wvmat.com

We are trying to be an organization for the people of this state to have a voice in how they want their state tournament to run. We have just concluded our second year of operation with the conclusion of the 2017 WVYWA State Championship. I think it has been a great success over the past 2 years, but want to continually improve. We are taking a look this year at regional changes and several rule changes that will make things less confusing. I have spoken to a lot of you personally this year and value your opinions. We would like to have your feedback. I have posted a short survey on facebook for you to give feedback. Here is the link https://www.facebook.com/WVYWA/app/164167473601477/?app_data=%7B%7D. Please give us your feedback so we can improve on our season and events. Also, I will be monitoring this post on the forum for 2 weeks. Please keep your posts professional but we do want to hear your critiques as well. Please express your reasoning behind your critiques as well.

Thank you for taking the time to give us your feed back.

Mike Carman
President WVYWA

reserve the bottom row (front row) of at least the middle sections for parents so they can come down and video, snap pictures, yell, and simply watch their sons/daughters match from close range. i got back and looked at pictures last night and i dont know if any of them were worth keeping. Many heads, etc in the way. This is in no way a grip about the tournament. I just thought maybe this could be a nice thing.

We did not attend last year and after listening to complaints and bickering I was doubtful for a positive experience this year. I will say I was pleasantly surprised. I thought everything went really well and we had a great weekend. Pluses: I like multiple weigh-in sites for Friday, Huntington was a zoo and having options was good. There were no breaks with the exception of 1 hour Sunday, way to keep the matches flowing! Awards were great and it was nice that they went straight back as a group after wrestling, it really eliminated tracking down place winners. I thought the refs did a great job across the board and the staff seemed quick to address issues.
Negatives: I agree with other comment on front row seating for current match. We were in the front row and had parents crawling all over us all day, many of us had kids sleeping or with toys and it was a little annoying. Again, I know you can't control it but if using the civic center their vendors really need to be prepared, we made several trips to different stands just to piece one meal together for our family. Being there all day with limited food (healthy food) options was hard. I would recommend a split session, I know bracket sizes affected this as well. But we had two kids who didn't wrestle until later the first day and then again at the very end. It was hard for them to stay warmed up and motivated after sitting much of the morning. Maybe issuing coach passes and policing the entry area will help with coaches on the mat, although I will say a lot of the offenders were your staff/workers. I'm sure just trying to watch their own kids. But when you gripe all day two coaches to a corner and we look down and the corners with multiple coaches have your staff shirts on???
Overall, very smoothly ran for a tournament of that size! Great job everybody!

On the front row seating: That was something we contemplated doing this year. Unfortunately, we had no way to monitor it and it would have had to of been on the honor system. I understand the frustration and that is something we want to look into in the future. Great Suggestion.

I did want to bring up a couple of things as well. As an organization we are endeavoring to move the location of the tournament around the state periodically. So keep in mind we are not going to be permanently in any one location.

Other venues we are looking into include: Charleston Civic Center, WVU Colosseum, WESBANCO Arena in Wheeling, Beckley Armory. Others are not off the table as well. We would really like to put it in eastern panhandle if there is a venue that is big enough. These are all things we are talking about. Please let your regional chairs know how you fell too.

Also, as far as Big Sandy is concerned, we have very little influence over the concessions. They have a system that they use for determining how much, what and when to be open. This has been a hot topic between the Arena and myself personally. Since we have very little control there and I do apologize that they were not satisfactory, I would request that we move past this particular issue. Not that I want you to drop the subject, I just want to let you know that we are making every effort to fix this moving forward. Some things are truly out of our control and that, in this particular case, is one of them.

Again, thank you for all you comments.

Mike Carman

Although I wasn't there day one, I like the split session idea. Have always been drawn to split session tourneys. Shorter time between matches.

Four regions. Brackets too small at regions. You can advance top 6 or 8.

Do a separate middle school tournament earlier. Then 12 year old middle schoolers can wrestle both. Gives middle school more attention having their own tourney. Additional income for organization to do things State wide.

Just some previously discussed thoughts.

J.W. wrote:Four regions. Brackets too small at regions. You can advance top 6 or 8.

Do a separate middle school tournament earlier. Then 12 year old middle schoolers can wrestle both. Gives middle school more attention having their own tourney. Additional income for organization to do things State wide.

Just some previously discussed thoughts.

This^^^ Important to schedule the middle schoolers earlier, IMO. Most if not all of the middle school conference tournaments were over by the first week or so of February.

Is it true that YWA championships will be held in Beckley next two years?

James wrote:Is it true that YWA championships will be held in Beckley next two years?

I hope not! Beckley is secluded and a long ways for most people around the state to travel. I would keep it closer to the bigger towns in wv. Charleston, morgantown etc. Beckley is sort of out in the sticks! I guess this is a wv state tourney though.. lol

It would be about the same amount of travel time from northern panhandle but over a hour less for eastern side of state.