Kansas Wrestling Forums General Discussion Freestyle/Greco Disappointing Numbers

We can waste valuable time considering the solutions for lots of issues that really shouldn't be a priority. I have been waiting for someone to post the participation number for each age group for this past Saturday's FS/GR State Championships. I counted the Schoolboy Greco entrants and there were 32. The total number of participants might have been 250. Fellow wrestling enthusiasts, this is a SERIOUS and ALARMING problem. A large number of great Cadet and Junior wrestlers were missing. We have over 8,000 USA Card Carrying Members and less than 5% made it to the state tournament! This should be our number one priority. We can haggle over parental control, sportsmanship, and who should and shouldn't do this or that but lets not waste our time on that when we should be promoting summer wrestling and setting goals for ourselves. We should start by trying to get at least 100 to show up for Southern Plains this year and 200 next year. Then focus on 400 for next year's FS/GR State tournament. I am not sure why we don't have more but I know that Satellite clubs would be a good start. In the summer you have to combine clubs to get good practice numbers. Can we start posting some challenges and solutions to make summer wrestling promotion a priority for this organization. I know the rules and subjectivity of the officiating is very difficult to pick up on. Maybe that is holding some parents back? Dean Watson had a great idea when he stated that we needed more officials. I think he should be the first one to step up and buy a blue shirt. I agree and maybe if we had officials that would work at our practices we could actually figure out what a push out really is and how to score from the FS clinch, etc.

Looking for feedback and ideas...

I know Akin suggested to me to put on a blue shirt and officiate, some might be surprised, but I never even seen a freestyle or greco roman match until about 2 years ago. We need to first hit up all the guys that have really grown up with it and did it for years.

I love watching it and learning, but I think they need to give the "rookie" refs some sort of other color shirt (red) for instance...REDSHIRT like college wrestlers, or just put them on younger mats or something. Only way you are going to get better is to learn.

Also I fault the low rate for opportunites and such. Does Salina have a FS team (if not why considering they are one of the bigger cities in KS and could reach more rural kids as well).

Take high school number of programs and then number of FS/Greco clubs and find out what the difference is, then take action to create more opportunities and bring clinics to areas that need chances.

A lot of the older kids didn't show up which had me upset because they were attending football camps or doing other sports,but if they aren't looking to wrestle in college then let them do the other things, even if they are looking to wrestle on the next level some of these kids feel that they are waisting their time in going to the state tournament because things are "too easy" or not a challenge anymore.

State is now over, focus on Southern Plains is definantly a high priority and of course an area that has had my skin crawling for the last few years: FIELDING FULL TEAMS FOR FS/GRECO DUALS!

Dual situation- We have people all year gripe about expenses and things being too far away to go to, and that it would cost to much to attend....Tell that to Pennsylvania, Ohio, Florida, and California...all of whom travel to KC, MO and OKC, OK (not the cheapest places to fly into!) Also wait...yes they have to fly into those places, granted we could have a kid from Goodland drive to Denver and catch a plane to KC or OKC and save time I suppose, but the fact we can't fill rosters for National competitions in neighboring states is purely weak!

I know we don't have the best turn out at State, but to say we can't find enough bodies to fill a full lineup is sad. In some cases we have left kids at home that took 4th or so at FS State, but then left that weight a void. I still cringe that we somehow couldn't find a true HWT when we had the Kansas Dream Team in Enid.

100% agree with the participation rates for athletes and officials needing to go up. More clinics and stuff need to be offered and heck...why not get the various clubs in the state to start doing club vs. club duals against each other within the state and challenging clubs from outside the state...I'm sure KCK in Kansas could call over to the Missouri side and say...lets get our teams to do a mini dual...same down in Wichita where there are a bunch of teams.

Promoting the sport of FS/Greco wrestling also might allow that kid that walks the halls all year doing nothing a chance to get introduced to the sport (great styles to learn 1st in my opinion, as you often see athletes from other countries that come to American to learn folkstyle excell pretty fast to the top of the pack).

Problem though like anything is numbers...look at people that do planning for events or try to spearhead things...you always have the same go getters, and the same butt setters...time is now to act, are people going to start helping Team Kansas, or sit on the couch watching Seinfeld reruns?

Also I want to come back in with this exact quote I found on another site:

"I don't think Kansas is underated. Sure some great wrestlers come from Kansas, but nowhere near the amount that come from states like Pennsylvania"

Sounds like a slap in the face from PA personally.

It is my contention that the month long kids series following the high school season is the main reason for the lack of numbers. It places post season emphasis on folkstyle in the minds of many. Our state freestyle greco meet is approximately 1 month past our neighbors. I would not trade the level of our kids with anyone but i think we don't set things up well to promote the olympic styles.

This year was effected by the Hotel problem in the Junction City area. We should check for other major events in the area when we plan the date of the state tournament. (State HOG Rally)

We talk about the low numbers and how long the folk style season is with the additional sub-districts, Districts and Kids State. We could take all of the Placers at 123A, 4A, 5A, and 6A (top kids in Kansas) and invite them to attend Kids State. It would be great for the younger kids to see them on the center mats competing in the All Kansas High School Championships. We would gain numerous spectators just to see this competition and the younger kids would be able to see where they want to be wrestling in the future. If they see where they want to be, they will use the summer wrestling to get them there next year.

This would give the top placers that worked so hard during the High School season a break of several weeks before they competed at the state tournament.

This may not help with FS/Greco but we have to also change the way we conduct the State Tournament. We fail to seed anyone and that causes the top wrestlers to not show in fear that they all could be placed on the same side of the bracket and never place. (Looks bad when placers are unknowns because of the bracket setup).