Quote from chalk on April 18, 2025, 1:22 pm

You often come across as negative and mostly seem to complain about something on this board. No one is forcing you to support anything—it's entirely your choice. What will you do next year if Jon decides to take the board down, which he is considering?

For the record, the AAU Elementary National Duals have been in Kingsport, TN for years—they just moved back to Iowa this year, if you had done a bit of research. Transporting middle and high school kids in buses or vans is very different from organizing trips for elementary schoolers. The Heartland kids travel separately—parents handle transportation themselves and usually parents are some of the coaches as well. It’s different than the AAU trips, where the logistics is arranged, so parents don't have to attend to take care of their wrestler. It’s apples to oranges. Why even bring that up?

Resources have likely been stretched thin for everyone these past two weekends—coaches, chaperones, and teams alike. If parents or coaches really wanted to get a team together to compete, they could have. Why didn’t you organize one? I’m sure if a few people were willing to put in the effort, the Coaches Association would’ve supported them however they could.

Let's all try and be better to promote the sport itself, no matter who's name is on it. A lot of people put in a tons of hours to promote the sport, create opportunities, put together dual teams, find kids, find coaches, run tournaments, start tournaments, coordinate everything behind the scenes, and just flat volunteer their time.  And, sometimes people need to be assertive and just run with something and not wait for others to put it together for them.

 

Quote from jobro04 on April 18, 2025, 5:12 pm

Quote from chalk on April 18, 2025, 1:22 pm

You often come across as negative and mostly seem to complain about something on this board. No one is forcing you to support anything—it's entirely your choice. What will you do next year if Jon decides to take the board down, which he is considering?

For the record, the AAU Elementary National Duals have been in Kingsport, TN for years—they just moved back to Iowa this year, if you had done a bit of research. Transporting middle and high school kids in buses or vans is very different from organizing trips for elementary schoolers. The Heartland kids travel separately—parents handle transportation themselves and usually parents are some of the coaches as well. It’s different than the AAU trips, where the logistics is arranged, so parents don't have to attend to take care of their wrestler. It’s apples to oranges. Why even bring that up?

Resources have likely been stretched thin for everyone these past two weekends—coaches, chaperones, and teams alike. If parents or coaches really wanted to get a team together to compete, they could have. Why didn’t you organize one? I’m sure if a few people were willing to put in the effort, the Coaches Association would’ve supported them however they could.

Let's all try and be better to promote the sport itself, no matter who's name is on it. A lot of people put in a tons of hours to promote the sport, create opportunities, put together dual teams, find kids, find coaches, run tournaments, start tournaments, coordinate everything behind the scenes, and just flat volunteer their time.  And, sometimes people need to be assertive and just run with something and not wait for others to put it together for them.

 

You can call it negative, complaining whatever you want. I tried to do it nicely for a couple years and kept getting shutdown at every turn. Sometimes you have to switch tactics to be heard. If we want our kids to compete in South Dakota we actually don’t have a choice. I honestly don’t care which organization sanctions youth wrestling. I just want there to be actual representation for parents of youth wrestlers. If you feel that shutting down the board is the next step then so be it. There are plenty of people willing and able to step in to handle it.

As the governing body for youth wrestling in the state did anyone let it be known it was moving to Des Moines this year?  Did you ask for volunteers to put a team together?  I know for heartland duals the kids travel separately. I have attended multiple times. I also always volunteer to run the table for the duals every time we go. I have organized teams for national dual tournaments before. I know what it takes.

I was also curious about the nonprofit status of the coaches association. I went to the state website and the last financial statements reported are from 2018. I sent an email to the Secretary of State inquiring about the status and also requesting the statements from the last few years since they are public record and are supposed to be posted to the state website.