Iowa Preseason
Nationals Travel Plan

All deadlines are Mountain Time. Georgia is two hours ahead — the Eastern time is what matters to your families. Register at usabracketing.com, but only after the hotel code is active.

Every purchase is non-refundable — entries, coach passes, tickets. If a kid gets hurt in October, that money is gone. Say that out loud to parents before they pay.

Easy to miss

Every athlete needs a photo on their USA Wrestling profile by Oct 9

No photo on the membership profile means no custom credential. The upload deadline is Oct 9 at 1:00 PM MT — 3:00 PM ET, and it's separate from registration, so it will absolutely get missed unless someone chases it.

Worth pairing with the membership renewals that are already outstanding.

Division caps

These are the hard limits. USA Wrestling raised every cap between Sep 6 and Sep 14 — the youngest combined division went from 250 to 375 — but the smallest ones still fill first.

The Showcase is not open entry — a wrestler needs a state title (any year), a state placement from 25–26, a National Prep title, USAW All-American 1st–8th, a U15 or U17 national placement while in high school, or an NHSCA Virginia Beach placement. Anyone who doesn't qualify enters 9th–10th or 11th–12th instead.

This is the part that decides everything else. The divisions do not travel together — weigh-ins are spread across four different evenings, and a first-grader and a senior have almost nothing in common on this schedule.

Credential pickup opens 30–90 minutes before each weigh-in window and is required first.

The schedule moved since Sep 6. The Thursday and Friday weigh-ins now run 7:00–8:00 PM instead of 7:30–8:30, and the youngest divisions moved from Saturday night to Saturday early afternoon — 1:00 PM for 1st–2nd graders and 3rd–5th girls, 1:30 PM for 3rd–4th boys and 6th–8th girls, with credential pickup from 12:30. That changes wave 4's flight, below.

One exception worth knowing: 11th–12th grade boys who can't make the Wednesday night weigh-in get a second window Thursday morning, 9:30–10:00 AM. That's the only make-up weigh-in on the schedule.

USA Wrestling notes the schedule is subject to change — re-check it in October before anyone books a return flight around a finals time.

These waves are the cheapest version, not the required one. Each shows the latest a kid can arrive and the earliest they can leave — the schedule's hard edges. Everything between is your call.

Who actually goes on which day comes down to which parents and volunteers can travel, and plenty of families will want to come earlier or stay later to watch siblings and teammates. That costs nothing in airfare — a Wednesday-to-Sunday ticket is $419, the same as Wednesday-to-Saturday. Extra hotel nights are the only difference, and at four to a room that's $32 to $39 a night.

So treat the waves as the planning floor. Build the actual roster around who can chaperone.

The staffing problem

One coach stays back — so two travel, and four waves is more than two coaches can meet

Practices at CMP keep running while the team is in Iowa, so one coach stays home. That leaves two coaches for four separate arrival days, and they cannot be at the airport for all of them.

Two ways to solve it, and the first is cheaper than it sounds:

• Bridge the span. Both coaches fly in Wednesday and out Sunday, covering every wave as it lands. The ticket is the same $419 — only the extra hotel nights cost more, and one room split two ways is cheap. The van makes this work: it is already picked up Wednesday, so the coaches meet each incoming wave at the airport in it.
• Hand waves to travelling parents. Whoever is already flying with that group chaperones it, and the coaches meet them at the venue. Cheaper still, but it needs the rooming and supervision rules written down first — that was already an open item from the club call.

Name a responsible adult for each wave before anything gets booked. Not a coach necessarily, but a specific person. A wave with no named adult is the one that goes wrong.

Delta flies Atlanta to Des Moines nonstop in about 2 hours 10 minutes, four times a day. That's the whole reason this trip is easier than it looks — no connection, and DSM is 17 minutes from the venue.

Departures from ATL: 9:29 AM, 12:59 PM, 4:59 PM, 9:19 PM.

Round trip, one adult, taxes and fees included, no checked bag. Re-checked Sep 14. Waves 1–3 are unchanged at $419 on every Delta departure, and the Wednesday 4:59 PM is back down to $419. Two things moved: the Thursday 12:59 PM is now $489 — take the 9:29 AM — and Saturday departures rose to $459, which also lifts a Wednesday-to-Monday coach ticket to $459. On Saturday Delta swaps the 12:59 PM for a 2:06 PM, which lands too late for the new weigh-in.

The cheap connections came back this week. Southwest through Chicago Midway is $284 on wave 1 and $303 on wave 2 — a morning departure, one 50-minute connection, landing before noon. That is $115 to $135 a seat under Delta, real money on twelve kids, but a 50-minute connection with a youth team and one missed bag is a different trip. Delta's price still barely moves across these dates, so there's no money in shifting the trip — pick the dates the schedule dictates, then decide whether the Midway saving is worth the connection risk.

For a group this size, call Delta group travel rather than booking seat by seat — 10 or more passengers on the same flight gets group pricing and, more usefully, held seats without full payment up front.

Closest to the venue

The close hotels got thinner in a week. The Rewind sold out, Homewood is down to one king studio, and the SpringHill and both Fairfields only take requests now — a reply you can't afford to wait on. The Country Inn's $121 is a one-bedroom suite, not a two-queen room; its two-queen room is $149 and request-only. Hilton Garden Inn West still has seven two-queen rooms at $189 if seven minutes from the mat is worth the premium.

The airport cluster — where the rooms actually are

Ten to sixteen minutes out, and the inventory is real. For a team flying in this is arguably better than being close to the venue anyway.

Two traps in the block

Check these before booking

• The block is dated Oct 29 – Nov 1. The event runs Oct 28. Wave 1 — 11th–12th grade boys — needs a Wednesday night that sits outside the block dates, so that room has to be requested specifically. Don't assume it's included.
• Several hotels carry a two-night minimum — Country Inn, Sonesta, Staybridge, the Altoona Holiday Inn Express and Sleep Inn Ankeny as of Sep 14. With the youngest weigh-in now Saturday afternoon, wave 4 is a two-night trip anyway, so this matters less than it did — but check the flag on whichever hotel you block.
• Rates shown are pre-tax averages. Iowa lodging tax adds roughly 12% — budget accordingly.
• Free cancellation runs to Oct 24–26 depending on the hotel. That is the reason to hold rooms now rather than wait for a headcount — releasing a room costs nothing, losing the code costs $10 a head.
• Ask for two-queen rooms when you build the block, and confirm the four-person occupancy and any extra-person fee before you commit.

Two ways to go, and the gap between them is enormous. Four kids to a room is the default — a family travelling on its own pays roughly double per athlete.

Everything below is per person for a two-night trip, which covers waves 2 and 3. Waves 1 and 4 run a night longer or shorter — the hotel line is priced per night so it scales.

Athlete travelling with the team · 4 to a room

Athlete and a parent in their own room

Travelling with the team saves a family roughly $740 to $1,000 per athlete. That is the single biggest lever on how many kids can actually go — bigger than the entry fee, bigger than the airfare, bigger than anything in the fundraising plan.

Don't forget this line

Somebody pays for the coaches

With one coach staying back to run practice at CMP, two travel and share a room. On a 12-athlete trip:

Keeping a coach home actually saves money — two coaches bridging the whole span cost the athletes $118–$128 each, less than three coaches travelling one wave. Covering every wave costs about $25 to $30 a kid more than covering one. That is a cheap way to have an adult meet every group.

So the honest all-in for a kid travelling with the team is roughly $800 to $990. Decide now whether the club absorbs the coach cost, adds it as a flat travel fee, or fundraises it — because if it isn't decided it ends up on Cliff's card, which is how it has gone before.

Quoted Sep 7 · re-checked Sep 14

The van — $474.71 for three days on the Sep 7 quote, and the public rate has moved

15-passenger Ford Transit Wagon out of DSM, Emerald Reserve rate, Wed Oct 28 noon to Sat Oct 31 noon:

• Time and distance, 3 days at $140.66 — $421.98
• Estimated total with fees — $474.71, about $158 a day all in
• 9 additional drivers included at no charge, so any coach or parent can drive

Re-checked Sep 14: Enterprise's public rate for the same van out of DSM is now $175.44 a day — $862.29 for Wed–Sun, about $216 a day all in. The Sep 7 quote came through the Emerald Reserve rate at $140.66 a day, so it may still hold on that account. Re-pull it this week and extend it to Sunday in the same call — the gap is roughly $20 an athlete and it only widens closer to the date.

Before you book four to a room

• Ask the block for two-queen rooms specifically. Most cap at four people and some charge per person over two — confirm the occupancy rule and any extra-person fee when the block opens, not after.
• Write the rooming and chaperone rules down before the trip, not on the drive to the airport. This was already an open item from the club call and it stops being theoretical the moment the club books rooms for other people's kids.
• The club should book the rooms centrally. Reservation numbers are the registration discount codes, so whoever holds the bookings holds the codes and hands them out. Central booking is the only version of this that doesn't fall apart.
• The timing mostly helps. Waves 1–3 weigh in the evening they arrive and wrestle the next day, so nobody is trying to make weight sharing a room with three others the morning of. Wave 4 is the exception now — they land at 10:42 and weigh in at 1:00, so those kids make weight on the plane.

Still on the list, but not this week

• Athlete photos on USA Wrestling profiles by Oct 9 — no photo, no credential. Chase it with the membership renewals.
• Coach credentials and coach bands for whoever is cornering.
• Confirm four-person occupancy and extra-person fees with whichever hotel you block.
• Decide who pays for the coaches — club, flat travel fee, or fundraising. It defaults to Cliff's card otherwise.