Kansas Wrestling Forums General Discussion High School Two State Tournaments in Wichita

Understood Coach. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." And, I hear FHSU treats you all pretty well.

My argument is leave you all there - but get the other classes together under one roof like they use to do. Then, as an ADDED BONUS, have a grand state tourney a week later to find out who the TRUE state champ is! Now that would be SWEET!

I think KSHSAA has made it VERY clear that they do not want to have a Grand State tournament in any fashion. Several committees have put together different proposals for KSHSAA and they have all been rejected for a number of reasons. The biggest reason is often attributed to the fact that if KSHSAA agreed to a Grand State for wrestling, then other sports would come along and want similar tournaments and events. Of course cost and time then become a major factor.

I believe the ONLY way we are going to get an event such as that is for a group of private people to organize such an event, and then hope they can get a sanction for the event from someone. You can imagine there would be significant costs associated. I would say that the Bi-Center in Salina would be the best place as it is centrally located in Kansas, it seats around 7500 people which should be enough to house everyone that wants to come and watch.

As a parent I liked the atmosphere for 5A in Hutchinson in 2008 over the combined tournament 5A and 6A tournaments in Wichita in 2007 and 2009 that we attended. Personally, I was focused primarily on 5A only in both 2007 and 2009. Like Mike Furches also said I preferred the Hutchison 2008 championship matches where the focus was entirely on the one match instead of two championship matches going on at the same time. I preferred the regional championship match setup at Emporia this year for the same reason. They had the lights dimmed and a spotlight on the mat. My son loved that. The focus was entirely on that one match. We experienced that total focus of a packed gym again on one match at the MO-KAN Metro Classic this week. I don't think you can beat the experience of a packed arena focused on one championship wrestling match going on. To me it is a lot better than two going on at the same time.

I don't think that the sole purpose of where you have the tournament should be based on the ease of college recruiters coming to the event. There are many other ways for college recruiters to find wrestlers and the overwhelming majority of our state qualifiers are not planning to wrestle beyond high school. I would also be in favor of rotation of the tournament sites for the larger schools. I feel that having it every year in the same location is too big of a competitive and cost advantage for the schools in the surrounding area of the host city, cost advantage for the families of schools surrounding the host city, and the economic benefits to the host cities should be spread to more towns in Kansas.

The only thing I will say Mr. Nowak, when did I become Mr.

Mike,

I am probably being a little dense here, but you will need to explain this comment to me. I don't think I referred to you as Mr. Furches.

Did you want me to refer to you as Mr. Mike Furches? You have always impressed me a person who would not like that type of formality. I got to be missing something so let me know.