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Fully agree GOO on all your points. If you continue to limit the opportunities for newer programs to achieve, how many programs are going to continue? How many new programs will start? How many will go away? Some of the newer programs are struggling with numbers for a multitude of reasons, why on earth would you put a roadblock in their way? A lot of new programs have increased their numbers because of 1, 2 or 3 kids just advancing to the state tournament. To the legacy programs it doesn't seem like a big deal, but for a new team, 1 kid making it through region to the state tournament can be a huge momentum swing for the future. If you look at the 36 teams represented at the Final Round, the newest programs there would be Bullitt East, Taylor County or Walton-Verona, all of which have programs that are very stable. The other 33 teams are programs that have been around for quite a while. If you want schools to drop a sport, make it as difficult as possible to win a title and make the title venue a less than desirable place. Pick a venue that will hold the masses!! Union County, Johnson County, Ryle, Trinity and the other blue blood programs will fill the place up and still have room for the new guys. The venue/destination is part of the appeal to any sport. Talk to the coaches and Ads about a format for the post season, similar to the survey that is being sent out to all the coaches for football. The wrestling community is extremely loyal to the sport and should not be forced to settle for less. Being "happy for scraps" or "it was a really well run" are comments that need to be banned. No matter where a tournament is held, as long as track is running properly, the wrestlers/coaches are informed when and where they wrestle, and the officials are on top of things the wrestling aspect is extremely easy to manage. A lot of people know what it was like to wrestle state in a high school gym or the civic center or the dirt floor horse park. The atmosphere is something that cannot and should not be ignored. Our sport has outgrown Atherton High School(or any other high school) and the Civic Center. The Horse Park was large enough, but was not conducive for wrestling, being too cold, dirty, and no way to make the finals an intimate experience. Give the people what they want. The best venue possible and the sport will flourish. Freedom Hall or Rupp Arena. Make it happen!

I could care less if a referee even brought a mask to the venue. Was not a cut on the officials. And I agree people in the stands were not able to distant. You stated KHSAA looked the other way or overlooked alot of things, but for what reason. Bottom line is no decision made by the KHSAA was for health reasons, only for reducing day, time, and labor. There was more room last year for distancing with 32 man brackets at a larger venue, with unlimited ticket sales than there was Saturday. The decisions made were under the name of covid, but not for safety reasons. Here is a picture of Saturday Morning last year, no restrictions, full brackets, unlimited ticket sales. Look at all the empty seats and ability to social distance. There was no ability at the high school gym. Now tell me how this past weekend prevented anything except less kids getting an opportunity, and a shorter weekend for the governing body. Basketball kept Rupp Arena under the name of tradition. That is fine but wrestling deserves the tradition of 32 man brackets, top 4 from each region competing for a shot at a state medal. Not reduced down to limit work. If it is too much work for the governing body, then allow the coach's association to run the tournament and give the money to the khsaa. To say people in the stands, they were not wearing KHSAA logos on their chest or being paid by the KHSAA that day. They were just stuffed into a high school gym because they were told this would be safer than last year. Hopefully next year is a better year for Kentucky Wrestling!

Dylan Preston is going to the University of the Cumberlands

Zac Cowan is going to bellarmine

Cole Nance is wrestling at Wabash in Indiana, I believe.

This is perfect discussion. An option is given. Pros and cons are presented. Let's work through them to get to the desired outcome. Wrestling, is at the mercy of high school basketball?? Sounds discriminatory if you ask me. Let's work on a timeline. Find the venue and the dates. Previously, Freedom Hall and Broadbent were out because of the Farm Machinery show. Rupp is only used for games and other non state events. Other dates are available, I'm sure we can find one. Basketball made sure to find one for both the boys and girls well in advance this year. January 19th to be exact. There is almost 11 months between now and next post season. If this season has shown us anything, fluidity in scheduling is key. Filling a big arena. I don't believe any sport has an increased expense per person, only per rental. So, if we have 50 or 5000 the rent is the same. Make it affordable and enjoyable, not cold and dirty and more people will be there in my opinion. Give it the gallantry and showmanship it deserves and people will be there. Does Rupp sell out for every high school basketball game?? Intimate finals atmosphere. Freedom Hall and Rupp have floor seating that in minutes can be made available to give a much more intimate feel along with lighting capabilities that can match or out do what the Civic Center had. Wrestling does have a tremendous overlap in athletes with cross country and football. Pushing the start of the season back is not the worst option. I don't know that limiting the season is the best idea, but if that gets the post season venue of choice, so be it. The next thing to figure out is the budget. How much money does the KHSAA need to profit? Wrestling revenue in 2018-2019 was in the $30-$35K range. I would suspect that number was the same this year unless the semi state and final round sites took a significant chunk of the gate. So next year we need to be in the $35K range or more, I would think. So not counting sponsors, the gate for 3000 spectators at an average of $25(based on 1 day or 2 day passes). $75,000. If that's not enough gate money to offset expenses adjustments will need to be made, obviously. This year there were roughly 448 spectators allowed per venue for the semi state round plus 448 for the final round. That's 2240 spectators at $20 per person = $44,800. Let's work together to make it happen.

To be fair 90% of people in the building were not wearing their masks correctly.

https://khsaa.zenfolio.com/f63983151

They sent an email/text this morning to coaches, Noah Duke won MOW. Very deserving. Good wrestler and very fun to watch.

Great job on the rankings again. A few surprises cracked the top 4 but overall great job.

By eliminating the parade of champions takes away the pomp and circumstance of why we were there. It creates atmosphere and not having ceremony is, in part, why it felt like a regular meet vs STATE MEET. While I appreciated most of the quality wrestling there was with 8 man brackets , it kept way too many quality wrestlers at home and dooms the State Wrestling Tournament to a HS venue forever. More wrestlers = more $$$ But KHSAA doesn’t want to pay for a venue. *Too many potential placers were left at home while other regions had a cake walk to State. I don’t know what the issue was, but parents begging at the gate because they didn’t have a ticket should never happen. If state continues at a HS it is bound to happen again. There will always be limited seating. I don’t know the capacity limits but it was pretty full, imo. No podium allowed for the finalists, but they could have chairs 6 ft apart for the “awards ceremony”. Did anyone else notice how the finalists had to be 6 ft apart to get a medal but the referees didn’t have masks on and their chairs for finals were right next to each other? I should have taken a picture to show the KHSAA what they thought of that. KHSAA better be handing Basketball trophies out in boxes and not letting the team take pictures on the floor if a wrestling team can’t take a picture with their trophy. If Basketball gets Rupp arena, wrestling better never have to wrestle in the dirt again at the Horse Park.

That’s not very Christian like. Spiral fracture on his left hand hasn’t been very much fun for him lately. Thank goodness for second opinions, opinion 1 wanted to shut him down and operate. Opinion 2 said it was his pain and how much he could handle.

My takeaways: great quality wrestling pretty good officiating sad that the event was in a HS gym with little to no theatrics behind the finals the hammers who we thought would have tough finals matches, HAMMERED (Moore, Duke, Thomas, TKC, Smith). the awards ceremony was a joke i really hope they don’t keep to an 8-man “final round” - because if they do, it will forever be in a high school Old district -> regional -> 16 man state seems like the way to go, but we can go back to that until numbers return to pre covid Excited for next season!