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Pairings @ Central Reg.


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What a night-day pairings experience at Central Regional.  Saturday FS was a total disaster... Cadet bout sheets not printing, hours and hours and hours of waiting.  My grandson had only 1 other boy in his weight; they had to wrestle best 2 of 3.... and we were there until 3:10 pm!  That is just silly.  It was like a clinic in how to kill freestyle and a kid's interest in wrestling.  The people running pairing on Saturday should be ashamed.  (And before you even start, I worked a clock all day Saturday.)  Saturday was like a billboard driving people to NUWAY... and I hate NUWAY!

 

Then Sunday things were much better.  I don't know if USAW assigned a different pairings leader for Sunday Greco, but it was great.  Once again my grandson went 3 matches with his opponent but we were done by 10:30 am.  Now why couldn't that occurred on Saturday?  Equally as important, we got all the kids cleared out early and had tons of mats and officials for the cadet/juniors.  Consequently, the cadet/juniors went much faster.

 

I am dumbfounded with this pairings philosophy of "let's spread the misery equally" and make everyone wait forever by wrestling the highest number of participant weights first.  It is so much easier to get the low participant weights out of the way early.  And lots of tournaments tell specific age groups to show up at a later time; iswa does this at state.

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I don't recall having any "down time" on any of the mats I was working on.  The event seemed to flow well from what I could tell. We were checking in the on deck wrestlers prior to their match to speed things up. The competition in the Junior division was very good. I didn't see much of the other age divisons.

 

I think our volunteers did an outstanding job. I am amazed at times how people can only be concerned about what happens to them and show little or no concern about the other 350 or so participants. Take a deep breath and a step or two backwards and look at the entire picture.

 

Congratulatiosn to the ISWA, the Franklin Wrestling Club and USA Wrestling for a providing a quality event for our athletes.

 

In my opinion, it's been a great season and I had as much fun as I have ever had.

 

Good luck to our athletes at the duals and national tournaments.

 

Tom Clark

 

 

 

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It is exactly responses like that which are driving people to NUWAY.

 

You have one tournament with 431 wrestlers and one with 241 wrestlers.  Which one do you think will run faster?  I am just curious how you want to look at ONE weight class out of all the weights at a tournament instead of looking at the WHOLE tournament itself.  Maybe you should go to the head table and request special treatment so you can get out early.

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These responses are exactly what is driving down our organization.  Let's not look and see how we can improve.  Instead, let's just run the tournament with the same pairing techniques we did in 1993.  That is exactly what happened in Michigan and led to their destruction of FS/GR and the birth of NUWAY (which once again I hate).

 

As an organization we have to stop deflecting all criticism with the always useful "volunteer more" self-defense, that is so worn out.

 

Each time a person makes a comment, they have to say, "I did officiate or Work a table or Run a clock or Work at pairings."  And still from some iswa just ignore it.

 

It does not have to do with me personally. It has to do with how Indiana was embarrassed on Saturday.  I was sitting with people from Ohio who were furious.  I saw plenty of empty mats on Saturday and virtually none on Sunday.  I believe it had little to do with the Saturday numbers vs. the Sunday numbers.  Rather, Sunday was simply run in a far more efficient and intelligent manner.  Don't take my word for it; ask the pairings staff. 

 

Try to have the slightest bit of vision, grow up and take a bit of constructive criticism.  Especially from someone who was coaching and pairing and running tournaments most likely before you were even born.

 

The less educated you are, the more likely you will react emotionally.  Try to react logically.

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Try to react logically.

One tournament had 421 wrestlers, the other had 231 wrestlers.  Logically the tournament that is bigger will get over later than the one with less wrestlers.  Of course when you just look at your one weight class you think everything is equal.

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When in the past people complain the overwhelming response is also to say "well next time why dont you volunteer..."

In this case the person with the complaint actually DID volunteer.  So, according to previous criteria he has the right to complain.  Whether we agree with his complaint, or the wording of it, is entirely not the point here. He has a complaint, so why cant we discuss it in a way where thoughts and opinions can be formed and heard rather than simply attacking people.  

 

Now, I am sure that Franklin did the best they could and I am sure that not every tournament runs glitch free.  Tom Clark said his mat was busy all day, and that is all a person can ask for when at a tournament.  No dead time is always a GREAT thing.

 

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One tournament had 421 wrestlers, the other had 231 wrestlers. 

 

With these numbers  and the end time of the tournament I would say that the tournament actually ran smooth and fast ,if you look at the entire tournament.

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I am dumbfounded with this pairings philosophy of "let's spread the misery equally" and make everyone wait forever by wrestling the highest number of participant weights first.  It is so much easier to get the low participant weights out of the way early.  And lots of tournaments tell specific age groups to show up at a later time; iswa does this at state.

 

First off, as an ISWA Board Member, I am sorry that you didn't have a perfect experience.  Technology errors that would cause bout sheets to not print off do happen sometimes.  It's unfortunate that it happened at this level of tournament.  Again, the ISWA apologizes to you.

 

Second, technically this was a USAW tournament, not an ISWA tournament.  Though it was mostly Indiana people running it.

 

Third, this pairings philosophy that you hate so much actually gets the tournament as a whole finished earlier.  If all of the small brackets were finished first, then the large brackets would run into a wait time problem at the end where mats would have to be idle for 15 minutes waiting for the next bout's "go time".  This would also cause these wrestlers to have to wrestle every 15 minutes for the last few rounds of the tournament - that's not very fair to them either.

 

Finally, you claim that the ISWA (USAW in this case) doesn't make improvements.  However, if Sunday was run much better, as you stated, then either they made appropriate changes or this system of running a tournament can work well.  

 

Thank you for volunteering your time as table help at this tournament.  That is one task that most people at a wrestling tournament can do, but not enough people actually help with.

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Just to clarify...The Central Regional Championships is a USA Wrestling Event. The ISWA only serves as the LOC (local organizing committee). The pairing personel are assigned by USWOA. This year, the pairing staff consisted of pairers from Indiana, Ohio and Michigan. The ISWA had little to no say in how the tournament was paired. My personal opinion......I feel that although the pairers assigned to these events are high ranking, very knowledgeable and beleive in going by the book, they lose sight of what is best for the wrestlers and their parents. 

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Why was their an hour break after only 2.5 hours wrestling? We started about 1015 and stopped form 1235 - 1345? Surely with three officials per mat, two sitting, we could have pushed-on? Is this some kind of rule

 

Thanks

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My biggest disappointment was the amount of Indiana kids that showed up for this tournament.  My nephew was hoping to wrestle some new kids from other areas of the country, instead of the same kids. He had no one in his bracket to wrestle. I would have never thought that this would happen, especially at a Regional Tournament. But again a lot of kids are still in school, so I can see the kids from out of state not coming in for this Tournament. But Indiana was the home site and you would have thought that these kids would show up trying to win a regional title.  ???

 

When I was in there watching the Junior Division, I thought it was an excellent idea putting on the screen who was wrestling, who was on deck, and so on. No need to keep running out in the hall looking at the bracket. From a fan's point of view I like it.

 

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So are you saying that getting on here and posting negative comments is the right way to do things?

 

Pot:Kettle: Black.

 

I don't think the guy was being that negative.  He was basically asking what could be done to improve the process.  I wasn't there but I thought he brought up some valid points.  I've volunteered at off season tournaments that have gone horribly wrong and parents get impatient and I understand that.  It doesn't sound like he was up bitching at the coordinators during the tournament which, btw, accomplishes nothing.  Every tournamnet can be improved upon.  Reading the coments it doesn't sound like things were out of hand but it is frustrating as a parent in his situation to invest 6 to 8 hours just to get 2 matches in.

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Wrestling began shortly after 9:00 am for Cadets and younger and shortly after 10:00am for the Junior Division. The breaks were taken for several reasons.

 

1. Many of the referees were there in hopes of being upgraded from one category to the next. In order to do this fairly those referees need to be evaluated by as many Senior Referees as possible. Those referees looking for upgrade were assigned to different mats after the break.

 

2. Any problems that occured in the first 3 hours or so were addressed to make certain all 10 mats were as consistant as possible.

 

3. Some mats didn't have the same level of experienced referees as others. To take away 2 referees at a time from several of those mats could have caused major problems.

 

I was not one of the officials assigned to be in charge of this competition although I was in attendance and I did work on a mat. However, I am the Vice President of the USWOA and I am a member of the Committe who did assign the Head Officials and Pairers for this event and I can assure you that each one of these people have the best interest of the athletes involved. There are rare times when we must take a moment or two to take care of our volunteers who work very hard all year to support their state programs. If that offends anyone then I apologize. I feel our volunteers deserve a "fair shake" and an opportunity to be evaluated and hopefully upgraded. The more our officials are educated the better off we all are.

 

Tom Clark

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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