To our High School wrestlers, parents and coaches. I just wanted to say a few words about getting your tournament time in, whether at a tournament like Super 32 or Blue Chip, or especially like the USA Pre Season Folkstyle Nationals.
For various reasons I am encouraging participate in as many tournaments as you can, but especially I would recommend those local tournaments and the USA Pre Season Folkstyle Nationals.
Here is my reasoning, first, the local tournaments like Blue Chip have been there all along helping our wrestlers. They have been there to support us, our wrestlers should be there to support them. I can speak firsthand of the love for the sport that the guys at Blue Chip have. Yes they make money from the tournaments, but so what, I would challenge they give because they love the sport, and I think some would be surprised at how little they may make after they provide payment for venues, tournaments and so forth.
Next I think a national caliber tournament like the Pre Season USA Folkstyle Nationals is important. Brian Keck is a wrestler who is putting this tournament on. Brian is a great guy who has wrestled on an international level for our Country, and now coaches and supports our sport. Brian ‘no neck’ Keck is a great guy who is an animal on the mat and a teddy bear off the mat. He has done something I appreciate, that is work with USA Wrestling to put on this tournament. That’s right this is a sanctioned USA Wrestling sanctioned tournament. It is close in proximity as far as national tournaments go for our High School wrestlers, and is a doable tournament, which in the pre season is rather important. USA Wrestling is still the largest stage as coaches look at her magazines, web sites and so forth. USA Wrestling, understandably so, will promote, and report on it’s sanctioned tournaments more than any other.
Now on a personal note, I know another reason these tournaments are important, they get you attention. The truth is, you need as many tournaments like this as you can to get the attention of coaches. Thankfully I have been speaking to a number of coaches lately; they are asking about preseason tournaments and have mentioned the importance of them. For many of those coaches, they are requesting to know tournaments so they can come see the wrestlers they are looking at. This is important, albeit not the end all to meet all needs. I have recently seen wrestlers sign at colleges that have loosing records or have been defeated numerous times by Kansas wrestlers. Some of those wrestlers are getting opportunities to wrestle on a D1 level when some of our Kansas wrestlers are being looked over. I don’t know why we don’t take notice of this, but I know it to be a fact, not an assumption. We at USAWKS talk about doing what is best for our wrestlers, and for our sport. Without providing opportunity, and encouraging our wrestlers to get as much recognition and notice as possible, we are not doing the best we can for our wrestlers.
My hope, and yes, even my prayer, is that all of Kansas can come together to do what is best for our sport, and more importantly, the young men and women in our sport. I believe that starts with getting exposure where we can for them, there is few places better to do that than on a national stage.
