I noticed in the Minutes from our USAW Kansas Kids Wrestling State Body Meeting on 11/3/2002 that the KWCA (Kansas Wrestling Coaches Assn.) requested to Mike Juby that we consider shortening our season so that it would end before the High School State Meets. They wanted their high school wrestlers to have a two week break after their season end and then start Freestyle and Greco-Roman. Evidently the KWCA would rather not have the high school wrestlers participate in the Kids year end tournament series. I believe that Missouri does not have high school kids in their year end tournaments.

I agree with Bulldog Dad and KCWrestlersMom from the competition side that there are probably some benefits for the 8th graders to be wrestling the more experienced 9th grade kids and that it probably does help prepare them for high school.

What I see as the main problem is that the high school participation contributes to a logistics problem at the State Meet in Topeka. If we had fewer participants at Topeka for the State meet, the kids could probably enjoy bigger mats and less wait between matches.

Ideally, the best solution in my opinion would be a Grand State Meet for High School wrestlers after all the different classes had their State finals. Any freshman who did not qualify for the Grand State could come to Kids and wrestle 14 & under. There would be no need for 16 & under in this scenario at Kids State. If some of the freshmen were going to the High School Grand State instead of Kids than that would help make the 8th graders more competitive at Kids State.