OHS Wrestling

First of all, I want to congratulate all of the boys, both high school and junior high on a great weekend. I know that a lot of the boys that went to the Payson Tournament placed, but I don't have a complete list so I won't post any of them here. (Don't want anyone to feel left out.) Our Varsity wrestlers took third place in the Carbon Duels, a big improvement over the 7th place they took last year. We are definitely on the way up and excited about it. Keep up the hard work!

Tomorrow (Tuesday the 8th) we will be wrestling at Salem Hills High School (Both high school and junior high). The junior high matches will begin at 5 pm. We will have the junior high boys meeting at Orem High at 4:00 sharp to carpool down. If any of you parents can help in transporting your boys, it would be greatly appreciated. The junior high boys also have the option of riding the high school bus down there, in which case they would need to be at the school at 3:00 pm. I assume that the junior high matches will be done by 6 or so, after which you will be free to take them home.

The high school schedule will go as follows:
4:00 PM - Weigh in
5:00 PM - JV Matches begin
7:00 PM - Varsity Matches begin

Hope to see you all there! Let me know if you have any questions!

I apologize in advance for any confusion this post may cause, but I have decided to try and get as many of the junior high wrestlers as possible that were planning to participate in one of the two tournaments this weekend to go to the Salt Lake Slam tournament in Heber instead of the South Valley Classic in Payson.

My original thoughts were that the beginners would like to participate in the Payson tournament as the Salt Lake Slam has traditionally been a tournament for more advanced wrestlers. However, this year they have decided to have a beginners only tournament in addition to the traditional one to entice more of the first and second year wrestlers to come support this national event in order to get more national tournaments to come to Utah. Please see below for a more detailed explanation.

We have been fortunate to attract a handful of national level events to Utah, but Utah will not continue attract these events if we can't grow the numbers. I'll address a few concerns that coaches have expressed:

1- Offering an opportunity for beginners. This is the first year that we have offered an opportunity for true beginners at the request of coaches that want to travel as a team. The true beginners need a league card. They do not need a national card.
2- Cost: The cost is $15 for true beginners and $35 for the experienced divisions. This event is different from most local events. We spend significant money on a quality venue, pay high school referees and provide top of the line awards. It is an attempt to create a national level feel. Recognize that if you travel to Denver or Reno you will spend significant money to provide that opportunity. We are trying to provide that opportunity to Utah kids in their own back yard and yes a $37 card and $35 entry fee is expensive in a tough economy, but consider the costs you are saving by have the event within short driving distance.
3- "It is good for my top kids, but I'm sending the rest somewhere else." Utah does not have the numbers of an Oklahoma or Iowa. We need our top kids and our 2nd and 3rd tier kids to support the event. It is a great chance for those kids to see that a kid from Idaho, Montana or Nevada is no better than a kid from Utah and can be a great building block for those kids. We don't have the mass of kids in Utah to have the luxury of allowing only the top 10% to compete and then attract the rest in from the rest of the country. We need Utah kids to step up to the challenge and experience this level of wrestling.
4- Remote weigh-in sites: We have arrange for remote weigh-ins for beginners at Mapleton, Mt. View, AF, and Riverton at this point. If you want to arrange a remote weigh-in for beginners at your school please let me know. It is not reasonable to ask a kid to fly in for weigh-ins from PA and then tell a Utah kid that he does not need to drive to Heber to weigh-in on Friday night. It experience portion of the Salt Lake Slam is considered a national level event and it is unreasonable to ask that we set up weigh-in locations for kids from all over the country. I have been a fan and advocate of remote weigh-ins for local tournaments.
5- Floor Pass for Coaches: Personally I believe that the pandamonia on the side of mats at local tournaments is one of the main turn offs for new parents to our sport. We want coaches on the floor and none other. We need some way to police people on the floor. I'm willing to work with someone that I know is a coach. If you have concerns about getting down on the floor I can deal with you one on one, but we are not going to give floor passes to every mom and dad that wants to be on the floor.

Details can be found at www.usafolkstyle.com Let me know if you have questions.

Cole Kelley
Rocky Mountain Wrestling
www.rockymountainwrestling.com

Hello everybody! We have an exciting weekend coming up... Both the Junior High team and the High School team have a tournament this weekend.

For the junior high wrestlers, you have the option to go to either the Salt Lake Slam (in heber, online pre-registration only) or the South County Classic (in Payson - this is where the coaches will be). I believe weigh ins for both tournaments are today. For the Payson tournament, we will be holding the weigh in at practice. If you plan on going to the Salt Lake Slam you need to register ASAP (if it's not already too late) on trackwrestling.com. You will be able to see the regional weigh in locations there. (You will not be able to weigh in for the Salt Lake Slam at Orem High.)

The cost of the Payson tournament is $10.

For the high school wrestlers, we will be traveling to Price to participate in the Carbon Duals. All high school wrestlers are invited to come. We will try and fill open spots on other teams with JV and Exhibition wrestlers, but can't guarantee that they will get onto another team. If they are not able to get on another team, we will try to rotate them in at least once or twice on our varsity team.

The bus will be leaving Orem High at noon on Friday. We have wrestling class B4, but if you are not in the class it will be excused. If you need to get checked out before then it will have to be by your parents.

The boys will be sleeping in the gym at Carbon High School, so they will not need to pay for a hotel. I decided to cut the price for the tournaments in half (Originally we had the boys paying $20 for each tournament, plus about $15 per night for hotel rooms. The hotel rooms will still be the same price, but the tournament entry fee will be split between the wrestler and the school, so only $10 instead of $20.) These can be paid for by fundraisers. If you have already paid for this tournament in the financial office, we can apply anything over the actual cost to your next tournament.

Here is some more info about how the tournament will be run:

You will have a one pound weight allowance for each day of the tournament. (This doesn't go towards your weight loss plan.) For example, Friday +1 (103=104), and Saturday +2 (103=105).

Weigh-in begins at 2:00 Friday afternoon; coaches meeting at 3:00 in the wrestling office in the old gym; first round at 4:00 p.m..
Saturday weigh-in 6:30 a.m. and round 5 begins at 8:30 a.m.

Concessions are available.

Admission each day for parents ($5.00), non-wrestling-team students ($2.00), Senior Citizens (65 yoa) $3.00

No outside drinks may be brought into the gym (except coolers by the team - I would recommend bringing some healthy food in a cooler for both days).

Weigh-in will be by team.

First round will begin at 103 pound class and each successive round will move up one (1) weight class.

We have a dual meet with Park City slated for this week on Wednesday the 2nd of December. Our bus will be leaving the high school at 3:00 for Park City. The varsity dual is going to begin at 6:00 instead of 7:00. We were planning on having another team there to have a tri-meet, but they weren't able to get anybody else to come so it will just be the two of us.

This weekend is our first wrestling tournament of the year... the Carbon Duals in Price. We will be staying overnight down there. Weigh ins will be at 2:00 on Friday, so we will be leaving at about 12 noon. Please make sure to bring food for after weigh ins and the next day following the second weigh in at 6:00 am on Saturday.

The Junior High wrestlers will have the option of participating in either the Salt Lake Slam (online registration only at trackwrestling.com) or the South County Classic in Payson. I will be sending an email out with details on both tournaments.

Please let me know if you have any questions!

Thanks!