5 Hours Between Matches Is Okay For ISWA

[WaltHarris]

Took my grandson to state yesterday. I see the disoranization of the ISWA is continuing.  My grandson waited 5 hours between his first and second match. I thought the Central Regional and people from Ohio laughing at ISWA's congential ineptitude to run the event was the height of embarrassment.  I was incorrect.  At the end of yesterday, after my grandson got his medal, he said to me "Papa, I don't know if I want to wrestle anymore."  Sitting there all day to get a few matches is just destroying so many kids desire to wrestle.  When will this organization get on the ball and start running these tournaments like other states. 

 

Btw, before you ISWA apologists start up, let me give you the standard lines:

A- You should volunteer more.

B- What did you do on Saturday.

C- The board meeting is on such and such date.

D- There are so many kids and only so few mats.

Yes, I coach the club kids, but I know that doesn't count a "volunteering" to the ISWA.

[Y2CJ41]

1000 wrestlers and 16 mats most weights with 20+ kids.  What would your suggestion be?  Do you want to wrestle on half or quarter mats? 

 

From what I saw yesterday is the only downtime was when waiting for a video person for the championship or waiting for about five minutes at the end for the kids to have the proper rest time. 

[lpd096]

First of all, let me preface this by saying that I have never been an ISWA board member. I have either wrestled or coached in Indiana for the past 31 years (coached for 21, wrestled for 10). It's fair to say that I have been around the sport for awhile...

 

Here are two NON-standard lines for ya:

 

1. Move to another state.

2. Don't attend the tournament.

 

 

[PROPOWER]

Took my grandson to state yesterday. I see the disoranization of the ISWA is continuing.  My grandson waited 5 hours between his first and second match. I thought the Central Regional and people from Ohio laughing at ISWA's congential ineptitude to run the event was the height of embarrassment.  I was incorrect.  At the end of yesterday, after my grandson got his medal, he said to me "Papa, I don't know if I want to wrestle anymore."  Sitting there all day to get a few matches is just destroying so many kids desire to wrestle.  When will this organization get on the ball and start running these tournaments like other states.  

 

Btw, before you ISWA apologists start up, let me give you the standard lines:

A- You should volunteer more.

B- What did you do on Saturday.

C- The board meeting is on such and such date.

D- There are so many kids and only so few mats.

Yes, I coach the club kids, but I know that doesn't count a "volunteering" to the ISWA.

I would like to start off by saying sorry things didn't go as well or as quickly as you would like them to have on Saturday.  We had a great staff of volunteers ISWA Board Members and other members of the wrestling community that gave up countless hours to make this the best event we could.  For the most part the tournament flowed at around 13 bouts per hours (10-11 an hours is what is considered standard or good).  I would be happy to look at your grandsons weight class and mat to see what took so long -between bouts.  Please either e-mail me, call me, text me or pm me with his name and weight class so i can look into it - cell 317-695-1106, work 800-875-5448 or chris@proindustries.com.  I would also like to know what other things you feel we could do to make it go faster.  We are always trying to improve the way we do things and are open to ideas.  

 

As far as last years Central Regional - That was a USA Wrestling event and paring people were assigned by USA Wrestling about 1/2 of which were from Ohio so they were laughing at their own people.  I have spoke to several coaches and wrestlers from different regionals (ie FL, IA, MN, and WI) that said it was the best regional they have been to and would be back for sure.  Once again I am sorry it wasn't a positive experience for you and your grandson.

 

Chris Lynch

ISWA Folkstyle Director

[Grenadier2012]

First of all, let me preface this by saying that I have never been an ISWA board member. I have either wrestled or coached in Indiana for the past 31 years (coached for 21, wrestled for 10). It's fair to say that I have been around the sport for awhile...

 

Here are two NON-standard lines for ya:

 

1. Move to another state.

2. Don't attend the tournament.

 

 

 

That's great.  We don't want to see what other options would make a tournament run more efficiently, so move to another state.  What young kid would want to wrestle anymore after sitting around for five hours in between bouts?

[lpd096]

I am glad you like that, Grenadier2012.

 

I am a little sick and tired of people complaining and whining yet they offer nothing in terms of a solution. Instead of dealing with this issue properly, WALTHARRIS  gets on the discussion board and publicly cries about the ISWA.  He could have very easily sent an email or phoned Chris Lynch or a board member.

 

Again, I am not a board member so my opinion doesn't reflect their intentions at all...but after years of wrestling all over the country, there are times that a tournament is not going to run the way you want it to.  It's called the nature of wrestling and if anyone plans on being around this sport for a significant amount of time, you had better be ready for it...so get over it! Do you know how many tournaments last ALL DAY with long time periods between bouts? A lot! Does that make it right? No. Does it mean you get on a public forum and act like a smart a**? Nope.

 

 

[UCdad]

I agree 5 hours is way to long. The 1st ISWA tournament I took my son to many many moons ago was at the purdue fieldhouse. It was just a small open tourney we arrived there at 8am his first bout was supposed to be at 9am the other kid was a no show he never wrestled his first match until 1pm. He had a 8 man double elimination bracket.  I saw empty mats with no action for long periods of time. Like Walt Harris I became a little disgruntled with ISWA wrestling.I still however took my son to every ISWA tournament that we could make including all the state series from that point on.Some were bad and some were a little better.I have volunteered and so has my wife and other folks from our community.I have made suggestions to people to run these tourneys just like the Ohio tournament of champions several times and I get short little snippity answers I even suggested it to the ISWA tournament director once and his response was we can't do that.No well why don't you tell me more about it or maybe we will look into it or anything just no! I made this suggestion on the old forum one time and people started bashing me and the Tof C which in my honest opinion is one of the most efficent and organized tourneys that my son ever wrestled in..

 

 

O.K. so now I am going to explain again how it works and also tell you some of the negative feedback I got and try to shoot down some of those arguments here and please remember I am just trying to help.1st off the kids wrestled on the same mat all day.Everything for that group of kids is done right there at that table.If you have a 1000 kids and 16 mats that is about 63 kids per mat now you say that there was on average about 20 kids per bracket. I am sure that some had less and some had more none the less you divid them up as evenly as possible.Each mat then might have on average 3 weight and age groups. You  tell the wrestlers and/or write on their bracket sheet in the hallway what mat that they are assigned to all day.You hang a sign at each table that says their age and wght.A i.e. would be like pee-wee 40 bantam 95 novice115.Now by doing this we also make it more spectator friendly as well because now we can camp out by the same mat all day and we don't have to wait around to see what mat little johnny is wrestling on.Now instead of running from mat to mat or gym to gym everytime he is up we stay put and relax until he is up.Thus eliminating some of the hustle and bustle and probably saving some time in the process not to mention eliminating the bout number announcers who are probably hoarse by the end of the day.Now you keep track of the bout numbers at each table and you already have it lined out on the bracket sheets in the hallway so that we already know that the semi-final match is bout 80 or the first consi is bout 95.Now if the tourney is folkstyle line brackets like this past weekends I know this will work.Line bracketing I am not so sure about but with the powers to be I'm sure you could make it work there as well as to where when the novices are wrestling you could be busy pairing the bantams at the time and so forth. How many pairers are there at a typical ISWA state tourney? If you had enough to put one at each table it would work.

 

 

Now the responses that I got in the past were."Well we just don't have the money to buy the expensive electric scorers to keep bout numbers on like the T of C has" My answer is keep a 100 page spiral note pad taped to the table with the bout numbers wrote on it with magic marker you can write 1-99 on one side and 100-199 on the other and if it comes down to it you can write a 2 in front of the 1st set of numbers when those bouts are over and you could wrestle 300 bouts at one table with a 2 dollar pad of notebook paper." The T of C pays there help and we just get volunteers."My answer is my son has wrestled at both and I see the same thing 1 adult and 3 to 4 12 to 16 yr olds at each table whether they are getting paid or not.IT IS THE SAME PEOPLE.You would need probably 1 compentent person at each mat to run things at that mat someone who knows wrestling and how the brackets work and keep things running smoothly at that mat. Again 16 mats = 16 people I'm sure you could find 16 compentent people to do the job."We went to the T of C years ago and it was a mess they were calling my son to wrestle and he was wrestling at the time and it was utter chaos"My answer is that may well have been but I started taking my son there in 2000 so it must of been before that. We went all the way up to 2010 and we never experienced any of those things Like I said in the beginning it has been the best ran tourney that I have ever been to.But do you think They got it right the very first time? Probably not it was through trial and error and trying new things.That is the one thing that the ISWA does not do too much of is trying new things that I have seen in my 11 + years of involvement with them.How does the old quote go Ignorance is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.They rather take your idea as a threat and shoot it down before you ever get it out of your mouth just like I said I talked to the Director.Maybe sometimes you should listen to others ideas with an open mind instead of looking down your nose at them thinking you're smarter then them."Isn't the T of C  modified to a one period 3 min long with no referees position and lack of activity or out of bounds results in a neutral start"My answer is yes it is and this is about the only thing that I see that would make their tourney faster than ours.But I still think that the wrestle on one mat with bout numbers at that mat is the way to go.Try it work the bugs out and I think it will make alot more people happier than not. You are not going to make everyone happy anyways.Just a suggestion Hope this helps!

[lpd096]

UCdad,

 

An informative post without whining and a genuine effort to help. Thank you.  I am sure the ISWA appreciates this type of communication as opposed to a post titled "5 Hours Between Matches Is Okay For ISWA".

[UCdad]

lpd096

Thank you sir.I too also appreciate the ISWA's efforts to the great sport of wrestling as well as what it has done for my son.

[dad2cash]

The  ISWA  has  been  listening  and  has  made  several  changes  in  the  past  few  years.  I  especially love  that  they  are  doing  matside  pairings  now.  I  think  the  kids  love  the  podium. 

My  sons  bracket  and  or  mat  ran  great  this  weekend  and  the  only  kids  I  seen  waiting  for  extended  periods  of  time  between  matches  were  those  that  multiple  byes. 

[Infolady]

I am confused. The ISWA used matside pairings, bout numbers, etc. and finished a 980 competitors tournament in approximately 10 hours. One of the weight classes I paired had 37 wrestlers in it. The only down time was waiting two times for the film crew to show up to tape the final match and, at the very end, a 15 minute rest time for the wrestlers between bouts. I worked the entire day and only had one parent complain.  During that time, I had 2 bathroom breaks and no food.

 

By the way, I'm not sure what tournament director you spoke with but for the last 3 years, the ISWA tournament director has been Patt Van Horn (not a man). To say that the ISWA does not listen to suggestions is an unfair statement. They do listen and changes were made this year to help with the flow of the tournament.

 

 

 

 

[randalllynch]

This is not a complaint but a confirmation that I don't see how it could have gone any faster.  I had one of wrestlers wrestle twice in 5 1/2 hours.  BUT the mat was never empty, there were no delays from the table, and the wrestlers were there to start the matches.  For the environment that they had to work in I don't see how it could have been improved!

[UCdad]

It was Todd. I have not been to a Iswa tourney in a couple of years now so maybe things are better these days . I am just putting in my two cents worth as far as my experiences have been in the past.I am not trying to start any trouble but trying to explain which formats that I have witnessed have worked the best.I too have experienced similar situations as Mr. Harris in ISWA tournaments in the past but like I said it was years ago.I would hear other people complain as well.I would always try to make the best of it though and tell my family to do the same and we pretty much did.I know you folks work hard to try and put on the best tournaments possible and I applaud those efforts.I know that sometimes it must be a little aggravating to you to work your butt off only to have someone bad mouth you.Don't worry I know your intentions are for the best of the great sport of wrestling.Like I said though in the past my suggestions have fell on deaf ears so to speak and that made me feel kind of aggravated as well. I feel as though I have done somethings right as far as bringing my son up through Indiana wrestling for he wrestled in 3 state championship matches in the 4 years he was in high school.Keep up the good work.

[JC3390]

1000 wrestlers and 16 mats most weights with 20+ kids.  What would your suggestion be?  Do you want to wrestle on half or quarter mats? 

 

Make the kids qualify for the State Final by placing first or second in an ISWA sanctioned event.  This would reduce the numbers and thereby reduce the load on the facility.

[sb25]

I agree 5 hours is way to long. The 1st ISWA tournament I took my son to many many moons ago was at the purdue fieldhouse. It was just a small open tourney we arrived there at 8am his first bout was supposed to be at 9am the other kid was a no show he never wrestled his first match until 1pm. He had a 8 man double elimination bracket.  I saw empty mats with no action for long periods of time. Like Walt Harris I became a little disgruntled with ISWA wrestling.I still however took my son to every ISWA tournament that we could make including all the state series from that point on.Some were bad and some were a little better.I have volunteered and so has my wife and other folks from our community.I have made suggestions to people to run these tourneys just like the Ohio tournament of champions several times and I get short little snippity answers I even suggested it to the ISWA tournament director once and his response was we can't do that.No well why don't you tell me more about it or maybe we will look into it or anything just no! I made this suggestion on the old forum one time and people started bashing me and the Tof C which in my honest opinion is one of the most efficent and organized tourneys that my son ever wrestled in..O.K. so now I am going to explain again how it works and also tell you some of the negative feedback I got and try to shoot down some of those arguments here and please remember I am just trying to help.1st off the kids wrestled on the same mat all day.Everything for that group of kids is done right there at that table.If you have a 1000 kids and 16 mats that is about 63 kids per mat now you say that there was on average about 20 kids per bracket. I am sure that some had less and some had more none the less you divid them up as evenly as possible.Each mat then might have on average 3 weight and age groups. You  tell the wrestlers and/or right on their bracket sheet in the hallway what mat that they are assigned to all day.You hang a sign at each table that says their age and wght.A i.e. would be like pee-wee 40 bantam 95 novice115.Now by doing this we also make it more spectator friendly as well because now we can camp out by the same mat all day and we don't have to wait around to see what mat little johnny is wrestling on.Now instead of running from mat to mat or gym to gym everytime he is up we stay put and relax until he is up.Thus eliminating some of the hustle and bustle and probably saving some time in the process not to mention eliminating the bout number announcers who are probably hoarse by the end of the day.Now you keep track of the bout numbers at each table and you already have it lined out on the bracket sheets in the hallway so that we already know that the semi-final match is bout 80 or the first consi is bout 95.Now if the tourney is folkstyle line brackets like this past weekends I know this will work.Line bracketing I am not so sure about but with the powers to be I'm sure you could make it work there as well as to where when the novices are wrestling you could be busy pairing the bantams at the time and so forth. How many pairers are there at a typical ISWA state tourney? If you had enough to put one at each table it would work.Now the responses that I got in the past were."Well we just don't have the money to buy the expensive electric scorers to keep bout numbers on like the T of C has" My answer is keep a 100 page spiral note pad taped to the table with the bout numbers wrote on it with magic marker you can write 1-99 on one side and 100-199 on the other and if it comes down to it you can write a 2 in front of the 1st set of numbers when those bouts are over and you could wrestle 300 bouts at one table with a 2 dollar pad of notebook paper." The T of C pays there help and we just get volunteers."My answer is my son has wrestled at both and I see the same thing 1 adult and 3 to 4 12 to 16 yr olds at each table whether they are getting paid or not.IT IS THE SAME PEOPLE.You would need probably 1 compentent person at each mat to run things at that mat someone who knows wrestling and how the brackets work and keep things running smoothly at that mat. Again 16 mats = 16 people I'm sure you could find 16 compentent people to do the job."We went to the T of C years ago and it was a mess they were calling my son to wrestle and he was wrestling at the time and it was utter chaos"My answer is that may well have been but I started taking my son there in 2000 so it must of been before that. We went all the way up to 2010 and we never experienced any of those things Like I said in the beginning it has been the best ran tourney that I have ever been to.But do you think They got it right the very first time? Probably not it was through trial and error and trying new things.That is the one thing that the ISWA does not do too much of is trying new things that I have seen in my 11 + years of involvement with them.How does the old quote go Ignorance is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.They rather take your idea as a threat and shoot it down before you ever get it out of your mouth just like I said I talked to the Director.Maybe sometimes you should listen to others ideas with an open mind instead of looking down your nose at them thinking you're smarter then them."Isn't the T of C  modified to a one period 3 min long with no referees position and lack of activity or out of bounds results in a neutral start"My answer is yes it is and this is about the only thing that I see that would make their tourney faster than ours.But I still think that the wrestle on one mat with bout numbers at that mat is the way to go.Try it work the bugs out and I think it will make alot more people happier than not. You are not going to make everyone happy anyways.Just a suggestion Hope this helps!

 

1) Please use paragraphs if you are going to write this much. I seriously doubt anyone took the time to read all of this. It's absolutely brutal to try and do so.

 

2) Anyone on here remember wrestling at Arsenal Tech until 1 a.m. or later? You all should be applauding the ISWA. It sounds like they did a great job this weekend.

[Infolady]

Make the kids qualify for the State Final by placing first or second in an ISWA sanctioned event.  This would reduce the numbers and thereby reduce the load on the facility.

 

The biggest problem with your suggestion is the ISWA folkstyle season runs approximately the same time as middle school. That creates a problem for Novice Schoolboy and Cadet wrestlers to qualify.

[Penguin145]

 

 

2) Anyone on here remember wrestling at Arsenal Tech until 1 a.m. or later? You all should be applauding the ISWA. It sounds like they did a great job this weekend.

 

I agree completely that the ISWA did a fantastic job. Yes, there might of been some downtime, but starting a tournament with over 1000 kids at 8 A.M and I was driving home by 7:30. I think it flowed very well. Some people shouldn't complain about the waiting in some cases though. I overheard some of the volunteers helping that day and some started working at 8 A.M and didn't get to eat till around 4 when things started to slow down. They put in long hours to make sure every thing was right.

[mtv2112]

Your situation was probably not normal.

 

I thought the Central Regional and people from Ohio laughing at ISWA's congential ineptitude to run the event was the height of embarrassment.

 

Insults always get results, don't you think?

 

At the end of yesterday, after my grandson got his medal, he said to me "Papa, I don't know if I want to wrestle anymore." 

 

Nice emotional touch.

 

Sitting there all day to get a few matches is just destroying so many kids desire to wrestle.

 

If true, why are there so many kids going?  Is attendance dropping?

 

Downtime at any wrestling tournament leads to boredom.  Were you not there with any other kids from your club?  Having someone to hang out with and other matches to watch helps pass the time.

[DLane]

I thought the ISWA did a great job running 16mats with 1000+ wrestlers. Both my boys wrestled all day 12hr + and we NEVER, NEVER waited 5 hrs between matches.

 

Maybe your watch was really fast

 

But I did get a workout walking from the fieldhouse to the main gym... ;D

[timbo]

As an official at the event I appreciated the excellent table help.  They were great all day and their moods stayed upbeat.  That made our job, as officials, much easier.  I agree---at least in the fieldhouse----That mats had next to no downtime.

 

Great wrestling all day and for the most part awesome sportsmanship:)!

 

I appreciate the time and efforts that volunteers for these type events make

[Heath Fisher]

Let me start by saying that I wasn't there and that it sounds like the tournament ran as fast as it could have with that many kids.  That and I have helped run tournaments (some good, some bad), and I have coached kids and been the parent at different meets around the state, so I do have a little experience with this situation.

 

That being said, I think that one of the problems with youth wrestling is the long days that the kids have to put in.  Again, I am not saying that this tournament was ran poorly, as I am sure it went as good as it could have.  And I am not talking about the kids who really take to wrestling and don't mind being there all day.  There are certainly plenty of those.  I am talking about the young kids who are getting their first taste of wrestling and don't really know if it is "for them".  We (the wrestling community as a whole) are losing these kids right from the start.  They never get a chance to see if wrestling is "for them" because they are turned off at such a young age (or early on in their careers for the older first time wrestlers).  The kids need a more positive experience, especially the youngest ones.

 

Now, so I won't be bashed, a possible "solution" that might make the day a little better.  Why can't we split the event into two different events?  I know we would need another venue and more help to run it, but it would cut the workload and the day in half.  It doesn't sound like that big of a deal when you think about all of the places in Indy that a slightly smaller tournament could be held at.  I don't think it would be a big problem to get more volunteers either, if you could offer a shorter, easier day for them.  The length of the event and the hectic nature of a tournament are 2 reasons more people don't volunteer now.  

 

With this change, maybe we would keep a few more kids out long enough to fall in love with wrestling, and at the same time, make the tournaments more enjoyable for the kids, family, fans, and all of the volunteers that make everything happen.

 

 

[Y2CJ41]

One big issue with being at two different venues on the same day is for families and coaches that have kids in different age groups.  I would hate to have to split up like that and be stretched even thinner as a coach.

[timbo]

would it be possible to use the same number of mats and do 1/2 the weightclasses the first half of the day and then the other half the second half?

[mtv2112]

I am talking about the young kids who are getting their first taste of wrestling and don't really know if it is "for them".  We (the wrestling community as a whole) are losing these kids right from the start.  They never get a chance to see if wrestling is "for them" because they are turned off at such a young age (or early on in their careers for the older first time wrestlers).  The kids need a more positive experience, especially the youngest ones.

 

Coaches and parents should make a judgement on whether the state tournament is the best thing for young and inexperienced wrestlers.  There are plenty of other tournaments that won't last that long.  Especially the ones that do the youngsters early and the older kids later.

 

I think for the most part it is a mistake to take a first year wrestler to the state tournament unless he has shown special wrestling ability or he can take a loss well.

[AJ]

Maybe Folkstyle State tournament has simply just outgrown its current format.  The tournament may have been ran well considering the number of athletes and the limited amount of mats used but in todays world time is very important and people will focus on it.  

 

Maybe its time we went to regions and had actual qualifying tournaments based off of the region.  Then those top 8 wrestlers advance to the state tournament from each region.  

 

If Folkstyle continues to grow, then we made need to evaluate the way in which we do things simply beause the numbers may get to big for one venue on one day.