rlchampagne

First of all, I want to say what a great job all of the coaches and the wrestlers did. It was a long trip, but I thought that Coach Hull, Coach Bradley, and Coach Meyers did a great job and really represented the state of Indiana well. I am very grateful that my son, Jose Champagne, was selected for the team and was able to represent our state. I also thought that all of our wrestlers did a fantastic job representing Indiana and wrestled well and had great attitudes. Coach Ericson also showed up and it was nice to have the additional support. To the person that asked about Cameron Diep, he was DQ'ed for using his legs. Cameron wrestled really well and I thought it was a lame call, especially since the other kid was using his legs too. But Cameron handled himself well and took it in stride. There were really only two negative things about the trip, and none of those were under the coaches' control. The first is the number of forfeits for Greco but we also had some for Freestyle due to injuries. There were a number of kids that were there to wrestle freestyle that could have filled in and also wrestled Greco. My son and Gunnar Larsen were two that agreed to wrestle both because they wanted to help the team out. I am sure that the kids that did not want to wrestle Greco had a reason not to, I don't know why, I didn't ask them, but I was disappointed because mat time is mat time. Jose and Gunnar are not Greco experts, and only a few states actually have awesome Greco teams, so it really wasn't a matter of not knowing what you are doing, because most of the kids didn't appear to know what to do for Greco. Yes, we ran into a few kids on certain teams at certain weights that knew what they were doing, but the majority of the kids we wrestled weren't Greco all stars. That being said, I wish a few of the kids had agreed to wrestle Greco and give it a try because it would have made a difference in a few of the duals, but hopefully next year we are able to have a full team. The number of forfeits can also be helped by high school teams/coaches. We all know when the Junior Duals take place, so it would be nice and helpful if high school coaches didn't plan any tournaments with their teams during that week. The ISWA needs the high school coaches' support to help field the best teams. I think Indiana could have completed with the best teams if we had our best, or even our second best, kids at each weight. It is difficult to do that when you have kids back out at the last minute, and I know several kids backed out so late that they were either unable to fill the spot or just filled it with anyone that was willing and available to go. All of our wrestlers, even the ones that were added at the last minute and/or were giving up weight, wrestled really well and had some great matches, so I can only imagine how it would have gone if we had our best kids on the team. That being said, people who organize other teams and high school coaches need to encourage their studs to go and represent our state at the duals instead of doing all of these other tournaments. The second thing that is an issue is the money. It cost about $700 for a bus ride and hotel with breakfast and the gear. Mr. Larsen and I spoke to several other teams while we were there and by far, Indiana was the most expensive. Granted, Jose wrestled 15 matches in four days, so he definitely got his matches in, however, it is very expensive compared to other states. I am hopeful that the ISWA tries to find ways to cut down both these costs and the costs of Fargo. States like Illinois do fundraisers such as raffle tickets and they also add money to in-state tournament fees to help offset the costs. Let's hope the ISWA tries to make these trips a little more accessible in the future. But I will say, having kids drop out at the last second doesn't help - the ISWA was planning on having about 4 or 5 more kids show up, which is almost $3,000. With those kids dropping out, that is still $3000 they have to cover towards the tournament fees, bus and hotel, so by not having those kids show up, it makes it harder to make the trip more affordable. Sorry this is so long, but I think that Indiana can definitely compete with the best and I would love to see our state represented on a national level! Great job to the ISWA and the coaches for making this trip fun for the boys and representing our state!