Wrestling Weekend

I spent Friday night checking out the high school team at a local tournament.

Saturday, I showed up early to help set up and run a different tournament.

Thanks to volunteers and prepping ahead of time, it only took about 20 minutes to get this far along.

I think we had the whole area set-up and the mats cleaned for warm-ups in 45 minutes.

That included a small concession stand.

We had about 32 wrestlers signed up and had to scratch 6 of them. Last year, there was 40, but we did really well all things considered. The man who normally organizes the tournament had surgery and couldn't run it. A parent/friend stepped up to run the matchmaking and coaches had to find volunteers to referee, run tables, concessions, set-up, and tear down. Apparently, the match didn't get advertised well and another club ran a competing tournament in Lynchburg. My team ended up being half of who showed.

Which didn't work out poorly. I would have preferred less mirror matches, but the skill levels were right on target. There were only a handful of wrestlers who were clearly more skilled than everyone else. It was a friendly affair and my boys got to taste some victory after many were outmatched last week.

We got done earlier than advertised. Most of the free help (in other words: wrestlers) left after the medals, so there were fewer hands to tear down than to set up. That made it take longer, but then one of my wrestling parents suggested we should clean up the equipment room. It's been a pipe dream of mine that the equipment room could become a smaller mat room (if and) when the program outgrows our small wrestling room.

It turned out to be a lot more work than we could handle. The cheer and dance team store some mats in the equipment room with our mats, but it's half full of trash. There was broken glass, a random door, and all sorts of other things that had to be relocated (including a brass exercise bike from the 70s?). We took a big dent out of mess, but if the room is going to be usable it will take at least a few more sessions.

Shane and I got home around 1:30 PM. I was exhausted. It was a great day and I'm glad to have been able to be a part of the tournament. There's a lot of good people in the area and I'd love to form a tighter knit and growing community.