Here is our team itinerary
Friday March 28
9-11am – meet at The Hotel Topeka (formerly the Capital Plaza Hotel) 1717 SW Blvd to pass out gear and get room/bus assignments. If you aren’t meeting in Topeka, I’ll have your gear at the hotel in Iowa.
11:30am – start loading chartered buses
12pm – buses leave Topeka for our hotel in Iowa
3-3:30pm – arrive at the hotels and start checking in. Check in is hectic – we will have separate areas of both hotels for each group to check in. If your wrestler isn’t riding the bus but staying with the team, they will have to find me later to get their room key.
4-4:15pm – leave for weigh in at the Mid America Center. Weigh in is from 4-8:30 Friday and you must make weight in that time frame. It is a one-time weigh in so please have your wrestler at weight. Make sure you have your fingernails trimmed and any skin forms with your wrestler. Technically we don’t have to weigh in as a team but it would be nice if everyone was there together. The buses will not be waiting around for anyone to run off weight as we have pizza for the Elementary and girls teams coming to the hotel at around 6pm. Middle School and High school will be going to Pizza Ranch to eat right after weigh-in.
6-6:30pm – pizza at the Holiday Inn Express for elementary and girl wrestlers
8pm – Elementary and Girls Team meeting in the Holiday Inn Express breakfast room – I need everyone there including coaches. Middle School will have their team meeting at the Hampton Inn.
10pm – everyone in their room and lights out
Saturday March 29
5am wake up call for breakfast – we will be going around knocking on doors shortly after that to make sure everyone is up. We will be running approximately 300 wrestlers thru the breakfast line in 2 hours - so after you are finished eating, don’t sit around and take up table space. Clean up your mess, throw your trash away and leave the room so the next person can sit down.
Approx. 6:30am – buses leave for the Mid America Center – High School and Middle School will be leaving first – Elementary and girls will leave at approximately 7:15am. We will be using two buses and a couple vans to shuttle all wrestlers
8am – wrestling begins and goes until all pool wrestling is completed - approximately 5pm
9am – 5pm – for the wrestlers and coaches we will have sandwiches, fruit, crackers, granola bars, chips and water in my trailer. It will be in the parking lot outside the north entrance of the Mid America Center. We will start making sandwiches at 9:30am but water and other snacks will be available earlier. Outside food isn’t allowed in the Mid America Center so wrestlers will have to eat outside or sneak food in. I always talk to the security workers at the door and usually I can convince them to at least allow the wrestlers to eat inside if the weather is bad.
6:30-7pm – hamburger feed starts for all wrestlers and parents at the Holiday Inn Express parking lot. We will grill the hamburgers out back and the buffet line will be inside.
Sunday March 30
5am wake up call for breakfast – same as Friday
Approx. 7-7:15am – leave for Mid America Center – same as Friday. We WILL NOT be returning to the hotels after wrestling is finished on Saturday afternoon so make sure your wrestler takes all his belongings with him. We will designate one bus to store belongings in during wrestling on Saturday. For any parents making the trip, it is a good idea to meet your wrestler at the hotel early Saturday morning and take their suitcase – obviously they will still need their wrestling bag. Once the wrestlers are shuttled to the Mid America Center, all but one bus will be leaving. The vast majority of wrestlers ride home with parents and there will only be one bus for the return trip to Topeka. That bus rarely has any more than 15 or 20 people on it.
8am – approx. 3:30 - wrestling begins and goes until the brackets are complete.
9-3:30pm – same food availability in the Mid America Center parking lot as Saturday
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THE MOST IMPORTANT PART
On Sunday we need to know whether your wrestler will be riding home with parents or riding the bus back to Topeka. Each Teams coaches will have rosters and they will note which wrestlers are riding home with parents and which ones will be riding the bus back to Topeka.
If you currently know that Sunday after wrestling is over your wrestler will be RIDING THE BUS BACK TO TOPEKA from the Mid America Center, email me.
Friday is very hectic – please have patience as we get thru everything. Once weigh in is over and the wrestlers eat, things calm down a little.
Everyone who requests a roommate normally gets at least one of their requests in their room. I start working on the rooming list the week after the qualifier so I can get it to the hotel. If you are late getting your paperwork and payment to me, I can’t guarantee anything. Once the rooming list is done, sorry there will be no switching of rooms. Same way with buses. Wrestlers will be assigned a bus in Topeka. The buses are full and it would be a huge hassle to try and move people around. Part of this experience is making new friends anyway.
Blue Chip Athletic does our gear sizing and each weight is assigned a singlet, shorts and t-shirt size. We have very few sizing issues. But if one arises, there will be no changes until after everyone has their gear. If I can make a size change accommodation, I will do so.
