This document summarizes the senior project of Jot Hulen, who was the tournament director for the annual Creekview Beginners Wrestling Tournament. The tournament hosted almost 800 matches over three days for new wrestlers aged 14 and under. As someone who has wrestled since childhood, Jot chose this project to encourage youth wrestling and help less experienced wrestlers gain confidence. While there were some logistical challenges around brackets and bout sheets, the tournament overall was a success according to Jot's assessment.

1. This is the result of almost 800 matches over the course of three days. Hello
my name is Jot Hulen and my senior project was being a tournament director for the
annual Creekview Beginners Tournament .
I choose this project because I have grown up wrestling. At the age of 6 I was
introduced to the sport of wrestling because my cousin started wrestling at Sequoyah
High School. I have wrestled ever since then and continue to grow as I participate in
tournaments all over the nation. The values I was taught as a youth wrestler have
carried me through the various levels of competition. As a result of this I see the
importance of the ideals taught in youth wrestling and its competition. In my research,
about the concepts of youth wrestling, I discovered that the values I was taught are in
almost every youth program’s philosophy and purpose: to encourage and grow the
sport of wrestling. This is the reason I wanted to host the beginner tournament at
Creekview, because I think it produces and encourages more wrestlers at a young age.
The Beginner tournament is a new style of tournament here in Georgia, but it
has been popping up all across the nation. The Beginner Tournament is to encourage
wrestlers who need “mat time”, which is just the amount of time you spend in
wrestling competition. Wrestlers with zero years of experience to two years of
experience are allowed to compete in these tournaments from ages 14 and under, note
there is no high school beginners tournaments. However, the problem with just basing
it on the number of experienced of a wrestler is the natural athleticism of some
wrestlers. The Team Georgia Organization has made an extension of the qualifying
rules for a beginners tournament, that if you have placed first in your weight class
twice in the same year that you are no longer considered a beginner and are ineligible

2. for any other beginner tournaments. This rule has allowed for some of the more
equally experience wrestlers to stay in the beginners program while allowing some of
the better wrestlers to grow into other levels of competition. The main goal of youth
wrestling is to encourage more wrestlers, but that is hard to do when you have less
experienced wrestlers being dominated by wrestlers who have grown up wrestling.
The benefit of the beginner tournament is to let the less experienced kids keep their
moral up and continue wrestling.
My product is the bout sheets I have presented. These bouts are just set up
and then wrestled. The tournament it self has a lot of administrative stuff as well. One
of the first steps of setting up this tournament was it being accepted by Team Georgia
for their tournament list. Coach Higgins and my project Facilitator Coach Judkins
handled a lot of the issues with Team Georgia because of its policies on running a
tournament, such as hiring officials. Once the tournament was made about of the
tournament list, I then needed to make “tournament flyer”. This flyer is electronic and
goes on the Team Georgia website under a link to register for the tournament. The
flyer contains all the vital information for the tournament, such as start times, weigh
in times, gate fees, concessions, and amount of mats. These are all vital for the
parents and coaches to decide on which tournament to participate in that weekend. As
the date approaches for the tournament, a link is posted on the Team Georgia website
where wrestlers can then register for the tournament. All the registrations are due on
the Thursday before the tournament at twelve pm. Team Georgia then creates the
brackets for each age group and weight class. The coaches and I then used a software,
provided by Trackwrestling that creates the bout sheets that are predetermined by the

3. brackets. The day before the tournament we got the high school and middle school
wrestlers to help move the six mats from the wrestling and storage rooms in to the
gym. The wrestlers then set up all the score boards and tables as labeled in a diagram
I passed out. I then went around to each of the tables and dispersed the bout sheets to
the tables.
One of the biggest issues that occurred during the tournament is the filling out
of the brackets and the making on coinciding bout sheets. The high school wrestlers
who were in charge of the tables and keeping up with the brackets were not that
knowledgeable of their duties, so as the tournament went on they struggled sometimes
which held up the tournament. The kids did learn as they went and the challenges
were overcome.
The tournament itself ran fairly smooth. The officials were above average
quality. There was good competition for the wrestlers. The parents even behaved.
Over all the tournament was an over all success.
My project facilitator is John Judkins, who is a teacher and wrestling coach
here at Creekview. He previously taught and coached at Seqouyah and Pickens High
Schools. He helped me with my project by showing me the step and helping me work
through some of the administrative issues that came alone with my project.
Overall my project reinforced my goals for my career. My dream is to be a
high school teacher and wrestling coach. One of the large duties that comes with
being a coach is that you have to host or at least help run a large tournament. I think
this project showed me I can do this on a larger scale. I would really like to suggest
that you involve your children in the sport of wrestling. Remember its never to early

4. to try. Thank you for your time.