May 6, 2012
On behalf of my entire staff, I would like to thank each of you, for your support of the Ohio Tournament of Champions, this past April 21. I have received a number of very favorable e-mails and phone calls from folks, but also know that we have a bit of work to do to fix some problems that we encountered this year. This e-mail is to let you know that we are aware of the problems and to also let you know what we are doing to alleviate them for the future.
1. Start Time
We have always prided ourselves on starting our event promptly on time. This year, due to some problems, which will be explained, we began about 50 minutes late. Naturally, this caused the afternoon session to begin late as well (though they did finish earlier than in the past). However, starting late is not acceptable on our end.
The problem stemmed following weigh ins on Friday. Our workers counted weigh in cards and compared that to the number of wrestlers that were entered into that Class. However, they did not double check the names. Thus, if there were any additions/deletions to that weight class, they were not put in, or taken out. Having to fix this Saturday morning is the reason the event started late and eventually had to be done by hand. This is also why any charts purchased Saturday morning may have been wrong.
Our workers were able to correct the charts for the afternoon, so that we did not encounter the same problem for the older kids.
Obviously, our workers now know they need to double check the entries next year and that should alleviate all the problems we had and allow us to start on time.
2. Computerization of the Tournament
This year, the Tournament was again to be computerized and, in fact, started out that way. But, due to the above issues, we had to scrap the computerization and do things by hand. This is why the final brackets are not on the web, as we had hoped.
Note: ***Computerization of the TofC is now a necessity, as we no longer have the time to do the initial brackets by hand. Where we used to fill out and close by the end of March, thus giving us three weeks to do the charts by hand, we now receive more than half our entries in the final week (and received 500 the last two days). It used to take us five days to do the charts by hand, which would have put us still creating them on Friday, while the computer can create them in less than a couple of hours. I can honestly tell you that by the Monday of tournament week, I am on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Having to do the brackets would easily push me over the edge.
I also want to mention that, in the last few years, the entire landscape of National wrestling events has drastically changed. Where there used to be only a handful of events, there are now probably close to 50 events that claim to crown kids as National or World Champs, and there is no slowing down the number of events being added to this. The problem with this is that most folks now wait until the last minute to register, which creates a LOT of stress on event managers.
We now have to keep registration open longer and have to wait til the Monday of Tournament Week to know how many mats we need, how many officials, how many meals for workers, rooms for workers, floor plan to the Convention Center, number of scoreboards and many other things. All this while dealing with folks still trying to enter or change weight, after we have closed things off and dealing with folks that are asking for a refund, (for anything from injuries to their ride can no longer attend to decided to attend another event), even though the refund deadline had passed.
***For your information, once you are listed as Accepted, you can print your weigh in card (and we are working on getting the issues some experienced with that fixed). If you change weight, then you just print a new card. I can't tell you the number of folks who swear they entered their son at a different weight than is listed, while others have created a new pending entry with the new weight (instead of logging in to change the weight on the entry that is accepted).
2a. Scoreboards
We listened to everyone's concerns from last year and brought the scoreboards back. We had been informed that they were supposed to have been able to send results directly to the head table, as the laptops did last year. However, about 10 days before our event, I was informed that they would not be able to, which is when we prepared to have our folks do data entry. Unfortunately, due to the above problem, that idea had to be scrapped. Hopefully the scoreboards will be able to function as planned next year.
3. Changing Weights
The fact that the event is now computerized has allowed us to be able to take late weight changes and then changes at the event itself. Obviously this effects some of the brackets, but also allows for the folks who drove a far distance to still be able to participate, or allows for the wrestlers whose parent entered them at the wrong weight class, to still compete. Ideally, everyone would change their weight by the deadline, but it never happens and I am deluged with calls about changing weights that last week. I tried to take them for as long as I could, at a penalty fee, but then there comes a time when I have too many other things to have to finalize, and have to cut them off (other than ones done at the site).
I do want you to know that once the entries or weight change deadline closes, I go straight by the rules the Tournament Committee has given to me. The fact that I know a particular person does not change any decision made on this end. In the past, even our Head Official's Grandson was turned down for being late, as have kids I was currently coaching.
4. Weigh Ins
Overall, we feel that weigh ins this year went as smooth as ever. We were able to keep the parents out of the area (which alleviated a lot of problems), yet still allowed them to be just outside the area.
Many of you, especially in the Afternoon Session, have asked about the possibility of Saturday morning weigh ins, since your session isn't scheduled to start til the afternoon. Unfortunately, a mass Saturday morning weigh in is not a possibility. Some of the reasons for this include:
* We only have the weigh in area for Friday night (that area is used for something else on Saturday)
* All the workers that do weigh ins are assigned other jobs on Saturday
* Once weigh ins close, it takes about 5 hours to get the charts ready (we were still there at 1 am Friday night). Plus, those doing the charts also have other jobs on Saturday. If the computerization works as it should, that would still mean taking the computer operators away from doing things for the morning session, in order to prepare the afternoon charts.
Honestly, it would be a total disaster.
Some of you may also be wondering why the afternoon session does not always start on time. Let me explain. First, things would have started about an hour earlier this year, had it not been for our initial problems with the morning session.
We do our best to guess what time to schedule the afternoon session wrestlers to start. We never know what the numbers will be and then the problem is also in trying to balance the morning mats out, with the weights competing. By trying to keep weight on certain mats, it is virtually impossible to get all of the mats with the same number of matches. Some morning mats may have more morning session matches than others - and then given fewer evening matches...so that all mats will end hopefully by 11. You may also have a first round bye and that could mean your first match might not be for 2 1/2 hours after the session is scheduled to begin. Again, we do our best in trying to get each mat with as close to the same number of bouts as the rest.
The reason they may have moved some weights this year, was that a particular mat was running slow and another was ahead of schedule. Again, getting everyone out by 11 pm is our goal. Our last mat finished at 11:30 this year (most of the other mats were long done), so, if not for the initial problems we encountered), we would have finished at 10:30.
5. Awards
While we received a great number of compliments about the awards (everyone seemed to love the Alien and it will be tough to come up with another mascot so popular), we know we had some problems with completed charts not making it to the awards area in a timely matter.
I believe we have come up with an idea to fix that. Our initial plan would be for each table to be given weight tags for each weight class they have on their mat. Once the 4 finals matches begin (1st-8th place), each of those wrestlers would be given a card, listing their Division/Weight and Place Finish. It would also list a time to report to the awards area, which would be 30 minutes after the completion of the first of the four championship bouts.
This way, if the bracket sheet fails to arrive at the awards area, our awards folks would still have the cards that the wrestlers bring and could then account for things. Worst case is that the winner would come up later for the bracket...but all the awards could be given and the photo taken.