My most recent experience with the silent tournament format was when I took Ben down to Pennsylvania three weeks ago, where he wrestled in three back-to-back tournaments. In three long days of sitting in gymnasiums, I heard maybe six announcements. The smallest tournament had 435 kids, grades K-12. I can’t believe that Pennsylvanians are genetically predisposed to greater intelligence than Vermonters, and so I have to believe that we are capable of running similarly well-organized tournaments up here.
All three tournaments used computer-generated brackets and bout sheets that looked very similar to what Chris prints out. The brackets were posted and every bout number was projected out through the finals. When a wrestler won or lost a match, it was only necessary to consult the bracket on the wall to determine the next bout number. The mat tables returned the bout sheets to the head table for advancement. Any particular weight class wrestled the entire day on the same mat, and it was only necessary to watch the “tree” at our mat to know what was going on. In fact, Ben wrestled in two different divisions in the last tournament, and we had no trouble with making it to his matches on time. The organizers simply had a three-ring-binder at each table, filled with laminated sheets of bout numbers (100-199, for example) which they would rotate up the tree as the matches progressed.
Having worked in construction since I was seventeen, I am a bit deaf. I can’t tell you how much more enjoyable a wrestling tournament is when you don’t have to try and understand the PA system so you can figure out when and where your kid is wrestling. As I said, there were virtually no problems down there—and the tournaments got done way faster as a result.
Sorry for the book-length post, but I really think one of the things that kills wrestling around here is the chaos at tournaments that we’ve all just taken for granted. It doesn’t have to be this way. I’m interested in what everyone else has to say—let’s have this debate now, instead of the week before states.
Thanks,
Doug
