I wanted to thank all who attended the State FS/GR Tournament at Baldwin HS last weekend. Hope everybody had a good time and got some great wrestling in. I enjoyed hosting the event, it was a lot of work, but a good thing for the kids. Unfortunately, there were some problems I wanted to share and comment on.
We had the following problems:
1) Somebody walked along unerneath the bleachers and bent the metal levers that lock the bleachers in place. We are unsure whether or not we can simply replace the parts, or bend them back in place. And if we bend them back in place will the bleachers now retract?? We are having it looked at and hoping we do not have to pay for the replacement of an entire set of bleachers, but are fearful that may be the case. If anybody may know who may have done this damage, I would like to visit with them, please email me (kharris@usd348.com) or call (785-594-3481 at home). Our district has recently laid off 13 teachers and are discussing cutting programs, activities, increasing fees, etc. (as all districts are). And are now looking at the possibility of replacing an entire set of bleachers on top of that. We do not think this could have been done by a youngster, it would have taken too much strength. . .??
2) Before GR started, somebody discharged a fire extinguisher in the hallway down by the locker room. My 215-pounder and I cleaned up the mess the best we could, but later went down to the locker rooms again between sessions, and somebody had broken into the PE locker room (which was locked) and discharged a different fire extinguisher all over the showers.
3) Two toilets were stuffed full of the thick paper towels, and it wasn't a couple strips of paper towels, it was about half of a roll stuffed into a toilet, with the obvious intention of clogging the toilet.
4) Kids were filling up the rubber hand gloves (that were set out to clean up blood) with water and using them as water balloons, quite a few were found around the building, and a water balloon mess by the front door had to be cleaned up by one of my wrestling moms. (The kid who did this apologized and helped clean the mess, I appreciated that).
5) A dad said he left his camcorder here on Saturday night, but we did not find it anywhere. It obviously was found by somebody. . .why was it not turned in so it could be returned to its owner?
6) My wrestling manager girl was helping me clean the trash in the bleachers on Friday night, she set her purse on the front row of the bleachers for about five minutes, there were only about 25 people in the gym, and it was stolen.
7) A wrestling coach talked to me at the end of the tournament, one of his wrestlers had his Team Kansas bag stolen with his gear and shoes, etc., in it.
I am sure there were more thefts that did not get reported.
There was trash everywhere, I know this is commonplace at large events, but I have never understood it. There are trash bins everywhere, why can't they be used?
I enjoy hosting events and want to continue to do so, but we as a sport are only killing ourselves with this kind of damage. I think 95% of attendees at an event cause no problems, but all it takes is a few. If the sport of wrestling is going into facilities and trashing them, then we are going to have a hard time surviving and gaining support from administators, communities, etc. My administration has been very understanding with me, knowing that it only takes a few to ruin things for all of us. It is amazing how much damage just a couple of kids can cause.
This is always a problem, and I don't have a solution. But I see every wrestler, parent, fan, etc. as having a part in "Team Kansas." So we as a "team" can hopefully work hard to do what we can to thwart the efforts of that small 5% of our group that causes these problems. I don't really know how, or what to do, maybe turn people in, help police and supervise areas, coaches and parents can keep extra careful watch on your children and wrestlers, pick up your area of trash when you leave (I have my high school team do this after tournaments as often as I can), etc.
I don't really have good answers, just wanted to throw out an area of concern I had with the sport I love, and hope we don't continue to do this at the events we attend. I know every tournament host can probably share similar stories. So what that tells me is that us "good guys" are getting outworked by that small number of kids causing the damage. So it is time to step up all of our efforts and we can hopefully make it too hard for the jerk kids to be jerks, and the penalties so harsh that the misbehaviors are not worth doing. Over time, maybe we can alleviate some of the problems, I don't know? Any thoughts?
Thanks again to everyone who attended and hopefully everything went well for you.
Regards,
Kit Harris
Head Coach, Baldwin HS
