard wrestling maybe we'll take a dozen to the state tournament. They have ran, sweat and cried together and some want to split format them and separate them? Matt's first year he was carried on the shoulders of some of the older boys. They sure helped Matt with a lot of the stress dealing with such a big deal and so many people. Such a big tournament. He learned a great deal of wrestling from watching those boys. You will never get my vote to split them up.

Ditto. Well said, Dan (and Kevin Klemm!) When my son was younger, I watched the older wrestlers with great admiration, as did he. Now that he's older, we really enjoy watching the little ones. I think it would be a shame to take away from the cameraderie of the team to separate them at the State tournament, the Big Show! I appreciate the convenience of the split format at Districts (even though I will be there all day), but the State tournament is a great experience from the opening parade to the picture taking at the end, from 8&U to 16&U, and one in my opinion that is great the way it is.

I believe the longer you have been in wrestling the more tolerable you find some of these long tournaments. Most of the people on this forum on a regular basis have been involved in wrestling for a long time and I believe are very willing to spend a lot more of their time at tournaments than the average sports fan or 7 to 10 year old wrestler. This is my son's 6th year and I did not wrestle as a youth. My youth experience was with sports that took a lot less time than our typical weekend wrestling meet. It was very difficult our first few years of his wrestling to accept all this time spent at a typical tournament. My guess that is that some families drop out early because of it and especially are more likely to do that if their child is not having initial success. I think there is a strong possibility my family would have dropped out, if my son did not have initial success.

It was stated that it takes about 11 hours to complete the first day if you are the last to leave on your mat. I may be wrong but I just think that is too long for 7 to 10 year old kids to be spending in that arena. I don't think most of them are spending all that time really watching other matches either. At least my son never did at those ages. If even under our current system we were to do a split format which for the sake of argument might add 45 minutes per session than the maximum time for one session would be 6.25 hours instead of 11. Personally, I think that would be plenty of time for my son to experience good wrestling benefits. Also as was stated you would be free to stay and watch the session you were not participating in. What would be wrong with giving people the choice to attend or not attend the session they are not competing in?

Edited: We stayed an extra hour or so at Pittsburg this weekend just to watch my son's practice partner wrestle his championship match but that was our choice. I'm glad we were not forced to stay that extra hour to cheer him on. I bet it meant more to him that we made the choice and were not forced to do so.

We got to experience a split format in a tournament today and I can not see why people would not want to do this. The matches seemed to move quicker, I know people were excited they were getting out of there so early. And the older kids enjoyed not having to get up so early.
Am I missing the cons of this type of format?

I like it the way it is. Your still going to be there both days, speacialy if you have multi kids in differt ages wrestling at state.

Yeah cramming 3-5 matching in a 3-4 hour period is the way to go. OK maybe individually split session is the way to go but as a team or group and even for coaches IT OBSOULTLY STINKS My club who traditionally come down as a unit and leave the event in the same fashion didn’t enjoy having kids wrestle back to back matches, having older kids wait half the day in boredom, and then still didn’t leave till after 5pm. I know Bonner Spring was the exception but we were out of sub at 2:30 and most open tournament not long after… Ottawa Split wasn’t over till 5 or 6 pm and I can’t see how anyone will want to eliminate the STATE EXPERIENCE for a split… Or just think about going through the back door of a 16 man bracket in a split session. Can u wrestle 3 or 4 matches in a row ever 30-45 minutes… I THINK NOT!!!