The Debacle at the Central Regional

Z

Ztrain

Member
I wonder if USA wrestle will address the travesty of a tournament in Fort Wayne, IN? There were some kids that showed up to USA Wrestling’s Central Regional at 730am and we’re still wresting after 1230am the next day. I could only imagine the fatigue that many of those kids felt. As the tournament ensued I saw more, and more injuries; possibly due to exhaustion. I only wonder if the governing body of USA wrestling will issue an apology, and insure that nothing like this will ever happen again.
 
 
I enjoy wrestling said:
At what point does the parental instict kick in? Take Johnny home
Click to expand...
for many of these kids, qualifying for fargo is a huge deal. They have given up their spring seasons to train for such a tournament. To simply say take johnny home and not hold accountability for the extremely poorly ran tournament is the problem. These kids getting out of the tournament at 1230 at night should be where the attention should be directed, not at the parents allowing their kids to be there for fargo qualification.
 
wrestlfan said:
for many of these kids, qualifying for fargo is a huge deal. They have given up their spring seasons to train for such a tournament. To simply say take johnny home and not hold accountability for the extremely poorly ran tournament is the problem. These kids getting out of the tournament at 1230 at night should be where the attention should be directed, not at the parents allowing their kids to be there for fargo qualification.
Click to expand...
Sounds like multiple groups of adults failed the kids, not just those running the event.
 
USA Wrestling at the very least should offer an apology for the Central Regional debacle. This is a significant event for our wrestlers, an event that kids have been training all spring. On top of that, some families dropped $150 to wrestle. Very disappointing!
 
I've been to this tournament multiple times and it has always run pretty smoothly in my opinion. I was following along online and wondered what the heck was going on. Especially when matches stopped early on and there was a break. I don't remember a break ever happening in the past.
 
the whole thing needs revamped
14u kids state in ohio. started 2 hours late. there was no seeding, there was no seperation criteria used for the brackets... zero reason to start that late for BOTH styles
14u qualifier at oak hills -- a kid drives 3 hours to a tournament. weighs in. sits for 2.5 hours waiting for wrestling to start.. then finds out there is no one near him in weight and he can go back home. this is AFTER pre registration was mandatory.
wanna run kids away and continue to have a horrible product-- do things like that
 
OnTheBay said:
USA Wrestling at the very least should offer an apology for the Central Regional debacle. This is a significant event for our wrestlers, an event that kids have been training all spring. On top of that, some families dropped $150 to wrestle. Very disappointing!
Click to expand...
My guess is that won't happen. USA will blame the locals running the event, the locals (Central Region, OH, MI, IL IN, KY) will blame Track wrestling and the facility..... I've been to this tournament probably 7 times, always great. This year was a disaster.

In any business situation you need to know your capacity. Looking at Track number were roughly 35% up over '22, due to a number of very predictable factors - i.e.- dates of other regions conflicted with state tourneys, dates and location of other regionals moving, general growth of women's and kids division (good thing).

I would guess 98% of the wrestlers pre registered before Friday-1332 wrestlers registered. According to the advertised schedule Session I, 9:-12:30, U14 & below and Juniors then a break, and U16 starting at 1:30. How on earth did they reasonably expect to run 700 kids through session 1 on 14 mats in 3 1/2 hours even had started on time? Some of the the junior were 64 man brackets with over 40 wrestlers. At around 9:00pm there was an announcement over the PA saying " WE WILL FINISH THIS TOURNAMENT TODAY", I don't think it ever occurred to anyone that they wouldn't.

Apparently there were problems with Track that causes a 2 1/2 hour delay in starting the Juniors, then took a break, then attempted to run all division at the same time. We arrived at 8:00am, warmed up, and didn't wrestle until 3:30pm, second match at 9:30pm, then three matches w/in 45 minutes with the last match ending just after midnight with wrestling still going on having to be back at the arena for Greco at 9:00am.

Bottom line- they did not plan nor execute effectively- they outkicked their coverage. With over 1300 kids registered, they probably needed at least 4 more mats (which that facility could have held) OR moved u14 & below and all girls divisions to a different data & venue. Anecdotally, noticed a number of injuries in the morning Greco session, and it's hard to know to what extent fatigue, dehydration is a factor, but it's certainly not in the best interest of the athlete to have them compete over an 17 hour period and then again the next day on 4-5 hours sleep.

Other complaints:

- Weigh ins. - Madness, thought a riot was going to break out. How they expect to weigh in 1300+ kids in 30 minutes is insane. Some kids arrived hours early to get in line. Check scale was in the front of the line. As the crowd built, kids pushed their way to the check scale moving the kids that were in line back. All wrestlers enters through one passage, when there a huge mob forms they announced anyone with a " USA PERFORMANCE" card can come to the front. Those few that has them pushed their way to the font causing mass chaos, kids crawling under ropes.... at 7:10 they begin letting kids through a single file line for skin checks with 2 dudes checking 1300 kids. They then cued up kids behind scales, and then 15 minutes later after weigh ins had started, made the announcement that only Red and Blue singlets were acceptable for weighing in, which I would say 1/3 of the kids were not wearing but also could not leave the weigh in area, lest be disqualified - this caused coaches and parent to jump the rope into the weigh in lines to give their wrestler a red/blue singlet, and whatever order they had in the cures to be disrupted had kids cutting lines, security berating parents and kids for changing into the red/blue singlets on the weigh in floor. 8 year old boys, 18 year old boys, and 16 year old girls, in basically their underwear in a big uncontrolled mob- what a recipe for a safe sport violation.

Easy Fix:
#1. Put check scales outside the weigh in area.
#2. Make it a 2 hour window. 5:30- 7:30.
#3. Have cues spread out in the arena over the 14 mats for different age groups & genders. Line up the wrestlers in the bleachers, by age group /gender, release 1 row at a time for skin check and weigh in. Kids weigh in, they exit through a different door where they can meet their parents, and off they go.
#4. Make the process clear and transparent.
#5. Be cool and respectful to people. People have travelled to get here, kids are hungry - no need to treat people like crap.

- The Arena Staff was unprofessional to say the least. There was really no where to stand in that arena without being yelled at by someone whether walking to a mat, standing next to a wrestler on deck, walking to a mat to coach a wrestler, trying to watch a match. Silly rule that cooler's are prohibited after 8:00am and only wrestlers could carry a cooler. If you arrived at 8:02 am, no cooler for you. If you are a family, no cooler for you, and little did they know they would be in that area for 18 hours! They were allowed to buy a $4 water and $11 chicken fingers' from the concession stand or leave and pay another $8 to park. After several hours of waiting, I needed to get out of the arena and was looking for a place to charge my phone and noticed some comfortable in the lobby up stairs. There were a few wrestlers lounging and I found an empty chair and relaxed for 1/2 hour. A few hours later, that area was roped off with yellow tape like a crime scene. How dare people try and get comfortable.

- There was TV with a bout board, spotty wi-fi in the arena and no where to charge your phone (again 18 hours). All while being yelled at over the PA every 5 minutes about wrestlers not reporting to mats holding us up. Easy fix- put monitors on every corner of the arena. Put them back in the lounge area, project them on a wall so that spectators can see them....

- Refs & Table Workers were overall very good but really not fair to have them work 18 hour shifts. Fatigue leads to mistakes - scores wrong, clocks not being started, tempers on all sides got hot as day went on. Video reviews took way too long - I'd guess 5-10 minutes on average for each one. There were matches that took 25 minutes.

I realize that posting on Yappi doesn't actually accomplish anything, but I would hope that those running the event from the USA down to the local region representatives would do an honest retrospective and attempt to make some changes. The Regionals are a premier event for USA wrestling and of all the regions - the Central Region - in the midwest - which we like to call ourselves the hotbed of wrestling - we should have higher expectations.
 
Last edited:
NWL said:
My guess is that won't happen. USA will blame the locals running the event, the locals (Central Region, OH, MI, IL IN, KY) will blame Track wrestling and the facility..... I've been to this tournament probably 7 times, always great. This year was a disaster.

In any business situation you need to know your capacity. Looking at Track number were roughly 35% up over '22, due to a number of very predictable factors - i.e.- dates of other regions conflicted with state tourneys, dates and location of other regionals moving, general growth of women's and kids division (good thing).

I would guess 98% of the wrestlers pre registered before Friday-1332 wrestlers registered. According to the advertised schedule Session I, 9:-12:30, U14 & below and Juniors then a break, and U16 starting at 1:30. How on earth did they reasonably expect to run 700 kids through session 1 on 14 mats in 3 1/2 hours even had started on time? Some of the the junior were 64 man brackets with over 40 wrestlers. At around 9:00pm there was an announcement over the PA saying " WE WILL FINISH THIS TOURNAMENT TODAY", I don't think it ever occurred to anyone that they wouldn't.

Apparently there were problems with Track that causes a 2 1/2 hour delay in starting the Juniors, then took a break, then attempted to run all division at the same time. We arrived at 8:00am, warmed up, and didn't wrestle until 3:30pm, second match at 9:30pm, then three matches w/in 45 minutes with the last match ending just after midnight with wrestling still going on having to be back at the arena for Greco at 9:00am.

Bottom line- they outkicked their coverage, and did not plan nor execute well. With over 1300 kids registered, they probably needed at least 4 more mats (which that facility could have held) OR moved u14 & below and all girls divisions to a different data & venue. Anecdotally, noticed a number of injuries in the morning Greco session, and it's hard to know to what extent fatigue, dehydration is a factor, but it's certainly not in the best interest of the athlete to have them compete over an 14 hour period and then again the next day on 4-5 hours sleep.

Other complaints:

- Weigh ins. - Madness, thought a riot was going to break out. How they expect to weigh in 1300+ kids in 30 minutes is insane. Some kids arrived hours early to get in line. Check scale was in the front of the line. As the crowd built, kids pushed their way to the check scale moving the kids that were in line back. All wrestlers enters through one passage, when there a huge mob forms they announced anyone with a " USA PERFORMANCE" card can come to the front. Those few that has them pushed their way to the font causing mass chaos, kids crawling under ropes.... at 7:10 they begin letting kids through in 2 single file lines for skin checks with 2 dudes checking 1300 kids. They then cued up kids behind scales, and then 15 minutes later made the announcement that only Red and Blue singlets were acceptable for weighing in, which I would say 1/3 of the kids were not wearing but also could not leave the weigh in area, lest be disqualified - this caused coached and parent to jump the rope into the weigh in lines to give their wrestler a red/blue singlet, and whatever order they had in the cures to be disrupted had kids cuts lines, security berating parents, and kids for changing into the red/blue singlets on the weigh in floor. 8 year old boys, 18 year old boys, and 16 year old girls, in basically their underwear in a big uncontrolled mob- what a recipe for a safe sport violation.

Easy Fix:
#1. Put check scales outside the weigh in area.
#2. Make it a 2 hour window. 5:30- 7:30.
#3. Have cues spread out in the arena over the 14 mats for different age groups & genders. Line up the wrestlers in the bleachers, by age group /gender, release 1 row at a time for skin check and weigh in. Kids weigh in, they exit through a different door where they can meet their parents, and off they go.
#4. Make the process clear and transparent.
#5. Be cool and respectful to people. People have travelled to get here, kids are hungry - no need to treat people like crap.

- The Arena Staff was unprofessional to say the least. There was really no where to stand in that arena without being yelled at by someone whether walking to a mat, standing next to a wrestler on deck, walking to a mat to coach a wrestler, trying to watch a match. Silly rule that cooler's are prohibited after 8:00am and only wrestlers could carry a cooler. If you arrived at 8:02 am, no cooler for you. If you are a family, no cooler for you, and little did they know they would be in that area for 18 hours! They were allowed to buy a $4 water and $11 chicken fingers' from the concession stand or leave and pay another $8 to park. After several hours of waiting, I needed to get out of the arena and was looking for a place to charge my phone and noticed some comfortable in the lobby up stairs. There were a few wrestlers lounging and I found an empty chair and relaxed for 1/2 hour. A few hours later, that area was roped off with yellow tape like a crime scene. How dare people try and get comfortable.

- There was TV with a bout board, spotty wi-fi in the arena and no where to charge your phone (again 18 hours). All while being yelled at over the PA every 5 minutes about wrestlers not reporting to mats holding us up. Easy fix- put monitors on every corner of the arena. Put them back in the lounge area, project them on a wall so that spectators can see them....

- Refs & Table Workers were overall very good but really not fair to have them work 18 hour shifts. Fatigue leads to mistakes - scores wrong, clocks not being started, tempers on all sides got hot as day went on. Video reviews took way too long - I'd guess 5-10 minutes on average for each one. There were matches that took 25 minutes.

I realize that posting on Yappi doesn't actually accomplish anything, but I would hope that those running the event from the USA down to the local region representatives would do an honest retrospective and attempt to make some changes. The Regionals are a premier event for USA wrestling and of all the regions - the Central Region - in the midwest - which we like to call ourselves the hotbed of wrestling - we should have higher expectations.
Click to expand...

Weigh ins for this event (and Fargo) have always been madness as far as I know.
 
WGTJ said:
Weigh ins for this event (and Fargo) have always been madness as far as I know.
Click to expand...
Agreed, but it doesn't have to be. Others have figured it out. As a wrestling community maybe we're just used to being treated like garbage, but maybe we should expect more.

My daughter plays club volleyball and the difference is amazing. Regional/National tournaments are enormous - 2000 teams, 200+ courts and it all seems to flow like clockwork! Maybe the Nike/Adidas $$ is the difference.
 
Last edited:
The local people that always do a superior job with pairings..(Mrs. Culp) was not selected to run this event. They brought in someone from out of town to do the pairings and he did things manually. This is what I was told was the reason for he 2.5 hour late start time. I haven't been to a central regional in a handful of years. Do not remember it being this much of a cluster.
 
TheStuff142 said:
The local people that always do a superior job with pairings..(Mrs. Culp) was not selected to run this event. They brought in someone from out of town to do the pairings and he did things manually. This is what I was told was the reason for he 2.5 hour late start time. I haven't been to a central regional in a handful of years. Do not remember it being this much of a cluster.
Click to expand...
Last year (2022) started 1.5 hours late.... its trending in the wrong direction.

There should be no reason for it aside from a natural disaster.
 
TheStuff142 said:
The local people that always do a superior job with pairings..(Mrs. Culp) was not selected to run this event. They brought in someone from out of town to do the pairings and he did things manually. This is what I was told was the reason for he 2.5 hour late start time. I haven't been to a central regional in a handful of years. Do not remember it being this much of a cluster.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the insight. Admittedly I'm ignorant to the process of building parings, but if 95% of the kids preregister, and 90% of those kids show up and make the weight that they registered for, and there is very little separation criteria or seeding, shouldn't the brackets be mostly automatically generated with maybe a handful of manual tweaks?
 
Last edited:
NWL said:
Thanks for the insight. Admittedly I'm ignorant to the process of building parings, but if 95% of the kids preregister, and 90% of those kids show up and make the weight that they registered for, and there is very little separation criteria or seeding, shouldn't the brackets be mostly automatically generated with maybe a handful of manual tweaks?
Click to expand...
How about 2 hours late when there is ONLY pre registration and zero seeding.
 
Interesting that there was no seeding considering many of the brackets that I looked at (16U and Junior), the guys on the 1, 2, and 3 lines were making the finals in a lot of cases.
 
WGTJ said:
Interesting that there was no seeding considering many of the brackets that I looked at (16U and Junior), the guys on the 1, 2, and 3 lines were making the finals in a lot of cases.
Click to expand...
Zero seeding for 14 u state and pre registration only and 2 hours late for one style and an hour for the other
 
wrestlfan said:
Zero seeding for 14 u state and pre registration only and 2 hours late for one style and an hour for the other
Click to expand...

I was responding to the general comments about no seeding. Looked like there was seeding for at the least the guys trying to qualify to fargo. I don't see any reason to seed the younger age groups. My guess would be that manually trying to seed those guys impacted start times for everyone. Totally agree that something should be done to improve this situation. I'm glad that we didn't go.
 
WGTJ said:
I was responding to the general comments about no seeding. Looked like there was seeding for at the least the guys trying to qualify to fargo. I don't see any reason to seed the younger age groups. My guess would be that manually trying to seed those guys impacted start times for everyone. Totally agree that something should be done to improve this situation. I'm glad that we didn't go.
Click to expand...

USA wrestling recently implemented a PIN rating system that uses data to rate an athlete based on their performance in USA wrestling events over time. Wrestlers with the highest pin ratings in a specific age groups are separated in a bracket where possible. In theory it rewards an athlete’s consistency over time based on the reported data. If a wrestler consistently beats opponents with higher PINs, they gain PIN points the index, and lose points when/if they lose to competition with lower pin ratings. Great in theory, maybe imperfect in practice at this point, but I like the direction.

My earlier point is that paring and bracketing are not a manual process any more. The data does all of the work so pairing can not be used as an excuse to delay the start of a tournament.

 
Last edited:
NWL said:
USA wrestling recently implemented a PIN rating system that uses data to rate an athlete based on their performance in USA wrestling events over time. Wrestlers with the highest pin ratings in a specific age groups are separated in a bracket where possible. In theory it rewards an athlete’s consistency over time based on the reported data. If a wrestler consistently beats opponents with higher PINs, they gain PIN points the index, and lose points when/if they lose to competition with lower pin ratings. Great in theory, maybe imperfect in practice at this point, but I like the direction.

My earlier point is that paring and bracketing are not a manual process any more. The data does all of the work so pairing can not be used as an excuse to delay the start of a tournament.

Click to expand...

Okay, but it sounds like the rumor is that this guy decided to do it manually. Seems even more stupid now.

My son just talked to some other wrestlers this evening at practice. Said that they got back to the hotel at 2am.
 
NWL said:
USA wrestling recently implemented a PIN rating system that uses data to rate an athlete based on their performance in USA wrestling events over time
Click to expand...
Posted this back when it came out. Never realized it would be used realistically for the kids. Interesting.
 
wrestlfan said:
Zero seeding for 14 u state and pre registration only and 2 hours late for one style and an hour for the other
Click to expand...
Are you talking about Elyria? Freestyle never has a set start time, they only state it won't start before a certain time. Greco-Roman did start late, but there were more kids at Elyria for both styles than Lake and both ended about the same time.
 
NWL said:
My guess is that won't happen. USA will blame the locals running the event, the locals (Central Region, OH, MI, IL IN, KY) will blame Track wrestling and the facility..... I've been to this tournament probably 7 times, always great. This year was a disaster.

In any business situation you need to know your capacity. Looking at Track number were roughly 35% up over '22, due to a number of very predictable factors - i.e.- dates of other regions conflicted with state tourneys, dates and location of other regionals moving, general growth of women's and kids division (good thing).

I would guess 98% of the wrestlers pre registered before Friday-1332 wrestlers registered. According to the advertised schedule Session I, 9:-12:30, U14 & below and Juniors then a break, and U16 starting at 1:30. How on earth did they reasonably expect to run 700 kids through session 1 on 14 mats in 3 1/2 hours even had started on time? Some of the the junior were 64 man brackets with over 40 wrestlers. At around 9:00pm there was an announcement over the PA saying " WE WILL FINISH THIS TOURNAMENT TODAY", I don't think it ever occurred to anyone that they wouldn't.

Apparently there were problems with Track that causes a 2 1/2 hour delay in starting the Juniors, then took a break, then attempted to run all division at the same time. We arrived at 8:00am, warmed up, and didn't wrestle until 3:30pm, second match at 9:30pm, then three matches w/in 45 minutes with the last match ending just after midnight with wrestling still going on having to be back at the arena for Greco at 9:00am.

Bottom line- they did not plan nor execute effectively- they outkicked their coverage. With over 1300 kids registered, they probably needed at least 4 more mats (which that facility could have held) OR moved u14 & below and all girls divisions to a different data & venue. Anecdotally, noticed a number of injuries in the morning Greco session, and it's hard to know to what extent fatigue, dehydration is a factor, but it's certainly not in the best interest of the athlete to have them compete over an 17 hour period and then again the next day on 4-5 hours sleep.

Other complaints:

- Weigh ins. - Madness, thought a riot was going to break out. How they expect to weigh in 1300+ kids in 30 minutes is insane. Some kids arrived hours early to get in line. Check scale was in the front of the line. As the crowd built, kids pushed their way to the check scale moving the kids that were in line back. All wrestlers enters through one passage, when there a huge mob forms they announced anyone with a " USA PERFORMANCE" card can come to the front. Those few that has them pushed their way to the font causing mass chaos, kids crawling under ropes.... at 7:10 they begin letting kids through a single file line for skin checks with 2 dudes checking 1300 kids. They then cued up kids behind scales, and then 15 minutes later after weigh ins had started, made the announcement that only Red and Blue singlets were acceptable for weighing in, which I would say 1/3 of the kids were not wearing but also could not leave the weigh in area, lest be disqualified - this caused coaches and parent to jump the rope into the weigh in lines to give their wrestler a red/blue singlet, and whatever order they had in the cures to be disrupted had kids cutting lines, security berating parents and kids for changing into the red/blue singlets on the weigh in floor. 8 year old boys, 18 year old boys, and 16 year old girls, in basically their underwear in a big uncontrolled mob- what a recipe for a safe sport violation.

Easy Fix:
#1. Put check scales outside the weigh in area.
#2. Make it a 2 hour window. 5:30- 7:30.
#3. Have cues spread out in the arena over the 14 mats for different age groups & genders. Line up the wrestlers in the bleachers, by age group /gender, release 1 row at a time for skin check and weigh in. Kids weigh in, they exit through a different door where they can meet their parents, and off they go.
#4. Make the process clear and transparent.
#5. Be cool and respectful to people. People have travelled to get here, kids are hungry - no need to treat people like crap.

- The Arena Staff was unprofessional to say the least. There was really no where to stand in that arena without being yelled at by someone whether walking to a mat, standing next to a wrestler on deck, walking to a mat to coach a wrestler, trying to watch a match. Silly rule that cooler's are prohibited after 8:00am and only wrestlers could carry a cooler. If you arrived at 8:02 am, no cooler for you. If you are a family, no cooler for you, and little did they know they would be in that area for 18 hours! They were allowed to buy a $4 water and $11 chicken fingers' from the concession stand or leave and pay another $8 to park. After several hours of waiting, I needed to get out of the arena and was looking for a place to charge my phone and noticed some comfortable in the lobby up stairs. There were a few wrestlers lounging and I found an empty chair and relaxed for 1/2 hour. A few hours later, that area was roped off with yellow tape like a crime scene. How dare people try and get comfortable.

- There was TV with a bout board, spotty wi-fi in the arena and no where to charge your phone (again 18 hours). All while being yelled at over the PA every 5 minutes about wrestlers not reporting to mats holding us up. Easy fix- put monitors on every corner of the arena. Put them back in the lounge area, project them on a wall so that spectators can see them....

- Refs & Table Workers were overall very good but really not fair to have them work 18 hour shifts. Fatigue leads to mistakes - scores wrong, clocks not being started, tempers on all sides got hot as day went on. Video reviews took way too long - I'd guess 5-10 minutes on average for each one. There were matches that took 25 minutes.

I realize that posting on Yappi doesn't actually accomplish anything, but I would hope that those running the event from the USA down to the local region representatives would do an honest retrospective and attempt to make some changes. The Regionals are a premier event for USA wrestling and of all the regions - the Central Region - in the midwest - which we like to call ourselves the hotbed of wrestling - we should have higher expectations.
Click to expand...
The people that run the event(every year) should be held accountable, if the computer goes down, have a backup plan. Paper, pencil, stopwatch; it’s not that hard. They claim they want to grow the sport. This tyrannical way is not the answer. Build the brackets after weigh ins. Period. Not the next morning, and release them at 5 til start time. Same people do same thing for EVERY SINGLE tournament they run. Always have issues, empty mats, “computer issues”, taking unnecessary breaks. Wrestle!!!! Run it like ToC, assign a weight to one mat and wrestle. I will never take my son to another Central Regional and I know I’m not alone
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top