The hole deal is,most kids do not like having a 5 point through done on them. That is what keeps your kids out of FS/GR.The coaches love to see a kid tossed. It is hard to talk a new kid in to fighting though the learning curve.

I do not think the idea of moving state is for the kids. I think it is for the moms/dads that are tired of setting there.It is easy in my eyes,if the kid wants a break ,take one.If the kid dose not want to start when your club dose,wait a week or three.

As for taking HS out of club state,that is nuts. Every year we have alot of HS kids that cant wait to get back in the room.If you you do not have your KS coming back to your club,YOUR club is doing some thing they need to fix.

You want to help wrestling,let the kids train/wrestle any where any time they want to. That is one thing that would help KS wrestling.


Charles Bradford

I agree. If it isn't broke don't fix it. I think we should keep subs and let the 6 and under wrestle at state with every body else. They deserve their time to. They are a bigger part of kids wrestling then high schoolers are. In my opinion. As for having two separate states is crazy. I know when my boys were younger they looked up to the older wrestlers and would watch them and now that mine are older I see the younger ones looking up to them and I hope someday younger ones up to them and so on. So don't take that away from our youth

I by no means want any kid left out. The 6u should be at state also.

When does the "Survey Monkey" send the survey? What are the questions? Does it get sent to every member - kids and adults? Will budget numbers be included? How are the results tabulated?

If there are 2 separate state tournaments based on USA Wrestling Age Groups - will there still be a elementary and middle school state?

"You must not have had to listen to the screaming moms and dads back when the teams were "picked". There is NO better way to "pick" the teams, than a tourney. Remember, you have different age groups wrestling middle school state, not just a 14u or 12u. And sometimes the 12u kid is better than the 14u kid.....
So I TOTALLY disagree with your statement. We will get the majority of it right, but a tourney takes all of the complaining out of it."

This entire discussion has a lot to do with splitting up the folkstyle state tournament - "State Series Tournament Review Committee" which uses USA Wrestling AGE GROUPS - which amounts to 5 or 6 age group state tournaments - depending on your stance on the appropriate age to wrestle in state tournaments - that is recognized by USA Wrestling. Correct the out of state traveling dual teams is creating 2 more state tournaments with different age groups - I get it with all the SCREAMING - well aware. The reward for making the dual teams should be just that - you get to be on the dual team and test the waters against national competition. If someone doesn't like the teams selected by a spelled out set of criteria - ask for a wrestle off - with no parents in the room. Right now anyone can be on a dual team - they are always trying to fill another 5th or 6th team rosters at the end. Are you advocating for only 2 or 3 state tournaments age and weight classifications - Elementary, Middle School, & High School?

We have had kids go to these events and try to qualify and some did and some did not qualify for the dual teams. If there is a separate qualifying tournament for these out of state events raise the rate/fee to $50 per entry on that qualifying tournament for those who want to participate and try to qualify for the national dual teams. A very small amount of the State Placers or Elite wrestlers from each club go to these qualifiers and try to get on the national dual teams. I think about half of our committee has had there kids wrestle on national dual teams. My son wrestled on some of the dual teams and we paid for him to go and we took and help pay for some others that could not afford it as well. Just some suggestions for the committee.

The more "tolerable" the season is, the more participation we will have. Let's not forget how much of a toll the long season takes on parents. There is such a thing as parent burnout also.

So I agree that theoretically, the more participation we have, the more elite kids we should have. Of course the amount of work they put in will be the determining factor. Having the 6,8,10 state tourney earlier will give options to those that want to head into baseball, and the later national events will give the ones that want to keep wrestling, that opportunity.

There are a lot of kids that don't become "elite" wrestlers until they hit high school, so we want to make sure we don't lose them before that. Right now, it is somewhat "required" to wrestle thru at least the 3rd week of March. This moves that "required" date up over a month, while still allowing them to continue after that date.

THere has been several people saying not to get rid of HS. THere have been several people saying they want 6u kids at state also.

We can't do both. We don't have a venue that can handle it. Hotel rooms are already ridiculous at TOpeka, imagine adding another 300 kids to that demand. So we would have to spend even more money on hotel rooms per night, plus stay another night, to be able to fit the HS and 6u BOTH at the same tourney.

I believe the younger kids can still look up to the older kids. Noone says the older kids can't show up to support them during their state tourney.

We would still need to have an elementary state and middle school state to determine dual teams.

Absolutely, i am NOT advocating for getting rid of the age and weight groups that we have. Are trying to muddy the water here?

You got off topic and said something along the lines of getting rid of Elem and Middle school state, and i was dumb enough to respond. Then you manipulated my comments to read that i was trying to get rid of our age and weight groups, by asking that question.....

we don't even need to talk about the Elem and Mid School state tourneys, nothing is changing with them. They are the ONLY way to determine the dual teams without having to fight the extra headaches associated with "picking" the teams by committee.

This proposal is about the USAWKS state series.

This does NOT have be a drama filled debate. Don't spin what is proposed.

The committee believes that we will get a ton of feedback from the survey. I am sure the rest of the committee is reading this forum.

When was last time a 6u state title got a kid a college scholarship? There are some examples of "elite" 6u wrestlers who can handle the grind of a state series run but for the most part they are not ready. Even if they are, overbearing parents of these "elite" 6 yr olds push a lot of them out of our sport or early success doesn't equate to winning at 9-10 or after and they can't handle loosing. At 5-6 we should be teaching basic body control and promoting sportsmanship. They have the rest of their lives to try to win the rat race.
I have talked with a lot of good wrestlers who have quit wrestling as freshman or sophomore who say they are burnt out because they have been doing it since 5yrs old. Never has a kid who quit told me that an individual season is too long. (Mommy and Daddy have!!!) We competitively start em too young and lose our middle of the road kids in Jr. High and high school or before.
We don't need to shorten the season so that more kids stay out, wrestlers will wrestle!! Embrace the grind or go play with balls!!

And correct me if I am wrong, but I don't think we are wrestling the USA Wrestling age groups, which are every 5 lbs for the most part. Somewhere along the line, we have gone to the "every 3 lbs" approx. for the little guys, and other changes, that USAW KS has deemed appropriate.

We are NOT changing weight classes.

We are NOT changing age groups.

We are proposing moving the 6,8,10 state tourney up to early Feb.

We are proposing moving the 12,14, HS state tourney to early March.

We are proposing the fact that we would have more options for venues, moving the tourney around, cheaper hotel rooms.

We are proposing the fact that some parents with only one kid wrestling, would only have 1 hotel room night to pay for at state.

We acknowledge that it could cause families with a wrestler in each different state tourney, to spend more gas money driving to the second tourney, and back home.

I believe that the hotel room savings would offset that cost.

There could possibly less money made on the state tourneys according to Mark Stanley, but the more i think about that, the more i believe that is not true. Two one-day tourneys with 900 kids should generate as much money or more than one two-day tourney with 1500 kids shouldn't it? I'm not an accountant, and am not familiar with the revenue streams at the current state tourney. We had talked about a higher entry fee for the state tourney to replace lost revenue. RIght now we spend 20, 20, 20 I think, for subs district and state.(District 2 already got rid of the subs and entry) Get rid of subs for the rest of the state, but charge $60 total for districts and state. Those numbers would have to be put together for a firm entry fee number, but we have put that out there. We wouldn't increase the total cost, but want to make sure people don't assume the entry fees would go down.

For district 4, getting rid of subs would get rid of one long road trip for them. It actually can get pretty long for some people in every district......

This won't shorten the season for those that want to keep wrestling. I am on board with a lot of your thoughts, but I also know how a lot of kids and parents are.

It is the easy route to NOT wrestle at all. We all know that. Making it "easier" for those that choose to not wrestle the "post"-season duals and national tourneys isn't hurting anyone that doesn't "want" to be hurt.

My kids' season will remain the same. We will start early November after our football season ends (we cut off our kids' football season the 3rd week of October), so we give them a week or so off until first of NOvemeber. We continue thru the state series, and have always had open rooms around the Wichita area for the kids that want to wrestle AFTER the state series. We'll be folkstylein' til early to mid april, then do a little FS GR through the FS GR State tourney. As our kids get older, they'll do more FS GR. LIttle guys, we do just enough to keep their nose in it.

I have read through all the posts. I still have yet to find a major flaw in our current state tournament set up. The most common thing mentioned was eliminating subs. Then move forward with eliminating subs. After eliminating sub-district move state up a week if you want or leave it.

Whatever happens, obviously, since this is a monopoly, people will be forced to adhere to. I firmly believe that this schedule at least gives people OPTIONS......They can be done in early feb or early march, or they can wrestle thru April. Now they are forced to wrestle thru march. I know, they don't HAVE to do the state series, but of course that is not an option for 99% of the people out there.

This may sound harsh, but if you don't find the hotel costs at Topeka outrageous, you are crazy!! Of course we are all crazy for all we do to keep our kids participating in this great sport......

While we are on the hotel subject, I also have daughters that play softball around the Midwest. There is such a thing as "stay to play", where if you want to play in their tourney, you have to stay at one of their hotels. (not all tourneys are like this, but more and more of them are) This will only allow people with money to participate in those tourneys in my opinion. In Colorado last year, we HAD to stay at a hotel that cost us $169 per night. Hotels.com had hotels all over town for under $100. It shouldn't be the kids' fault that mom and dad can't afford these hotel rooms. If we aren't given the option of moving this tourney around, things aren't going to get any better. Topeka doesn't have an abundance of rooms like Denver, so we max them out, and hence we get screwed.

I can't say that I have complained about the hotel prices in Topeka for state. But we are also a family that will stay in a hotel about 15-20 times a year for sporting events.

Thank you for giving me the credit for coming up with these ideas for improvement. It was actually a collaboration and we all understood that there would be a few that would be very opposed without really giving this any in depth thought.

Our Kids series runs into spring break conflicts, NCAA national tournament conflicts, and into spring sports. For the past several years we have hovered at 1/3 of our Kansas USA Wrestling members participating in the state series. Our greatest numbers are in the 6, 8, and 10 groups. We need to get the majority of these kids off the mat sooner and try to reach the 65% that have not been participating. If you are not trying ideas to grow then you are letting your sport down!

Ask yourself these questions:

Are these age groups getting better because we hold them hostage until late March or is there significant drop out because they grew tired of riding in the car and sitting in the gym? These are grade school kids...

How do you propose to add 6U to the current state format? There is NOT a USAWKS sponsored 6U state at this time...

We are just asking for everyone to state the facts and open this up to some other possible attempts to improve...

We have over 10,000 card holders, counting coaches and competitors, and we have 15 posters on this stream. I don't think that is a fair representation of the populous.

If you eliminate subs for 6, 8, 10 then be prepared for lots of 32 man brackets. That means lots of matches and a long day.

?? Have kids numbers and high school participation
numbers dropped in Kansas the last 5 to 7 years?
Send the survey to all 10,000.
You will be surprised at the "few" you say who are not in favor of the list of "seven" priority items. There is a very large sharp informed membership if the actual "facts" are presented. - I hear apples, oranges and grapes on data all the time. We have been hearing "change is coming" - I just hope it includes the entire memberships input. I do not want it shoved down our throats. I am ready and willing to take the "Survey Monkey"
SEND THE SURVEY to ALL 10,000 members and give them time to respond in a timely manner - post the results with the card numbers and names. That is transparency.

When does the Survey period begin (date) and end (date)? Just wondering so that the entire membership can have time to appropriately respond to the survey. Can the survey questions be added to this talk forum? When will the survey results be provided to the State Body or Clubs? At the state meeting in the fall in late October or November?

I want to be part of the survey and so should you. Be sure to get it to your club members as well.

(If a person wants to participate in the survey but they do not believe their email or their wrestler’s email is on file with USA Wrestling, then they can forward their name, email address, club name, and card number (participant or coach) to Joe Knecht at joe.knecht@gmail.com.

joe.knecht@gmail.com


Edited by smokeycabin (Yesterday at 07:11 AM)

One question I would have about moving kids state to February would be, will we have enough certified officials to officiate high school matches as well as a kids state tournament or 4 district tournaments?