Well I’m still kicking and making plans for my 18th Huskerland season. Its been quite the ride since I called a meeting in October of 1985 to form a new organization devoted to youth folkstyle wrestling. I was very pleased with all the events our organization conducted and how well we were able to provide financial support for Nebraska wrestlers attending national level events this past year. Since going through some major organization structure changes over two years ago I’ve seen Huskerland grow into the organization I always wanted it to be. Many thanks to Fred Hall, Doug Denson, Darrell Jennings and the rest of the Huskerland Board whose efforts have taken Huskerland to a level where we are a very positive force for youth wrestling in Nebraska. The board has worked hard this past summer making plans for 2003 season and to build on the success we enjoyed in 2002. Huskerland 18 has been set for April 12-13 at UNK’s Sports Center in Kearney. We are very excited about having Huskerland at the Sports Center as the site will provide the best viewing situation we have ever had for any Huskerland. The Sports Center will also provide the best situation we have ever had to keep spectators out of the wrestling area. Marc Bauer, Head Coach at UNK, is excited about hosting our event and look for him to serve us well. Note that Marc is doing an excellent job with the UNK wrestling program on a very limited budget. Fred Hall will again serve as the meet manager while Doug Denson still heads up the site arrangements. The floor space doesn’t have the area we had at UNO but have a layout that will have ten 28' regulation sized circles with 5' of space between circles. We also hope the return to Kearney will bring our numbers up from the 1300 that entered last year. The last Kearney Huskerland attracted nearly 1700 wrestlers. Need to note that Sunday, April 13th, is Palm Sunday. We didn’t want to do that but were unable to get a facility that would work for us the weekend before.

Huskerland 19 will be on April 9-10, 2004 and staying at UNK’s Sports Center. Note that April 10th will be Good Friday. The board and Kearney would like to make the UNK Sports Center our state meet home for the near future. We had considered using UNK’s Cushing Coliseum (Indoor Track) as it has the space to lay out 14 mats but lacks the seating we need. I would of liked to have made Cushing Coliseum work as it is a special place for me. Cushing Coliseum was where I wrestled my first high school match in 1967 and also my last college match in 1976. The place has changed greatly since my competing days. At that time the area inside the track had another set of walls housing Kearney State’s main arena. Fees for 2003 will see little change from 2002. The late entry fee was raised from $30 to $40 to try to reduce the number of late entries. Most of the western Nebraska special rates have been dropped since the State Meet is at Kearney. We raised the Adult Gate Fee from $4 to $5 and the Student Gate Fee from $2 to $3 while dropping the Two Day Fees. We will be using The Camp Team again for our insurance program. This is our third year with them in what the board feels will be a long term relationship. Rates for clubs that sanction with Camp Team will remain the same as 2002. The only change these clubs will see is a cardless system being used. Camp Team is not going to send back any cards this year. Instead they are going to send back a printout with assigned insurance numbers for your wrestlers and coaches. Note assigned insurance numbers will also be posted on the Camp Team website by club. Wrestlers and coaches for clubs that don’t sanction with Camp Team will have to pay $10 each to obtain season coverage this year and they will not have any practice coverage. The board would like to see all clubs sanction their club with Camp Team and sanction their tournament with Camp Team if they host one with Camp Team also. Note to place your meet on our website tournament calendar you must join Huskerland plus sanction it with Camp Team or pay a $50 ad fee. To maximize the Camp Team coverage for a club it is important that they can enter sanctioned Camp Team events for all the tournaments they attend. Please read through the attached Camp Team information carefully. It is time to get your club dues in! Note the $40 rate expires on January 1st so please send off a check to Linda Hill as soon as possible (click HERE for Registration forms and info).

If your club has a new club director it is best to go to our website and update info yourself to get changes made sooner on our website. To get your meet on our website tournament calendar free of charge this year requires you join Huskerland plus sanction your club and meet with Camp Team. Note clubs that are doing this will still go to our website and provide their meet info to our webmaster. Clubs that don’t want to do this can still get their event on the Tournament Calendar by paying an additional $50 fee and filling out a mail-in form. We are retaining the same 5 Class system based on number of state entries we used last year for team scoring. It appears after several years of searching we have found a workable system. We are also awarding TTT Plaques again. The TTT Plaques that were started last year are awarded to the club that brings the most wrestlers for the high school they feed in each of the four NSAA classes. We were pleased with our vender selections last year and will award contracts again to Kick’s Sportswear, Sunflower Wrestling, and ABC Trophy. We are going to put the award photographer up for bids.

Huskerland Duals V has been set for March 8-9 at Lexington High School. The site worked great for us last year and attracted teams from Omaha to Gering. The only thing we changed was expanding the meet to two days. We are going to run Grades 3-5 on Saturday starting at 5 pm and Grades 6-8 on Sunday at 10 am. Darrell Jennings will again serve as the meet director with Fred Maloley making the site arrangements. This will allow for us to get done a couple of hours sooner on Sunday or allow us to expand one more class. The format we use provides all teams that enter with four duals. We have been very pleased with this event and many of the coaches have said they think the Duals is a better event than our State Meet. The duals are loud and exciting with coaches, parents, and teammates cheering on the wrestlers. Note several of the teams are made up from 2 or 3 clubs to form an area all start team of sorts. This works well for them to fill out all the weights and we hope that we can attract more of these teams next March. Those wanting to get two meets for one trip can also enter the Dick Brown Lexington Kids Meet on Saturday. We are looking at having a Qualification Meet for the Huskerland National Team on March 8th at Lexington also. This team we would be entered in the USA Wrestling National Middle School Duals at Danville, IL on March 28-30. Plan to provide some support for Huskerland wrestlers attending the USA Wrestling National Folkstyle Championships April 4-6 at Topeka, KA and the AAU World Folkstyle Championships April 18-20 at Tulsa, OK. Look for more information about this event on our website. We are also planning to hold a USA Wrestling sanctioned freestyle tournament sometime in April to provide a qualification meet for eastern Nebraska wrestlers for the Nebraska USA State Meet (see our 2002 National Team Results HERE).

Two new board members have been added this past summer. They are Jim Allen of Plattsmouth and Ben Nicola of Fremont. Jim will work on the state meet pairings and Ben will work with the National Duals Team. I have attached phone numbers and address for all our board members. I am seeking nominations for the Huskerland Hall of Fame. We plan to add 4 more individuals or couples who have provided long service to youth wrestling in the state. The Huskerland Hall of Fame is designed to honor those who have not been inducted into the NSWCA Hall of Fame. Inducted in our first group last year were Al Thrower, Gary Schlesinger, Jerry & Sue Stutzman, and Rod & Marge Melroy. Doug Denson has been busy working on the Nebraska Wrestling Summit that has brought the leaders of all the different wrestling organizations together to help improve wrestling in Nebraska. Part of his efforts has already brought the AAU Grand Nationals to Omaha in June of 2006. Doug has also presented several excellent proposals to the NSWCA. If approved I feel his proposals will greatly strengthen the organization plus expand their scope and mission at the same time. Chuck Sherer is finalizing the details for the 2003 Huskerland Officials Training & Testing Program. The program is aimed to attract high school juniors and seniors into becoming wrestling officials but is open to college age and above also. Having good officiating at the club level is one of the most important factors for wrestling to improve and grow. The board feels this is an area that we must give strong support. Chuck’s goal is to establish a training program to sufficiently prepare this group to officiate matches at Huskerland club tournaments. For our first class of officials we want to target quality over quantity. We feel training a few well is better for our sport than training many to just get by. The success of this program will depend on getting a high percentage of those we train to stay in officiating for the long haul. The Huskerland Officials Training & Testing Program will be posted on the Huskerland website sometime in December.

The Cornhusker State Games went off well despite the heat and were highlighted by Dan Gable doing a clinic at Waverly plus giving the Athlete’s Oath at the Opening Ceremonies. Tim Neumann won 5 Gold Medals and became the third wrestler to be named the CSG Outstanding Male Athlete in the past 6 years. Tim was honored for his achievements on October 19th at a ceremony held in the Governor’s Mansion. Tim is also working to bring Rulon Gardner back to do a clinic the day before the State Games at Waverly next year. I highly recommend attending the clinic and participating in the State Games next July. Note I have attached a list of Iron Man Shirt Winners and a CSG Wrestling Recap. Two past 5-Time Huskerland Champions have gone on to do some very outstanding achievements in the wrestling world. Todd Meenely of Westside W.C. & Skutt H. S was a double national champ and named Greco OW at the USA Wrestling Junior Nationals at Fargo, ND this past July. Todd is only the second Nebraska wrestler to attain this feat. The other one was Brad Vering of Howells. Todd was did not give up a match point in Greco competition and defeated a 2-Time Champion in the Freestyle finals. Todd made Sport’s Illustrated Faces in the Crowd for his achievements. Brad Vering has won a spot on the USA Wrestling Greco World Team at 185 pounds. Brad finished 5th in the World Meet held at Moscow, Russia in September and just went 2-2 at the World Cup at Cairo, Egypt in October. I’m planning to watch a lot of wrestling the next 5 months supporting the Huskers, Spartans, and Jacks.

The first of 9 Husker home duals is on November 22nd with Arizona State. Mark Manning appears to have a solid squad this year for his 3rd season as the Husker Head Coach. Note that the NCAA’s are being held in Kansas City March 20-22. This will be the 17th NCAA D-I National Championships that I have attended since 1982. I plan to follow East High as they make a run to repeat in Class A. I’m going to watch them at "The Clash" on January 3-4 in Rochester, MN. The Spartans will wrestle 6 duals in the meet that has attracting 20 outstanding teams from 8 states. My son, Marcus, is now a Junior at SDSU. It appears he will be in a dogfight with Jared Barnes, a 2-Time SD State Champ, for the 149 spot. Marcus just missed qualifying for nationals last year. The Jacks finished strong last year placing 3rd at Nationals are returning two finalists plus a third place medalist. Note the only time Marcus will wrestle in the Nebraska is at the UNO Open on November 23rd. Thought I would let everyone know that I qualified for membership in AARP this month. Being a half century old now should make me wiser but have a bad case of CRS that seems to be negating things faster than I am learning!

Craig craigh@huskerland.org