DATE:  November 29, 2010

TO:  Athletic Directors, Principals, District Athletic Director, Superintendents of WIAA High Schools with the Sport of Wrestling

FROM:  Mike Colbrese, WIAA Executive Director

SUBJECT:  Position on Increased school travel to balance the Regional Wrestling Tournaments

SURVEY DEADLINE IS TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 30 2010


The WIAA Executive Board at their November 14, 2010, meeting, passed on first reading a policy change to balance all regional wrestling tournaments so that each tournament would have four entries to the state tournament.

CURRENT GUIDELINES:

The current policy guidelines for Regional Wrestling Tournament alignments determine the ideal number of schools in each region in each classification by dividing the number of schools that meet the team definition in wrestling by four.  The regional tournaments are then established to minimize the amount of travel while striving to balance the regional tournaments as much as possible.  Due to unequal number of schools in each region, the current regional alignments have one region with 3 entries, one region with 5 entries and two regions with 4 entries to state in most of the classifications.

PROPOSED CHANGE TO GUIDELINES:

The policy change will require regional tournaments to be balanced and would result in increased costs in travel, including cross-state travel, for more teams.  During the discussion the WIAA Executive Board asked that the school administrators indicate their support or opposition to this proposed policy change. 

The WIAA Executive Board will make a final decision at the December 5-6, 2010 meeting where a second and third reading will be taken on the proposed policy change for regional wrestling tournaments effective with the 2010-2011 regional wrestling tournaments.

The WIAA is asking each school Athletic Director to share this information with his/her Principal, District Athletic Director (if applicable) and Superintendent, then to respond to the survey and indicate the position of his/her school to either support or oppose the proposed policy change to balance the regional wrestling tournaments.


ACCESS THE SURVEY HERE:  http://www.wiaa.com/Survey/default.aspx?ID=113

SURVEY DEADLINE IS TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 30 2010.  SUBMIT ONLY ONE SURVEY PER SCHOOL.

If you have any questions, please contact Jim Meyerhoff at jmeyerho@wiaa.com.

It is very important that the WIAA Executive Board hear from all schools with interscholastic wrestling so that it can make an informed decision on a change that has economic and travel-related ramifications for schools.

Sincerely,


Mike Colbrese
WIAA Executive Director