Washington Wrestling Message Board

Washington Wrestling Message Board
[ Washington Wrestling Message Board ]

time for WIAA to stand up

Posted by tired of it on 1/4/2025, 6:40 am

I am sick and tired of this big tournament nonsense. Such an such tournament is the baddest or toughest or biggest or whatever. The WIAA needs to step in and tell everybody there will be no tournament in the state during the season with more than a 16 person bracket. No pigtails, no wrestle ins, none of that bovine manure. One day tournaments, that is it. All this complaining about money grabs and piss poor planning will be gone. Here is another idea, no more than two teams from one league. The Shorewood Showdown could have Shorewood and one other school from Wesco 3A. They could have two from KingCo, two from Metro, etcetera. If a school wants to go to a two day event with 64 man brackets, they need to leave the state to do so.

Who am I kidding this won't stop the bitching, somebody will complain how a hospitality room ran out of pizza, pulled pork and water by noon.

Doesn't matter, I still say the WIAA needs to put an end to the madness that exists right now.

Re: time for WIAA to stand up

Posted by The reason on 1/4/2025, 6:42 am, in reply to "time for WIAA to stand up "

This is why washington sucks. Your a dork.

Re: time for WIAA to stand up

Posted by Lol on 1/4/2025, 9:13 am, in reply to "time for WIAA to stand up "

You must be from Seattle.

Re: time for WIAA to stand up

Posted by Wrestling fan on 1/4/2025, 9:53 am, in reply to "time for WIAA to stand up "

I'm gonna assume the poster is serious, but suspect he/she/it is just trolling. But I have a thought or two.

This would serve two useless purposes:

1) Further limit our athlete's opportunities for tough opponents and subsequent growth.
2) Change what people bitch about now, to bitching about WIAA overreach and policies that weaken WA wrestling.

There will always be complaints.

By the way, WIAA just increased their own State tournament bracket from 16 to 32.

Wrestling = Long days at tournaments. This is true at all levels.

Re: time for WIAA to stand up

Posted by Pork on 1/4/2025, 7:11 pm, in reply to "Re: time for WIAA to stand up "

I love to bitch! Don't take that away from me.

Re: time for WIAA to stand up

Posted by Ace on 1/4/2025, 10:15 pm, in reply to "Re: time for WIAA to stand up "

The structure of sports in America is changing both at the college and high school level. Wrestling in Washington is going through those same changes, and not all those changes are good for youth athletics. There is a growing gap in our state between top wrestlers and the rest of the pack. There are many causes of this talent gap, but it is real. So It is understandable to go get your top kids good competition at a big tourney, but that push is diminishing smaller tournaments. It is also not possible or even a good idea for many teams to take their kids to a 32-man elite tournament when they only have one or two "state placers" on the team ant the rest of their lineup is JV caliber. I am not bitching, but just making some observations. Not sure what the answer is, but am wondering if current movements in the sport are widening the talent gap.

Re: time for WIAA to stand up

Posted by Coach on 1/5/2025, 8:07 am, in reply to "time for WIAA to stand up "

While i don’t agree fully. Big tough tournaments are essential we all know what we’re in for when we sign up for them. I think the problem is the basic Saturday tournaments that run from 7am until 7-8-9 at night. The athletes are toast the parents are not engaged the referees are completely wasted. We all need to raise money but yes some of these feel like money grabs . Boys and girls on 4 or 5 mats in 2 or 3 deferent parts of the school logistically for parent, athletes , coaches and refs seem to be missing the point. Isn’t the point to grow our sport. So yes the wiaa should at some criteria for facilities brackets size etc for fundraising tournaments.

Re: time for WIAA to stand up

Posted by Another Coach on 1/5/2025, 10:42 am, in reply to "Re: time for WIAA to stand up "

This one hits close to home, because that is the exact tourney we ran yesterday. I agree that logistically it was tough, but the exact reason we did it was to grow the sport. A lot of smaller schools can’t always send their girls and boys to different tourneys all over the place. We thought we would give it a try to allow them in the same tourney. It didn’t work that great, so we will probably not do that again. I will say that when teams only send one coach to coach 10 or more kids, it wouldn’t matter if you have 5 mats in one gym. Having to wait for coaches to get to mats to coach adds a lot of time to a tourney. 3-5 mins several times over the course of a day adds up to an extra hour of tourney times.
As far as money grabs go, by the time you pay for officials, team trophies, medals for Varsity, JV, and Girls, coaches room food, the list goes on, you barely break even. Add in the fact that several teams won’t even end up paying their team entry fees, you actually lose money.
Everybody has a better way to do a tourney, but few will actually do it. Those same everybodys are always talking about “growing the sport” but when someone is actually trying to do it, it’s not the right way or convenient enough.
We will keep doing our tourney the best we can and will evolve each year. If a tournament doesn’t fit a team’s expectations or time requirements, you can always choose another to go to.
Asking the WIAA to step in and govern how tournaments should run is like asking the government to spend our tax money wisely. Has the WIAA improved the way the Mat Classic over the years? I’m not sure it has.
Matt Hoover

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