Kansas Wrestling Forums General Discussion Kids Folkstyle Baldwin district tourney--some thoughts on how to improve

Hats off to Baldwin for hosting the district tourney, I understand that no one else was willing to do so?

I have no qualms with the wrestling and organzation side of things.

But my gosh, we had to be in fire code violation
and the venue at the High School was totally uncomfortable, over-crowded and rude.

I think key to the problem was the floating time to start the second session, you had some unclear parameters that doubled the people there.

Have a set start time for the second session. Give yourself ample time, yesterday 1:30 p.m. would have worked good.

Also, make it totally a younger session and then older session, not varying the ages.

Anyone ever think of doing a bull pen arrangement for districts, group the brackets up, march em through, ship em in and out and keep the floor clear of parents and others besides coaches?

It would be nice to have a warm up area for wrestlers as well. I realize that this may not be the most fan friendly situation but it was brutal out there.

I appreciate the efforts by all, i just think we here in Kansas do an overall poor job of tournament organization and presentation, we lose fans and wrestlers because of this i guarantee you,

Is District 1 running out of facilities big enough to hold a qualifier? What about all the big Johnson County schools?

It was voted on at the state meeting by all District 1 clubs in attendance to have 8,10 & 16 in the morning.

I would love to have it in Johnson County. There are plenty of hotels and restaurants for the people that come to this tournament. The problem is that all the schools are getting way out of hand with fees. From the club directors I have talked with, it costs anywhere from $1200-$2000 to get a Johnson County school for a wrestling tournament.

This tournament was discussed in another recent topic. In that topic I agreed with Kanwrman above that if the the District is held at Baldwin again that one thing I would tweak from this year would be have a definite later start time like 1PM or 1:30 PM. I think that would alleviate a lot of the congestion that started to increase probably between 10 and 12 between the two sessions overlapping in the congested areas. I think that it is a better fit for 14 & 16 in the afternoon session too but maybe there was some logistic reason for putting 16 with the young kids in the morning.

Nigel Isom suggested in the other topic that District 1 consider the Washburn Campus where the annual Topeka tournament is held as a potential good facility for District 1. I commented that I thought that would be a good facility too but I did not know if the fact that State was the next week in Topeka might make it difficult to find local volunteers to run two tournaments like that two weekends in a row. Does anyone know if the Washburn facilities have ever been considered for the District 1 tournament?

Yes they have but historically they reserve that weekend for Basketball.

That is too bad, because I think the Washburn campus would be an ideal facility for it. When I read Nigel's post, I thought it had probably had been considered before and that there was some reason it could not be used. Thanks for the information, Randy.

Smokeycabin and wrestlingmom might want to run me off the forum for suggesting this but District 1 might want to consider Aquinas. Since Aquinas built that new gym, I think the facility might be able to handle it and it is not that bad of a walk between the gyms for the coaches to quickly get to matches in either gym. Perhaps there would be some similar stumbling block to Aquinas on that weekend too that I am unaware of.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I have been told in the past that not much money is made in hosting the District tourney.

Hate to say it but the incentive for running a tournament is generally for fund raising for the club. If there is not a decent amount of money to be made I'm just not sure you would get many takers.

To me, I think this would be the easiest tournament to run since your 8 man brackets are no-brainers!

What about Pittsburg?

Ned

The money made at Districts is divided 50/50. Half to the host club and half to the District.

Ned:

I am assuming your question about Pittsburg is asking what we think of Pittsburg as an option for District one. It would probably be great. The only thing might be that it is not the best central District 1 location and the people in the northern part of District 1 might object to going there every year. We have not minded going there every year for District 1 South Subs due to the big mats, big facility and the well run meet, but it would be a drive for the north part of the District. Aquinas would be more centrally located in the District. There would of course also be good hotels and restaurants for the out of town people in the Kansas City and Overland Park area.

Vince:

If Aquinas works that is great, or rotate the two of them.
I think the state qualifers need to have the building space for our needs. First and formost the safety of our wrestlers and fans. Is the building fan friendly. Fire codes are always a issue. Parking to some degree is a concern. Travel and hotels all so play a part in the selection procees of a sub or district tournament.
Ned

Ned, I am not positive that the Aquinas facility would work, but I think it might now that it has the new gym. I think it has pretty decent parking on both sides of the school and it is very reasonable walking distance from both sides. Of course that would be helped out with it being a split tournament. I would recommend a definite no earlier than 1PM starting time for the afternoon session. This also would help out with the parking and might even give everyone a lunch break if the first session completed early enough.
You could even make the 2nd session start a little later say 1:30 or 2 so you could have a lunch break. I think the 2nd session can go pretty fast once it gets started since it should only be two age groups unless you decide to add 6&U to the State series.

I love your idea about possibly rotating it between Pittsburg and Aquinas. I remember there use to be rotation several years ago. I would suggest if we do the rotation then that we have Subs at the one that does not have districts that year. So if you give Pittsburg District next year then give Aquinas Subs and begin switching them the following year. Although I think wrestlingmom might be more interested in Districts than Subs for Aquinas.

Pittsburg was discussed at our District meeting last year but they could not get a lock on the facility due to basketball commitments. Maybe it will be different next year...

I also believe that a 05-06 two year north/south rotation was discussed at the meeting. The deal was structured where Baldwin got the tournament in 05 and Pittsburg in 06. Again I do not believe Pittsburg felt comfortable about the availability of the facility and the plan did not go to the floor for a vote.

Vince:

I have always like rotating the disrtict tournament around the district to the cities that can host properly. But you can not put it in school that makes it uncomfortable for everyone attending.

With me splits are a whole other issue. I had a problem with Baldwin casue we had kids wrestle 3 matches in close to a hour on the back side of the bracket. I thought we had two many mats for a split. I all so think that was part of the problem as well, if you remember we had mats waiting on rest periods. Maybe one or two fewer mats and things keep moving and then we are done on time.

I am not saying splits are bad, we just need to make a few adjustments.

Ned

Ned,

My son wrestled in the afternoon and I would have to agree with you that we had some of the matches scheduled too close together in the afternoon session. Even on the front side of my son's bracket I think they had some matches scheduled a little too close. My son loves that and actually does well in that environment in contrast to waiting too long between matches. My son has never chose to take his fully alloted rest time between a match. Smokeycabin his coach works them so hard in practice it is probably an advantage for our team. But I definitely have to agree with you that in the afternoon session it went too fast for many wrestlers and we should make some adjustments. I don't know if this was just a problem in the afternoon session because there were just two age groups going and we were on too many mats for two age groups. Does anyone know if this was a big problem in the first session with three age groups going? Maybe the 16&U should have been in the afternoon with the 14 & U. My guess is that those 16&U matches on the whole would take longer than 12&U.

Vince:
My wrestlers that had a problem with in both sessions. I think it is a easy fix. Your right does beat sitting there all day long.

Ned