First of all,,i take my hat off to the great wrestling and the totally committed people that did an awesome job with the state tournament. My son has been wrestling out of state (nebraska 3 yrs and california 1 yrs) since his last time here in the great state of Kansas. The overall committment to kids and the wrestling to kansas is second to NONE. He has been a 2 time state champ in Nebraska and a runner-up in California, but he and I really feel his greatest wrestling accomplishment has been medaling here in Kansas this year. The kids are really just that much better here. That says a lot about the kids and coaching here.

It is time though to seriously consider several things to enhance the tournament. A split format is seriously needed. We were there at 7:45 on Saturday, did not wrestle until about 2:00, then about 5:00 and it was roughly the same on Sunday. We live nearby, it was not a travel issue, but my other kids and wife were pretty miserable with the long waits.

It is time to give it a shot for a year, see how it goes, adjust and go from there. It can work, believe me. I was not a believer until i had the experience for myself.

Some other things needed. A warm up area for wrestlers, a couple of extra mats in the exhibition hall for wrestlers only to warm up, stretch out, get out of the killer seats of the expocenter. Those of you that went to the NCAA's saw what i am talking about. The floor during the finals was way too packed as well, perhaps bull pen up the finalists in a warm up area, keep the extra people from coming down on the floor.

Also if there is no way for coolers to be brought in to a "family" area in the exhibition hall, then there needs to be some sort of other choices for available food.

Consider doing the announcing similar to the NCAA tournament, it really adds a lot as those who have been there will add.

These are just suggestions, i really appreciate all the super-hard work that was done, as a total wrestling lover, coach, parent, i just want to offer things from my experience that could help others and Kansas to be just that much better.