This is the time of the year that wrestling should be fun, but as soon as we impose adults (like me) on to the system it sucks. Every year district 3 travels to McPherson. The venue is great but the weigh in is horrible. We try to offer scales, people to help, and ideas to make it better but to no avail. What did I see tonight while standing in line with my son.
1. People lined up all around the school in a huge line. They all get funneled into one line with one person doing skin checks. Took many people 1.5 hours to go through weigh in.
2. Official doing skin checks was sending kids to ER for obvious dry skin. One was sent for a zit on the back. ER was ticked with seeing stupid issues. I understand that parents should have skin forms, but who is going to get one for acne or dry skin. I went to hospital and sat in parking lot, I counted 17 wrestlers in the 20 minutes I was there going in to ER. I understand the need to prevent disease transmission but we would be at no more risk by having a panel of coaches to review than one official who is not a medical professional anyway. The $100.00 co pay is a killer for some.
3.Official making kids cut hair even though it was above eyebrows.
4. Making kids clean up their whiskers by passing around the same razor (way more risk of disease transmission by using same razor than dry skin or zits).
Why do we all the sudden try to get ultra tough on everything once the state series starts. This is the time we should try to find ways to get kids wrestling. I have many more frustrations that I won't go on about, but we as parents, coaches and officials suck the fun out of everything kids do.
Eric Coates
