My son and I have been planning for several weeks to drive an hour west to Topeka to attend the Kansas Senior Classic tonight. It features the best of Kansas’s big schools (Group 5A & 6A) against the best of the little schools (Group 4 and 3-2-1-). The guy who beat my son in the finals will be representing the big schools at 160 pounds.
Although it is an exhibition, it offers a little hope in discovering who the best wrestler in the state is at each weight class.
For example, while we were at the 6A State championship, I saw a wrestler in the 135 pound class named Kendrick Maple who absolutely dominated his competition. His CLOSEST match ended :30 seconds into the second period. He is the undefeated two time 6A state champion.
He is going to wrestle the undefeated 3X state champion from Group 4A, C.J. Napier. That match alone is worth the drive.
However, the weather is trying its best to alter our plans. All day long, one of the guys would go on the Internet to find the latest information on an approaching snow storm. It dropped 10″ in Nebraska last night and is steadily heading east toward us.
The last report said, “If anyone is thinking about going out in this, they are taking their life into their own hands.” Wow!
I am not a daredevil by nature. However, I am not afraid of risk. After all, I sold my house and moved from California to Kansas City with no job offer and knowing only one local family.
Reports like that last one just rub me the wrong way. It seems that in the last few years, every storm that comes is forecasted to be “the mother of all storms”! In the last six months before I left CA, we had at least two rain storms that were forecasted in such a way that had me sincerely concerned that my house, which was very well constructed, might not actually make it through them intact.
After all that fear, they didn’t even turn out to be a decent rain, let alone “the end of the world as we know it!” It reminds me of The Grinch (w/Jim Carrey) screaming, “We’re gonna die! We’re gonna die! I’m going to throw up, and then I’m gonna die! Mommy, tell it to stop!”
I just got the latest information on the Kansas Wrestling Coaches Association’s website and learned that the match is not cancelled. We are going. If we survive, I’ll let you know how it went.
