Kansas Wrestling Forums General Discussion High School Eastern Kansas Wrestling

lol well if my head is in the sand i have a lot of company there I think. Where did you go to school and where do your relatives go? Didn't Canton-Galva have two Division I football signings and Rockhurst had none? John Riggins, John Zook, about fifty kids at KSU at one time or another, kids from all over the state of Kansas have been D-I recruits. Yeah Olathe North has a lot of good football players and they have a lot of everything and that is an advantage but if there is a good player or wrestler out there, they will go after them. I think there is much more bias concerning Kansas athletes in general among D-I schools than the class size they come from (forgot Nolan Cromwell didn't I, sorry about that Nolan). Promise you Roberson, Maines, Johnston, and Klien didnt get where they are because somebody was biased about school size, they got there because they earned it and if they had been going to Colby they would be right where they are right now. Hmmmmm this sand is warm I kind of like it down here.

people, people, people...in answering the question of where is east and where is west, everybody knows that everything west of Topeka is western Kansas - geography be damned.

I went back to the original post and it was east vs. west and the question asked was "why"? Nothing originally said about big school/small school. I don't know if I have any answers other than maybe tradition, kids in the west still put in long hours working on farms- I don't know. Does anybody else have any ideas as to why they continue to dominate?

More traditional wrestling powers there, more family traditions, bigger deal to them all year round, have worked more in other areas farms etc,. different style, all those things. The difference just isn't as much as you guys like to act like it is. There are about seven or eight really premium wrestlers in this state and about half of those are back in the east right now. The West has more depth of talent and I still think that is because they care about it a little bit more but that is continually changing and the gap is vastly reduced from where it used to be. If you look at KC, most of those programs do not have consistent feeder programs but they still do ok anyway. You can say that total domination thing all you want but we never felt like we went anywhere where we got totally dominated either in the 80's at Schlagle or the 90's at Wyandotte. We were about as far east as it can get and not be in Missouri. It is harder for those programs to sustain anything though without any feeder.

I've seen the gap between east and west narrow considerably over the years. I believe tradition, family success, and life style all have played a role in western Kansas producing great wrestlers. However, I don't think anyone would ever argue that because you happen to live in one area or another, or go to a big or little school... or any other factor you want to name... you are incapable of being a great athlete if you do the right things. Early on, I think some very good coaches got the ball rolling in Northwest Kansas... but since I've been out of high school, the number of outstanding programs from all over the state have increased... that includes champions, placers, coaches, etc. It is healthy for the sport both east and west. It is good that we all rally around the kids from our respective leagues and schools, but lets becareful about down playing the ability or quality of competition from other parts of Kansas. If we trivialize our competition, it only deminishes our own achievements when we meet each other head-to-head.

Ray I agree with you. The best thing I ever did was take my kids to the Beloit Tourney when I was at Schlagle. It was good for reasons other than the mat. We did very well there though and trophied at that tourney. Our kids were really proud of themselves for wrestling with those kids and competing well because we had enormous respect for them and the history of their programs. I found out in the seeding meeting for that meet though that they had none for us and that was a mistake. I think our kids learned to compete in tough matches in that tourney and they learned a lot about kids from places other than the city. Thats really what it is all about anyway. Goodland came up here a few years ago to the tourney we put on at Basehor and I think they enjoyed it as does Garden City every year. I think they all find out that wrestling is wrestling and getting to meet new people from new places is always a good thing for kids. The rest of this sort of bitter stuff is just junk I think and not real realistic or productive.