I agree with Will. Another point that was made at the District 1 meeting discussing this subject was that young kids would be letting other sports teams down by having to attend a camp in order to participate in an event. Many commented that they would like for their kids to attend the tournament and are willing to do so. The challenge is that if they have to attend a camp in order to participate they can't because they will miss too much baseball, soccer, etc. The potential negative impact this could have is that the wrestler who chooses to participate in the camp and the tournament could jeopardize the baseball and other teams they are playing on because they are needed to fill the team roster. This is a larger challenge in our smaller communities.

For me the above scenario negatively impacts on our sport in a few different ways...

1. We are forcing kids to focus on one sport at too young of an age. They should be encouraged to play multiple sports.

2. If they choose the camp and tournament over their team sport and more importantly at the expense of their team....that is the wrong lesson to be teaching.

In my opinion, the solution seems to be fairly straight forward if our goal is to maximize participation (especially since it is back in KS)...

1. Defeat the Camp requirement. It sends a better message, allows kids to play more than one sport, alleviates having to make some hard choices at fairly young ages, etc.