Here are 2 ideas that do not require any boundary changes or re-districting....
My biggest assumption with these ideas is that the state wants to stay at a max of 16 wrestlers per weight class for the state tournament.
Having said that, here are my 2 potential Courses of Action....
COA 1: If a district has a weight class with less than 4 wrestlers then those slots should be given to another district that has more than 4 wrestlers. Example: If U10 125 only has 2 kids in it at the District 4 meet and District 1 has 5 kids and District 2 has 5 kids then those 2 districts would each get to take 5 kids to state. If only 1 slot is available then you prioritize to the District with the most participants.
COA2: Distribute the number of kids that qualify from a district based on district population. Similar to the way automatic NCAA births are given to conferences at the D1 level. Now the college methodology is a lot more complicated and we don't need to make it that hard. You could do a percentage by age group based on population. For example....
1. Every district gets at least 2 automatic births per weight class (unless there is only 1 kids in the weight class in that district).
2. The remaining 8 slots are given to districts based on the population size for that age group. If Dist. 1 had 200 10U, Dist 2 had 150 10U, Dist 3 had 100 10U, and Dist 4 had 50 10U then Dist 1 would get to take 5-6 kids per weight, Dist 2 would take 4-5 kids per weight, Dist 3 would take 3-4 kids per weight and Dist 4 would take 2-3 kids per weight. (I realize if I use the max numbers for each district that is greater than 16) I am just trying to show that we could have some flexibility in allocating the numbers based on populations. The actual numbers could be based on the popultions of age groups.
The advantage to these ideas is that they both maximize the ability to create 16 man brackets at state. They also do not disavantage kids just because they live in a large district.
I think COA 1 would be the easiest to implement but I don't think it really gets at the idea of fairness based on population. My personal preference is COA 2 because I think it breaks out the number of slots allocated more equitably based on population.
Just something to think about.
Shawn Budke
