VanFam7,

125 matches if wrestling to top 6 - per bracket

63 front side & 62 back side

I guess I should just interject right here and say that I doubt any weight changes whatsoever are going to happen, and quite honestly thats the way it should be. I think most clubs in this state are satisfied with the weights and ages the way they are, I know I certainly am. Don't be too terribly surprised if the vote (if one even happens) doesn't go in your favor.

Nigel, you like to bring people clamoring for change back down to reality. You seem to love to tell us -- Don't waste too much of your time folks it just is not going to happen!!! As you know Nigel I am about 30 years older than you and I have seen a lot of change in my 54 years that I thought would never happen. Just the fact that you, myself and everyone else on this forum are able to be typing away on our own personal computers and communicating with each other that anyone in the world can have access to is an amazing change that I have seen in my lifetime that most people when I was a kid would have said, "Yeah right go back to reading your comics".

I could go on and give you an extensive list of things that have changed in my lifetime that people would have never thought would happen. In many of these changes that have happen in the world of science, business, politics, religion, the media, even television itself, etc., I am sure there were people telling the people who initiated the change to, "Stop wasting your time it just not going to happen". Those people who made these changes happen, just did not listen and stubbornly made these things happen. One thing you will learn Nigel as you get older is that change does happen. Sometimes it is good and sometimes it is not so good. But the one thing consistent in life is change and most people and organizations need it to grow and survive. A lot of times change comes slow and the people struggling to make it happen will encounter many failures along the way, but if you really believe in something you don't give up and you keep trying to find a way to make it happen. I am glad that some of these people who made some of these positive changes in my lifetime did not give up and listen to those who were discouraging them.

So you say you are satisfied with the weights and ages that we now have and you also think most people are. That may be true certainly about your thoughts on it. I don't know about most people. It sure seems there are a lot of people who believe that six and under should be included at State. I also believe there are some people out there questioning whether 16 and under needs to be included at State. I believe that there are also quite a few who are questioning the weight brackets in all age groups but especially 14U & 16U. You say you are not one of them so I guess you think it is okay that we are seeing more and more of weights like 14U 160 (not the extreme end of 14U weights) where in District 1 we only had four participants at District and only one at the South Subdistrict. We did not end up with 16 wrestlers at State in 14U 165. During the season my son who was at 165 wrestled kids from about 150 to 185. Do you think they might want to consider the need to have 150,155,160,165,and 175 and might consider going to 152,160,171,189 like in high school?

I know one thing Ned Price our Kids State Competition Director is considering weight changes. If you haven't read his post from March 14 1:03 PM in this thread, read it and you will see that may be the people suggesting change with the weights are not just wasting their time. I also would suggest you read the minutes from the recent State Body meeting (you can find those by clicking on the Kids Division link on this website) you will find this in the minutes:

"State Competition Director: Ned Price said the Folkstyle Camp, for the fourth year in a row, had declining numbers. It seems that more clubs are doing camps at the local level. In looking at the summer schedule, Ned stated there were 22 other camps held in Kansas so they felt this was a major reason for in the decline in participation. The executive council has decided not to host a camp and focus our funds in other ways to promote folkstyle wrestling. Richard Sayler asked if anyone had actually looked at why the numbers were down. Ned said that the Sunflower Tournament had changed dates / state baseball tournament / freestyle & Greco tournament in Fargo seems to be contributing." (My comment to you Nigel is that the executive council is willing to make a change when they recognize a need to do so).

A little further in the minutes you will find this paragraph:


"Ned is also going to do a study on weight classes. He will be looking at the number of participants from the past 4-5 years and will be making a proposal to the executive council about eliminating weights where there are only a few wrestlers."

So in conclusion, Nigel, maybe this time people are not just wasting their time and my prediction is that you are going to witness many changes in Kansas Kids wrestling in the coming years. Who knows you may even someday see 6&U at State and a separate post season high school tournament. Many of these future changes will occur because the powers to be will be listening to people on this forum and will react to their input. And you know what in the few years that I have been on this forum, I think there has been one or two changes that have already happened like that.

Vince,

Well Stated!

By the way Nigel, it seems as though you were totally against the idea of split format tournaments as well.

For the record, we did do a split format tourney this year and had many people come up to specifically say "thank you" for running it as split format.

I think you know how we will run it again next year --- Split Format!

We have seen the benefits of getting people in and out and not having to keep them there the entire day.

Mr. Nowak,

It is difficult to believe that you think that just because a small number of people here in Kansas are dissatisfied with the current system we have, that some major changes are going to happen. So let me say this.

Regarding the elimination of extreme upper and lower weight classes from applicable age groups is a good idea in my opinion and I would not be oppossed to that. There is no reason to have weight groups when they aren't consistantly filled up. However regarding AGE groups that you will not see changed anytime soon. I have been in this sport for going on 15 years now, and the age groups now are the same age groups back then with the exception of 6&U which I am not sure about. You and a few of your cohorts seek to change a system that works perfectly fine as it is now without good reason. You talked about how you think their is some wide gap between ages which at this point is no more than 3 years excluding the 6&U wrestling up.

You also seek to eliminate an age group (16&U) for other reasons unknown, I mean heck have you ever stopped to consider the feelings of the kids in this age group? These are kids that grew up through the other age categories, and you want to just cut them off, because quote "They have high school state" Well did you ever stop to consider that manybe some of these kids in the 16&U category aren't all state qualifiers. But you propose a seperate tournament just for them. Why stop there? Why don't we just have a seperate tournament for each of the age groups, and then there will be plenty of mat space for everybody, and you Mr. Nowak and every other selfish person who thinks the same way only have to be there to see the certain age groups you came to watch.

You want to end the season earlier for everybody because you think kids get burnt out and so on and so forth. Well I can tell you most of the kids still wrestling into March WANT to still be wrestling, and those that don't aren't under any obligation to do so, just as you as a spectator/coach/anything aren't required to be there. My attitude towards you, and others who think like you do, is if you don't like it get away from the sport. And I say that with the utmost of respect towards you. This sport owes you or I nothing, we owe it. I'm out on the wrestling mat 2-3 days a week for 5 months because I love the sport. But I see things like this where people are trying to change things to satisfy their own agendas and it upsets me greatly. I've been through the Kansas Kids wrestling system, and I loved every minute of it, I wrestled through the weight classes until I was no longer young enough to compete, and even after being a multi time state placer in high school I STILL looked forward to being able to compete in the 16&U category in Kids wrestling, and I gladly paid the $30 to wrestle 3 more weekends.

Perhaps now you understand my objection to you and Mr. Broadbents relentless compaign, to sum up everything that I've said, its an old addage that goes "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" And I think many people would agree WE (Kansas Wrestling) are not broke. We can use a little tune up in terms of excess weight classes, but that is it.

Quite note on the split format thing. Perhaps you've already forgot about just how well your beautiful split format worked at the District I tourney? I've been to 3 splits this year and NONE of them ran any more smoothly than traditional, and the only ones who even noticed were the parents because they got to go home a whole 2 hours early.

Respectfully,

Nigel

Nigel,

To quote you.


" We can use a little tune up in terms of excess weight classes, but that is it."

See there, even those who are just fine with the current system, readily admit there are too many weight classes.

That has been my point with this complete thread. There are too many weight classes and if we did adhere to USAW weights (with slight modifications if needed) we would be better off.

Didnt think I would ever hear you admit it though. :-)

Jeff

Nigel:

Suggesting that we consider having a separate open post season high school tournament for all the high school classes and a JV division possibly at the same tournament is not the same thing as suggesting the elimination of an age class. It is just suggesting that we have their tournament at a different venue much the same as we are doing to 6&U now by having them have their season finale at Ottawa. I will admit that a few years ago that I did not think it was needed. But several people on this forum (yourself included) have convinced me since then that it is a good thing for a lot of the high school wrestlers to get some more folkstyle competition after their season is over.

The idea of having the Kids season end early did not originally come from me. It came from the KWCA (I made the assumption there are some pretty knowledgable wrestling people in the KWCA). I read about it our the Kids State Body meeting minutes back in 2002 I believe. I quoted those minutes in this thread or the other topic I introduced recently. I think their proposal makes sense both for the high school kids and the grade school kids. The point Nigel is not that they would not be wrestling in March but that they would take a few weeks off and then come back refreshed to do freestyle both high schoolers and grade schoolers.

Jeff Broadbent, thank you for your comment about my post and I really thank you about you offering a split tournament in our KCKS area. By the way Nigel the only aspect of the District 1 split that I thought needed a little tweaking is that I agree with the poster who said they needed to make a definite time for the start of the 2nd session. If they had said it would start no sooner than 1PM or 1:30PM they would have avoided a lot of the congestion that was created at the tournament in the parking lot and in the gyms around 10:30 to 12:30. My son was in the 2nd session (I believe you were the ref at one of his matches) and once the session started I thought it moved very well. Again you underestimate the benefit of the split in saving time to the participants. I am sure it was more than what you stated for most people and the other value is that wrestlers do not have to wait forever between matches. Most of them do not like to wait a long time between matches.

Nigel,

Your comment regarding the District 1 tournament is an absolute joke.

First lets increase the number of cars parked in the parking lot, or out of the parking lot where they could find room to park. Also lets just imagine both of those gyms, with the lack of seating to begin with. Now imagine them with twice the number of wrestlers and twice the number of spectators. You would have had several parents and the siblings of the wrestlers on the mat with you while refereeing, as there would have been no room to sit in the bleachers that were already full. Do you not remember how crowded it was around the mat in the H.S.

District 1, thank you for using split format. Although it did need to have some improvements (like held in the same building). It would have been far worse if it had been run as a conventional tourney.

Since nobody else will write but everyone really wants to say it: Nigel, you are truly an idiot. You would argue if God told you the sky was blue. Loren Anthony, is there a way we can petition to have Nigel's stripes removed because anyone who is a decent official shouldn't have to proclaim themselves as such by posting as much as he does. If I wasn't so entertained by the absolute absurdity I would start a petition to have his rights to post removed.

Weight class changes are tough because it is a moving target from year to year. Although, we should have enough data from past years to make some adjustments and changes. You could have two - one day tournaments. Some kids may wrestle more than 5 matches in a day - but I do not know if the rule (5 matches in a day) applies to kids. It would create a need for more volunteers at weigh-ins, table workers, seperate grand march, etc. The big thing in these larger tournaments is set up, mats, clocks, clean up at the end of the tournament. Maybe younger kids first day, older kids second day. Who knows for sure what the best format should be? Once we find that person then we'll have the answer. I was trying to call the phone number in the post above and the answering machine picked up.

Coach McCarthy

I would like to say to start with there does need to be changes to the weights because we have kids winning state that never even wrestle. There are so many classes when you get the team books which show every bracket you will notice every year there are multiple brackets with only one kid in the bracket, and I don't think this is fair to all the other kids like my son who have to bust their hump to place at state. I don't agree with removing an age group to add another we need to find a way to incorperate all the kids. I don't know what the answer is on how to do this, but I think it's wrong to lead a movement to remove kids who have been putting in their time through out the years in the Kansas Kids Clubs. One more thing the idea of wrestling by grade is a joke they do it in Nebraska and it is a serious joke. Nebraska goes by their own rules because multiple people wanted a new system which made the parents of the state all happy like what is being sugested on this page, but remember to make everyone happy cost the kids in Nebraska at tournemants across the country. Their kids have to change they way they have wrestled all year, and I know this first hand because I live on the line by Nebraska.

Mr. Cokeley you have no power whatsoever to petition to have anyone's right to post removed, as a matter of fact you don't have any power to do anything except whine and complain. Stripes removed! Ha even I got a laugh out of that. You take personal insults to a whole new level, Will Cokely, and then have to audacity to go spouting off who should and shouldn't be officials. If you have nothing better to do than sit around calling me names you need to get a better hobby. Right now I compare your level of maturity to that of an elementary school playground bully.

Now Mr. Broadbent regarding District I. As I stated earlier in another thread, I thought Baldwin did as best of a job that they could do considering the space they had. God forbid if people have to walk a little extra ways because parking is limited (ever been to a Wal-Mart Supercenter?). Honestly it is you as club members who have a voice in determining where the Sub and District tournaments are held each year. If one particular town doesn't have the facilities to host a tournament then perhaps it would be better to find a facility that does have the space, such as having it at the Washburn Campus in Topeka where they had their tournament earlier this year. But rather than find a suitable facility for any of the qualifier tournaments or even State itself, you would rather just eliminate the original "cause" of the problem, which of course is the sheer number of wrestlers we have. And you would do so by eliminating weight classes and even age groups is the process.

Mr. Broadbent and Mr. Nowak, I accept your opinion of the things you think are wrong with USAW Kansas, although I don't really agree with them. I do so on the basis that, what we have now, has survived and worked the last decade, as the number of children participating grows here in Kansas the solutions to the problems that are presenting themselves is not to just eliminate weight classes, which won't change the number of competitors. And it’s most certainly not to disregard entire age groups and alienate the very people for whom you wish to accommodate.

I'm sure you have both read the high school forum where people have suggested that Kansas wrestling is taking a back seat to other states. While this is certainly not true as indicated by the success of Kansas wrestlers at High School nationals, we as a state only get better with the inclusion of all of age groups we now have.

Yes we do have some space issues at SOME of the bigger tournaments of the year. Yes we do have SOME parents and coaches who are not as willing to put in the extra time that the others are. All of this I accept. However I think you will find that the more you try to change, the more other issues will pop up. The split tournament works well for those that truly believe they need to get home as soon as possible, and for that I applaud it. What you all need to understand is we will always have problems of some kind at every tournament. If you spend all your time trying to find problems, its going to be fairly easy. Sometimes you just have to “bite the bullet” and realize that life isn’t as bad as you would perceive it to be. What we are doing now isn’t do any long term damage to our kids, otherwise we wouldn’t have half of the numbers we have now, or had in the past. You say that some kids, parents, coaches are getting away from the sport because it is taking up too much of their time. I say let them go because these are going to be the same kids who probably aren’t going to find much success in our sport anyway. There is a strong correlation between the state champions we have year in and year out, and the sheer amount of time they put into the sport. I wasn’t the successful wrestler that I became because we had 1 hour practices , and I got done with tournaments at 12:00 pm. I also wasn’t at risk for quitting the sport just because I was there a little longer, or because I couldn’t find a parking space. The greats in our sport i.e the Bo Maynes’, the Zach Roberson’s, and pretty much every other champions we have didn’t get where they are by thinking up ways to get home and find some more elbow space. These are tiny things, that aren’t really going to matter to the people that make our sport here in Kansas great. How would you feel if Greg and Leanna Grater only put in half of the time they did now? Or anyone on our state board for that matter? Do you think the state of our program here in Kansas would be what it is without the work these people put in?

In any case, I can see that you two are as passionate about what you believe in as I am, and I respect that. I would encourage either or both of you to contact me personally by phone to discuss these issues, because posting on this forum is impersonal and does convey how a person truly is.

Nigel:

Again I am not suggesting to eliminate an entire age group. I am just suggesting that it might be better for both groups to have a separate grade school tournament and a separate post season JV/high school tournament. I would just like to see you be open to that possibility. Maybe it would be best for both groups and we would still be able to accomodate all the kids.

You state:

"I'm sure you have both read the high school forum where people have suggested that Kansas wrestling is taking a back seat to other states. While this is certainly not true as indicated by the success of Kansas wrestlers at High School nationals, we as a state only get better with the inclusion of all of age groups we now have"

Yes, I have read that and I actually saw what the Mo side kids did to the East Ks Kids two years ago. They were beating us on our feet badly. Your theory is that those Kansas seniors would have been better if they had been involved in the post season Kansas Kids State wrestling championships as high schoolers. First of all I think that some of the Kansas wrestlers did do the Kids State during their high school careers. Secondly I think many such as the KWCA people and Randy Hindletter would disagree and say that the Kansas Kids would have been more competitive with the Missouri Kids with more freestyle time instead of more folkstyle wrestling in the Kansas Kids State wrestling tournament.

I do like your suggestion about the Washburn Campus for District 1's tournament as a location. I don't know if that has ever been looked into, but maybe the fact that they do State the following week in Topeka would make it difficult for finding volunteers to run both. I think that might be a pretty good facility though. Does anyone know if it has ever been considered?

Nigel, I should have introduced myself at the District 1 tournament. Someone pointed you out to me when you were busy working a match as referee. Maybe we will meet sometime. Don't hesitate to meet me. I don't mind that we disagree on things. I hope you don't. I have had some good conversations with Mr. Tischhauser before. I doubt he remembers me since he meets so many people.

All school districts set a date for eligibility of a child to start school. Across Kansas and I would interpolate that to include most of the United States in general, a common date of eligibility is August 31st. If you walk into any elementary class, there are noticeable maturity gaps (both mental and physical) between that class and the next grade level. I don’t think it is too far of a stretch to say that from K-6th grade the maturity leap would best be fit to an exponentially increasing curve. When you jump two grade levels the maturity level is not only notable it is glaringly noticeable. You might have an advanced fourth grade child who fits into the average 5th grade classroom, but try and place him in a 6th grade class and more often than not he would be a fish out of water. Try and enroll a child into Kindergarten with a September 24th birthday a year early and you will be told the age restrictions are in place for a reason; “no exceptions” will be made. I know this from personal experience. I am actually glad there was a “no exceptions” rule in my district. While my son would have fit in with the class ahead of his, I now am fully aware of the advantages he will have being one of the older kids in his class.

The school cutoff date was the main reasoning for tying our age divisions to the August 31st date as opposed to the January 1st date used at the National level. As I said in an earlier post and many may disagree, I believe that the USAW leadership at the National level is behind the times in this area. To sum up my thoughts the downside of a January 1st cutoff are:
1. Bracketing 4th grade kids with 6th grade kids. Or for even more of a mismatch, a 6th grade kid with an 8th grader. Both scenerios are possible at the national level.
2. Eliminating the eligibility of a large number of junior classman.

Everyone has a different personal agenda. But while I think it is important to embrace change which will have a positive impact on our sport, these changes need to be evaluated and measured to see what the best fit for our sport is today and in the future. I do not think that we should just rubber stamp the National classifications without serious thought and modifications as deemed necessary; especially in regards to the age cutoffs. I am in favor of tweaking our classifications to better serve our currant membership, however I am not convinced that the January 1st cutoff is the way to go. At this time, I would consider any motion that included language to that effect a step into the past and could not support it.

I would also note that I have a younger son with a March 27th birthday that would benefit by a January 1st cut off. No matter which side of January 1st you are on you need to think about what is right for our sport as a whole. I think that keeping the kids grouped by the August 31st date is the fairest option for all.

Nigel,

You are off on another tangent!

Its getting ridiculous. My original post was to request thoughts regarding the situation concerning excess weight classes in USAW-Kansas, as opposed to our parent organization USAW!

That is all I wanted to see concerning this matter, which would affect the possibility of adding 6 year olds to the State Tourney, and not eliminating an entire age group.

Well let me finish by saying, To a degree a agree with you, we do have a small number of excess weight classes which can probably be dismissed. I would love to see 6&U's added to the State tourny, although I doubt very much if that will ever happen. But I would not be willing to make any changes regarding the 16&U age group in terms of their participation, nor would I like to see changes to reflect grade levels. The way it is now, you spend a year wrestling kids who are usually tougher than you, then the next year you are the one who is tough in your age group, I think this serves a purpose, which is you have to wrestle kids better than you to get better.

Jeff Broadbent, I know you probably got a little frustrated that this discussion on possibly not including 16&U at the Topeka Kids State and having the high school kids have a separate post season tournament got included in this topic. I apologize to you that I brought that proposal in your topic but not too many people wanted to discuss that in the other topic I introduced and I think a lot of people see a connection between adding 6&U and how can you do that without dropping an age group. I think Nigel has touched upon it in his last post. He fears that if you add 6&U it would come at the expense of 16&U at State and he is very opposed to that thought.

I know your theory is basically that we currently have 104 weight brackets and you are suggesting going away from our current weights to a modified verison of the national USAW weight system of 88 which you have modified to 98. The modification you have suggested would be under our current 104 (I am trusting your number of 104 to be correct), but I guess I am still have doubts that it would solve one of the main problems that I see which is not having full mats at State for most of the age brackets especially the 12&U group. Have you thought it out for the logistics of mat space? Would your system be able to allow for more mat space for more age groups? Could 12&U have full mats in your new system?

I would suggest fewer modifications to the USAW system. I agree with your 6U addition, I would only go with one addition in 8&U 43, one in 10&U 53, only one in 12&U 65, no additions in 14&U, I would go to the high school weights for 16&U but I would add 240 for no net change on your 16&U suggestion because 98 would be dropped. 14&U this year at the State tournament only had 2 at 70 and 3 at 75. 16&U only had 2 at 95 and 3 at 100. My modifications to yours would reduce it 5 more to only 93 weights.

Still, Jeff, will more age groups have more mat space? Can it be done without using Exhibition Hall?

Vince,

Now we are headed down the right track.

The modification area is where I was looking for input as I dont have all the numbers from tournaments gone by. Ned Price, I believe, is puttting those numbers together to see where we had a need for modifications to our current weight groups.

While there are some of the points that are in this thread that I may agree with, I think the most glaring need at this point is to FIX the weight classifications, as I do believe they need it. The second step is to get those 6 year olds to the State Tourney.

As I said before these are my thoughts.


Jeff

Then we'll have all these parents with these little stud 3 and 4 year olds wanting to go to state in the 6U but not wanting to wrestle a 7 year old if they make it. Hey, lets add 4u state and move the 14u out. When is it going to stop?? I think the weight changes would be promoting weight cutting. Not a good thing in our younger kids if we want to try and get kids involved in the sport of wrestling and for our sport to grow.