Good post Mike. I think sometimes we here in God's country get stuck in a rut from time to time.
I am embarassed to say that this season we could not get enough involved parents to step up and help out enough to keep our club running in the kids season. It was very disheartening.
On tournaments, one of the few good things that came out of my Southern California kids wrestling experience was getting insight in their shared tournament organization and respect for officials.
We had a huge geographical area in San Diego and Imperial counties to cover. The SDICWA kids organization did an awesome job of tournament training and organization, we had a trailer that went tourney to tourney that had all the materials needed minus the mats and people. Some of the people and all of the officials (who were not paid a dime) traveled tourney to tourney to assist with organization. I believe each club coming had to supply an official as well. No bs was tolerated by coaches, kids or spectators. I was coaching "Kansas style" and hovered out of my seat my first match there. I immediately recieved a nice punch hole on my coaches card by a friendly official. One more and i would have been done for the season. I admit i did not like it at first, but tournaments were well run, respectful, fast and efficient.
