Hey , I want to start by saying thank you to lots of people.
I attended the Franklin site last weekend. One of my former coaches was there working all weekend. He once said to me "I don't know how much so and so is getting paid to do this, but it's not enough"
I'll tell you that number was probably $0.
We have a lot of people that help with a data driven formula, seeding, a rules/ selection committee, selecting/ assigning officials, securing mats, setting up LOTS of things, trackwrestling setup, awards, and now streaming the whole thing. If ANY of these people aren't there helping, I don't know now this tournament continues. It is a huge undertaking.
I won't say that the experience is perfect. But we keep aiming to make it better.
The goal is to always keep this tournament centrally located. The tournament was setup to sort of bring teams (the best teams is the goal) from all geographical locations. The 1A problem becomes that there aren't many 1A options in the Indianapolis area. And not many 1A options that can field 6 wrestling mats.
Someone on the IHSWCA has continuously asked me to drop 1 and 2 back down to 8 teams. I have not wanted to do that for lots of reasons we have discussed over the years. That in itself limits venues we can go to. Which is why we have done fieldhouses the last two years.
We have several people that want the tournament all at one location, but that has been difficult to accommodate.
We have several that want the tournament all 4 separate locations. That also raises issues as we spread ourselves too thin with helpers. There's only so many volunteers you can ask for.
I do like to read on ways we can improve. I don't think everyone understands the logistics.
I think the faceoff needs to be done before the finals That would be incredible.
As far as the spotlight finals or one match finals. Also a great idea! Brownsburg reached out last year to ask if they could do that, but that meant that the finalists had a double bye. It comes back to asking officials, and workers to stay longer.
So there are ways to improve and I'm always interested in hearing how you think we can improve. But it's not always as easy as people think.