Now that the Folkstyle season is over I would like to voice my displeasure with the D4 and State directors. Two issues occurred in the qualifying events and neither were handled properly. It all started at D4 south in Dodge City. In the 16 n under 125 division the bracket started with 5 wrestlers had one of those not make weight. The bracket was not changed to a round-robin as the rules state it is suppose to happen. So I am told. This allowed the 3 seed a bye to the finals! The 4 seed wrestled 3 times finishing 3rd. Thus posssibly effecting the seeding at districts. The 4 seed could have finished 2nd and received a 1st round bye at districts. Understand we are not looking for a free ride to state. Just a fair shot to try and get there. On to the district problem. We go 0-3 finishing 6th. Who knows what happens if sub-districts had been handled right! On Sunday we are invited to state as the 3rd and 5th place wrestlers apparently said they were not going to go to state. Of course we accepted. Monday we are told that 5th place changed his mind. Calls were made to the state committee. Two different opinions were formed by committee before all sides were heard. Then it was passed back down to the D4 director to decide. This should have been done to start with before forming their own opinion and voicing those opinions. In the end one coach/referee's word was taken over several others involved. The coach/referee changed his story several times thus contradicting the words of others involved. All could have been avoided if the rules had been followed at SD4. We also need to put in place a policy to have each individual wrestler check in at the table and sign up and pay their own fees instead of allowing the clubs to pay and not enter the right wrestlers. If you do not show up at the table you instantly forfeit your right to go on to the next week. That decision should be final! Sorry for the novel but see how your wrestler feels being told you are in then you are not!
