Husker Fan,
Looks like you're putting a profile on me. I'm just a former Kansas wrestler who has migrated out of state. But I do like keep up to date on the home state wrestling, especially at the exciting time of the year of the state tournament and follow my old high school.
Topics like this catch my interest as I've lived in a few midwestern states and have been involved in the College high school and club levels. I didn't mean to get personal on your comments, but was trying to make some objective counter points.
I do appreciate the success that the St Thomas Aquinas team has had when your son was on it, as it is rare for Kanas City teams
to win state. Take a look at the State Champion post and I think there has been about 7 or 8 state championships won by Kansas city area teams in the history of the state with STA winning 2 of those.
Anyway, not hiding behind anonymity, but my name is Steve Mathis and am a former Leavenworth high school grad in the 80s.
Also did some NAIA wrestling in the Husker state.
To respond to your comment: Good example on the Johnson county tournament being similar to a regional if 6A and 5a combined.
If you placed 12 there, you probably would have put 12 to state in a 16 team regional because most of those teams would have been in your regional. But what about you're 10 placers at state. From only a statistical perspective, if you go from 32 to 64 teams at state, you're state placers would follow this ratio and go from 10 to 5 and much less likely the JV kids would have placed. I know if wrestled out, you might have had more or less.
My point is if you minimize the classes ( go to 2 or 3), a state qualifer in Kansas would mean something. From an out of state perspective and college coach point of view, the Kansas state tournament system is laughed at. This also goes for some surrounding states (OK, NE, CO and MO) which all have four classes. I worked out with a former Indiana state champion and asst D1 college wrestling coach tonight. In Indiana, he had to win a state series with 320 schools. It's brutal in Indiana. He couldn't believe a Kansas class only had 32 schools.
Also to support my opinion, see an article on Flowrestling that
debates how many classes a state should have. Interestly, Kansas gets referenced as the state with too many classes. I'll qualify the article noting the author was from Missouri. See address below for the article.
www.flowrestling.org/topics/view/94-state-tournaments-how-many-classes-should-there-be
