Coach Neil,
I am very glad that you sent that e-mail to the AD. I started sending Lew Perkins petitions on it when he first started the job a couple of years ago. I always thought since he played his college basketball at Iowa that he would have some college wrestling background. He sent me an initial response back too a couple of years ago. It was the usual no reasons but he did not close the door on the possibility.
Did you send one to the Chancellor too? You might also consider sending one to the Governor like Sean did. I have not sent her one yet but I will.
Consider drafting team letters that all your wrestlers would sign and your assistant coaches too. Encourage all of them to also do individual petition letters and to suggest the same to their parents.
That was a great addition in your letter about offering the help of the high school coaches to get the program off the ground. It would be needed along with people with college program experience like Eric Akin and Sean McCarthy. I doubt that there is currently anyone in the KU athletic department that has any wrestling management experience.
I know what you are saying that we should be doing more letters and action things than posting on forums. I agree but we do still need to post too. Posting keeps the issue alive and gets more people involved. I also feel it encourages us to keep going and do more. I know it does me. I think it gives us other ideas too. Like your mention of the offer of help from the high school coaches. It is a great idea to have included that in your petition letter to the AD. Maybe now some of the other high school coaches will offer to do the same in their letters to the AD.
I sent out about 50 e-mails yesterday to high schools encouraging the coaches to write the team letters to the AD and Chancellor, have the the wrestlers and coaches sign the letters and also have all of them write and send their own individual letters. I know I did not hit all the high schools. I concentrated more on local ones and ones that had links listed on this site. Some of the e-mails I sent did not go thru. Maybe you and others could also recruit some other high schools to do the same. It would not hurt if you asked some of the same ones I did yesterday.
So yes let's spend most of our efforts devoted to action but still let's keep the issue alive and post as to what we are doing periodically.
