Packerholic4,

Jeff's suggestion does not include moving 16&U out. I would hope that you would be wrong about the 4&U comment, but you never know.

I believe you are correct about the potential for some kids to be tempted to do more weight cutting.
I am not sure how severe that problem would be with this new system. My gut feeling is that at the grade school level it would not be too bad because I don't believe that most parents would let their grade schools kids do anything that severe for a Kids Grade School State Wrestling. I do believe there is more danger for that at the high school level but that is something that the high schoolers would be carrying over from their high school season.

The problem with weight brackets especially in the older age brackets in 12,14 & 16 is that we have several every year that we are not able to field a full 16 bracket at State and in some we only get 1-3 wrestlers in the entire State. I just looked at the lighter weights this year but I noticed 12U 60 only had 3 at State, 14&U had 2 at 70 and 3 at 75, 16U had 2 at 95 and only 3 at 100. At subs and districts the problem is even worse. Actually I think if you eliminate some of these lowest weights at an age bracket that it would promote less weight cutting because no one would be trying to get down to those lower weights anymore since they would be eliminated. When you eliminate weights in the middle or high end you could have some potential for unhealthy weight loss.

I have never been in favor of 6U at State for two reasons. First I am concerned about kids and parents being ready for it and it might actually cause families to drop from the sport early. I worry that the pressure to succeed at State might be too great on the kids and families. I believe it would have been for my family. My second reason is that I believe that our current system at State could not handle another age bracket due to facility limitations.

Smokeycabin is probably going to be disappointed with me but I am starting to change my opinion on 6&U being at State someday. I know that they have been wrestling 6&U at Salina, Wichita-Park City, Liberty Nationals and now the 6&U finale at Ottawa for several years now along with all the other in-season open tournaments across the State. I think as a State we can see that this group is building a good track record of competing at some bigger tournaments. If they can handle Wichita, Salina and other big tournaments, maybe they can handle State.

As far as my other concern about the facility limitations at Topeka to handle another age group, I believe Jeff Broadbent has proposed a potential way to address that problem. I still would like to see bigger mats for the younger age groups at State and I believe that 12&U especially needs full mats. I am still not sure you could accomplish that with just Jeff's proposed changes. I think you would need some new tournament format like split tournament, a third day of competition or a longer wrestling day in a two day format to accomplish a goal of bigger mats for the younger kids too.