Greg Grater
Executive State Director
2318 Utah Rd.
Green KS 67447

There is no standard form required for proposed rules changes, it just need to clearly state what changes are being requested.

I would recommend that any motion(s) for changing age and weight classifications be presented separately. Some may not be opposed to one change but still vote no because they feel strongly about the other change. Just my thoughts....

I personally like aligning the age groups by the school class. I feel the national committee is behind the times on this one…maybe there should be a petition to change their age classifications. Right now in Kansas the age division, in a sense, is separated by the wrestlers “grade” in school:

2nd & 3rd
4th & 5th
6th & 7th
8th & 9th
10th & 11th

At a National tournament, a 4th grader with a late September birthday, can be lumped in with 5th as well as 6th grade kids. In Kansas a 17 year old junior, with a late September birthday, can participate in the 16 year old class and prepare for his senior season. If we switch to the National age divisions, this same kid would not be eligible. If a change of age classification is pushed forward, I would agree that a better division of class would be:

1st & 2nd
3rd & 4th
5th & 6th
7th & 8th
9th, 10th, and 11th

This would bring in some of our older 6U kids into the State format and group our middle school/high school kids together. Keeping our high school kids grouped together would add some additional meaning and bragging rights in crowning a “Grand State” champion (minus the senior classman).

Mark

If you could convince the national people to change I would agree with you. I propose we go with what the national level uses if we want our kids to someday compete on that level. When they change we should change also.

Slap2414 wrote:
"The whole topic on 6&U is the parents want their kids at the state tournemant why not wrestle the six and unders in exhibition hall where the kids way in, and I think it should be a tournemant open to all 6&U kids without having to wrestle through to rounds of the playoffs. This would take all the pressure off of the kids and give all the parents the bracket they want at state and all would be happy without removing kids from the 16&U who have wrestled for many years in the Kansas Wrestling Club."

Do you have any idea how many 6&u kids show up for the Ottawa 6&u State Championship? These kids would not even come close to fitting in that area! We have been to this tournament for the last 3 years. There have been 2-3 64 man brackets and 5-6 32 man brackets each year. As opposed to the 16 man brackets at big kids state.
I don't want to see the 16 &u get moved out but I think the 6&u deserve to be there too.

Do you realize that if the weight brackets are changed to the USAW weights without adding the modifications, we would loose 400 kids( 25 brackets x 16) at the state tournament. And the modifications added are at the low end of each of the brackets. Most of the lower brackets aren't full at the state tournament the way it is. Keep in mind that if this change is made to add 144 6U, you will keep 400 kids at the other age brackets from participating at state. I would like to see 6U at the tournament but not at the expense of 400 other deserving wrestlers. As far as the age cutoff, the present date seems to follow the kids and the grade they are in.(ex; 4th and 5th graders overall at the 10U). We are going to a national tournament in Iowa in a couple of weeks and the age requirements are the same as Kansas and the weight brackets are almost the same.

I believe many of those brackets would be filled out by the USAW weight change,no more byes in the 52 lb ten and under that my son will probably wrestle in next year, instead all of them will be in the 55lb bracket. All those kids wouldn't be missing from state because they would be filling out the brackets at other weights. It would make many things more competitive, it would allow our kids/coaches a more complete assessement of how they are doing before they tackle a national tourney with a weight/age change from their state requirements.
I really think we need to go with the age requirement also, we need to mirror national requirements if we want our kids to understand what competing at that level is like. When the USAW makes a change we should try to follow them if the goal for the best is to wrestle at that level.

To SEK Coach the exibition hall is no smaller than the cattle barn Wichita is held in, and almost all the brackets are 32 man brackets and is is all ran in one day. I don't buy your point!

The number of kids who participated in Ottawa would not be the same number that would participate at state - correct? Only the top 16 in each weight bracket would participate. The remainder would not be eligible to compete. Would the Ottawa tournament become the consolation tournament for those who didn't qualify for state?

How many of these kids go on to compete at a national level? I don't think but a very small percentage consistently participate in any national event. Bottom line, there would be less kids having the opprotunity to experience the State Tournament. It seems to me the way the tournament has gone the last few years, why change it. It has been a great tournament and run very well. If 6U can be added without losing the older kids, it would be great, but I don't think you are helping wrestling by taking 400 8u, 10u, 12u, 14u and 16u kids from the great state tournament to add 144 6u.

Shudog,

It is this short-sighted thinking that hurts this sport. You are complaining about the possibility of losing 400 wrestlers scattered between the 8, 10, 12, 14, & 16's. They at least have the opportunity to compete against kids their age to qualify for this tournament.

What about the nearly 1700 6 year olds that would like to compete on a level playing field.

What if we made the weight classes every 2 pounds. How many more 8, 10, 12, 14, & 16's could we squeeze into the Expocentre?

Then we could see ALL the kids compete at the State Tourney!

That is not what this tournament or this post is about.

I would like to see us abide by the recognized weights of our parent organization "USA Wrestling" (with slight modifications to resemble our lighter starting weights and a couple toward the heavier end).

For those who are worried about our kids cutting weight. (Which is becoming more and more of a problem).

If you were to use USAW's weights, there would be less chance for a kid to cut to the next lower class due to the weight classes being further apart.

I hate to throw cold water on this thread but I believe our executive board voted last year to NEVER consider 6U being allowed at state again. I would defer to Mr. Salyer regarding the constitutionality of such a vote but I believe it was almost unamimous. For the record I do support 6U at state BUT believe the above proposed age and weight adjustments are the wrong way to go about it.

Sportfan02: Are you referring to the Executive Board meeting on 9/19/04 that our Kids Divison section has an agenda that can be accessed? I did not see any minutes for that meeting but I did see that 6 & Under at Qualifying tournaments was going to be discussed. So if it was voted by the executive council to never to consider 6U at State again and not reported in any minutes, this is the first any of us heard of such a vote. Even if they voted this way, I would say this is just wishful thinking on their part. This topic is very popular with some and unpopular with others, but it is always discussed very year and I don't believe it is going away. I would think that they could erase such a vote just as quickly as they made it and could they really avoid it at a State Body meeting if the majority wanted to discuss it? It is not going away just because they made this vote.

I am not in favor of 6U at State. I am in favor of the 7U (2 grade & U), 9U (3rd & 4th), 11U (5th & 6th), 14U (7th & 8th) with no high school (9th grade & up) participation in this class. 14U instead of 13U for the last grade school class to give an opportunity to those 8th graders who started school late or were held back one year. This is similar to the one Mark Stanley described above with the exception that I believe he is proposing that his 9th,10th & 11th grade division still be held at the same time and place as the elementary Kids State tournament.

I would like to see a separate post season high school tournament sponspored by our Kids USA State organization and held at maybe at Salina that would be open to all high school classes freshmen thru Seniors. I don't think you would need qualifying tournaments for this high school tournament. If logistically possible, maybe you could include a JV divison at this post season high school tournament to reach those high schoolers who are new to wrestling or not yet competitive with the elite high school wrestlers. As an alternative this JV division could maybe be held with the Kids division tournament in Topeka but I would advocate as the KWCA did in 2002 for the Kids tourament to be held before the regular season high school tournament.

This was reported in the USAW Kansas Kids Wrestling State Body Minutes 11/03/02: "The KWCA had approached Mike and said that they would like to see the Kids wrestling season end earlier. They would like to see it end before High School State, take a couple of weeks break, and then start the summer freestyle-Greco-roman season. They honestly feel we are going too long!! A brief discussion followed, but it was decided to leave as is."

Some other thoughts on what has been discussed so far:

1. Exhibition hall for an age group: Whoever you put there in my opinion is eventually going to feel that they are not getting treated equal with the groups wrestling in the more attractive main arena setting, so if you are wanting to add younger wrestlers you are probably going to have to either add another day to the tournament or eliminate an age group.

2. I too think the age as of August 31st birthday is good because it keeps the majority of kids wrestling every year with the kids in their own grade school class. I agree that the majority do not wrestle in national tournaments so you should not adjust this cutoff date to try to just serve the minority that do. I am not sure I accept your argument about that either, Jeff Roberts. It seems to me if you are trying to make a wrestler more competitive that Kansas kids who are born before August 31 would be better served by wrestling in Kansas in a higher age group thru the year. Wouldn't a wrestler who turns 13 in August be better prepared wrestling Kansas wrestlers 14 & U than the younger 12 & U kids during the year?

3. Jeff Broadbent, I really do agree with you that we should change the weight brackets to fill out better some of these weight brackets at Subs, Districts and State. But Jeff that would have to be extremely abnormal to find a 4th grader in 8&U. They would have had to start a year early. It is still that they have to be 8 on 8/31 no matter what grade they are in. I also have to disagree with your other point about weight cutting being less likely with a larger weight bracket differential. I think the opposite is true. For instance in my son's 14&U 165 that would be eliminated, I think a 165 pounder is more likely to cut to 160 than wrestle at 171, but I do agree we should make this change. We only had one 160 pound wrestler at District 1 Subs South and only 4 at Districts. Or perhaps a better example would be what my own situation would have been at Nationals this year. I am a 1950 birth year so I would be in Veterans Division D (Born in 1951 and Before). I weigh about 225 facing the options of weight classes 214 or 215-287. This unreasonable large weight differential of up to 287 pounds that I would encounter would tempt me to shed 11 pounds of muscle to compete at 214. Truthfully, Jeff you have met me. Do you think that would be wise for me to lose 11 pounds?

To Slap2414- The other point I was trying to make (and apparently not very effectively) was I do not think it is fair to compare the Ottawa 6 & u championship to the Big kids state. These 6 & u kids are required to wrestle these 64 and 32 man brackets in ONE day! Most of the kids in the middle weights will have wrestled any where from 6-8 matches if they make it to the finals! I know this to be a fact because my son did it 2 years ago. Is this really what want for Kansas USA wrestling?

Vince,

While it may be rare for a 9 year old 4th grader, it does still seem very unfair to have a preschool child compete against a 3rd grader or 2nd grader. Perhaps I should have said a 5 year old competing against a 9 year old.

That is a whole different topic that I dont want to address on this thread so we dont confuse people. The two subjects arent tied together. You can change weights without affecting the age groups.

VanFam7,

Are you aware, according to H.S. rules, it is illegal for a competitor to wrestle more than 5 matches in one day.

Yes, I am.

Do you know how many matches it takes to wrestle to completion a 64 man bracket?

Jeff:

I was trying to kid around with you a little. I do agree it is not fair to have a 9 year old against a 5 year old. Personally though I would not be thinking of putting a 5 year old in the State tournament environment. My personal belief is that the majority of 5 year olds and probably even their parents are not ready for it. I know there are exceptions both for kids and their parents. I am sure that your family could definitely do it. I don't think I personally would have been ready when my son was five and he didn't even start until he was 7 which I think was soon enough for him.