Outstate at least there were a number of junior high tournaments this week; curious to hear some feedback. i.e. a big open at Gibbon yesterday.

Do you have to be on a Jr.High School team to wrestle in these tourn. or are they open any 7th or 8th grader?

is what I was referencing. These are not ' open '. I think Gibbon had their annual invite tournament yesterday/last night, I think Loup City had one on Thursday, there were likely many during this week, some results would fit right in with some other threads on here about 7th and 8th grade wrestlers. Its a short season for most out state programs, they'll be wrapped up before Christmas in most cases.

Short season isn't the word for it. Wrestling is "allowed" 8wks before BB starts. this is better than when I first got here, they would start bb as soon as football would end. We started with only 4 events, now we "may have" 7. We try to push in as many matches as possible {we have 3 tournaments, 2 triangulars and a quad}. We added a tri with creighton and crofton on I think dec 8 in the Jr high and now bb starts before we are finished. But does me no good to whine here.

Ponca had a tournament on thurs 11-13. small (7-8 teams) but is gaining ground for them. was nicely ran. no official weight or team score. we came away with 8 1sts, 3 2nds (one lost to a teamate for the championship) 3 3rds.
Plainview has a great tournament on 11-20. think they have 10-12 teams (maybe more as I try to think) They have weight classes and a team championship.
Winside has a tournament on I think 12-2. That is another good tournament.

on a lighter note I hadmy first girl come out for the sport. had to convince the boys to practice with her like any other team mate. Her older brother wrestled for me and her parents and brother could not convince her otherwise.

My guess is that you're doing a great job, ahead of the curve you might say, by accomplishing 7-8 competitive situations for your junior high program. I suspect most schools are in the 4-6 competitions area in the course of approx.4-5 weeks of season. Its probably arguable whether or not the specific weight brackets are necessary, but getting the experience and the matches is an invaluable thing, unfortunately here in NE there is more available outside of school than inside and most of that is in Omaha and later on during Huskerland season.

Going off the subject some we have trouble getting to compete out of the area. Most kids compete in all sports at the Jr high and high school levels. At the jr high I'm glad they do then they have the experience to decide for themselves what they want, even made my sons go out for bb to see if they wanted to compete in it, they found out like I did that they have a terrible dribble and shot (doesn't stop us from having a wrestling bb game during x-mas break). my high school bb coach said I would make a better wrestler, go figure.
We can get some to wrestle in the area tournaments but most don't like to go to others. Unlike some coaches this doesn't bother me too bad. I like them to compete in all sports to stop from burning out from the intensity it takes. if they don't compete in other sports though they go through my lifting and conditioning after school. We can wrestle during the summer league, open mats, and go to camps (not many did when I first got here) to help our skills.
Overall I am happy with what we have going here at Randolph. Starting to see things get better. Don't know if we will ever get to compete with the big boys for state championships (on my coach's goal list though), but as long as we are competetive as a team and getting better individually every year I am happy.

While at the Crofton-WPCC game last night I talked to Henry Miller the ex-coach from Crofton. I had heard they only had 4 kids out for Jr high wrestling and was trying to find out why.
He and others from Crofton stated they don't practice during the school day. they will go after school. the new jr high coach is a high school football coach. So for now they go at 6:00 at night and it's hard to get kids to come back to school. I hope they can get this fixed, they are an up and coming team that needs this to continue to grow.

Totally agree with you on experiencing all that junior high offers. Both my own sons loved basketball and had great fun doing it, but wrestling had already won their hearts long before junior high. Still, the glory sport captured a number of potential quality wrestlers despite the fact they'll watch most of every basketball game from the bench for 2 or 3 years at least. The glory sports have powerful allure and wield significant influence inside school buildings. If you're athletic, show any football or basketball promise; you are ' expected ' to choose what your peers and upperclassmen want you to do. Its all Stupid, but true. In reality, junior high athletic programs are mostly only a glimmer of what they once were in all the sports, A high school wrestling coach has to work his butt off outside the ' season ' to have any chance of a continuing ' program ', uncompensated and unthanked.