Grandpa, I feel strange addressing you that way, especially if Grandpa (57) means that you are 57 years old, because that would mean that I'm only 6 years younger than you. My son turned 11 in October, so you can see I got a late start with children. I certainly agree with you that although my son's wrestling participation is important that it is not the most important thing in his life or my family's. It sures does require a lot of time and energy from December thru March, but it has always been rewarding. Yes, his health is the most important thing. Our family always start our wrestling trips by praying for our safety on the trip and the safety of him and the other wrestlers during the meet. We start our trip back by praying in a thankful way that he and the other wrestlers were not hurt and for a safe trip home. I do appreciate your response to me, because I feel that you showed a concern for us as a family. Thank you.
Grandpa, as far as this issue goes, I just do not think it is fair that a wrestler who does not win their first match has to wait about six or more hours before they have to wrestle another match, especially when the winning wrestler gets to wrestle two more matches before the losing first round wrestler wrestles their second match.
If you read the topic, Thank You For A Well Run State Tournament, that I posted in this forum on 3/31/02 at 2:13 PM, you will see that my son benefited from this rule this year. But we would have prefered to waited to wrestle his third front side match until later that first day or early the second day so that other kids (who did not win their first match) could have wrestled their second matches at around 3PM when my son ended up wrestling his third match. Many of these wrestlers did not wrestle their second matches for three or more hours after my son wrestled his third match. I just do not think that is fair.
I will take your advice and let my club officials know that I would like to have the format changed. Several people and myself did let tournament and state wrestling association officials know last year that we would like to see the format changed back to the old way. I guess I should have contacted my club officials last year.
It sounds like you are a very good grandpa and that you also have a great family!
