1. All state venues are up for bid for the 2024 and beyond state tournaments. If the Tacoma Dome does not put in a bid, then we won't have to worry about all the conversations addressing the dome. Eastern Washington University did not put in a bid for the 2A/1A/2B/1B and it is no longer there, could happen to wrestling too.
2. There is no facility in Washington that can host all the state tournaments in one location except the Tacoma Dome. Most venues have a hockey arena set up which can have a maximum of 8 mats with zero room around the outside. People thing the floor of the dome gets crowded, wait until you are in one of those facilities. If you go to the NCAA tournament you know. WIAA tried Hec Ed once with the 3A and A/B there and it was not good. People think the Dome has bad sight lines, they haven't been to Hec Ed for a big tournament.
3. Are there issues in the dome yes. Is the issue caused by WIAA or caused by the dome?
A. long line to get in on day #1, that was because the dome required bag searches and metal detectors. This was not WIAA wanting this.
B. questionable bathrooms, cleanliness, long lines for tickets or food are again not things that WIAA controls, these are dome issues. So some say let's go somewhere else, there will be long lines there too, likely parking issues and the expense to park. It could be cleaner and could have better bathrooms, we'll have to see. I'll say the restrooms I used on the south side of the dome on the floor were very clean, and often had attendants constantly cleaning them. That's good considering the number of wrestlers I heard puking in the stalls.
C. The moving mat assignments to increase the speed of the tournament. TRACKWrestling is designed to do this. The person running TRACK can preload mats that will be used but can also add in other mats that can be used if a group is running too far ahead which should stop the having to stand and wait for the 45 minutes.
D. The parade of champions, academic team state champs, coach of the year and HOF recognition could have definitely been done better. That's on WIAA, it really seemed rushed this year.
E. The poor sight lines for fans in the stands. I'm sure if you had a better plan for organizing 24 mats in the dome so everyone could see, everyone would be all ears. In Mat Classic one they had the announcer in the middle with the 2A on one side and 3A on the other and then they couldn't figure out what to do with the A/B so they ran a strip of 6 mats end to end along the west side of the dome. This was great for the A/B people but the 2A & 3A complained so they moved the announcer to the edge and then did 3 pods of 6 that rotated each year starting with Mat Classic 2. We may need to implement a rotation schedule again. Is there a perfect set up for the mats, I doubt there is.
F. People loved the big boards at the end of the dome, me too. But, the people that did those for all those years were volunteers and they retired from doing it. No one has stepped up and said he we'll do that. I'm guessing with TRACK, it isn't really necessary now as you can check the scores after every match now. If you'd like to do this I'd suggest you contact WIAA and say you'd like to volunteer to run the big scoreboards. Although you may have to remake them as I can't guarantee that the original people still have all the stuff.
G. Dual state tournament is always brought up. I can tell you that this has been a discussion point with WIAA for at least 10 years. We were so close once and the wrestling coaches did not support it and it died. We continue to push for this and will continue as we think it is important to the sport. But, when it comes down to vote time if coaches don't educate their administration it likely goes down in flames again.
I've attended every Mat Classic and have seen growth, change, additions, deletions, problems, fixes and it continues to evolve. It isn't perfect, but it still is an amazing event!!!
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