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News February 2001 |
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FEBRUARY 2001 HUSKERLAND NEWSLETTER UPDATE Happy New Year! 2001 is here ready or not. The board has been finalizing plans for Huskerland 16 at Omaha. We have finalized going back to Kearney for Duals III. The meet will be on Saturday, April 7th, at the new Tri-City Arena located just south of the interstate in Kearney. We want to draw 16 teams in each grade group this year. Each grade group will be split into two divisions so the 8 strongest teams in Class A and the other 8 teams in Class B. A format has been selected where all teams will wrestle 5 duals. A policy has been adopted to allow unlimited wild cards to encourage more teams to enter. The bottom line is all teams that enter are winners. They get far more that just 5 matches for each of their wrestlers. Dual events provide a team concept and fan excitement that wrestling needs more than ever. I hope to see our clubs hosting dual events in the future. I strongly feel that dual events will make a great sport even greater. Almost all the teams entered in the 2000 duals plan to return. This meet will be limited to the first 16 teams that send a deposit, so don't wait too long! The duals will be conducted in a brand new facility on 8 full size mats. Just up the road is the Archway which I hope you will make plans to visit while in Kearney. I have heard nothing but great things about this new museum. Dual information and registration form is attached to this update. John Stevens of The Camp Team is working up a numbered insurance card for practice & tournaments. It will be good for the whole Huskerland season and just cost $4.50 per wrestler & coach. Another plus will be that for each wrestler you enter at the Huskerland State Meet we will provide a $1 rebate per wrestler who holds a card. Doing the same rebate deal for the duals and the freestyle classic also. We are just passing the price break we will get on our insurance plan to the clubs that get the season cards. This will work the same for the club meets also. Have your tournament covered by The Sports Camp and you will need to pay just a $1.35 per wrestler and coach not holding a Camp Team/Huskerland Insurance Card. The more clubs going with cards the better for all. If things go well this year we plan to require the Camp Team/Huskerland Card for 2002 state meet. You will find information how to contact John Stevens along with a summary of policy coverage in this update. The board is excited about the Camp Team plan and feels it is a far better situation for Huskerland than we had in the past for insuring ourselves. Contact John Stevens at 1-800-747-9573 or 7615 W. 38th Ave. Suite B109, Wheat Ridge, CO 80033. Click here to download a camp team flyer We are looking for a 2001 site for Huskerland 17. Don't want to get ourselves in the bind of finding a site like we did this year. Would certainly like to go back to Kearney if we can get UNK facilities. We attempted to obtain UNK for Huskerland 16 but they were unable to move around existing events to work us in. I wrestled my first high school match in 1967 and my last college match in 1976 at UNK's Cushing Coliseum. The 1967 Kearney State Invitation was not only my first high school match but the first wrestling meet I ever saw. I would would like to return again along with 1800 wrestlers. Would also like to return to the Devaney Indoor Track. The building has been expanded 25 feet to the west and the new banked track looks great. With a push of a button hydraulics will change the level surface to 3 foot high banked corners in less than 10 minute. Clearly a state of the art facility being one of just two in the country. I got the roof on the addition but that appears will be as close as I will get. Have been told by Devaney officials that the first 2 weeks in April are not available. The track coach does not want anything that will interfere with track events or track practice. UNO wants to make a bid for our event and their Field House would be an excellent venue. The Tri-City Arena would like to host us also. Would have to look at cutting numbers back to 1500 or go with smaller wrestling areas. Have not ruled out the Omaha Holiday Inn Central. This venue offers many things that might make it the place that works best. It appears we will need to stay with the two day format. Even with 18 mats will need 13 to 14 hours to pull off, just too long of a day. Also want to know if the clubs like going a week later or want us to return to the first weekend in April. Having the extra week should spread out the existing meets some and improve the tournament numbers for everyone. Things are still not finalized for the Huskerland Freestyle Classic but it appears it will be at Waverly High School on Saturday, April 28th. The board wants to encourage more of our young wrestlers to wrestle freestyle. I give a great deal of credit for my son's success to his off season freestyle experience. To bring Nebraska wrestling up a level we must have more wrestlers participating in freestyle events. To do this we need to have more clubs switch to freestyle after the Huskerland State Meet instead of shutting down. Huskerland plans to provide freestyle clinics and work with USA Wrestling & AAU Wrestling organizations. Planning to go back to Waverly for the Cornhusker State Games set for July 21-22. Going to lengthen matches from 3 to 4 minutes. Scholastic will be 2-1-1 with Freestyle, Greco, & Takedown to be 2-2. The presidential election overtime call giving George W. Bush the win was questionable but is a huge victory for wrestling and several other male sports. Another 4 years of the current administration would have been devastating to our sport. Only time will tell if George Bush's appointment for Secretary of Education selects the right Assistant Sec. of Education that will work to change the proportionality rule. Coach Manning has got the Huskers off to a great 6-0 start and a second place finish in the 50 school Las Vegas Invitation. Three wrestlers, Brad Vering (#1), Todd Beckerman (#1), and Bryan Synder (#2), will take undefeated records into January. For the latest Husker information go to www.huskerwebcast.com/sports/wrestling. A great new source for wrestling information has been created by Mike Carnes, a sportswriter for the York News-Times. It is called the Nebraska Wrestling Illustrated and found at www.nwimag.com. He has a great issue out that has ratings, articles, and a ton of information on high school programs across the state. Note that he is getting some help from Doug Denson who has dropped his Headlock newsletter. Hope you are looking at taking advantage of the fact that that several major meets are taking place in adjoining states. They are the Division II National Duals are at Brookings, SD January 19-20, the Division II Nationals at Greeley, CO March 9-10, and the Div. I Nationals at Iowa City, IA March 15-17. Our new web site is up and going. Flap Web is doing a super job, check it out at www.huskerland.org and give the address out to your club parents. The tournament page is far better than in the past. You can get your tournament info on the web by e-mail to our web master. Also check to see if your club director information is correct, if not you can change it directly with our web master. Would like you to encourage your club members to make their state meet motel reservations soon. When calling the Holiday Inn Central please ask for Huskerland rates. Their number is (402) 393-3950. A reminder for clubs that still need to pay 2001 dues to get them paid. We have extended the $40 rate till Jan. 15th to encourage you to get them in now. Any club that has already paid the $60 rate will be refunded $20. Jay Meenely is working on bids for t-shirts, awards, and other various venders for the Huskerland State Meet. He is also working on selling ads on our web page. Fred Hall is in charge of lining up table help. He plans to hire 4 workers per table and pay each worker $60 per day. Worker applications are attached to this update. It appears my son, Marcus, is still at least a year a way from cracking the lineup at SDSU. He got down to 141 but so did senior Paul Konechne, the defending national champion. Their 149 pounder is ranked 4th so it won't do him any good to move up. He did place 5th out of 33 wrestlers in the 20 & Under division at the UNO Open. Despite not making the team the coach still took him along to the Las Vegas Invitational. I made my first trip to Vegas to watch the big meet and experience The Strip. Had a great time but was hard to come back to the cold, it got up in the upper 60's everyday we were there! Hope we get a break from the cold and snow soon. Take care when traveling and dealing with the cold. That's all for now. Craig
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