Brian S. Doyle
I have been in the audience at the CFISD Invitational for more years than I can remember. I’ve always attended to cheer on the kids of my friends, wrestlers from my own kids’ school, but most importantly, as a former high school and collegiate wrestler, I love the sport. This year’s tournament is the first in which I am attending as a ‘reporter’ of what I see, who I want to watch, and my personal impressions of what has happened on the mat.
As the tournament advertised, this was truly the largest high school wrestling tournament in the United States. This fact could have led to many difficulties and problems, but no great hitches were evident besides a slight problem with TrackWrestling on Saturday.
First off, I waited until the second day to attend because I wanted to watch the quarterfinals through the finals. Not that I am a snob against the opening bouts, but the sheer magnitude of the tournament can be quite overwhelming. All rounds before the semifinals were conducted on sixteen mats, spread through the main arena and a large conference hall at the CFISD Berry Center, the same arena that is used for the UIL State Championship tournament for 5A/6A Boys and Girls. But in comparison to the States, this tournament had 79 Boys’ teams and 83 Girls’ teams. Those teams had close to 830 boys and 570 girls on the first day of the tournament (as counted on the brackets). So if you are there to watch a specific wrestler or team, you could identify when their matches were to be held, and what mat, but if you were there to follow the ranked wrestlers, there was no way to see them all.
