Kansas needs to start fixing things at the middle school level by having boys basketball held the same time statewide, and the same for wrestling. You would have more opportunities created by doing that.

Another issue is not everyone gets a scholarship! Expect it. If you want to wrestle in college and you have no credentials, walk on somewhere and prove yourself, or go to a junior college where the funding may be a little easier to get a scholarship (such as be active in art or music and get a scholarship for activities and still be able to compete for wrestling).

The issue isn't our coaches. The issue is our admins at colleges that want 80% of rosters to be Kansas kids. In addition some want over 35 on the roster, but many of the kids flake out or fall through. 28 Kansas natives times 8 for just the jucos equal 224...but I will half that saying we can assume 14 are coming back (which if you look at retention rates in our jucos, you know that is way high). So 112 seniors a year among 8 school (that's leaving out 9 universities that pick after the seniors).

Now placer wise there was 151 seniors that placed accounting for 44.9% of the state, but we know not all seniors go wrestle afterwards. It gets very tricky with so many programs.

We lose wrestlers to other states because the KJCCC for example was held hostage by not allowing to give full scholarships, so if you are someone that is good, you would go out of state to a juco for free.

It's easy to sit back and look from the outside, but many of the staffs are underfunded. The first thing we need to do is help to get increase in funds so coaches can focus on their jobs. Many of the coaches in the state at the college level don't have funding for assistants, so they are up against the wall to begin with. Add in the fact many fall into a low pay grade or don't have resources to be successful that doesn't help either.

We have at least 3 colleges in the state that roll mats out daily (may be higher than that).

We have one program that the Athletic Director had no clue that they would need so much athletic tape with wrestling, so he ordered one box for all athletics for the year.

We have kids that live 2 hours from home that get homesick and leave, because a coach is a "jerk" and doesn't feel sympathy when they are told to withdrawal from a class a month before the deadline to withdrawal is, and they miss the deadline and get a F.

We have attendances that suck at college duals. I recall being at one that had 7 people in the crowd. I have been to others with maybe 25. The excuse of some saying colleges need to advertise is perplexing because if you live within a short radius of a program they have posters up all over the place, additionally schedules can be found online (for most of the schools)...which gets me to another point, many of the schools have horrible Sports information directors who aren't even on par with many high schools in terms of getting out information. You see this prevalent with a lot of the NJCAA schools in state where updates are hard to come by, because the AD may also be the baseball coach.

We need a goal of 100 per dual to shoot for regardless of team hosting...to start anyway. Many of these teams should honestly stop streaming live and free and make you come and pay in person to view, or pay to stream to make up for those who don't come. Even when the weather is good, there are low turn outs for many of our teams in Kansas. Up here in Nebraska I have yet to go to a dual for a college with less than 100 in attendance...I think we need to maybe look at hosting HS matches prior to college duals and allowing for free admission for team and coaches and charge the parents to get money.


Also the $$$ for paying for officials is not cheap. We need more to get certified for sure...but many don't want to officiate after they have seen how much heat they take for the pay they get!