You must qualify at a district tournament to make it to state in Grand Island on March 20th.

Go to www.nebraskausawrestling.org to find out what district you're in. District tournament dates are there also.

You must compete at this state tournament to qualify for the Nebraska USA National Middle School dual teams and the Nebraska USA Elementary National dual teams.

USA National Middle School duals will be in Danville Ill. on March 26, 27, and 28. Taking 2 teams and a charter bus.

Heartland USA Elementary National duals will be in Fremont, Nebraska on April 9th, 10th and 11th. Should be at least 16 teams this year.

always have a good time goin to this tournament....best way to see some of the top wrestlers in the state matched up and go at it.

New district map. Find what county you live in and then check the map for District number. This is the qualifier that you must attend to make it to State in Grand Island on March 20th. Then on to qualify for USA Middle school dual teams and USA elementary dual teams.

http://nebraskausawrestling.or...rict_Tournaments.htm

Seems like USA is making this about as difficult as possible:

First, the USA tournament is scheduled in the "heart" of the club wrestling season. Clubs make their money by having good attendance at their own tournament. Why does USA want to compete with the local clubs by having their tournament so early (Huskerland is in April, why can't USA?). Now they add a 2nd weekend (Districts AND the state tournament). The kids want to make the State Team which makes it more difficult for the local club to find a weekend to host their own tournament. Now we have less weekends for all of the local clubs to fit their tournaments on the few weekends that are left (as MatCast is pointing out).

Second, we MUST attend a districts that is 2 hours away when there is one 1 hour away. Why?

Is USA promoting or competing with Club programs? I thought they would be interested in building a solid wrestling community.

The USA State Folkstyle tournament and Huskerland are two weeks apart. I would not call that a big difference in time on the calendar. USA cannot go in April because the USA National tournament is the first weekend in April. The Midwest Classic is the last weekend in March so the latest the USA tournament can go is the date that it is on.

The feedback we received last year on putting on District tournaments was overwhelmingly in favor. People say that there are not enough USA events to purchase a card. So we add events.

District boundaries have to be drawn somewhere. It is not a perfect system but the best we could do. We have to be fair to everyone including the host sites. Certainly we are open to help if you are willing to volunteer. The district qualifiers are a work in progress. This is the first year, we will discuss and possibly change the rules for next year to eventually find the best system.

"Is USA promoting or competing with Club programs? I thought they would be interested in building a solid wrestling community."
1. The majority of the USA Districts were existing tournaments so that changes nothing from the past as far as competing with club tournaments.
2. The USA organization is an organization of clubs not the board. The board is elected by the clubs. The clubs all have a vote at the state meeting on issues. If the clubs have a problem with the dates it has never came up. If your club is a USA club they have a vote. If they are not a USA club they can still attend the Spring meeting and voice your opinion but do not have a vote.
3. USA has done more than anyone in the state to promote and provide opportunities to kids to reach a high level in wrestling. For many years Nebraska USA has provided opportunities for kids to compete at several national tournaments. The Middle School National Dual teams, Elementary National Dual teams, Cadet National Dual teams, Junior National Dual teams, Cadet and Junior National teams in Fargo, and the Northern Plains Regional kids.

I actually like the idea of districts, to me it gets the kids used to competing to make it to state at an early age not just sign up to go. Not only that, but a USA state champ or placer trully accomplished something and didn't just get lucky and get in the right bracket which wasn't very tough. Not saying all other state champs of the other organization aren't good, but we all know sometimes luck has a lot to do with it. I've had kids that were Huskerland state champs go on on turn out to not really be that good in high school. On the other hand I've had kids that have NEVER won Huskerland or even placed above 3rd but turned out to be studs. One thing I will say though, it seems the kids that do well at USA state usually turn out to be legit. Not arguing for or against anything just stating an opinion. And Badger, you are correct, lines have to be drawn somewhere. REally no different than our high school districts system. I'm sure when our districts was in St. Paul a few years ago that Kearney Catholic would have loved to go there but they ended up WAY out west. This is the first year I really sat in on our board for our local club and I never realized how hard it was to find a date that would work best for our tourney with least amount of conflicts. You can't miss them all!

I like the district idea. Take note Huskerland!
Please get the other district information and flyers available soon, PLEASE.

bccdavid- Isn't Central City kids tournament the same day as Huskerland duals? That's what MatCat was talking about. Had nothing to do with the USA state tournament, its the next weekend after yours.

We would sure love to have Central City put a dual team together and compete at USA State duals on March 21st, the day after State. We will have 3 divisions, 3rd - 5th, 6th-8th and 9th-12th.

District sites can change from year to year. Try and get Central City to host it next year.

Heck, we may even change district boundaries next year if at the USA state club meeting they vote for something different.

Good luck and hope to see you soon.

Thanks for all your replies. I was hoping this would be taken as constructive critism - not as an attack. I wrote and rewrote my response 3 times trying to word it right.

My point is the "big" tournament (Midwest Classic, USA, AAU, Huskerland) are not the same draw as most club tournaments. Most club tournaments draw lots of little kids with little experience. Most of the big tournaments draw experienced kids with years of experience. The problem is it takes people to work the tournaments. If I try to have the CC tournament on the same weekend as Huskerland Duals, Midwest (which we did line up with and moved), USA Tournament (which we did line up with and moved) - see the trend), we love lots of help as most of the helpers are people that have kids that wrestle.

Why the competition from the big tournaments. Most of the clubs start in February and end by the last week in March. Leave those weekends for Club tournaments and let the experienced kids wrestle on into April.

If the National USA Duals were in April, the NE tournament wouldn't have to be until later. Instead they put their national tournament at the end of March, so the state tournament has to come in Mid-March and the Districts at the beginning of March.

I'm not against having Districts. I'm against the timing.

Yep - the CC tournament is the same day as Huskerland Duals. We didn't want to compete with Aurora and Osceola (3/6), the 20th is the State Folkstyle Tournament, the 27th is Midwest Classic. See my point? What are you left with? Our Club is unamiously against having a Sunday tournament. Friday night is too short for our tournament as it is usually larger.

It's just frustrating to have to compete.

bccdavid- We didn't take it as an attack and I hope you didn't take our NE USA response that way either. I do know that NE USA doesn't want to go way into April with Folkstyle events. Our FS and greco state tournament in usually the first weekend in May, so you see what we are up against too. I'm in favor of moving our FS and Greco state tournament further in May to like the 3rd weekend, but only to allow for more local FS/GR club tournaments in the latter month of April and early May. Qualifying for National Duals and even Nationals itself is the main reasons for doing USA State in March. Clubs in NE Nebraska start in first of January and Metro areas start in Nov like HS. The west have JH season before Christmas and not sure when they start their kids. Yes it is very diverse in Nebraska. I know Bauer is thinking about moving Midwest to first weekend in April in the future, but has to be on opposite weekends with Cedar Falls USA Nationals. I don't see USA Nationals going any earlier than first weekend in April, but maybe going to 2nd weekend. That would open up last weekend in March for Central City next year maybe. Bauer is working very close with NE USA wrestling and scheduling. These things can be talked about at our annual meeting at USA state.

Again, we appreciate your support and always listen and try to do what's best for Nebraska wrestling.

See ya at State, March 20th, Grand Island.

Fred Franklin
NE USA kids director

Thanks for your reply Fred. No "attack" taken. This topic was being discussed with a few other club coaches and I just wanted to post to let you know what we were chewing on.

Here's an email I got today from someone that doesn't post to HM:

Some local clubs want to make money to help out their high school. The best way to do that is with a tournnament. Almost every club has one and you add more to what is already a packed schedule. I always concidered club season to be right after high school season ends, perhaps I need to change my thinking but if a tourney has been on or about the same date for 30 plus years and here you guys come in and add more tourneys whats a club to do?

I do think that tourneys such as USA state, AAU state, Midwest classic, matjam and so on have created better competition but at some cost to the local club, which in my opinion is the foundation of Nebraska wrestling.

I greatly appreciate what USA has done to give national experiance to Nebraska kids and hope you will continue to do so.

Thanks again for listening Fred.

No problem...we are always here to listen and hopefully better Nebraska wrestling. Don't forget that our State USA meeting is the evening of March 20th in Grand Island. Lets talk about all this stuff and see what we can up with. Make sure your club is a USA club and you will have full voting rights on anything that comes up.

usa had disticts before but nobody went or had a meet out west. hope this turns out better than it did before

quote:

Originally posted by rippdr:
usa had disticts before but nobody went or had a meet out west. hope this turns out better than it did before

That was Freestyle and Greco. Never had districts for Folkstyle before. The West quit doing freestyle and greco several years ago which made the district FS/GR tournaments very small.

I know District 5 is going to be huge...21 clubs in that district.

How about putting out some flyers for your District Tournaments?

Clubs plan their calendars weeks in advance, without a who, what, when and where they cannot lock in the date. Clubs have to start handing out information to parents in a week or so for the earlier district tournaments.

I know my son's club just made the decision to not go to USA Districts because there was no information other then a date and city.

I hope having to qualify for State USA doesn't limit your numbers or will you let exceptions into your state tournament to get your best National Dual team?

Does anyone realize March 20th the NCAA D-I Championship Finals are at the Qwest? I'll bet some folks opt to go watch that than going to this tourney.

quote:

Originally posted by mojo #2:
I hope having to qualify for State USA doesn't limit your numbers or will you let exceptions into your state tournament to get your best National Dual team?

Actually, from the responses we have gotten it will probably increase the numbers at State. Kids qualifying, just like High School. Once they realize they have qualified for State, they may be apt to go give it a try.

There are 8 districts that qualify 4 per district for State. If someone doesn't place top 4 at their district, they can still get in by petitioning through another district. That means if that other district is only sending 3 kids at that weight, then the other wrestler can still get in. Maximum wrestler per weight at state would be 34 kids.

There will be no exceptions for making dual teams. They must go to districts to make it to State.

quote:

Originally posted by JNielsen:
Does anyone realize March 20th the NCAA D-I Championship Finals are at the Qwest? I'll bet some folks opt to go watch that than going to this tourney.

I'll bet there will be few...just like in years past when we were on DII nationals. DII nationals in Omaha this year too and we felt there was more Nebraskans and Midwest affiliates wrestling at the DII level than DI. UNK and UNO would like to have active roll with USA state so we needed to get off DII nationals. Yes DI is here this year, so it will conflict a little but in the future it won't.

These kids are preparing themselves for High School and beyond. The top 25% of the kids will be working to make themselves better and thats by wrestling tough competition and trying to qualify for National dual teams.

I'm sure we can get GI to rig up some TVs to watch in the commons area. I think that would be a great idea.

Districts is coming up at end of month and first week of March. Check out what district you are in at www.nebraskausawrestling.org

click on Districts