I have become friends with Mike Furches from this forum. I believe he is one of the best ambassadors that Kansas wrestling can have. I do not have any experience with this issue of the trading of the singlets at the Freestyle tournaments that has been prohibited by the contracts with the vendor All American Wrestling Supply (I believe that is the correct vendor). I have not posted on the issue for that reason. I have a tendency to side with Mike on this issue just because I trust him and his motives.

I will comment on Mike though. I do not know Mike as well as some of you because I am from the Overland Park area and he is from Wichita. But Mike makes so many tournaments that I have seen him at KC, Wichita and of course in Topeka at State. I always enjoy talking to him. He is a man devoted to God, family, other people and of course wrestling (especially Kansas wrestling). So I agree with Alex, Mike is a very fine man who gives a lot for his son Nathan and for the entire Kansas wrestling community.

I really enjoyed reading some of the other posts of support on this thread. Randy like Mike is also a man that I have gain a lot of respect for. Randy, I think that was a great post that rivals your reporting on the Metro Classic which is always excellent. There are some lessons for all of us in that post. Those were also very good posts of support from Curtis, superiorsteve and Alex.

Mike, as you know I took about an 8 month break from the boards a year ago for about the same reason. It was a good thing for me and I needed to do it at the time. I would not personally hesitate to do it again if I felt I needed it. For that reason I understand what you are doing but I hope it will not be for too long. In fact if you decide to break this fast, I believe it would be the best thing for this forum. You are a very good man and in my opinion that is how you project yourself on this forum. I think this forum needs you more than you need it. The time you spend off of it is a loss to the Kansas wrestling community. Hopefully you understand that you are held in very high esteem by probably 99% of the Kansas wrestling community and that part of the community knows you to be a man with great integrity and certainly not a person seeking fame from his extensive time committment to wrestling.

God bless you Mike. Take the time you need but hopefully it won't be that long. We will give you another hour. Just kidding, take all the time you need. I don't think you are going to need all the time I took. You handle this a lot better than I do, but sometimes a little time off for mental health can be a very good thing.