The view from section GG

Is it wrestling season yet?

2011-09-01T02:44:00.000-07:00

You can be anything

2011-08-07T05:03:00.000-07:00

You can be a tough 125 pound kid from a small town in Illinois.

Or a tough 124 pound girl from New York City.

You can outwork your opponents.

Or you can out dazzle them.

You can be blind.

You can be missing a leg.

Or two.

You can come out of retirement after coaching your team to an NCAA title.

You can come from Mongolia to win 3 NCAA Division III championships for St Johns University in Minnesota.

Or come from Del City, Oklahoma to win 6 Olympic and World gold medals for your country.

You can walk off the mat and get elected to the Senate - or write best selling novels - or save millions from starvation - or fly in space - or lead Fortune 500 corporations. You can even be president of the United States.

Wrestling - the sport of opportunity.

The season is over - it's time to get to work.

2011-03-20T10:55:00.000-07:00

Penn State dominated. Coach Cael Sanderson’s Nittany Lions traveled to Philadelphia and won the second NCAA Division I wrestling championship in school history. The most successful college wrestler in American history has now added coaching a team champion to his resume. Congratulations.

For all but the most ardent fans, the wrestling season is now officially over. Oh sure, the US Senior Open, University Nationals, World Team Trials, Fargo and the World Championships will all be contested between now and when high school and college wrestlers take the mat again for the 2011/2012 season, but a lot of fans don’t pay much attention to those events.

What a season it has been for the growth of wrestling. High school participation numbers continue to grow. The Beat the Streets movement is making new inroads into introducing wrestling to kids in the nation’s urban areas. Just last week Beat the Streets Philadelphia held a clinic in conjunction with the NCAA Championships. The NCAA and the Philadelphia tournament organizing committee donated $25,000 to Beat the Streets. College dual meet attendance records were broken at several schools.

This season also validated my contention that wrestling is the most democratic of sports. Here in Iowa, Cassy Herkelman and Megan Black made news when both qualified for the Iowa high school state tournament. Most of the attention was generated when Ms. Herkelman’s first round opponent defaulted rather than wrestle her. It made the national media. Lost in that furor were the accomplishments of Hope Steffensen (Alaska) and Rachel Hale (Vermont) who became the second and third American girls, respectively, to win state high school championships wrestling against boys.

In Arkansas, visually impaired Andrea’ Johnson, from the Arkansas School for the Blind, won his second state high school championship.

Last night, ten years after bi-lateral amputee Nick Ackerman won an NCAA Division III title for Simpson College, Arizona State’s Anthony Robles, born with only one leg, climbed to the top of the medal podium in Philadelphia – the 2011 NCAA Division I 125 pound champion.

Wrestling embodies the American dream. Opportunities to compete are open to all, but victories – and championships – are earned. The athlete who works the hardest and learns the most almost always triumphs. Students learn from participation in all co-curricular activities, but wrestling teaches things like courage, toughness, tenacity and perseverance in ways unmatched by other sports. Scholars since Socrates and Plato have recognized the value of wrestling. During last evening’s ESPN broadcast of the NCAA finals, best selling author, John Irving – himself a former wrestler and wrestling coach, did a marvelous job of explaining how wrestling makes him a better writer.

Many colleges are beginning to realize the value that wrestling can have for students – and themselves. Institutions like Baker University, Shorter University and Grand View University have all added wrestling teams in recent years. Other schools – Wayland Baptist University, Waldorf College, Missouri Baptist University and Jamestown College have added opportunities for women. There are now actually more college wrestling teams than there were 15 years ago.

Does this mean that all is well with American wrestling? Far from it.

On March 8th, the University of Sioux Falls announced that it will drop both the men’s tennis team and the wrestling team. Moving from the NAIA to NCAA Division II status is ostensibly cited as the primary reason. To read the official USF release is to be confused. The arguments presented for eliminating men’s tennis seem to have a tiny bit of validity, but nowhere in that document can I find the real reason that wrestlers are being shown the door. Okay – so the coach is resigning and the school would have to hire a new one. Isn’t hiring new faculty a daily reality in academia?

The University of North Carolina-Greensboro announced the elimination of wrestling six days later. The reason – to have more money ($308,000) to invest in basketball and soccer. UNCG chancellor, Linda Brady, and athletic director, Kim Record, have a stated goal of achieving a higher profile for UNCG sports – but most especially men’s and women’s basketball and soccer. How ironic. The Greensboro Sports Commission wants to brand the city as “Tournament Town” and two of its highest profile anchors – The Super 32 and the Southern Scuffle – are wrestling events. Together they bring millions of tourism dollars to the community every year.

The Southern Scuffle attracts 32 college teams, many of whom are among the top-rated programs in the country. It was started and is hosted by UNCG. The University is hoping to have its cake and cut it too – continuing to host the event without sponsoring a wrestling team of their own. Many in the wrestling community, including Cornell University coach, Rob Koll, have indicated that they will not support the Scuffle if there is a UNCG affiliation and the school drops the sport.

Apparently, Trev Alberts learned nothing about courage while playing football for the Nebraska Cornhuskers. In a move that can only be called cowardly, the University of Nebraska-Omaha athletic director chose to call wrestling coach, Mike Denney, on the telephone – in the middle of the night – to tell him his team was being eliminated. Even worse – Alberts chose to make that call while the Mavericks were celebrating their third consecutive NCAA Division II National Championship.

Like the University of North Carolina-Greensboro, UNO appears to want to chase the potential payoff of being a 16-seed in an NCAA basketball regional. UNO is moving into Division I and to finance their run to big school hoop “greatness” they have chosen to eliminate two of the school’s most successful programs – football and wrestling.

The move may well backfire financially for UNO. At least one major donor has indicated that he will withdraw his support if football is eliminated and another is questioning the validity of claims made by Alberts.

The National Wrestling Coaches Association has issued a call to arms to save these programs from the chopping block. You can visit their website to read guidelines for a course of action that anyone who cares about wrestling can follow.

There’s a lesson here that we don’t seem to get. If a program like University of Nebraska-Omaha – or the University of Oregon – or Fresno State – or Syracuse – or Portland State – can be dropped, is any college program really safe? Why do so many of us wait until another elimination announcement is made before we act? Why aren’t we working every day to keep the sport growing?

The season may be over, but the work still needs to be done.

Finding the next Tricia Saunders

2011-02-20T12:40:00.000-08:00

According to my facebook alert, tomorrow (February 21) is Tricia Saunders’ birthday. Happy birthday, Tricia – and thank you.

Presumably, almost all of you reading this are wrestling fans, because – well – that’s what I write about. I’m willing to wager that some of you – maybe many of you – have never heard of Tricia. She won World freestyle championships in 1992, 1996, 1998 and 1999 and was the outstanding wrestler in the 1992 competition. No American woman ever beat her.

Always a vocal advocate for women’s wrestling, when her competitive career ended she became an influential coach, serving on world team coaching staffs in 2001, 2002 and 2003 and on the staff of the first American women’s Olympic wrestling team in 2004. In 2006 Tricia Saunders was the first woman ever inducted as a Distinguished Member of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame.

The same year that Saunders was inducted into the Hall of Fame another American female made wrestling history. Michaela Hutchison became the first girl to win a boy’s state wrestling championship when she won the 103 pound class at the Alaska state tournament. Hers is probably not a well known name among wrestling fans either.

You probably don’t recognize the name, Cassy Herkelman, either – but – if I describe her as “the girl that the boy refused to wrestle in the Iowa state high school tournament” the bells of recognition are likely to go off. The story made the national media and people with absolutely no interest in wrestling have been asking me about it for two days. I doubt that girls or women wrestling have ever received this kind of attention.
Just in case you missed it, the short version is that when Joel Northrup drew Cassy in the first round of the state tournament he chose to default instead of wrestling her, saying, "I have a tremendous amount of respect for Cassy ... However, wrestling is a combat sport and it can get violent at times. As a matter of conscience and my faith I do not believe that it is appropriate for a boy to engage a girl in this manner."
Wrestling IS a combat sport – as are judo, tae kwon do and karate. When girls or women choose to compete in the latter three – even against males - it is frequently considered empowering. The public loves the image of the 100 pound woman kicking the snot out of her larger (evil) male tormentor. We’ve cheered for that scene in dozens of movies. Why, then, is there such public “queasiness” about girls wrestling boys? I respect Joel Northrup’s beliefs, but I don’t think it’s the violence – I think it is the perception that there is something potentially sexual about many of the typical contacts found in a wrestling match. Do I agree with that perception? No, but you know the old saying – “perception IS reality”.

Lost in the uproar was recognition of the historic nature of both Ms. Herkelman and Megan Black qualifying for the Iowa state high school tournament – earning their way in.

Wrestling is the most democratic of sports. Three weeks from now marks the 10th anniversary of bi-lateral amputee, Nick Ackerman, winning an NCAA Division III championship. One week after that, Anthony Robles, born with one leg, will begin his quest for a Division I title. Anthony is currently ranked number 1 at his weight by several of the ranking services. You don’t have to be blessed with unusual height or blazing speed to win at wrestling. The athlete who works the hardest and learns the most almost always triumphs – and, yes, sometimes that means that girls beat boys – as Cassy Herkelman did 23 times this year.

As much as I root for the girls to win, girls wrestling boys is the biggest single roadblock to girls wrestling. Four states offer girl’s state wrestling championships. Texas, Hawaii and Washington have sanctioned varsity tournaments and California has a state “invitational” championship. Over 6,000 girls wrestle in high school in America and the majority of them can be found in those four states.

We who love the sport are fond of spouting off about what wrestling teaches – toughness, independence, resiliency and tenacity. Why would we only want half of our kids to have the opportunity to learn those things on the mat? Why aren’t we working harder to get girls into wrestling?

It seems to me that we are at a crossroads for women’s and girl’s wrestling. Most of the successful women’s wrestlers of the late 1990’s and early 2000’s came from a girls vs. boys or women vs. men background. Tricia Saunders, Patricia Miranda and Sara McMann all wrestled against males on their paths to World and Olympic medals. At the time, it was the only road to success. We are now starting to see young women on the US team who come from a girls vs. girls high school environment and then went on to a college with a women’s wrestling program.

More women coaching would be the next step. It appears that only three women are head coaches of women’s intercollegiate wrestling teams, Marcie VanDusen at Menlo, Tocarra Montgomery at Lindenwood and Alaina Berube at the University of the Cumberlands. Perhaps more importantly, do we need more women involved at the kid’s club level? Wrestling has always been a grassroots activist sport. If more girls participate at the youth level does it follow that there then arises a need for more states to offer girl’s high school wrestling? It should – but we’ll never know until we get busy and try.

More girls wrestling – that just might be a great birthday gift for Tricia Saunders.

Senior Day

2011-02-06T08:25:00.000-08:00

Senior day is a tradition in all college sports. I’ve attended a lot of them for wrestlers over the years. I’ve seen future world and Olympic champions honored as they took the mat in front of the home crowd for the last time. I’ve watched as fans said good-bye to young men who are now successful high school and college coaches. There have also been many who stepped on the mat for the last time and went on to careers as doctors, attorneys, teachers, entrepreneurs – even an Iditarod musher.

The biggest cheers always come for the All-Americans and the National Champions. But – there’s a special place in my heart for the “guys in the room” – guys who went to practice every day, lifted, ran and got beat up daily by some of the best wrestlers in the country and stuck it out for reasons only they know. When they get handed their diploma at graduation there ought to be a certificate enclosed that reads – “Toughness 101: A+”.

I’m attending two Senior Day/Nights this week. Sunday afternoon the Hawkeyes host the Michigan Wolverines. Since I won’t get to go to the Big Ten tournament or Division I Nationals, it will be the last time I watch Luke Lofthouse wrestle. Luke has not had your typical career. A three-time state high school state champion in Utah, Luke cut to 174 pounds from his high school senior year weight of 189 and started for the Hawks as a true freshman. It was a tough year and he went 8-17 in collegiate competition. In the matches I remember seeing that year, I always admired his hustle and his fight.

After his freshman year he left the University of Iowa and went to Africa on a two-year Mormon mission. When he returned he was not in wrestling condition, but Luke is a worker. He red-shirted, kept working hard and last season filled in admirably when Chad Beatty was out with injuries.

This season Luke is the starter and is having success. Friday night he scored an upset win over fifth-ranked Matt Powless of Indiana. It is hard-earned success. By all accounts Luke is a tireless worker and a team leader. He projects a great image when in front of the press and when he’s on the mat I can’t help but root extra hard for him. He is a credit to his family, his religion, his teammates, his coaches and his university.

Friday night my wife and I and our granddaughter, Piper, are going to the Coe/Cornell dual at the Eby Fieldhouse. I suspect that Piper, who is 4, will not make it through the entire meet and that’s okay. I just want to be there to honor Clayton Rush. Not just because he has had such a remarkable career (NCAA Division III Champion and 3X All-American to this point), but because he is a fine young man who embodies what intercollegiate sports can be about.

Since the Flood of 2008, I’ve become friends with the Rush family – Clayton, Gail and Rick. When a young friend of mine and his family lost everything in the flood, Gail and Clayton were among the first to help out. When I needed help manning the Adam Frey memorial booth at last season’s National Duals, Gail volunteered. This season she joined in on the Tickets for Kids effort and raised enough money to bring almost the entire town of Aledo to National Duals.

An Academic All-American, Clayton wants to coach. Somehow I suspect he’ll be a good one. I’m looking forward to seeing him wrestle in La Crosse at the Division III Championships next month.

Gable and me.

2011-01-02T11:48:00.000-08:00

I knew who Dan Gable was when I was in high school. His exploits were well known to me, first at Waterloo West and then at Iowa State University. In 1969 or 70 (I don’t really remember which), I went to Ames to watch him wrestle. A friend of mine wrestled at Augustana College in Rock Island and was going to the meet and asked me to ride along and maybe share the driving. That night planted the seed that would blossom into my love for wrestling.

I remember one Sunday morning when I opened the Medd-O-Lane/Dairy Queen where I worked, bringing in the newspapers and seeing, “Gable Fails”.

In 1972 I watched on ABC as he and one of the greatest American freestyle teams ever assembled dominated the wrestling competition. Commentator, Frank Gifford, called Dan the most dedicated athlete he’d ever seen.

Somewhere in the late ‘70s or early ‘80s, I went to my first University of Iowa dual meet. I didn’t go to many in those years, but we’re blessed in Iowa with Iowa Public Television College Wrestling broadcasts and I rarely missed one of those.

When my wife and I started dating in 1989 she bought our first Iowa season tickets. We’ve been in the same seats ever since.

I first met Dan in 1993. I was doing a little business with Eric and Adam Heneghan, who owned a small advertising agency, video production/editing company called Giant Step Productions. Eric had wrestled for Gable and some of their first work was producing videos for Dan. Once we learned of our mutual interest in wrestling, we generally spent more time talking about that than business.

Their studio was on the third floor of an older house not too far from the Iowa campus. One day I had an appointment with them and either Adam or Eric (I forget now) met me at the bottom of the outside steps that led up to the studio. He said, “You’re a big wrestling fan, right? Don’t you have season tickets?” I was puzzled because these were things we discussed frequently. I opened the door and was greeted by, “Hi, I’m Dan Gable.” My witty response – “I know.”

I’ve been known to have the occasional alcoholic beverage at the Cedar Rapids Marriott. I’ve also been known to talk endlessly about wrestling while there. One day I went in and a young bartender said, “Here, I have something for you.” It was a bar napkin with Gable’s autograph. Dan had been speaking at an I-Club meeting the night before and this young man (thank you, Chris) had made a point of getting the autograph for me. It is one of my most prized possessions.

Last year I launched Tickets for Kids. One day an envelope arrived with one of those pre-printed return address labels, “Dan Gable, Iowa City, IA”. It contained a check to Tickets for Kids. My wife asked if I was going to frame the check. Nope – I used it for what Dan intended – sending some kids to last season’s Division III Championships.

I framed the envelope.

I met Dan for the second time at a breakfast honoring longtime wrestling coach, athletic director and development director at both Coe and Cornell, Barron Bremner. The event was sponsored by what is now called the National Wrestling Hall of Fame Dan Gable Museum and he and I were both speakers at the event. He was still on crutches from the broken leg he had suffered in November, but he was gracious to everyone that wanted to talk to him – including me.

Shortly after that I learned that I had been awarded the National Wrestling Coaches Dan Gable “America Needs Wrestling Award”. I was stunned. It is a tremendous honor to have my name associated in any way with his. It’s also quite humbling.

Dan officially retired from the University of Iowa Friday. The Cedar Rapids Gazette is featuring him in today’s edition. Several people are sharing their memories of Gable – including the infamous Barry Davis Hy Vee doughnut story.

My most lasting images of Dan Gable are both from the 1997 NCAA Championships. The first – pounding his crutch on the floor and yelling, “Strongest man in the world” when Jesse Whitmer won his title. Then when Bob Siddens handed Gable the team championship trophy – I cried.

I suspect it’s not going to be a leisurely retirement. He loves this sport more than most of us can imagine and I’m guessing he’s just getting ready to ramp up even greater efforts to grow the “world’s oldest and greatest sport” in America.

Things change

2011-01-01T11:46:00.000-08:00

Things change.

The first day of a new year is often used to comment on changes that happened in the previous year and/or speculate on what will be new in the one that is just beginning.

Things change.

Early competition results seem to indicate that the Iowa Hawkeyes will have a difficult time winning a fourth consecutive NCAA Division I wrestling championship. In fact there is a good chance that a new member may be added to that elite fraternity of Division I team champions. Cornell University has the strength and experience to possibly join a group that hasn’t added a new member since Minnesota joined in 2001. As the new year starts, Penn State, Oklahoma State and Minnesota appear to be their biggest challengers.

Things change.

A “’burg” has won the last 16 NCAA Division III Championships – Augsburg with 9 and Wartburg with 7. Ithaca was the last “non ‘burg” to win a DIII title in 1994. Both Augsburg and Wartburg are still among the leading contenders, but St John’s, the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, Coe, Ithaca and The College of New Jersey all have teams that might be strong enough to break the “’burg” stronghold.

Things change.

Wrestling coverage grew significantly in 2010. The addition of Big Ten Network broadcasts was a major milestone. Scott Casber scored a triumph when he got his wrestling highlight show, Takedown Radio and Television, in a major Eastern cable market. However, the bulk of the growth has come on the internet where many events are now live streamed.

Things change.

Tickets for Kids has grown from a one-time effort to support wrestling and the Division III Championships (and my city) into an ongoing effort to help kids get and stay excited about wrestling. The biggest change has been the help I’ve received – literally from all over the country. Kevin Roberts, Coach Jim Zalesky and their supporters at Oregon State joined in. Rod Frost started Tickets for Kids-Minnesota and raised enough money for about 500 kids to attend Golden Gopher dual meets. In 2010, thanks to your generosity, almost 2,500 youngsters attended wrestling events ranging from the USA vs. Russia freestyle dual at Hofstra to dual meets at the University of Northern Iowa.

2011 is off to a promising start. Thanks to hard work from “super-mom”, Gail Rush, Arno Niemand and an effort led by 2X NCAA champion Chuck Yagla and his employer, Bob Buckley, of the Kirk Gross Company – at least 200 kids will be attending the National Duals next weekend.

Things change.

If you’ve read this for any length of time, you know that I have been self-employed for the past 20 years. My little company, Direct Marketing Solutions, has been helping companies and charities sell products or raise money by putting envelopes in your mailbox since 1990. On November 8th Direct Marketing Solutions was acquired by TAG Communications of Davenport, Iowa to form TAG Direct Marketing. I am now charged with building a new division within a larger, growing company. For the first time in two decades I have a boss.

Why mention that in a blog that is supposed to be about wrestling? Being my own boss afforded me the time to be as active as I wanted to be in support of this great sport. Now my time is limited. I’m committed to Tickets for Kids and plan on giving that as much of my free time as I can. On the other hand – I’ll probably be posting fewer blogs – and maybe that’s a blessing. I’ve made commitments to a couple of other projects and will honor those – but mostly I’ll be focusing on the new business effort.

So – if your favorite charity needs to raise money and wants some help from someone who has been doing it a long time – email me at jimb@tagmarcom.com.

Is it a dual or a duel?

2010-12-05T09:15:00.000-08:00

It has come and gone again – the only college wrestling event on ESPN’s list of “101 things every sports fan must experience before they die” – the Iowa/Iowa State dual. If Saturday’s edition was your first one you picked a good night. No – it was nowhere near a record turnout, but the announced 11,800+ attendance is likely to be the largest dual meet crowd in the country this year.

As has seemed to become tradition, there was one match that brought that crowd to its feet with a roar. At 141 pounds, Iowa redshirt freshman, Mark Ballweg, “came out the back door” on a shot taken by past All-American, Chris Drouin, and scored the winning takedown with just seconds left in the match. I still get goose bumps whenever I see a young Hawkeye wrestler experience one of those Carver Hawkeye Arena salutes for the first time.

It was also a historic night to be there. At the intermission the creation of the “Dan Gable Traveling Trophy” was announced. Each year the winner of the Iowa/Iowa State dual will take the trophy home for display. It’s a fitting way to honor a man who has not only meant so much to both institutions, but to the sport of wrestling. As the announcement ceremony was ending, Tom Brands trotted out of the tunnel to matside and hugged Gable. It was funny in a way – yet very poignant. Here were two men who appeared not to be comfortable hugging another man, doing so in front of almost 12,000 people. Then Gable walked to his family and his grandkids surrounded him. I have to admit that I choked up a bit. Those fans who chose to go up for ice cream missed some great moments.

I love dual meets – especially rivalry meets. I’ve been attending the Coe/Cornell meet for several years now and will do so again later this season. I’ve not yet gone to the Wartburg/Augsburg event, but hope to in the near future. I also believe that dual meets are the way we bring new fans to the sport. It’s just a natural tendency in college sports for fans to align themselves more fervently when an established rivalry is involved. Take Coe vs. Cornell for example. It is the oldest football rivalry west of the Mississippi. That spills over to other sports. When my daughter was playing tennis at Cornell, Luther was the established Iowa conference women’s tennis powerhouse(until dethroned by the Rams), but it was the Coe/Cornell meet that drew the biggest crowd. The wrestling dual will pack the Eby Fieldhouse in February just as it did the Small Multi-Sport Center last season.

I’m not the only one who sees the value in dual meets. A few weeks ago Sandy Stevens introduced me to John Graham, the co-founder of the Virginia Duals. To say that John is passionate about the dual meet format is quite an understatement. He and other members of the Peninsula Wrestling Association founded the Virginia Duals back in 1981 as a fund raiser. The event introduced the dual meet advancement tournament format to college wrestling. The Virginia Duals offers two intercollegiate and three high school divisions. This season’s edition will be held January 7th and 8th at the Hampton (VA) Coliseum. Led by Penn State the National College Division will feature five NCAA Division I top 25 teams. Teams from Virginia, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, South Carolina and Delaware are in the three high school divisions. As always it will be a great two days of wrestling. For more information visit their website.

The NWCA National Duals sprang from the Virginia Duals in 1989 and NWCA executive director, Mike Moyer, is also fervent in his support of the dual meet. The current National Duals format is the most unique in all of college wrestling. Top teams from all three NCAA divisions, the NAIA, the NJCAA and 8 women’s teams will all battle for the title of National Dual Champion for their respective divisions. At one time Minnesota might be wrestling Iowa State on Mat 5, while Grand View and Missouri Baptist square off on Mat 1. As you continue to scan the floor at the UNI Dome might see Coe and Delaware Valley battling on Mat 8 and the women from Oklahoma City University wrestling freestyle against the team from Jamestown College. The National Duals are a wrestling junkie’s dream. This season’s event will be held January 8th and 9th at the UNI Dome on the campus of the University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls, Iowa.

Fan support is especially critical for both events this year. Hampton is one of the finalists in a bid to win the 2012 wrestling and weight lifting Olympic Trials. A strong turnout for the Duals can only enhance their chances.

As has been hashed and re-hashed everywhere in the wrestling media, the University of Iowa has declined an invitation to the National Duals this year. Like it or not, the attendance of the Iowa fan base is frequently crucial to the financial success of any event. The Hawkeyes are not competing that weekend and some Hawk fans will still attend National Duals – but I suspect that number will be nowhere near the total black and gold butts that would be in the seats if the Hawkeyes were on the mat.

These events are both great opportunities for the wrestling community to demonstrate their support of the “world’s oldest and greatest sport”. We have chosen to support both of them with Tickets for Kids efforts. The National Duals effort is off to a good start. We have already received enough pledges and donations to send over 200 kids to a “day at the duals” including 25 that have been earmarked to introduce girls to wrestling.

We’ve not yet received our first Virginia Duals donation. Who out there wants to break the ice? We’ve got a lot of money to raise and a short time to do it – so forward this blog to everyone you can.

You can donate to buy tickets to either event by going to the Tickets for Kids website. Click on “Other Events” and then choose the one you wish to support. If you’re more comfortable sending a check, make it to “Tickets for Kids” and send it to

Tickets for Kids
c/o Jim Brown
130 24th St NE
Cedar Rapids, IA 52402-4936

Please make note of which event you are supporting on your check.

Sadly, I can’t be at both events at the same time, but I hope to see many of you in Cedar Falls.

I'm thankful I never had to wrestle Tom Brands

2010-11-25T06:46:00.000-08:00

In accordance with holiday tradition here is a list of things for which I am thankful.

I am thankful that Dan Gable never got me in the double arm bars. At age 60, my shoulders ache enough as it is. I’m also thankful to Eric and Adam Heneghan for introducing me to Dan. It has provided me with one of my favorite stories.

I am thankful for all of the people who have supported this blog – Danielle Hobeika, Al Bevilacqua, Bill Lahman, Barry Davis, Chad Zaputil, Johnny Cobb, the Rush Family, Jeff McGinness, Joe and Dee Pollard, Ken Chertow, Mark Ironside, Mike Clayton, Mark Palmer and others I’m forgetting at the moment – have a all contributed in some way to several blog editions.

I am thankful for the people I have met the past couple of years who battle every day for the future of this great sport (again, I’m sure to forget some) – Mike Duroe, Dick Simmons, Sandy Stevens, Jason Bryant, Lee Roy Smith, Richard Small, Mike Moyer, Tammy Tedesco, Dr. Tim Drehmer, Kyle Klingman, Kent Sesker, that Gable guy again. I have been honored to contribute in some small way to your efforts.

I am thankful for the people who have supported Tickets for Kids – to Fred Jones at the Cedar Rapids Marriott who has made the largest donation to date - to KJ Pilcher of the Cedar Rapids Gazette, whose feature on the effort really got the ball rolling – to Eric Betterman from The Open Mat who gave us our website (stop by now and make a donation) and Sandy Stevens who wrote about us in WIN. Thank you to the many generous donors who have made and continue to make it possible (so far) for well over a thousand kids to attend a big time wrestling event. I am especially thankful to Rod Frost and Gail Rush who, in separate efforts, have raised almost $2,000 this season.

I am thankful for a special group of friends who listen to my tired stories and patiently allow me to ramble on about the glories of wrestling. You know who you are – Jamie, Jacki, Jayme, Angela, Steve (who is finally going to his first wrestling meet this year), Curt (brother of an NCAA champion), Shane and – of course, former Cedar Rapids Kennedy wrestler – Lenny.

In today’s world of the blended family, I am thankful for Barb and Mike. I was once married to Barb and she is the mother of my two lovely daughters and remains one of my best friends. And Mike – I can’t say thanks enough. You see, many years ago when our house burned to the ground, it was Mike who got the girls out.

I am thankful for those two lovely daughters. No father could be prouder than I. I am thankful for the grandchildren who will run through the house today and yell and play and maybe stop for a second to hug Grandpa.

Finally, I am thankful for Cindy. Somehow, I won the marriage lottery. She loves me in spite of my many bad habits and has supported all of my meager efforts to help wrestling. But, really, she only has herself to blame – in her effort to hook me she did buy our first season tickets 20-some years ago.

I’m not sure why God chose to bless me in so many ways, but I am truly thankful.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Vaterans Day 2010

2010-11-10T18:53:00.000-08:00

My father is buried at the Rock Island Arsenal National Cemetery – not because he was a great hero – but because when his country called, he went to war (or “conflict”, as it is officially known).

Dad enlisted in the army in 1947 at age 18 and was taught the cooper’s trade (wooden barrel making). On March 30, 1949 he got a 3-day pass and hitchhiked home from Fort Riley, Kansas to Muscatine, Iowa on the back of an Indian motorcycle. On April 1st he married my mom and on April 2nd he hitchhiked back to Fort Riley. Some time in1950 he got his honorable discharge with the rank of corporal. I was born in March and lived the first month or two of my life at Fort Riley.

On June 25, 1950 North Korea invaded South Korea and in 1951 Dad was called back to active duty, promoted to sergeant and sent to Korea as an army engineer. I can’t tell you anything about his war (excuse me, “conflict”) experiences, because in all of my life he was never willing to share them with me. Oh, yeah – I know how he got the tattoo in Tokyo on leave and a little bit about the P-51 Mustang that crashed at the airfield he was building – but nothing about his own experiences.

In the ‘70s Dad joined the Veterans of Foreign Wars. I suspect that he did that initially as another excuse to drink beer. Somewhere in the ‘80s he got passionate about veterans’ affairs – especially about how shabbily Viet Nam veterans were being treated, so he became an activist and eventually a grass roots lobbyist.

Late in 1997 he was diagnosed with lung cancer. When I was a kid he smoked three packs of Chesterfields a day and as a heating and air conditioning contractor had sucked up asbestos fibers for 30 years. It was not a surprising diagnosis.

He had retired to the Pacific Northwest where my brothers live and in 1998 I went to spend my last Father’s Day with him. The second day of my visit my brother, Jeff, and I took Dad to the VA hospital in Portland for a checkup. We sat there as the doctor reaffirmed that, yes, it was terminal and asked a few questions to determine if Dad was feeling suicidal. “Don’t worry, I ain’t killin’ myself.” We got some prescriptions and proceeded to the pharmacy.

The waiting area was packed because there was only one pharmacist on duty. We sat there among men and women who had served in World War II, Korea and Viet Nam. After an hour his name was called, we grabbed his medicine and walked out. Dad was livid – not so much because of his own wait but because of the overall situation. He said, “Those poor bastards shouldn’t have to wait like that. They deserve better.”

Before I left Portland I arranged for what became known as Dad’s “farewell tour”. I flew him home to Davenport and we visited all of his favorite dives and saw all of his old friends. We also went to the Rock Island Arsenal and made his burial arrangements. His last dinner before flying back to Oregon was at the Bettendorf VFW hall, laughing and reminiscing with all of his old comrades in arms.

The next spring my brothers flew back with his ashes and he was laid to rest at the Arsenal. The VFW came and fired the salute and handed Jeff an American flag.

Fast forward to 2009. Mark Rowell was my best man when Cindy and I got married. I have known his son, Mathew since he was tiny. In July, 2009 Mark and his wife, Tammy, were notified that Matt had been seriously wounded in Afghanistan. The initial diagnosis was that he might lose a leg. Blessedly, that did not come to pass.

American freedom is not a “happy accident”. Every generation men and women sacrifice, fight – and die – to preserve it. Please – on this “Armistice Day” (as Dad always called it), take a moment to honor those who have preserved our freedoms.

In honor of Sgt Arthur L Brown Jr. I miss you, Dad.

The Russians are coming - volume 2

2010-11-05T09:00:00.000-07:00

Two weeks from tonight (November 19, 2010) I’ll be in seat 1 of Row 12 in section GG in Carver Hawkeye Arena as the Hawkeyes kick of the 2010/2011 wrestling season. For the first time in four years Brent Metcalf will not be in the lineup for the home opener.

Brent will be wrestling that night 935 miles from his former teammates at Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York. He’ll be joining other American freestyle stars Angel Escobedo, Shawn Bunch, Trent and Travis Paulson, Jake Herbert, J D Bergman and Tervel Dlagnev in a dual meet against a team from Russia.

Last year I was lucky enough to attend a similar event in Mount Vernon, Iowa on the Cornell College campus. The gym was packed and the crowd was boisterous. It was heartening to see so many young wrestlers there. I sat just a few feet away from the North Cedar kids club and, boy, did they seem to be enjoying the action.

It may seem strange, but kids in Iowa have far more opportunities to wrestle and attend wrestling events than kids in New York City. Al Bevilacqua, Michael Novogratz and the rest of the folks at Beat the Streets are working to change that. They firmly believe that the surest path for the growth of wrestling is to make it an urban sport. It’s hard to argue with their logic.

Al wants to take as many Beat the Streets kids as possible to the USA vs Russia freestyle dual. Why shouldn’t they have the same opportunity as youngsters from Stanwood, Lisbon, Solon and Mount Vernon? To help Al meet his goal, we’ve made this meet a Tickets for Kids event.

Thanks to the kindness of Eric Betterman of theopenmat.com Tickets for Kids now has a website and is capable of receiving online donations. Here is the link to the USA vs Russia page. If you have any questions email me at jim@dmsolutions4u.com. If you are a traditionalist like me and prefer to send a check, please make it to Tickets for Kids and mail it to:

Tickets for Kids
c/o Jim Brown
130 24th St NE
Cedar Rapids, IA 52402-4936.

There’s no time to waste so please act today.

Have a look here at some of the kids you’ll be helping.

Is it good for wrestling?

2010-11-01T13:24:00.000-07:00

“It’ll be good for wrestling.” How many times have you read that on the internet or in a wrestling magazine? Recently that comment has been most frequently linked to pre-season rankings that show Cornell University and Boise State topping the Division I polls.

Oklahoma State, Iowa, Iowa State, Oklahoma and Minnesota are the only schools in NCAA Division I history to win multiple titles since the championships were launched in 1928. Oklahoma State and Iowa account for 57 of those. Indiana, Cornell College, Michigan State, Penn State, Northern Iowa and Arizona State have each won a single team title.

Will wrestling benefit if another school joins this exclusive fraternity? Of course. For too long talented high school wrestlers have factored in their chances to be on a national championship team when selecting a college. This has contributed to the rich getting richer and the five top schools attracting many of the blue chip recruits. That’s changing. Coaches like Rob Koll at Cornell University, Greg Randall at Boise State, Tom Ryan at Ohio State and Cael Sanderson at Penn State are building teams that will legitimately contend for the Division I championship over the next several years.

How is this good for wrestling? I’m not sure, but I have some ideas. Getting more young kids on the mat and keeping them there is the future of the sport. Those kids will need role models, coaches and advancement opportunities.

State pride is a funny thing. I’m not sure how you explain it, but young athletes seem to feed off of the success of the home state schools. This leads to keeping your best in-state athletes “home”. A lack of success by the local university can have the opposite effect. The northeast United States – particularly New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania – has been a hotbed for high school wrestling for many years. Several wrestlers from there have played a major role in national championships at Iowa, Minnesota and Oklahoma State.

Where do good youth, middle school and high school coaches come from? The best come from successful college programs. They may not have been star wrestlers themselves but if they come from a solid program with a winning atmosphere they often replicate that atmosphere in their own wrestling rooms. Broadening the reach of championship wrestling just might improve the quality of coaching at every level.

There are far more high school kids that would like to continue wrestling in college than there are college wrestling opportunities. Is there any way to know if spreading NCAA Division I wrestling championships to other regions will help increase intercollegiate wrestling opportunities that will trickle down to younger kids? I don’t know – but as the comedian used to say – “It couldn’t hurt”.

Online fans tend to focus on Division I – but in recent history Division II and Division III team championships have also been concentrated in the middle part of the country. North Dakota State, Central Oklahoma, Nebraska Kearney and Nebraska Omaha have won all of the Division II titles this century and Augsburg and Wartburg have split the DIII championships since 1995.

Instead of expanding geographically, college wrestling is becoming more of a regional sport. A return to prominence by former powers San Francisco State in DII and The College of New Jersey (formerly Trenton State) in DIII would be just as good for wrestling as Cornell University or Boise State winning the Division I championship.

The bottom line – any thing that heightens interest in the sport is “good for wrestling”.

What's your great idea?

2010-10-25T08:55:00.000-07:00

My friend, Tim Crosby, is one of the smartest people I know. One of his favorite phrases is, “Everyone has good ideas. There are just very few who are willing to commit to them.”

I get pretty lucky sometimes and I’ve been on a hot streak recently. For a variety of reasons I have found myself in the presence of several of wrestling’s most powerful people. From Olympic gold medallists and world champions to “captains of industry” to writers to organizational leaders of the sport. I’m such a goober fan that I always wonder – “what the heck am I doing here?”

It started with a simple idea. “If we send as many kids as possible to the highest levels of competition, perhaps some of them will try or stay in the sport.” And, thus, Tickets for Kids was born. More importantly, I’m committed to making it work. Here’s what astonishes me – the number of people who are willing to help make it work.

Rod Frost wrestled at Gilbertville Don Bosco High School and Cornell College. He lives in Minnesota now and is a wrestling official. When he learned of the Tickets for Kids fan challenge he mounted a fund raising effort in support of the Golden Gophers. Not only did he raise a lot of money, he got J Robinson to lower the price of youth group tickets to $2 per piece.

Gail Rush might just be the ultimate “wrestling mom”. Her son, Clayton, is the reigning NCAA Division III 125 pound champion and Gail has supported the sport since Clayton was small. She, too, got busy when she learned about the fan challenge and as of today (10/25/10) Coe still tops the leader board.

The staff at Cornell College have been amazing. John Cochrane, Dick Simmons and Mike Duroe have been behind me since day one. Our inaugural effort, tickets for the 2010 NCAA Division III Championships, couldn’t have succeeded without them – or without Chuck Yrigoyen at the Iowa Conference and Anthony Holman at the NCAA.

Eric Betterman is co-founder, with Ray Brinzer, of the wrestling site The Open Mat and Eric is helping us with a Tickets for Kids website. We hope to have it up soon.

Contrary to what the last five paragraphs might indicate, this blog isn’t really about Tickets for Kids. It’s about committing to your ideas.

In 1981 John Graham was looking for a way to raise money for the Peninsula Wrestling Association. His idea – a dual meet tournament featuring a high school and a college division. The first edition had four high school teams and eight colleges competing. That was the start of the Virginia Duals – which also begat the National Duals. Twenty-four colleges in two divisions and 48 high schools will compete in the 2011 Virginia Duals on January 7th and 8th. John’s commitment to his idea created two of college wrestling’s premier events.

Steve Silver was a waiter at Red Lobster when he got the idea to start his own business. He began by selling used furniture at local flea markets. That has grown into the $150 million Steve Silver Furniture Company in the Dallas suburb of Forney.

Steve wrestled in high school and at the University of Alabama. When his son, Luke, expressed an interest in wrestling he realized that north Texas was not a hotbed for the sport so he started a youth wrestling club and eventually hired 1988 Olympic Gold medallist, Kenny Monday, to coach it. Steve’s support also helped build Bishop Lynch High School into one of the nation’s premier wrestling programs. Last year Steve was inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame as an Outstanding American.

The ideas don’t have to be big. The past couple of years the University of Iowa has offered “Family 4-Pack Night” for one dual. You get 4 tickets, 4 hot dogs and 4 sodas at a bargain price. Last season Hawkeye fan, Julia Labua, used this as a tool to introduce new people to wrestling. She offered her co-workers the opportunity to go to the meet on her dime. Several took her up on it and it may now become an annual office event. Julia was committed to her idea.

I’m online too much and I probably spend more time talking about wrestling than I ought to. I frequently read and hear good ideas about how to build interest in wrestling both among potential participants and potential fans. I’m sure that many of you have great ideas. Are you committed enough to make them happen?

The year The Purple ruled the world

2010-10-18T09:14:00.000-07:00

Doug and Marge Smith and I have become friends over the past two or three years. They are retired teachers from Rockford who were making monthly visits to Cedar Rapids to visit Marge’s 100 year-old mother. They always stayed at the Marriott and we met for drinks in the hotel bar once a month. Sadly, Marge’s mother passed away in June. They learned of my love for wrestling and started reading the blog. During one of their recent visits Doug suggested that I write a book called, The View From the End of the Bar.I have been frequenting the Cedar Rapids Marriott lounge for over 20 years – most of them perched on the stool at the end of the bar. In that time I have met many interesting people: test pilots, a US Senator, a secret service agent, a retired clown, the chief of scouting for the Phillies (who in a drunken stupor offered me a job), veterans, Corvair collectors… It’s quite a list and that’s why Doug thinks I should write that book.

Saturday night I reached an all time high when Arno Niemand sat down next to me. Just in case you don’t know, Arno is one of wrestling’s great benefactors. The founder of Bodybar Systems, he has sponsored the US Women’s National Wrestling Team since 2003.

Arno was in Cedar Rapids because he has completed his labor of love, The Dream Team of 1947. The book is the story of, perhaps, the greatest David tops Goliath performance in the history of intercollegiate sports – the double national championships of the Cornell College wrestling team. The occasion was the 60th reunion of the Cornell College Class of 1950 – the class of most of the wrestlers on that team.

I’ve told the highlights of the story before – how Coach Paul Scott assembled the most powerful team in America at the campus of one of the countries smallest schools and how they went on to win both the NCAA and AAU team championships. I’ve also told the second act of the story – about how the first two freshmen champions in NCAA history, Dick Hauser and Lowell Lange, were injured in a car accident and about Coach Scott’s subsequent decision not to enter “The Purple” in the 1948 NCAA tournament.

Arno gives us the details – and they are fascinating. He tells how Scott lured three kids from Waterloo West, Hauser, Lange and Leo Thomsen away from Iowa State Teacher’s College. It’s also a story of the role played by American history in this feat. I most enjoyed Niemand’s analysis of how the post-war rivalry between ISTC and Cornell changed the face of college wrestling. Thirty years before the Iowa State/Iowa wrestling rivalry heated up the “70 mile rivalry” was the most influential in wrestling. The book gripped me and I read it in a single sitting yesterday. I highly recommend it.

You all know that when two wrestling fans get together the conversation flows freely. Ironically, Arno Niemand is an alumnus of what we call in these parts, “the other Cornell”. You know – the one in Ithaca, New York that most experts are calling the pre-season favorite for the NCAA Division I team title. If they do win - remember The Purple from Mount Vernon, Iowa won it first.

Are you smarter than Socrates?

2010-10-11T09:31:00.000-07:00

Dear College Administrator, Athletic Director or Legislator,

Are you smarter than Socrates? Wrestling was part of his educational regimen and he once said, “I swear it upon Zeus that an outstanding runner cannot be the equal of an average wrestler.” Socrates’ most influential disciple, Aristocles, was renamed Plato(n) by his wrestling coach Ariston of Argos.

Are you smarter than Ben Franklin, who published the following in 1749, “The good Education of Youth has been esteemed by wise Men in all Ages, as the surest Foundation of the Happiness both of private Families and of Common-wealths. Almost all Governments have therefore made it a principal Object of their Attention, to establish and endow with proper Revenues, such Seminaries of Learning, as might supply the succeeding Age with Men qualified to serve the Publick with Honour to themselves and to their Country.

“That to keep them in Health, and to strengthen and render active their Bodies, they be frequently exercis’d in Running, Leaping, Wrestling and Swimming…?”

Are you smarter than George Washington and Abraham Lincoln who were both champion wrestlers in the styles of their day?

Are you smarter than Theodore Roosevelt, who mandated that wrestling become part of the physical curriculum at the military academies?

Are you smarter than Nobel laureate, Dr. Norman Borlaug – the man who fed millions – and who credited wrestling with teaching him the discipline and tenacity he needed to continue his research?

Are you smarter than novelist, John Irving when he said, “I think the discipline of wrestling has given me the discipline to write.”?

Are you smarter than former Congressman and current head of the National Endowment for the Humanities, Jim Leach, an Iowa state high school wrestling champion and former member of the Princeton wrestling team? “I’ve always thought that the most equalitarian place in the world is the wrestling mat.”

Are you smarter than Dan Laurent, a three-time NCAA Division III heavyweight wrestling champion who recently graduated from the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse with a 3.9 GPA in double majors of biochemistry and molecular and cellular biology?

Are you smarter than the administrators at Wayland Baptist University, Baker University or Minot State University – all of whom have added wrestling to increase enrollment and opportunity at their institutions?

For centuries the greatest minds and leaders considered wrestling a valuable part of higher education. Then, about thirty years ago, American legislators and administrators at many of America’s colleges and universities decided that they were smarter than Socrates – or Franklin – or Lincoln , and started dropping wrestling from the curriculum. Did they do that because wrestling is no longer relevant and modern kids don’t want to wrestle? That can’t be the reason. According to the National Federation of High Schools, wrestling is the sixth most popular boys’ sport in terms of participation – and it continues to grow. Since the 2002/2003 school year the number of youngsters on high school wrestling teams has increased by 30,000.

Did they do it to equalize educational opportunities among all segments of society? Ostensibly – yes. Title IX was enacted in 1972 and says quite simply, “No person in the United States, on the basis of sex, shall be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.” You certainly can’t argue with that. But then the courts and the lawmakers got involved and college administrators found it easier to eliminate opportunity than create it.

So what about opportunity? As Mr. Leach indicated, wrestling is the most democratic of all sports. In what other one have you watched an athlete walk up to face his opponent, remove his prosthetic legs and then win an NCAA Championship? Ten years ago I got to do that when Nick Ackerman of Simpson College took the Division III wrestling title. And what about opportunity for women? Girls’ participation in wrestling is exploding in the states that sanction girls only championships. Smart college administrators have noticed this trend and recently added women’s teams at Jamestown University in North Dakota and Waldorf College in Iowa.

If your school doesn’t have a wrestling team, what do you think George Washington, Dr. Norman Borlaug and John Irving would urge you to do?

Do you need help or more information? Contact the National Wrestling Coaches Association and they’ll get you started. You just might be as smart as Socrates.

Stories

2010-09-27T03:16:00.000-07:00

My grandfather Craig was pretty cool. He could play almost any stringed instrument, but the banjo was his specialty. When I was little he would play and sing silly kids songs to me and I would sit rapt in front of him. He had been a championship roller skater and my mother said that on Friday nights when they would go skating everyone would clear the floor and watch him skate.

As he got older he developed some health issues and was put on a very strict diet. He took great joy in waiting until my grandmother was asleep and then getting up and sneaking forbidden foods. If I was staying overnight he would wake me so I could be his partner in crime.

And – man – could he tell stories. He was born in the South Dakota Badlands and worked as a ranch hand in his younger years. He loved telling about the time he was baling hay and had to kill two rattle snakes with his knife. He later moved to Detroit and worked in the Ford plant. Grandpa became a Tigers fan and liked to talk about what a mean SOB Ty Cobb was. Then came the depression and like millions of others he lost his job and hit the road looking for work. Somehow he ended up in Muscatine, Iowa, met my grandmother and – well – here I am.

When I was little I just couldn’t get enough time with him. It was all so fun – sitting up late at night watching Jack Paar and eating peanut butter stuffed celery or sitting on his lap in his rocking chair watching the Game of the Week with Dizzy Dean and Pee Wee Reese (and then listening to him sing along when Dizzy would break into The Wabash Cannonball).

Then I became a know-it-all teenager and suddenly Grandpa Craig was a boring old man. He’d start one of those marvelous tales and I would think to myself, “please, not that one again.” He died when I was 18.

So now I’m 60 and a grandfather and my grandkids think I’m pretty cool – and I love to tell stories. I know, however, that someday soon I will become just another boring old man.

I spend way too much time on the internet reading other people’s thoughts about wrestling and there is a noticeable lack of respect among many young posters for those who have preceded them. I suspect that a lot of that is “know-it-allitis”. Three or four times a year someone will post a “Gable couldn’t beat (insert young phenom’s name here)” thread or make comments like, “With that stance (insert the name of a member of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame here) couldn’t beat anyone today.” It’s all part of the natural scheme of things.

I like to read wrestling books. Anything by Mike Chapman or Jay Hammond is well worth your time. Last winter I was fascinated by Jamie Moffatt’s, Wrestlers at the Trials”. Arno Niemand’s much anticipated book about the 1947 Cornell College national championship team is to be released soon and I will definitely read it. I’m sure I will like it – but it won’t be anywhere near as fun as listening to Bob Majors tell stories about the great Cornell College teams of the late ‘40s and early ‘50s. You see – he was on those teams and – man – can he tell a story.

Karma is a funny thing. Last year I attended the USA vs Russia freestyle dual at Cornell and Bob and his wife came up and sat by me. We introduced ourselves to each other and began talking about wrestling and Cornell history. I soaked up every word. Since then we’ve had occasion to run into each other a couple of more times and I can’t wait to hear what he has to say.

It was my distinct honor to be chosen as a marshal for the 2010 NCAA Division III Wrestling Championships. The highlight of the experience was spending time with another of the marshals, Lloyd Corwin – a teammate of Bob Majors at Cornell. Lloyd was a two-time All-American in the ‘50s and beat future Olympic gold medallist, Doug Blubaugh, in the NCAA tournament. He’s a wonderfully charming man and I was riveted by his stories.

Paul King is a wrestling fan from Colorado. I met him a couple of years ago at the Iowa/Iowa State dual meet. Paul has a fascinating concept – a video library of great wrestlers sharing their stories. Think how marvelous that would be. In today’s world it could be housed online so that once we get beyond our “know-it-all” stage we could listen to the history of wrestling in America.

I hope someone makes it happen.

Who pays Tom Brands?

2010-09-13T05:01:00.000-07:00

Who pays Tom Brands salary? No, that’s not a trick question. We all know that he is paid by the University of Iowa.

What is he paid to do? Nope – I’m still not trying to fool you. He is paid to teach young men, make them better wrestlers and win championships for the Hawkeyes. So far he’s been pretty successful at those tasks.

I’ve not seen his contract, but I’m reasonably certain that there is no clause in there that says anything like, “You must always do what’s best for the future of wrestling.” In fact, I’m willing to bet that his boss, Iowa athletic director, Gary Barta, mandates that Brands put his athletes’ best interests first.

Never one to care much about anyone else’s reactions, Coach Brands brought an avalanche of criticism down on himself last week when it was released that the Iowa Hawkeyes will not be competing in this season’s National Dual Championships. As was his wrestling style, he has faced the controversy head on.

You and I may not like his decision – AND I DON’T – but it is his prerogative to decline an invitation to the National Duals. But – make no mistake – this decision has the potential to seriously damage one of the sport’s top events AND this year’s host, the University of Northern Iowa.

The National Duals have evolved into the most unique format in all of wrestling. In one venue you can watch the best teams and athletes from all 3 NCAA divisions, the NAIA, the NJCAA and from women’s intercollegiate wrestling. Hardcore wrestling fans, like me, wander around the UNI Dome and enjoy a variety of competition that you just can’t experience anywhere else.

With all of that diversity, it’s still undeniable that the NCAA Division I teams are the star attractions and that no one brings more fans than the Hawkeyes. The NWCA reports that over 16,000 tickets have been sold for National Duals each of the last two years. It’s hard to know just how many of them are dressed in black and gold – but it’s a major chunk. Tom Brands’ decision throws a daunting challenge out there for Mike Moyer, Pat Tocci and Tammy Tedesco of the NWCA and Troy Dannen, the UNI athletic director.

The wrestling community is already stepping up to help meet the challenge. Last week fans from Coe, Cornell College, Luther and Iowa State all made Tickets for Kids pledges specifically for the National Duals. A Waterloo business man with wrestling ties is working to involve the Cedar Valley business community. Scott Casber from Takedown TV has already done several interviews (including me) about the issue. The National Wrestling Hall of Fame Dan Gable Museum is also getting involved.

You, too, can lend your support in a couple of different ways. You can help fill the UNI Dome with youngsters by donating to Tickets for Kids. Either email your pledge to me at jim@dmsolutions4u.com or send your check to

Tickets for Kids
c/o Jim Brown
130 24th St NE
Cedar Rapids, IA 52402-4936.

If you want your contribution to be specific to the National Duals, please make note of that fact.

And, hey you Hawkeye fans – the Hawks are idle those two days (January 8 & 9,2011) after wrestling SIU-Edwardsville on Friday night. Come on up to Cedar Falls and root for your favorite Division III team.

Women, wrestling and me

2010-08-30T06:49:00.000-07:00

Many of you know this. Nine months after we started dating my, now wife, gave us Iowa wrestling season tickets as a Christmas present. It took me a little while, but I finally came to my senses and asked her to marry me. Thankfully, she said, “yes”. This coming Saturday is our wedding anniversary.

When you hang around wrestling you hear a lot of macho guy stuff, but – some of the most interesting people I’ve met in wrestling are women.

The first 15 years that we had seats GG, 12, 1 & 2; Gretchen Goodwin sat next to my wife. When we got those seats she and her husband, Don, had already been ensconced in seats 3 & 4 for a while. Over the years we became friends and attended Big Tens in Wisconsin and Nationals in Ames together. Gretchen loved Royce Alger and swooned every time he entered the arena – as an athlete or as a coach. Sadly, a few years ago Don contracted a rare congenital liver disease and passed away after a long, painful battle. We’ve not seen Gretchen since then and I now have their old seats. I think of them every time I give those seats away.

Debbie Connell has been my good friend for 40 years and she’s been a Hawkeye wrestling season ticket holder since the Field House days. If you’ve ever attended a meet in Carver Hawkeye Arena, you’ve probably seen her. When the Hawks run out of the tunnel look in the middle of the first row just above the tunnel and the woman you see is either Deb or her sister Jody. Debbie worked with me at the Dairy Queen the Sunday morning when the state of Iowa was crushed by the Des Moines Register headline, “Gable Fails”.

When I started this blog I really had no clue about what I should write after the first couple of editions. Then, Danielle Hobeika agreed to an interview. Danielle is one of the most fascinating people around the sport. A Harvard psychology grad, Danielle wrestled in the room on the Crimson team and became a top level freestyle wrestler. She is the goddess of wrestling websites and one of the sport’s best photographers. You know that photo you love with Brent Metcalf and Bubba Jenkins “on their heads” – that’s Danielle’s. She’s still doing the photography and web development, but is now also an MMA fighter.

Sandy Stevens taught my wife as a substitute English teacher at Cedar Rapids Kennedy more than a couple of years ago. If you don’t know the name, you surely know the voice. She has been the voice of Fargo, DI Nationals, the California high school championships and the Olympics. I first met Sandy in person the night before she was announcing the Division III Championships in Cedar Rapids – her home town. I’ve met very, very few people as passionate about wrestling as Sandy.

Maggie Hendricks had been an online “friend” for at least three years when she introduced herself to me at National Duals last year. Maggie was a manager for the Missouri Tiger wrestling team and loves to write about wrestling, football and MMA. Her blog in memory of her grandfather, who taught the whole family to box, is still one of the best online pieces I’ve ever read. “Thumbs up, pointed to God” is a phrase I’ll remember the rest of my life.

One day before I met Maggie, I also met Tammy Tedesco from the National Wrestling Coaches Association. Among her many duties, Tammy is the tournament director for National Duals. This upcoming season she is planning to engage wrestling in the “Coaches Against Cancer” campaign. Please stay tuned for further details.

I met Dee Pollard in a bar in 2008. The mother of TCNJ assistant coach, Joe Pollard, she was sitting at the bar as I was hosting my first Division III Championships fan reception. We struck up a conversation and have become good friends and have met after every session of the past three NCAA DIII Championships. Every Saturday night after finals Joe has joined us. Last March the three of us made our plans to meet in La Crosse next spring. Yes – my wife and Dee’s husband know about this. After all – it’s all about the wrestling. (As an aside – one of my happiest moments as a marshal at the DIII Championships was handing one of Joe’s wrestlers his All-American trophy.)

I still haven’t yet met Julia Labua face-to-face. She’s all over the wrestling internet with at least 3 online identities and her posts are among the most intelligent you’ll ever see. Last winter she pulled off her own wrestling promotion coup when she emailed the entire staff at her place of employment, offering them free tickets, hot dogs and sodas for a Hawkeye dual meet. Eleven co-workers took her up on the offer and attended their first ever wrestling meet. When one of her friends asked about one of the finer points of wrestling Julia responded, in part, with a phrase that has become popular on the internet, “There will be answers. They may not be right answers, but there will be answers.”

There are many adjectives that would describe Gail Rush. “Dynamic” is at the top of my list. Since the flood of 2008 she has responded to several of my requests to help wrestlers and wrestling. In those years I’ve heard from several people that she and her husband, Rick, have done that for years. This past week her efforts led to the Coe College Kohawk wrestling fans taking the lead in the Tickets for Kids fan challenge.

But - it still comes back to my darling wife. I don’t know how it happened, but I won the marriage lottery. If I’d never met her there would probably be no season tickets, no blog and no Tickets for Kids. Thank you dear. I love you and may we grow old watching wrestling together. Happy anniversary.

It's too comfortable on the sidelines

2010-08-23T08:48:00.000-07:00

Long time blog readers know that it is named after where I have watched much of the wrestling I’ve seen over the past 20+ years – Section GG, Row 12, Seats 1 & 2 in Carver Hawkeye Arena. When I started the blog it was meant to reflect the opinions of a fan sitting on the sidelines. Other than middle school intramurals, I never wrestled. Neither my brothers nor my daughters, nor any other member of my family wrestled. I have no official ties to wrestling in any way. I AM JUST A FAN.

The past few years it’s been hard sitting on the sidelines and watching what is happening to this great sport we all love, so a couple of years ago I started to act. My thoughts at the time were, “It might be meaningless, but let’s see if one fan can have any impact at all.” I started small and bought a few tickets to the NWCA All Star Classic when it was in Oregon. I sent them off to Rick Stewart and asked him to find some kids out there to give them to.

Later that season I stretched a little and bought 20 – 30 tickets for every Hawkeye home dual meet and gave them away to kid’s wrestling clubs or middle school teams. My logic was fairly simple – kids need idols. If I could get youngsters just starting in the sport to see the best college wrestlers in America, perhaps they would see something that would cause them to hang with it.

Last year I launched Tickets for Kids. My goal was to raise enough money to send 1,000 kids to a morning session of the NCAA Division III Wrestling Championships in Cedar Rapids. I didn’t make my goal, but, thanks to many of you, over 600 kids got to see some very exciting college wrestling. I’ve heard from coaches and kids since then and I think we, in some small part, accomplished what we’d hoped for.

I own and operate a small business and after last spring I wondered if I should continue with Tickets for Kids. I sent out surveys to some of the larger donors and asked them if they would continue to support the effort. Most said they would. But still, I couldn’t decide. It’s more work than I had imagined.

Then last Thursday, Eric Betterman, the co-founder of theopenmat.com, threw out a challenge – “Let’s make it a goal to sell out every single (Division I) dual meet in the nation.” He pointed out that we didn’t actually need to attend if that was physically impossible – just buy them. I drew upon my experience and followed that with a challenge of my own, “Which fans of which school could raise enough money to buy enough tickets to send at least 20 kids to a dual meet at their favorite school first?” Then I called upon Hawkeye fans to bail my butt out after shooting off my mouth. They did. In three days I received enough pledges to send over 160 kids to Hawkeye dual meets. One Nebraska fan committed to sending 20 youngsters to a Cornhusker meet – and no one else responded. Apparently, they all prefer to sit on the sidelines as the “world’s oldest and greatest sport” is assaulted from multiple directions.

That flurry of activity answered the question – Tickets for Kids must continue.

Every survey respondent asked that we expand the scope – that we offer a greater variety of wrestling events for kids to attend. We’re doing that. Donations will be used to provide tickets for the NWCA National Duals, the Division III Championships in La Crosse, the NAIA Championships in Cedar Rapids and any college dual meet you select. If you have another event you wish to support email me.

I’m going to run two campaigns, the “Preseason Fan Challenge” and the “Championship Run”. The Preseason Fan Challenge starts today and runs to November 30. The basic premise is simple: which school’s fans will best support wrestling by sending kids to wrestling events. We’ll have five divisions and crown both divisional and an overall champion.

NCAA Division I
NCAA Division II
NCAA Division III
NAIA
Women’s

I still don’t have PayPal and can’t take credit card donations, but we’re working on it Please make your check to “Tickets for Kids” and send it to

Tickets for Kids
c/o Jim Brown
130 24th St NE
Cedar Rapids, IA 52402-4936

or email a pledge to me at jim@dmsolutions4u.com and I’ll send you a reminder as we get closer to the season (which can’t get here soon enough).

Please include the name of the school you want your donation credited to and the event you want to support. If you want to support an endangered program like Cal State Fullerton, but you are a Minnesota fan – I’ll credit your donation to the Gophers, but send tickets to some California kids who can attend a Titan dual meet. Once the tickets have been distributed I will send each donor a copy of the ticket purchase receipt and the name of the club leader or coach whose kids got the tickets.

In the interest of fairness, the Hawkeye and Cornhusker fans will start even with everyone else.

If you like the concept and want to join in the challenge – but don’t want to do it through Tickets for Kids – you can. Buy enough tickets to send at least 20 kids to an event, send me a copy of the ticket purchase receipt and the name of the club leader or coach whose kids got the tickets and I’ll credit your school with the donation.

Reminder: NCAA rules will not allow you to give tickets to high school wrestlers so focus on the elementary and middle schoolers.
If you really want your school to win, you’re going to have to get off of the sidelines. Email your friends and alumni and the people that sit next to you at wrestling meets. Post a link to this blog on your favorite team’s sites. Rally your fans on facebook. Let’s send 10,000 kids from all over the country to college wrestling events.

Here’s the real challenge. I’m almost certain that Hawkeye fans will win this in a cake walk. Which one of you is going to get mad enough to prove me wrong?

Or – you can remain on the sidelines and do nothing.

Still living the dream

2010-08-16T04:06:00.000-07:00

Shawn Johnson, Michael Phelps and Shaun White are all millionaires. Mike Zadick, Dremiel Byers and Kristie Davis are not. All six have worked tirelessly to be the best America has to offer in their respective sports and all have won medals in world championship competition. There’s really only one difference – Johnson, Phelps and White excel at sports embraced by the American television viewing public. Zadick, Byers and Davis wrestle.

No American wrestling in the three international styles is doing so to get rich. They are driven by the competition – by the quest for excellence. To be able to continue their careers they become assistant collegiate coaches, run camps or take on other jobs. The best of the best receive small stipends from USA Wrestling. For many of our wrestlers the lure of potential big earnings in the Mixed Martial Arts octagon is too great and they forego world level freestyle and Greco Roman careers.

Last year USA Wrestling and a small group of wrestling’s biggest supporters – people like Michael Novogratz, Dave Barry, Art Martori and Al Bevilacqua – created the Living the Dream Fund. The concept behind the fund is simple – it’s only right that we financially reward these hard working athletes for success on the world and Olympic stage. Under the plan, world champions will receive a check for $50,000. Silver medallists earn $25,000 and bronze winners receive $15,000. The stakes are higher in the London Olympics in 2012, where a Gold Medal will be worth $250,000, a silver will bring $50,000 and a bronze $25,000. In the program’s first year freestylers Jake Herbert and Tervel Dlagnev, and Greco Roman wrestler, Dremiel Byers, all received checks from the Living the Dream Fund.

It’s wrestling supporting wrestling. We’re not waiting for help from the government or anyone else – you and I and our friends in the wrestling community are doing it. Olympic heroes like Gable, Smith, Sanderson and Baumgartner have donated to the fund. Coaches, wrestlers, wrestling business owners, wrestling media and – yes - you “nameless” denizens of the internet have given to the fund. We’ve made progress, but there is much more to do.

This Friday, August 20th you’ll have the chance to join an elite group – those who step up and act to support the “world’s oldest and greatest sport”. The leaders of the Living the Dream Fund will be holding an online telethon and benefit. You’ll be able to call in your pledges or bid on several auction items including 2 tickets to that big football game in Dallas next February whose name I can’t mention without fear of lawsuit (hint – it will have XLV after the name). Air fare and hotel room are included in that package. The telethon will run from 7:00 to 9:00 PM Mountain Time and will originate from the USOC in Colorado Springs. You can watch on either www.themat.com or www.flowrestling.com.

Special guest will be former University of Missouri All-American wrestler, Greg Warren. Greg is one of the funniest stand up comedians working today and several of his routines feature his days as a Tiger wrestler and being the son of a high school wrestling coach. If you’ve never seen Greg, be prepared to laugh.

If for some reason you have to miss the webcast, just go right now to the Living the Dream site and make your contribution.

Wrestling as wampeter

2010-08-02T03:06:00.000-07:00

My wife and I attended her high school reunion Friday night. Cedar Rapids Kennedy High School opened in 1967 and my wife graduated in 1969. For the last two reunion cycles the classes of ’69 and ’70 have held a joint function.

The first recognizable face I saw was that of one of America’s great bartenders, Lenny Park. Because of his hotel’s clientele, Lenny is literally known world wide. He has an amazing ability to remember the names and favorite drinks of customers from Australia, Germany and the U.K. Lenny was also on Kennedy’s first wrestling team.

If you’ve been to many reunions, you know the pattern – one group of lost friends circles up and one set of conversations breaks out. Then you move to another group and a whole new set of topics emerges. At the third such “huddle” Friday night one of my wife’s classmates said this (having never met me), “I went to the wrestling championships in Omaha with some friends (the McDonoughs) and do you know who the announcer was – Sandy Stevens!”

Almost everyone in the group had Sandy as a teacher in their days at Kennedy and were all very interested to hear about her. Sandy’s husband, Bear, was Kennedy’s first wrestling coach and Sandy got her start announcing at a Cougar meet.

I looked for, but never did find, Mary Lee Malmberg, who was also a member of the Class of ’69. Five years ago Mary Lee wowed the crowd with her karaoke performances.

One of my favorite literary inventions is Kurt Vonnegut’s concept of “karass” which he created as a plot device in Cat’s Cradle . A karass is a group of people who are, often unknowingly, working jointly toward a central cause – called a wampeter. I have lived the last 35 years believing in both concepts, and often wondering who else might be in my karass.

Every karass actually has two wampeters – one that is waning and one that is waxing. I suspect that Lenny, Sandy, my wife and Mary Lee are all in the same karass and that for 40 years I have also been a member and just didn’t know it. Our fading wampeter might be the establishment of a new school. What role I play in that is unknown – but that’s one beauty of the concept – not all mysteries are solvable.

I’m certain of the nature of our rising wampeter – it’s wrestling.

I have had more wrestling discussions with Lenny than with any other human. He has also financially supported several wrestling causes including Pledges for Pins and Tickets for Kids. Give the slightest hint of an interest in wrestling when you are sitting at his bar and Lenny will invariably steer the conversation in that direction.

If you’ve been around any level of wrestling at all, you probably recognize Sandy Stevens’ voice. She’s announced everything from Corn Cob Nationals to the Olympic Games. But that’s just scratching the surface of everything Sandy does for wrestling. In 1998 The National Wrestling Hall of Fame awarded Sandy the Order of Merit – and she has not slowed down yet.

Mary Lee Malmberg is one of the hardest working people most of the wrestling community has never heard of. Mary Lee is the Sports Tourism Director for the Cedar Rapids Convention and Visitors Bureau. Somewhere along the line she developed an affinity for wrestling events and has been bringing them to our community ever since. Cedar Rapids has hosted the Iowa state high school dual tournament for a number of years and since 2008 we’ve become THE home for college wrestling championships. Here’s what Mary Lee has done: NCAA Division III Championships, 2008-2010; NCAA Division II Championships 2008 and 2012 and NAIA Championships 2011 & 2012.

And then there’s my lovely wife. The first Christmas present she gave me when we started dating twenty-some years ago was a set of University of Iowa season wrestling tickets – Section GG, Row 12, Seats 1 & 2. We’ve been sitting there since then. How could you not marry someone who gives you wrestling tickets?

That gift – oh, the joy it has brought me. I had “liked” wrestling since seeing Gable wrestle at Iowa State and I had been to dual meets and watched wrestling on IPTV before then, but once we got those season tickets I was hooked for life. Thanks to those tickets I’ve met wonderful people – fans, coaches and athletes. It has become my distinct privilege to occasionally help the sport in small ways. The time I spend around wrestling is topped only by family time.

Friday night wasn’t just a high school reunion it was the convergence of our karass. Perhaps you, too, are a member and just don’t know it yet.

Do gold medals really matter anymore?

2010-07-26T07:35:00.000-07:00

John Smith won two NCAA titles at Oklahoma State and then went on to win 2 Olympic Gold Medals and four freestyle World Championships. Dan Gable also won two NCAA championships while wrestling for the Iowa State Cyclones. Gable’s post-graduate freestyle career includes a Pan American Games title, the 1971 World Championship, the championship at the 1972 Tbilisi tournament and the 1972 Olympic Gold Medal. Bruce Baumgartner, too, was an NCAA champion while wrestling at Indiana State. In his storied freestyle career he accumulated more Olympic and World hardware than some entire countries have won.

For decades America’s best college wrestlers successfully transitioned from intercollegiate competition to the international stage. Glen Brand, Bill Smith, Doug Blubaugh, Tom Brands and countless others advanced from NCAA championship trophies to Olympic gold. And then – as if to keep the chain unbroken – many of them went in to coaching and trained the next generations of international freestyle champions.

At least to this fan, the chain seems to be weakening.

I like to watch all forms of wrestling and freestyle is no exception. But FILA, the international governing body of amateur wrestling, has changed freestyle rules so drastically in the last ten years that modern freestyle bears far less resemblance to American folkstyle wrestling than in years past. Do these changes contribute to the seeming American decline? I think so.

It’s not just that we wrestle a different style in America, it’s also that our organizational structure is different. The United States is one of very few countries in the world (Canada might be another) where kids get most of their wrestling opportunities within our schools – and American schools are almost inextricably tied to folkstyle wrestling. Most of the world’s wrestling powers develop their athletes through a “club” type system. Some of them may be privately funded and others government run, but this formula allows them to more freely adapt to changes in freestyle.

Here in the US our kids spend thousands of hours working toward winning first a city middle school tournament, and then a high school state championship and finally an NCAA crown – all in our prevalent “national” style. The most dedicated of those will spend a couple of “offseason” months competing in freestyle and/or Greco Roman wrestling. Thanks to USA Wrestling and Jason Bryant I just finished watching more hours than I should have of the Cadet and Junior Freestyle Championships in Fargo. By and large it was very entertaining wrestling, but I’m willing to bet that there are at least a half dozen 17-year-old kids in each of the former Soviet republics that could easily handle most, if not all, of out Junior Champions in freestyle competition. The number one reason is simple – those kids devote their entire lives to freestyle wrestling.

The disparity doesn’t disappear at the elite level. Our best wrestlers will have prepared for years to win an NCAA championship – or two – or three - and then at age 22 or 23 switch to a style where their opponents have a 10 – 15 year head start on them.

There are those who say the answer is simple – convert American interscholastic and intercollegiate wrestling to freestlye. If our primary goal for wrestling is to win more international medals that might be the answer. But what if our goal is to expose more kids to the intrinsic value of wrestling? Does a change in styles help there? I’m not sure – but I suspect not. It’s not that I think young athletes would naturally prefer folkstyle to freestyle. That defies logic. The difficulty would come at the teaching/coaching level. I fear that we would have too may coaches who, brought up completely in folkstyle, would lose their enthusiasm for the sport – and without motivated teachers we would see a drop in participation.

There is no rule that says a young American wrestler must follow the traditional path to Olympic glory. The recent improvement in American Greco-Roman wrestling may be due, in part, to more young athlete’s foregoing a college career to focus on their GR training. Let’s also not forget that America’s only freestyle gold medallist in Beijing, Henry Cejudo, opted to go directly from his high school graduation to the US Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs.

Now there’s a new factor in the equation – Mixed Martial Arts. An international freestyle career has never been a gateway to great wealth for American competitors. Traditionally, the top athletes have earned a small stipend from USA Wrestling and supplemented their incomes with college assistant coaching jobs. The latter again brings the style conflict into play as they sacrifice their own freestyle training time to teach better folkstyle techniques to younger athletes.

Increasingly, graduating wrestlers are lured away from the sport by the potential for big money in MMA, where the top stars can earn six figures per bout. Former Oklahoma State Cowboy stars Jake Rosholt and Johnny Hendricks were among the first to eschew international wrestling competition and move quickly into MMA fighting. 2010 graduates Lance Palmer of Ohio State and Missouri’s Mark Ellis both recently announced upcoming forays into mixed martial arts. Will this trend continue and how will it impact the future of American wrestling?

Many MMA fans believe that the growth in “ultimate fighting” will only help wrestling when young grapplers see the potential for future wealth battling in the octagon. I’m not sure that I believe that premise. Look at baseball where even journeyman players are millionaires. Yet, participation in Little League has dropped 13% since 1997.

Do we, as fans, really care what happens on the international stage? Unfortunately, I suspect that the answer is that fewer and fewer of us do. If you are among those who do, there is a way to help our top freestyle, Greco-Roman and women wrestlers. The Living the Dream Fund was created to provide cash rewards for medal winners at the World Championship and Olympic competition. An American gold medallist in Moscow in September will receive $50,000 from the fund, while a silver medal is worth $25,000 and a bronze will net $15,000. You can contribute online at the Living the Dream website. You'll be strengthening American wrestling.

Wanted - tough people

2010-07-04T10:51:00.000-07:00

They took one of the “toughest” actions in world history. In July 1776, 56 men signed the Declaration of Independence. They were merchants, farmers, lawyers and doctors. One was a minister. Seventeen fought in the Revolutionary war and five were captured by the British. Eleven had their property destroyed and two gave their entire fortunes to fund the war. These were tough guys – and when they needed a military leader – they called upon a wrestler.

At age 18 George Washington won a county-wide championship in the “collar-and-elbow” style of wrestling that was popular at the time. At another time, Washington witnessed a wrestling-match. The champion of the day challenged him, in sport, to wrestle. Washington did not stop to take off his coat, but grasped the "strong man of Virginia.'' It was all over in a moment, for, said the wrestler, "In Washington's lionlike grasp I became powerless, and was hurled to the ground with a force that seemed to jar the very marrow in my bones.'' At age 47, while commander of the Continental Armies, Washington consecutively defeated seven challengers from the Massachusetts Volunteers.

Throughout history – from Milo of Croton, to Abraham Lincoln, to Dr. Norman Borlaug – when toughness was needed – a wrestler stepped up. Knowing that, it is hard to understand why American intercollegiate wrestling continues to be assaulted by outside forces. It is short-sighted thinking.

We need “tough” scientists who can solve the alarming number of environmental challenges facing the world. We need “tough” business people who can lead us to economic recovery. We need “tough” educators to stop the American slide into mediocrity. Yet – when I peruse college catalogs, I never see “Toughness 101” listed. It’s our college wrestling coaches who teach that course.

Since the time of Socrates, athletic competition – especially wrestling – has been considered an integral part of educating the whole person. There are things learned on the mat that just simply can’t be taught elsewhere. Thousands of today’s college wrestlers are going to go on to teach our kids, start new businesses, heal our sick and lead our communities. Don’t we want them to be fully prepared?

Our Founding Fathers were far from perfect. When Jefferson wrote, “all men are created equal” he actually meant “all white, male property owners are created equal”. It would take a wrestler to free African-Americans from the horrors of slavery 87 years later.

Hundreds of years of second-class status for women is another dark part of American history. Unfortunately, American wrestling still treats girls and women as an afterthought. The first World Championships in women’s freestyle wrestling were held in 1987. It became an Olympic sport in 2004 and 85 countries have Olympic qualifying competitions.

A year ago America’s only three women’s freestyle Olympic medallists, Patricia Miranda, Sara McMann and Randi Miller filed a grievance with USA Wrestling and The US Olympic Committee alleging that USAW violated the Ted Stevens Olympic and Amateur Sports Act by not providing “equitable support and encouragement for participation by women”.

On January 29th of this year USA Wrestling and the three complainants issued a joint statement that the grievance had been successfully resolved. This seems to indicate that progress is being made at the upper levels of the sport. But what about elsewhere – with our kids programs, interscholastic and collegiate athletes? Are we providing enough opportunities? Are we encouraging young girls to try the sport?

In 46 states we still place a major roadblock in front of high school girls who want to wrestle – we make them wrestle almost exclusively against boys. How many other sports do this? When I discuss this dilemma with girl’s sports advocates or wrestling leaders, I get a Catch 22 argument – we need grass roots interest to expand girl’s high school wrestling, but we need more girl’s high school wrestling opportunities to grow grass roots interest. So – what’s the answer? Like so many things in this sport, someone has to step up and take a leadership role – at the local level, at the state level and nationally. Where are those people?

Slowly, intercollegiate wrestling opportunities for women are expanding. Another encouraging sign is that more women are becoming college head coaches. I frequently read online comments that suggest we should continue to expand women’s college wrestling as a tool to fight Title IX attrition. That argument misses the mark.

If we truly value what wrestling teaches – why deny those lessons to half of the population? If your daughter grows up to be an attorney why shouldn’t she be equipped with a toughness learned on the mat? If your sister becomes the CEO of a troubled corporation shouldn’t she know the resiliency taught by wrestling? When the woman researcher is trying to find the cure for your cancer wouldn’t you want her to have the perseverance Dr. Borlaug attributed to his wrestling experience?

We will always need “Toughness 101” in our colleges – but let’s be sure its available for everyone.

Three years and counting

2010-06-28T07:07:00.000-07:00

I am astonished that you are reading this. This week marks the third anniversary of The View from Section GG and I still can’t believe that anyone reads it. I have no special knowledge or “inside information”. I can’t tell you how to execute a good ankle pick – but I know one when I see one. I just love this sport and the blog gives me a chance to write about it from a fan’s perspective. There seems to be a prevailing belief that only ex-wrestlers and their families can appreciate wrestling. Not so.

This adventure has so far led me down paths I never imagined were possible. The last 12 months have been both hectic and exciting. I started working on Tickets for Kids just about a year ago. The idea was pretty simple – the more kids that are exposed to the excitement of the higher levels of wrestling, the more of them will try or continue on in the sport. Through your generosity we were able to raise enough money to send 600 youngsters to the Saturday morning session of the 2010 NCAA Division III Wrestling Championships.

As in all such endeavors, you can’t do it alone. KJ Pilcher from the Cedar Rapids Gazette wrote an article about the project and donations got an immediate boost. Cornell College athletic director John Cochrane, assistant AD Dick Simmons and head coach Mike Duroe were extremely helpful. (Incidentally, Dick Simmons is one of the hardest working men in wrestling that you may not have heard of – serving the last three years as tournament director of the DIII Championships). Iowa Conference Commissioner Chuck Yrigoyen and Anthony Holman from the NCAA helped cut through the red tape. Fred Jones from the Cedar Rapids Marriott made our largest donation - $2,000. Dozens of fans from all over the country also contributed.

Oh – the people I’ve met in the last year – including two Olympic gold medallists. I sat behind Bill Smith and his family at the University of Northern Iowa homecoming football game. Earlier in the day he and the rest of the 1950 Iowa State Teachers College NCAA championship team had been inducted into the UNI Hall of Fame. I spent the entire first half of the game mentally rehearsing how I would introduce myself to him at half time. Somehow I managed to pull it off without sounding like the goober fan that I tend to be. I wasn’t quite so erudite when Kyle Klingman from the Dan Gable International Wrestling institute and Museum (now the National Wrestling Hall of Fame Dan Gable Museum) unexpectedly introduced me to Ed Banach. I think I said something witty like, “ooba gubba hum”.

Speaking of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame – I finally actually met its executive director, Lee Roy Smith, at National Duals. Lee Roy has supported this blog from almost the beginning and I’m not sure that I would still be doing it if not for his early encouragement.

National Duals also gave me the chance to meet a couple of guys who are passionate about their teams and this wonderful sport. Steve Hayleck has been fighting in the trenches for Title IX reform for years. Steve is a former Maryland wrestler and tireless worker for the Terrapin wrestling program. He writes so seriously about Title IX that when I met him I was surprised by his quirky sense of humor. I’ll also never forget how graciously he allowed me to butcher his last name for two days.

Dr. Tim Drehmer came to Cedar Falls to support his beloved Ohio State Buckeyes. While there he also did yeoman’s duty at the Adam Frey memorial table. I enjoyed meeting him and will always be thankful for his efforts.

I would be remiss if I didn’t also thank Tim Dennis (father of NCAA finalist, Daniel) for his time helping with the Adam Frey table.

I got to spend some time with Lloyd Corwin one night in March. In one of life’s strange twists, I actually met Lloyd over 25 years ago in a business setting. He was a two-time Division I All-American for Cornell College in the ‘50s and only ever lost three college matches. His victories included one over future Olympic champion and Distinguished Member of the Hall of Fame, Doug Blubaugh. Lloyd is a charming gentleman with an infectious laugh and I enjoyed every minute I spent with him.

I would be falsely modest if I didn’t admit that two of my proudest moments came this year at the NCAA Division III Championships. I was selected to be a marshal for the Parade of Champions on the evening of the finals. It was thrilling to be surrounded by the past, present and future of the sport.

The Thursday night before the championships, I was awarded The National Wrestling Coaches Association Dan Gable “America Needs Wrestling” Award. To have my name associated with Gable’s in any way is incredibly humbling. I will treasure that moment forever.

Here’s what I’ve learned in the last three years. We fans don’t have to sit on the sidelines and watch this sport be assaulted by outside influences. In fact – we owe it to the future of wrestling to get off of our butts and work for its salvation. There are countless opportunities to help – from getting more kids on the mat to fighting for your favorite college program to supporting our Olympic athletes. Pick one and join the battle. If a short, fat, balding 60 year-old fan in Cedar Rapids, Iowa can do it – so can you.

Still battling

2010-06-14T06:11:00.000-07:00

It’s raining this morning. It rained yesterday – and Saturday – and Thursday. Just like it did two years ago. There’s one major difference. In 2008, by the time it stopped raining the Cedar River had risen enough to do hundreds of millions of dollars of damage and displace thousands of our friends and neighbors.

If you hear the names Andrew or Ike or Katrina images of devastation come to mind. Floods don’t get the same response. If they weren’t effected directly, many people tend to forget. Some even actually start to resent flood victims over time. And when national “commentator”, Glen Beck, calls one of our flood recovery projects a “big waste of tax money” on television – I can’t contain my anger.

My young friend, Terrance, whose family lost everything in the flood (including all of his wrestling memorabilia) has been living at the Iowa Braille School the last year and a half. The rest of his family is still in temporary housing. Many business owners have given up or relocated. We’re still millions of dollars and many years away from a full recovery.

So what does this have to do with wrestling? Well – we’re still fighting to get off our backs – and wrestling has been helping.

Coe College wrestler, Clayton Rush – himself a flood victim – helped replace some of Terrance’s wrestling memorabilia. I guess that’s why it was extra special for me to watch Clayton win an NCAA Division III title.

Taylor School was nearly destroyed by the flood – in fact it was initially announced that the school would not reopen. The neighborhood rose up and fought to save its school and students returned last September. Through the generosity of dozens of members of the national wrestling community over 30 families from Taylor got to attend a session of the NCAA Division III Wrestling Championships. Another 20 or more flood victim kids from other schools also got to go.

The Division III Championships were held in Cedar Rapids from 2007 – 2010 and many of us have come to love DIII fans. Their simple acts of attending the tournament and staying in our hotels and eating in our restaurants and shopping at our stores have furthered the recovery. But above and beyond that I’ve heard of acts of generosity from fans while they were here.

“DIIIs” are moving to La Crosse next year and I wish them all the success in the world. Here in Cedar Rapids we’re looking forward to welcoming a new group of wrestling fans as we host the 2011 NAIA Championships next March. This is my first official invitation to all of you wrestling fans to come to our fair city, enjoy our hospitality and watch some exciting wrestling. I ask just one thing – when that hotel bartender serves you or a store clerk hands you your change – please remember that it’s possible that in 2008 she and her family lost everything.

He gave his life for the U.S.A.

2010-05-31T03:50:00.000-07:00

My father-in-law is from the small town of Walker, IA. Saturday we went to the Walker Cemetery to visit Lee’s parents’ graves. Seth Crawford is buried about 100 yards away. His monument reads:

“1891 – 1918
Killed in action at Veslie River, France
He gave his life for the U.S.A.”

My great uncle was severely wounded in WWII and hated everything German the rest of his life. My father fought in Korea. I lost 2 high school classmates in Viet Nam. Last summer the son of my best man was badly wounded in Afghanistan.

My father taught me to respect the young men and women we send off to war. In his later years he became an advocate for veterans benefits and I remember going with him to the Portland (OR) veterans hospital as he was nearing the end of his life. He saw a couple of doctors, had some tests done and then got some prescriptions to fill. Dad, my brother, Jeff, and I went into the pharmacy. The waiting room was packed. There might have been upwards of 50 people in there and just one pharmacist on duty. We waited for over an hour. I was struck by the patience of these men – men who had fought in Europe, the South Pacific, Korea and Viet Nam.

After we picked up Dad’s prescription and got out the front door his anger finally erupted – not over his own wait – but that of the others, “That’s just horse****! Those poor bastards shouldn’t have to wait like that! They deserve better!”

It has become the tradition of this blog on Veterans Day to pay tribute to those who have walked off the mat and gone on to serve our country and on Memorial Day I honor those who have wrestled and have fallen in our service. Past Memorial Day editions have remembered posthumous Medal of Honor winner “Tommy” Noonan who was called by his friends “the best wrestler ever at Hunter College” and who was killed in Viet Nam, Naval Academy All-American and Silver Star winner, Doug Zembiec (The Lion of Fallujah), Patrick Lybert, a high school wrestler and Eagle Scout who was posthumously awarded a Silver Star for his actions in Afghanistan and Christopher Adeslperger whose family was given his Navy Cross for his actions in Iraq.

Last September President Obama awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor to Sgt. Jared Monti of Raynham, MA. Sgt. Monti had been a championship wrestler at Bridgewater-Raynham High School and was killed in the same engagement as Sgt. Lybert. Go here for a full description of the battle.

I wish I could stop adding names every year, but tragically, I can’t. Earlier this month Marine Lance Corporal Joshua Davis of Perry, IA was killed in action in Afghanistan. In an article in the Des Moines Register, his wrestling coach, Steve Hamilton, observed, “’The thing that was cool about him was that he had no quit in him.’” Even though he wasn’t the best wrestler on the team, “’he didn’t get discouraged; it didn’t break his will.’”, said Hamilton.

Again from the Register article:

“Hamilton, the wrestling coach, said he wasn’t surprised when Davis told him he wanted to join the Marines.”

“’I told him it was a good fit for him’ Hamilton said, because he was disciplined, took direction well and was a good leader. ‘I thought he’d do well in that arena.’

“’ It’s just unfortunate’”.

I don’t care about your politics – whether you’re a “Hawk” or a pacifist. When someone goes off to war in the name of freedom, we owe them our respect and our thanks. And for those families who lost a son or daughter or a brother or sister – we owe them our sympathy. It’s the very least we can do.

In honor of Sgt Arthur Brown Jr (shown in Korea).

Rivalries

2010-05-24T06:53:00.000-07:00

The Cardinals and the Cubs. The Celtics and the Lakers. The Packers and the Bears. The Hawkeyes and the Cyclones. Rivalries. What would sports be without them?

One of my best friends and I are on opposite sides of the Cardinals/Cubs battle. During baseball season we have a rule that is designed to protect our friendship – “one shot a day”. Whenever we get together, each of us is allowed to insult the other’s team just once – and then we have to let it rest. Any transgression requires that the offending party buy an adult beverage for the wronged party.

When you use the word “rivalry” in college wrestling the Iowa vs. Iowa State dual meet comes to most minds first. Year in and year out that event will rank in the top three for dual meet attendance (depending upon if it is in Iowa City or Ames). Are all of those seats filled with hardcore wrestling fans? Of course not. Many of the attendees are there because this is a grudge meet.

College wrestling is under siege. Extreme budget cuts and Title IX are leading to the elimination of “minor” sports at a number of institutions. In some of the most recent cases, like University of California – Davis and California State – Bakersfield, wrestling was just one of the dropped sports. What criteria were used to decide which programs were cut? In the case of UC Davis wrestling, lack of fan support was one factor mentioned.

Life isn’t always fair. Softball is virtually exempt from the chopping block no matter if 11 or 11,000 fans show up for a game. I’ve been to women’s tennis meets where 20 people were watching. Don’t worry – that sport is safe.

There’s a classic old joke with the punchline, “I don’t have to outrun the bear, I just have to outrun you.” Sadly, that’s the situation many college wrestling teams find themselves in. Sometimes, intercollegiate competition opportunities depend upon “outrunning” the baseball team or the men’s tennis team. In other cases, as with Cal State Bakersfield, if you can come up with enough money to save all of the teams, you can save your own. Is it fair? Heck, no! Is it reality? You bet.

What can wrestling do to gain that needed support? Start by promoting a dual meet rivalry. Last season’s battle between Coe College and Cornell College is an example of how it could be done. Yes – the rivalry between the two schools already exists in all sports – and that’s a big help. The meet was given a boost when the Dan Gable International Wrestling Institute and Museum and Body Bar Systems sponsored a breakfast celebrating the rivalry. Cornell, the host school, also made the meet “Breast Cancer Awareness Night” and donated proceeds from ticket sales to the American Cancer Society. Cornell coach, Mike Duroe (normally one of the sport’s snappiest dressers), and his team wore pink tee shirts as their warm-ups. During team introductions, the Cornell wrestler handed a matching pink tee to his Coe counterpart. The teams opted for a “halftime” intermission and their was entertainment – which was greatly enhanced when Coach Duroe’s daughter decided that she wanted to join in. The gym was packed and it was a great mix – students and fans from both schools, young wrestlers and prominent alumni were all there.

The Oklahoma State/Oklahoma “Bedlam” series, Augsburg and Wartburg, the Iowa/Minnesota “Border Brawl” and the Oregon/Oregon State “Civil War” (oh, sorry, I forgot) – are all mat rivalries that get fans out cheering for wrestling. We need far more examples of this.

Frankly, dual meets need to matter – and they don’t to many coaches and athletes. Rivalry duals are only a first step. We need a true dual meet national championship. The current issue of Win Magazine features an interview by Mike Finn of Mike Moyer, the executive director of the National Wrestling Coaches Association. In the article, Moyer outlines both his reasoning behind his national dual championship proposal and two hypothetical scenarios for holding such a tournament.

The NWCA already holds its National Duals event which features teams from every division of college wrestling. It’s my favorite event of the year because of the variety. Sure I focus on the Hawkeyes when they’re on the mat, but I also get to watch top Division III teams and it’s one of the few times a year that I get to watch women compete. However, it’s not a true championship because the top teams don’t always show up. For example, Oklahoma State has declined their invitation the past couple of years. I’ll really miss this event if it gives way to several true dual championship tournaments, but I agree with Mike Moyer – college wrestling needs this change.

(Writer’s note – full disclosure laws require that I mention that WIN Magazine occasionally hires me to develop direct marketing campaigns for them.)

The legacy of the Cedar Valley

2010-05-17T09:27:00.000-07:00

I suppose it started with Finn Eriksen 77 years ago. That’s the year that Eriksen led New Hampton to a share of the Iowa high school wrestling championship. Since that title in 1933 the Cedar Valley – Waterloo, Cedar Falls, Waverly, Gilbertville, New Hampton and a dozen other small Iowa towns - has influenced American wrestling at all levels.

Take Finn Eriksen for example. It wasn’t just that he started the most storied program in Iowa high school history – Waterloo West. Eriksen, a Distinguished Member of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame, introduced practices that we now take for granted – like summer camps and coaching clinics.

Since those days in the 1930’s wrestling rooms in the Cedar Valley have produced future NCAA championship athletes and coaches, Olympic medallists, some of the sport’s preeminent officials and enough Distinguished Members of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame that maybe they ought to have their own wing.

In 1943 Roy Jarrard took over for Eriksen at Waterloo West and led the the Wahawks to three consecutive Iowa high school team championships. Those three teams featured three athletes who won 7 individual state titles and had a runner-up finish. As college freshmen those three – Dick Hauser, Lowell Lange and Leo Thomsen – helped carry Cornell College to the 1947 NCAA and AAU team championships.

Iowa State Teachers College finished second to Cornell in 1947. In fact, Coach Dave McCuskey’s ISTC teams were national powers from 1946 to 1953, winning the NCAA team title in 1950. Olympic champion Bill Smith and silver medallist Gerry Leeman and three-time NCAA champions Bill Koll, Bill Nelson and Keith Young all wrestled in Cedar Falls for McCuskey.

Bob Siddens also wrestled on those teams. His career record as the wrestling coach at Waterloo West was 327-26. His wrestlers would go one to win multiple Big 8, Big 10 and NCAA titles. He coached two 2X NCAA champs who would help their universities win national team titles – Dale Anderson at Michigan State in 1967 and Dan Gable in 1969 and ’70.

It’s impossible to mention everyone – UNI graduate Jim Miller who has so far led Wartburg College to seven NCAA Division III team championships, NCAA champions like Joe Gibbons and Chuck Yagla from Waterloo Columbus and Daryl Weber from Gilbertville Don Bosco and Hall of Fame official Mike Allen from Waterloo East and UNI are just some. Even the sport’s most prolific writer (and founder of the Hodge Trophy) – Mike Chapman - hales from Waterloo.

Then there’s Gable. His career as athlete, coach and ambassador is unrivaled.

As of last Thursday there’s a new player in the Cedar Valley. Doug Schwab was announced as the new head wrestling coach at the University of Northern Iowa. Schwab, a native of Osage, IA and former NCAA champion has been an assistant at the University of Iowa for the past four seasons and has been instrumental in the Hawkeyes’ last three NCAA title runs. He takes over a program that had, perhaps, lost sight of its legacy.

Doug mentioned both that legacy and the Cedar Valley during his press conference. The three 2010 Iowa high school team champions are Cedar Valley schools, Waverly-Shell Rock in AAA, Denver-Tripoli in AA and Gilbertville Don Bosco in A and Schwab inherits a recruiting class that includes two young men from Don Bosco and one from Denver-Tripoli.

I’ve long been a Doug Schwab fan. Yes, he won an NCAA championship in 1999, but it was his performance in Saint Louis in 2000 that most of us remember. Upset in the quarterfinals by #8 seed Carl Perry, Doug piled up bonus points in the consolation bracket that were invaluable to the Hawkeyes in a very close team race. If you’ve watched wrestling for any length of time you’ve seen it more than once – the favorite gets knocked off and then is unable to compose himself and give his best in wrestlebacks. Not Doug Schwab – he sucked it up and went out and beat the living snot out of people to come back and finish third.

That’s the level of determination he will need to turn around a program that finished 40th at the NCAA tournament six weeks ago. I suspect that he won’t settle for respectability. In fact, in his press conference he said he wants to “win it all”. You’d be disappointed if he said anything else, but I think he means it.

Good luck, Doug, and may you add an exciting new chapter to the story of Cedar Valley wrestling.

California Dreamin'

2010-05-03T07:12:00.000-07:00

“… and the sky is gray.” That is the last half of the opening line of the Mamas and Papas hit California Dreamin’. Every state in the union faces a budget crisis but they all pale in comparison to the situation in California. The proposed 2010-2011 budget calls for massive cuts including almost $900 million from school funding. Virtually every service in the state will be reduced in some way. Is it any wonder that intercollegiate wrestling in California is on life support?

Publicly funded institutions in the University of California and California State systems must find millions of dollars to pare from their respective budgets. Dropping wrestling and other minor sports seems to be the easy answer. Just two weeks ago UC Davis announced the elimination of wrestling and three other sports – a move that the university claims will lead to $5 million in savings over the next five years.

In the face of all of this potential financial disaster, how can we fans justify our insistence that these financially strapped institutions keep wrestling on their varsity sport rosters? Well – first, there’s a need. Perhaps I’m naïve, but I’ve always felt that tax-funded universities ought to serve their constituencies. California high schools rank second in the United States in total athletic participation, but are the runaway leaders in wrestling participation. Over 10% (27,500) of all high school wrestlers in America compete at California high schools. Illinois is in second place with 16,000+.

Do we truly believe that athletics can be a stepping stone to higher education? Do we really value the concept of educating the whole person? Are business and government leaders who have learned “Toughness 101” on the mat crucial to the future of California?

My answer is obviously, “Yes!” But, the reality is that California tax payers can’t save wrestling at their colleges. So who will? Once again it’s up to us – those who love the sport - to do what we can.

Cal State Fullerton just announced that they met the May 1st (May Day – how ironic) fund raising goal to save wrestling and women’s gymnastics for at least one more season. I’m guessing that they started working to fund the 2011-2012 season yesterday. If you want to help them off to a great start you can do so online at www.fullerton.edu/tac or by sending a check to

Titan Athletics
Cal State Fullerton Philanthropic Foundation
2600 E Nutwood Ave Ste 850
Fullerton CA 92831-5455.

Cal State Bakersfield faces a tougher challenge. The university gave supporters until May 21, 2010 to raise $1.4 million in order to stave off the elimination of wrestling and three other sports. To date they’ve raised about $407,000. Yep, they have just under three weeks to come up with almost a million bucks.

New England Patriots offensive lineman and former NCAA and World heavyweight champion (and CSUB alumnus), Stephen Neal, and NCAA Champion Jake Varner are among those leading the fund raising. They announced an event on May 15th at the Jam Events Center on Norris Rd in Bakersfield. A dinner will be served and several unique items and packages – including airfare, hotel expenses and two tickets for a Patriots game – will be offered at live and silent auctions. For more information, see Mark Palmer’s full article here.

You can also donate directly to Save Bakersfield Wrestling here.

Cal Poly is being proactive and will host a Mixed Martial Arts event called “Fight for Wrestling” on May 22nd at the Mott Gym to raise money for the program.

I know that some of you reading this will choose to donate to one or more of these schools – and I can almost guess who. There’s a very select segment of the wrestling community that inevitably answers the call. Thank you.

However – the sport needs more high profile support – especially in California. Movie stars like Tom Cruise and Ashton Kutcher like to talk about their wrestling backgrounds – but I don’t see them out in front trying to grow the sport. Perhaps they’re quietly active behind the scenes and if they are I thank them. But, come on, if the sport has really meant something to you – let the world

The battle for your wrestling dollar.

2010-04-19T08:21:00.000-07:00

“Brother, can you spare a dime?” That iconic song from the Great Depression might just be the theme for American wrestling in the 21st century.

I’ve earned my living in the direct marketing business for about 30 years. For the last 20 I’ve owned my own consulting business. I’ve helped companies sell you magazines, pizza, jewelry and cell phones. I’ve also gotten you to donate to several worthwhile non-profit organizations.

Fund raising is a tough business. You have to battle for every dollar and – frankly - most wrestling organizations are pretty wimpy at it. Over the years I’ve contributed to individual Olympic wrestlers, national organizations and schools trying to save their programs. The associations I’ve built through this blog have also put me on a number of wrestling-related solicitation lists. Folks – you’ve got to work harder – get tougher.

Rule one is “keep asking”. It’s a fact that the top 15 – 20% of your past donors will donate 80% of the money to a new or follow-up campaign. Roughly 15% will come from the rest of the past donors and 5% or less will come from new donors. BUT – those past donors won’t give anything IF YOU DON’T ASK. Of the organizations that I’ve supported, only Cal State Fullerton and Save Oregon Wrestling have ever asked me directly for a second donation. Come on – ask me again. I know from years of research that if you get a second donation from me, I am twice as likely to donate a third time.

Speak directly to me, tell me a good story and then “make the ask”. People don’t give to causes or organizations. One person gives to another person. Last week I received an attempt to get me to attend a fund raiser for a local wrestling club. I cringed. There was no letter – just a reservation form. They gave me no reason to attend. It was a lot like going to the middle of the mat, getting into your stance and then hoping that your opponent falls to his back.

Use all of your weapons. How successful are wrestlers who can only execute an outside single to get a takedown? Take a guess why charities continue to tick you off by calling you at home. BECAUSE IT WORKS! Telephone calls have a higher return on investment than any other fund raising method. In general, wrestling relies far too much on the internet to raise money. Yes – it’s cheap and should be a part of your arsenal – but don’t use it exclusively.

What does the Republican National Committee have in common with the Democratic National Committee? The NRA with the World Wildlife Fund? And those four with US Olympic Committee? All use direct mail as a primary fund raising medium. Get your story down on paper and tell it to me just as if we’re sitting across from each other having coffee. Motivate me to give.

Be proactive. Yes - emergency needs will draw your best response, but, you must have a regular plan that meets your needs. Don’t wait until the elimination announcement comes before you try to raise the money to save the program. If you’re a coach, wrestler, alumnus or fan of a particular college team – just assume that your team is on the chopping block and start raising the money now. Start a campaign to endow a scholarship or the head coach’s salary. Buy the team a van or new mats. Show the administration that important people (donors) care about wrestling and you’ll reduce your chances of being dropped.

It isn’t all bad. Beat the Streets has come up with two disparate, but powerful, concepts to market their annual fund raising gala. First, they are holding it on the aircraft carrier USS Intrepid and honoring wrestlers who have served our country. Then they are holding the “Battle on the Intrepid” – a series of “undercard” matches featuring young Beat the Streets athletes and some of America’s top freestyle and Greco Roman wrestlers – followed by the “Main Event”.

Take a guess – what two athletes would most American fans want to see face each other? Bingo! Brent Metcalf and Darrion Caldwell will do battle as the highlight of the evening. It’s a stroke of genius by the organizers and a credit to these two young men that they are willing to participate. Here’s a link to make your reservation. If you can’t be there you can still make a donation at the site.

What is a legend?

2010-04-05T06:46:00.000-07:00

“When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.”

That line comes near the end of one of John Ford’s best westerns, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. It is spoken by a newspaper editor after an interview with Jimmy Stewart’s character, Senator Ransom Stoddard. Stoddard has built a long, successful political career based on the “fact” that he killed the evil Liberty Valance in a gunfight. He has come home with his wife to bury the, now, unknown derelict Tom Doniphan (John Wayne). Stoddard reveals in the interview that it was Doniphan – not himself – who shot and killed Valance. An unnamed western territory became a state and thousands of new settlers arrived in part because of the accomplishments of “the man who shot Liberty Valance”.

The terms “wrestling legend” and “coaching legend” have been thrown around on the internet a lot lately – sometimes disparagingly. Occasionally, when we meet or observe “legends”, they disappoint us. It isn’t fair, really, to hold someone to a higher behavior standard than everyone else we encounter in life, simply because at one time they could beat the tar out of almost everyone on the wrestling mat.

For reasons beyond my comprehension, writing this blog has allowed me to meet “wrestling legends” – and some who, perhaps, ought to be legendary.

As a longtime Hawkeye fan, there’s a part of me that is supposed to be hard wired to root against anyone named Smith who wrestled at Oklahoma State. However, I’m not sure that I would still be writing this if it weren’t for Lee Roy Smith. From the very early days, Lee Roy has encouraged me. He has contributed to the blog and promoted it to others. Many fans know Lee Roy as an NCAA champion, World Silver Medallist, head coach at Arizona State University and participant in one of the most famous – and controversial – matches in American wrestling history. It’s his accomplishments as the executive director of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame and Museum that, maybe, go unrecognized. During his tenure, the Hall of Fame has educated the public about the contributions wrestling and wrestlers have made to the defense of our freedom, the expansion of our ethnic diversity and the very growth of our nation. When I finally got to shake Lee Roy’s hand, he was as gracious in person as he has been in our internet correspondence.

When I met Lee Roy at the NWCA National Duals he was accompanied by Richard Small – a name that is legendary at Cornell College – but almost unknown to far too many in the wrestling community. Richard was a Midwest Classic Conference champion and a member of Cornell’s 1947 NCAA and AAU championship team. After graduation in 1950 he went on to be highly successful in the oil business. If the phrase “giving back” ever needed an illustration, Richard’s picture would be there. He has become Cornell’s most generous benefactor and supports wrestling both financially and as a member of the Board of Governors at the Hall of Fame. Upon introduction, he chose to thank ME for my tiny contributions to the sport. Richard, I’m not worthy.

Lloyd Corwin is an unassuming gentleman with an easy laugh. When you meet him it’s hard to imagine that in the 1950’s he was one of America’s toughest wrestlers. Competing at 147 pounds for Cornell College in the “pre-divisional” era, he was a two-time All-American, finishing second and third. Lloyd only lost three matches in his college career and in 1955 he defeated future Olympic champion Doug Blubaugh in the NCAA quarterfinals.

I met Lloyd recently when we were both selected to be marshals at the 2010 NCAA Division III Wrestling Championships. We struck up one of the most enjoyable conversations I’ve ever had with a member of the wrestling community. He never once talked about himself, preferring instead to discuss Coe College’s Clayton Rush. Lloyd lives less than 15 miles from Clayton’s hometown and has been following his career since high school. Of all of the marshals, I think it was Lloyd who most genuinely enjoyed congratulating the young men as he handed them their All-American trophies. Lloyd probably doesn’t qualify as a “legend” in the minds of most fans, but he’s certainly among the top of my list of wrestling family members I’ve been lucky enough to meet.

I’ve never actually met Ben Peterson. A two-time NCAA champion at Iowa State and an Olympic gold medallist in 1972 (and silver medallist in 1976), Ben is truly a wrestling legend. In March, 2008 I was riding down the escalator at the US Cellular Center in Cedar Rapids after the finals of that year’s Division III Championships. A crowd of teenagers surrounded a tall, bespectacled man who was talking to them. As I got to the bottom I thought, “Holy crap, that’s Ben Peterson.” As more people recognized him the crowd started to grow. He was letting the youngsters pass his gold medal among themselves while he was speaking. The message was simple, “Listen to your parents, listen to your teachers, listen to your coaches and work hard and you too can win one of those.” The kids were mesmerized.

Then there’s Dan Gable. I’ve watched Gable on, next to and off the mat for 40 years. I’ve seen the dominating athlete and the fiery coach who occasionally had to be restrained by an assistant. I’ve watched him sign autographs for everyone from little kids to Russian wrestlers. The two times that I’ve had the chance to talk to him he has been warm and engaging. In February we both spoke at an event honoring Barron Bremner. At one point Dan said, “I have a vision for wrestling that most people don’t understand – that’s way up there. We’ve got to build this sport.” It was the look in his eyes as he said it that grabbed me. It grabbed others as well.

When the legend and fact collide – and they’re identical – there’s no need to worry about which to print.

Five years to glory

2010-03-22T12:29:00.000-07:00

Gordy Flam used to be one of those faceless “friends” you make on the internet. Two years ago his nephew qualified for the NCAA Division III Wrestling Championships. Gordy traveled south from Minnesota to support Matt and Gordy and I finally met. Matt, a St John’s wrestler, qualified again this year and Gordy and I ran into each other at the opening session of “DIII’s”. When Coe College’s Chris LeClere took the mat, Gordy said, “It’s fun actually seeing these guys from Four Days to Glory wrestle.”

In 2005 author Mark Kreidler followed high school seniors Dan LeClere and Jay Borschel in their quests to become four-time Iowa high school state wrestling champions. The resulting work, Four Days to Glory, is one of my favorite books about wrestling (read the New York Times review here). While Dan and Jay are the central focus, one beauty of the book is how well you get to know the families, friends and teammates of the two protagonists. Gordy told me of taking a trip with his daughter to a show choir contest held at Linn-Mar High School (where Borschel wrestled). During one of the breaks he had to sneak off to the gym to see what types of wrestling memorabilia might be on the walls. He was pleased to see that Jay was appropriately recognized.

Dan LeClere’s college career didn’t follow the path he first planned. Like Jay and a third Linn County, Iowa resident, Joe Slaton, he first went to Blacksburg, Virginia to wrestle for Iowa legend and former Hawkeye assistant coach, Tom Brands, at Virginia Tech. When Jim Zalesky was fired as Hawkeye head coach, and Brands hired to replace him, Dan (along with Borschel and Slaton) followed Tom “home”. They were joined by Brent Metcalf and TH Leet, who also elected to stay with coach Brands. The decision had its repercussions. The Virginia Tech athletic director would not release the five from their scholarships and all lost a year of intercollegiate eligibility.

Dan’s first official season in a black and gold singlet showed great promise. He was 22-11, won a Midlands championship and qualified for the NCAA tournament. The following season the combination of Alex Tsirtsis returning from a red-shirt year and a series of nagging injuries limited his competition to just eight matches. This season started with Dan in a three-way battle with Slaton and Montell Marion for the starting spot at 141 pounds. When the dust cleared, Marion was “the man” and he was an NCAA finalist Saturday night. Life for college wrestlers is rarely about a future as a competitor or coach and Dan, a multiple Big Ten All-Academic selection, seems to be well prepared for whatever is thrown his way in the next 60+ years.

Dan’s teammate at North Linn High School, Tyler Burkle, was the first of the “supporting players” in Four Days to Glory to climb to the top of an NCAA championship podium. In 2008 he became the first wrestler to win a national title for Division III Coe College. The two younger LeClere’s, Nick and Chris now also wrestle at Coe, where Nick was an All-American this season.

Matt McDonough was a freshman at Linn-Mar when Kreidler was following Dan and Jay. Matt didn’t go unnoticed by the author, “…(Linn-Mar coach, Doug) Striecher has hopes for other wrestlers as well. One is Matt McDonough, the freshman who is becoming a better wrestler by the day.” That progress continued over Matt’s four years in high school and he went on the win three Iowa state championships. McDonough was heavily recruited and for a long time there was much speculation that, even though his dad, Mike, wrestled for Gable, Wisconsin and Northwestern were the front runners as his college choices. Matt has said in interviews since that it wasn’t until the morning of National Letter of Intent signing day that he decided to go to Iowa and wrestle for Tom Brands.

At 22-8, Matt had a reasonably successful redshirt season at 133 pounds. As last season ended he looked at Iowa’s senior-laden lineup and saw that his only opportunity to crack that lineup in 2009-2010 was to drop down to 125 pounds. By all reports he lost the pounds carefully and intelligently and making weight never seemed to be an issue. Iowa fans spent much of the off-season speculating about what level of success to expect from McDonough. Any skepticism that there might have been was erased early and Matt exploded onto the college wrestling scene. Many observers – including me – consider him to be the most exciting Hawkeye freshman since Lincoln McIlravy or Jeff McGinness. Kreidler’s quote from the book was prophetic as he seemed to be “a better wrestler by the day.” All of that hard work was rewarded Saturday night when Matt defeated Iowa State’s Andrew Long to win the NCAA championship at 125 pounds.

Jay Borschel started reading posts about himself on internet message boards while still in high school. The doubters have always motivated him. His mother, Carol, is quoted by Kreidler as saying, “They don’t know how much that stuff fires him up.” The internet doubt just never seemed to go away. Online poster credibility is a funny thing and I’m not sure how it is won or lost. As Jay and the other transfers prepared for their sophomore seasons, one frequent contributor to the “Iowa boards”, someone considered by many fellow forum followers to be an “insider” and an “expert”, pronounced that, “Jay Borschel will NEVER start for the Hawkeyes.”

His sophomore season he erased most- but not all – of the doubt when he finished third in the NCAA championships. Last year, as a junior, hampered by injuries and mid-season surgery, Jay failed to place at the national tournament and once again the critics and nay-sayers started typing and posting. Perhaps they are now forevermore silenced.

Saturday night Jay Borschel joined perhaps the most elite fraternity in wrestling in the state of Iowa. He, along with Dan Le Clere, was already a member of a pretty exclusive group – the nineteen four-time high school champions. Saturday Jay became just the fourth of those nineteen to ever win a Division I NCAA title. Congratulations, Jay. I hope you go online and bask in all of the well-deserved glory.

NCAA memories

2010-03-15T06:30:00.000-07:00

“With that fall by Jeff McGinness, IOWA takes the lead.” That call by Sandy Stevens drew laughter from our section at the 1995 NCAA Championships. You see – the pin came in a pigtail match and scored the very first points in the tournament. Jeff would go on to win the first of his two NCAA titles.

Once again this year business obligations will keep me here in Cedar Rapids while the Championships play out in Omaha. I’ll catch what I can on the radio, the internet and television – but it just isn’t the same as being there. I’ve followed Nationals from afar many times, but my best memories are from the times when I attended.

I asked several people if they would be willing to share their favorite memories of the NCAA tournament.

Longtime Iowa Hawkeye fan, Roger Pilcher remembers 2000. “There are so many memories over the years, but one always stands out for me – Saint Louis in 2000. On that horrible Friday we had three #1 seeds go down. Jody Stritmatter and Doug Schwab lost in the morning and TJ Williams lost in the evening. The crowd was, of course, delirious as IOWA was pursuing its sixth consecutive national title. My brother and I were pretty low as we left the arena that night. It was a good thing the wrestlers didn’t hang their heads as much as we did, though. As low as we were that night, we were at least that high again the next morning as all three wrestled back to third place finishes. Doug Schwab was an absolute beast, punishing everybody he wrestled in consolations. For that performance alone, he will always remain one of my all-time favorite Hawkeyes.”

“Saturday night we watched Eric Juergens win a national title, acknowledging the Hawkeye fans in attendance, and IOWA got that sixth consecutive title”

Three-time NCAA champion, Olympic silver medallist and head coach at the University of Wisconsin, Barry Davis, remembers his first title as a competitor,”… as they announced your name to take the stand it was a FEELING that has never been matched. Also, as I went up to the stands to see my parents the Iowa fans had boxes of donuts and M & M’s waiting for me because that was the year I took off and Coach Gable found me at Hy-Vee”

As a coach, Barry has most enjoyed, “…watching Jeff Walters and Donny Pritzlaff winning their NCAA titles - just the look on their faces and knowing how much it meant to them."

Cedar Rapids Gazette writer and editor, J.R. Ogden has been covering the NCAA Wrestling Championships since 1985. Three of those events stand out in his mind.

“1985 – This I remember more for personal reasons than for anything at the tournament. This was my first NCAA tournament and my first year covering wrestling and the University of Iowa. The Hawkeyes were in the middle of their 9-title stretch and I was driving into Oklahoma City – aka ‘enemy territory’. Listening to the radio I heard about big, bad Iowa coming to town, etc. I was actually worried my company car with Iowa plates might get vandalized.”

“1993 – This is one of the excellent tournaments Iowa State hosted. ISU always was one of the better places. Again this has to do with the Hawkeyes – Troy Steiner, weeks earlier, moving down a weight to make room for ‘super freshman’, Lincoln McIlravy. What I remember most is McIlravy’s championship bout, his come-from-behind victory and, especially, the third period. It is one of the greatest matches I’ve ever seen.”

“1997 – Gable’s last as head coach. This is memorable for a lot of reasons – Iowa’s string of victories from Thursday night through most of Friday, its amazing performance with six finalists and five champs, seeing Oklahoma State coach John Smith, whose Cowboys were favored, at a local establishment that Friday night, hiding in the corner and obviously shell-shocked by Iowa’s performance. But the thing I remember most and hopefully always will is what happened AFTER the meet. Dan Gable took a chair in the middle of the UNI-Dome – possibly on some sort of makeshift stage, but that I can’t remember – and signed autographs long after the tournament was over. I remember finishing all my stories for the next day’s paper, at least an hour after the event and maybe two, and Gable was still signing autographs and a line remained.”

Almost every Hawkeye fan I’ve ever met who was in Cedar Falls in 1997 has that as their favorite National Tournament – for many of the reasons J.R. mentioned. I have two more that I hope I never forget. Jim Zalesky hugging Gable and Gable pointing his crutch at Jesse Whitmer and yelling, “Strongest man in the world!” after Whitmer’s Cinderella championship.

Finally, there was Sandy Stevens’ introduction of Bob Siddens as he presented the team championship trophy to Gable. That time Sandy made me cry.

Saying goodbye

2010-03-08T06:50:00.000-08:00

Adios you student cheering sessions from Augsburg, Luther, Dubuque and LAX.

Ciao you warm and friendly wrestling fans from Maine and Ohio and Rhode Island and New Jersey.

Sayonara you dedicated student athletes who compete simply for the love of the sport.

I’m going to miss you all.

Saturday night the NCAA Division III Wrestling Championships ended a three-year run at the US Cellular Center here in Cedar Rapids and I’m sorry to see them go.

Wrestling has been a part of higher education for well over two millennia. Socrates once said, “A great runner is not the equal of an average wrestler”. His student, Plato, was a wrestler. Division III wrestlers epitomize everything that is good about intercollegiate sports. They toil in relative anonymity for hundreds of hours in sweaty wrestling and weight rooms – then shower and hit the books.

When they leave the mat for the last time, these young adults will go on to teach our children, run our businesses and lead our communities. They may even cure cancer. Maybe Dan Laurent will be the guy who does that. Dan never came to Cedar Rapids as the top seed at heavyweight. Yet all three times he came here, at the very end of the tournament, it was his hand that the referee raised in triumph. Dan carries a 3.5+ GPA with double majors in biochemistry and molecular biology.

A lot of great schools were represented here last weekend – schools that specialize in preparing engineers and scientists and educators. They have outstanding curricula – but there’s one class you won’t find in their course listings – “Toughness 101”. Fortunately they have wrestling coaching staffs to teach that – guys like Dave Icenhower of The College of New Jersey who passed the 500 victory mark this season. They’re the ones teaching their students to fight every minute. They’re the ones teaching our future leaders how to “battle off their backs” in the face of adversity. They’re the ones teaching that, even though you’re a member of a team – you’re ultimately responsible for your own success.

Who teaches those things at colleges and universities that don’t have wrestling teams? Don’t those schools understand that they have a hole in their curricula – that they’re not serving their constituencies to the best of their ability?

We need a mind shift in the wrestling community. We’re so worried about saving college wrestling that we don’t seize the opportunity to grow college wrestling. I’m not so naïve that I don’t understand the obstacles – the tough economy, Title IX and skeptical administrations. But isn’t that what wrestling is about – meeting challenges head-on and winning?

All of us need to stop waiting for someone else to do this for us. Does your alma mater have a wrestling team? How about that small college in your community? In my case the answer to both is, “no”. The athletic directors at both schools frequently hear from me about the need to add wrestling. One always firmly tells me “no way”, but the other always says, “maybe, someday, if…”. Do you want to guess what the “if” is? Money. We’ve got to get busy and endow this sport. Anyway – today I’ll email each of them (and the president of my alumni association) a link to this edition of the blog – along with the promise to help anyway I can. I challenge you to do the same.

You see – if the NCAA Division III Championships ever return to Cedar Rapids, I’d sure like to meet fans from Washington and Florida and Georgia – and hear what kind of cheering sections they have.

Action, action, action

2010-03-07T09:32:00.000-08:00

“Action, Bub!” I heard Gail Rush yell that at her son, Clayton, early in his finals match at the NCAA Division III Wrestling Championships last night. I don’t know if Clayton heard her, but it sure seemed like he – and almost all of the other finalists - did. What a fun finals night! Augsburg had the team title locked up going into the Saturday night session so the matches became entirely about the individuals up on the big stage – and boy did they go for it.

Brennan Ward, the 184 pounder from Johnson and Wales, made it into the finals with the “big move” – a headlock throw and pin of Coe’s top-seeded, Tyler Burkle, and a last second cement mixer-type move to pin Gabe Youel from Elmhurst. Trailing in last night’s match with Concordia’s Phil Moenkedick he tried the big move again and put Moenkedick on his back. It wasn’t enough – Moenkedick scored a reversal and went on to win 7-4.

I had the opportunity to meet Byron Tate’s dad earlier in the season at Cornell College’s Matman Invitational Tournament. He’s a big man – but he gets just as nervous about his son’s wrestling as every parent. I can only imagine what he was experiencing last night as Byron – a sophomore at Wartburg – climbed the steps for his 197 pound championship bout with Ryan Malo of Williams. Both athletes pressed the action and ultimately Tate won 8-5.

Prior to last night, Luke Miller from Ohio Northern and Heidelberg’s Zach Mizer had battled five times in their college careers. When wrestlers know each other that well matches frequently become snooze fests. Not these two guys. Miller triumphed 7-6.

There are those who called last year’s 174 pound final boring. Maybe. There was much more scoring in the 2010 edition and Michael Schmitz from UW La Crosse defeated Dubuque’s Evan Brown 5-2.

Okay – so the action wasn’t hot and heavy at heavy. But there’s this - Dan Laurent has never come to the National Championships as the top seed, but last night he got his hand raised at the end of the championship bout for the third consecutive time. It was UW La Crosse’s third individual title of the tournament.

Minga Batsukh from St Johns came into the tournament as the top seed at 141 pounds and almost fell in the first round. Ryan Bridge of the Stevens Institute of Technology built an early 7-1 lead, but Batsukh came storming back to win that match 16-12. Last evening he put on another offensive show to top Ithaca’s Jeremy Stierly 10-4.

Most Division III wrestlers compete in relative obscurity. Sometimes that leads to a “surprise” performance at the national championships. This year there were two. Isaac Dukes from Case Western Reserve was the fifth seed at 149 pounds, but I’m willing to bet that few in the US Cellular Center were familiar with him. His march to the finals included an action-packed 18-11 victory over fourth-seeded Matt Mauseth from UW La Crosse in the quarter finals and a bizarre overtime pin of Ithaca’s number one, Blaine Woszczak in the semis. He took it to Augsburg’s Tony Valek in the finals and came away an 8-4 winner.

I overheard someone ask, “Where the heck is the Merchant Marine Academy?” after Cedar Falls, IA native Dan Twito knocked off Cornell’s Nicholas Loughlin in the quarter finals. There might be two answers – Kings Point, New York and “on the wrestling map”. Coach Dan Ilaria has a young team that finished 11th in this year’s tournament – led by their first-ever NCAA wrestling champion, Vincent Renault at 165 pounds. A flurry of late action led to Renault’s upset win over Augsburg’s Orlando Ponce 7-3. I had the good fortune to be near Vincent as he walked off the podium and he wins this year’s award for “widest grin.”

Complete strangers were turning to each other as they left the US Cellular Center and saying things like, “Wasn’t that 133 pound match something?!” I don’t know if he attended the finals, but Randy Lewis was in the crowd Friday and yesterday morning. Bebeto Yewah from UW La Crosse and Augsburg’s Paul Bjorkstrand put on an offensive exhibition that would have made Randy proud. It was already 6-5 at the end of the first period and Yewah went on to a 14-9 win.

Oh – and Clayton Rush – he forced the action to defeat Tyler Erdman of Elizabethtown to win the second individual championship in Coe’s history. It’s always good to listen to your mother.

What's that on your sleeve?

2010-03-06T05:40:00.000-08:00

Wrestling fans wear their emotions on their sleeves. You don’t have to be a psychologist to know how they’re feeling. Last night’s NCAA Division III Wrestling Championships quarterfinal and All-American rounds – and afterwards – were no different.

Those kids from Luther – the student cheering session, that is- are shall we say – boisterous? They’re proud of their school and proud of their team. It goes even beyond the US Cellular Center. They were out en masse at the Crowne Plaza Thursday night when Luther coach Dave Mitchell was inducted into the Division III Wrestling Hall of Fame.

I’ve not noticed it in past years, so it may be a tradition, but the University of Dubuque fans celebrate every individual win with a victory lap around the arena. One fan carries a placard-sized photo of the victorious wrestler and another carries a hand-drawn poster with his name and some words of encouragement and the two of them jog around the concourse.

Have you ever heard the air rush out of a blown tire? That was the sound from the Coe delegation when Brennan Ward from Johnson and Wales hit a headlock and pinned the Kohawks’ top seeded Tyler Burkle at 184. Somber would be the word to describe them as they left the Cellular Center.

That sound you hear from the northwest corner is the Augsburg freight train. In years past Auggie fans have become known for the creativity of their cheers. This year is pretty basic – cheer loudly while your wrestler is in action and then jump up and roar when he gets his hand raised. No coach will ever say he has things well in hand, but coach Mark Matzek’s charges have so far done everything needed to win this championship.

But – speaking of trains – last night I stood next to a group of UW La Crosse fans at the Cedar Rapids Marriott and they sounded like “The Little Engine That Could” – playing out hypothetical scenarios and adding up points and figuring out just how they could get over the hill and pass Augsburg. So far coach Dave Malacek’s wrestlers have come through. Don’t worry – the fans will let you know how they’re doing.

A topsey turvey first morning

2010-03-05T13:57:00.000-08:00

There are two things I’ve come to expect during the opening session of Division III Nationals – upsets and raucous crowds. This morning did not disappoint.

At the close of the morning session Coe College is in the lead on the basis of bonus points (3 falls and 2 majors) and two extra matches – consolation pigtails. Augsburg may be tied for second with Wartburg, but you’d have to consider them in the driver’s seat with all nine of their wrestlers advancing to the quarter finals. Right now their fans appear also to be leading the volume contest.

Two first seeds and two second seeds dropped into the consolations. Top-seeded Josh Terrell from University of Dubuque was pinned by Justin Barowski of Delaware Valley and number one ranked heavyweight, Mark Corsello of Elmhurst, was knocked into wrestlebacks by Jon Schmidt of UW Whitewater. Lloyd McKinney of UW La Crosse topped Wartburg’s number 2 seed, Mark Kist, in an exciting match that saw both wrestlers press the action. Cornell’s second-seeded Nicholas Loughlin fell to Iowa native Dan Twito of the Merchant Marine Academy.

I’ve also gotten accustomed to seeing friends at “DIIIs” – and occasionally having to root against them. Dee Pollard’s son, Joe, is an assistant coach at The College of New Jersey. Dee comes to Nationals every year to support her son’s team and we have become friends. This morning the Lions’ heavyweight, Ed Broderick, was matched up against Coe’s Mitch Sander. Sander won and I watched from afar as Dee suffered through the loss.

Gordon Flam was a faceless “friend” out there in the Ethernet until last year. He started reading my blog on myspace and we’ve swapped a lot of messages over the past few years. I met “Gordy” last year when he came to Cedar Rapids to cheer on his nephew, Matt Baarson of St John’s and came to my fan reception. Matt won this morning and will face Coe’s third-seeded Nick LeClere in tonight’s quarter finals. I’m afraid that I’ll be pulling for LeClere.

The first two head-to-head matchups among the three top team contenders will be tonight at 165 where Wartburg’s second-seeded, Carrington Banks takes on #7 Orlando Ponce of Augsburg and at 174 when Augsburg’s two seed, Zach Molitor, faces Coe’s Seth Rehn.

The Cedar Rapids Convention and Visitors rolled out beautiful, sunny, mid-forties weather for the fans. The coaches and wrestlers did their parts to make this a beautiful day by giving us a lot of action and excitement.

On being a fan

2010-03-05T06:56:00.000-08:00

I’m just a fan. However it came to happen – I love wrestling. The only wrestling I ever did was in junior high school intramurals. Then I went to watch Dan Gable wrestle in Ames and it started – my love affair with this sport.

Debbie Connell has been my friend for 40 years. I worked my way through Saint Ambrose College at a Dairy Queen in Davenport and Connell was one of my co-workers. If you’re ever in Carver Hawkeye Arena for a wrestling meet and the Hawkeyes come running out of the tunnel – look to the middle of the first row just above the tunnel and you’ll see Debbie and her sister Jodie. They’ve been season ticket holders longer than I have.

Debbie and I were reminiscing before the Iowa/Northwestern meet and she brought back a long forgotten moment. “Do you remember the time you and Mr. Simmons (one of our regular DQ customers) stood outside and talked about Gable after the ’72 Olympics? I can remember you guys talking for maybe half-an-hour.” Unlike today, when you have to get up at 2:00 AM to watch Olympic wrestling on the internet, we got to see Gable’s march to the gold on ABC. We got to hear Frank Gifford describe him as “the most dedicated athlete I’ve ever seen.”

Last night my name became officially linked with Dan Gable’s and I couldn’t be prouder – or more humbled. The National Wrestling Coaches Association presented me with the Dan Gable “America Needs Wrestling” Award at the NCAA Division III Wrestling Hall of Fame induction ceremonies. The plaque calls me “Ambassador for the Sport”. But folks, I’m just a fan. I started writing this blog in July, 2007 just because I wanted some place to talk about wrestling as fans do. The luckiest result has been that I have got to meet some wonderful people who work hard for this great sport.

Dick Simmons might be one of the hardest working people that the general wrestling public knows little about. The assistant athletic director at Cornell College, Dick has been the tournament director of the NCAA Division III Championships for the past three years. Whenever something needs to be done, he jumps in. At the 2008 DIII Championships, Dick was the guy who swept the mat before the finals. At the recent USA vs. Russia freestyle dual at Cornell, Dick saved the evening when the sound system failed during the playing of the Russian national anthem. While the crowd waited anxiously, he fixed the system and embarrassment was averted. When I needed help with Tickets for Kids, Dick was one of the first in line. Last night the NWCA honored Dick for his last three years’ of service to this event. He took his plaque, thanked the NWCA, shook hands with his Cornell associates and went back downstairs to finish preparations for the beginning of today’s wrestling.

When Mike Moyer calls you on the phone and says, “God told me to call you”, you know that there’s work to be done. I’ve received that call a couple of times. Last night I finally got to meet Mike, the executive director of the NWCA, in person. Life can be unfair. Whenever a college wrestling program gets dropped there are those who choose to malign Mike and his staff at. Unfortunately, they get little acknowledgment when new programs are added – and here’s the heartening truth – more wrestling teams have been added in recent years than have been lost. Thank you Mike, Pat (Tocci) and Tammy (Tedesco) for your tireless work.

If you’ve been around the sport for any time you know Jason Bryant and have read his articles and blogs and heard him talk on the radio or do match play-by-play on the internet. Jason is dauntless in his efforts to give wrestling better coverage and more exposure. He’s here in Cedar Rapids for the “DIIIs” and he and his broadcast partner, Kyle Klingman of the Dan Gable International Wrestling Institute and Museum, will provide live streaming of the finals Saturday night. Then its off to Omaha where they will “live stream” the entire Division II tournament and then the opening round of the “Big Dance” – the NCAA Division I Championships – and somewhere in there Jason has a wedding to plan.

When I started the blog I often didn’t know from one week to the next what the subject might be (that’s probably still more true than I care to admit). Somewhere along the line I encountered Danielle Hobeika. Wrestler, photographer and web designer, Danielle seemed a fascinating subject and she graciously agreed to be my first interview. Whenever anyone in the wrestling world needs a website quickly - from Save Oregon Wrestling to Cal State Bakersfield to Adam Frey – Danielle gets the job done.

At the time of the interview with Danielle she was on the staff at Beat the Streets and suggested that I interview Al Bevilacqua and write about BTS. Al’s passion is to make wrestling an urban sport. There are millions of kids in our largest cities who have few – if any – opportunities to wrestle. Al would like to see everyone of them – regardless of gender – on the mat.

More than any other person, it was Al who motivated me to get off my butt and try to do something. He was my role model when I developed Tickets for Kids and has been wonderfully supportive. Hundreds of kids will get to watch college wrestling tomorrow morning because Al Bevilacqua convinced me that a fan just might be able to have some kind of impact on the future of the sport.

Then there’s Gable. I had been introduced to Dan briefly about 17 years ago – just another one of thousands of fans he has met over the years. Four weeks ago today I got to be on the same program with him as the museum that bears his name honored Barron Bremner. Everyone knows Gable, but I’m not sure that everyone appreciates how passionately he works for the growth of wrestling. There’s a look in his eye when he talks about the future of the sport that inspires you to do whatever you can.

I’m just a fan – but then maybe so are you. What are you doing for wrestling today?

Promises kept

2010-03-01T05:41:00.000-08:00

“Round up the usual suspects.” Casablanca is one of my favorite movies and Claude Rains speaks that line both at the beginning and the end of the movie.

The Tickets for Kids project is winding down and I’m hoping that some youngsters are excited about attending this Saturday’s morning session of the NCAA Division III Wrestling Championships here in Cedar Rapids. I have received enough donations to buy over 600 tickets and have sent out over 400 so far. I’m still working to find enough groups that want to come and watch some exciting wrestling action.

So many people have been amazingly kind.

Chuck Yrigoyen, the commissioner of the Iowa Intercollegiate Athletic Conference, acted as the point man in getting NCAA approval. Cornell College athletic director, John Cochrane, assistant AD, Dick Simmons, and head coach, Mike Duroe have been incredibly supportive – as have Cornell alumni and fans. I’m guessing that some of the latter got tired of seeing me standing outside the men’s restroom asking them for money.

KJ Pilcher published an article about Tickets for Kids in the Cedar Rapids Gazette that revitalized the effort. Contributions had stalled, but when the article came out on Christmas Eve a rash of new donations came in. Thanks, KJ.

Corporate donors are key to the success of any fundraising effort and I’ve been blessed. The Cedar Rapids Marriott has been very generous, giving $2,000. If you’re staying at the Marriott this weekend for the DIII Championships, please look up the GM, Fred Jones, and thank him for supporting wrestling.

Terrostar, a web development company, and Medix Dental, a computer solutions provider to dental offices, made the very first pledges. Both are located in Davenport, IA and both are owned by Tom Terronez, a former high school wrestler.

Two printing companies in Hiawatha, IA – The Fisher Group and J & A Printing also got on board early. Each company believes strongly in supporting our community. Thank you, Jeff Donald at The Fisher Group and Scott Cadwallader at J & A.

The Ad Group, an advertising agency in Davenport, has been a client of mine for ten years. Over that time the principal owner, Mike Vondran, has become a good friend. Mike lost his 13-year-old son, Hunter, in a tragic accident a few years ago. The Ad Group donated in Hunter’s honor. Incidentally, Mike and his wife, Brenda, started the HAVlife Foundation in Hunter’s memory. So far they have given over $30,000 to middle school music and athletic programs.

Business Information Technologies in Edina, MN contributed. I’m glad that we have a youth wrestling club from Minnesota coming down as a way to say thanks to Rick Byers at BIT.

Then there are those “usual subjects” from the wrestling community. I have chosen to keep all of the private donors anonymous, but you know who they are. Go see who has supported Living the Dream, Wrestling 411, or any of the Save My College’s Wrestling Team sites and you’ll see the same names repeatedly. A lot of them sent me checks.

Special mention should be made of the posters on Hawkeye Insider. It may not be the most visited of Hawkeye wrestling fan sites, but its members are a close knit group. I got by far the most support from you folks at Hawkeye Insider than from any other site. Thank you.

To all of you – this was your effort. When those kids start filing in Saturday morning, it’s because of you. They can’t thank you so I will. Bless you all.

The road to Cedar Rapids - 2010

2010-02-22T06:58:00.000-08:00

The qualifiers have all been determined and now the families, friends and fans of the 160 young men who will compete for a title at the 2010 NCAA Division III Wrestling Championships are planning their travel to Cedar Rapids.

On the surface this year’s tournament looks to be a three-horse race among Augsburg, Wartburg and Coe, all of whom are sending a full ten-wrestler complement. The upset, however, is the beauty of Division III and I wouldn’t be surprised to see UW-La Crosse or Ithaca sneak into the top three.

The scheduling of the Division I qualifiers the same weekend as the Division III National Championships always hurts attendance a little at “DIIIs”. However, if you’re not ready for wrestling season to end and you’re not planning on attending Big 10s, Big XIIs or any of the others, I urge you to come to Cedar Rapids. These athletes deserve a big audience – and you’ll be surprised at how much fun you have.

If you’ve been here for the Championships before, here are a couple of updates. The box office at the US Cellular Center has been repaired from the flood damage and is open during regular hours – no more trips to the Ice Arena. The USCC escalator (also a flood victim) has been removed and replaced with stairs. If you need to use the elevators, give yourself a few extra minutes.

If this will be your first trip to our fair city, here are some tips for getting the most out of your visit. There are two “must see” stops for the hardcore wrestling fan. The Dan Gable International Wrestling Institute and Museum is just 1 hour to the north in Waterloo. Don’t let the name fool you – it’s not entirely about Dan Gable. There’s even a wing dedicated to the history of professional wrestling. I promise that you’ll enjoy it.

Leave yourself a little time to drive 20 minutes east to Mount Vernon and the campus of Cornell College (one of the host schools for the Championships). Step into the lobby of the Richard and Norma Small Multi-Sport Complex and you step into a piece of wrestling history. Wander around and look at the Cornell Hall of Fame photos and you’ll see people like Dale Thomas (you’ll love his pose), Lowell Lange, Lloyd Appleton, Paul Scott, Dick Barker and Dale Brand. Then go to the trophy case and there they are – the memorials to the greatest “David beats Goliath” performance in college wrestling history – the 1947 NCAA and AAU championship trophies.

Theatre Cedar Rapids, our local theater troop, is moving back into its downtown home right across the street from the US Cellular Center, with performances of The Producers. Flood waters filled the basement and covered the stage and the first seven rows of seats in 2008. The return is a triumph of our city’s spirit. One of our favorite local personalities (and once my daughter’s English and drama teacher), Scott Schulte, will be starring as Max Bialystock. Our area may have given you Ashton Kutcher, Elijah Wood and Ron Livingston – but we locals love Scott. Anyway – you can attend a performance either Thursday night at 7:30 or Sunday afternoon at 2:30.

Penguin’s Comedy Club is another of our treasures. Forced by the flood to a new location at the Clarion Hotel, Penguin’s will be featuring JR Brow the weekend of the Championships. You have easy access to the Clarion if you’re staying at any of the hotels on the southwest side (33rd Ave SW, etc) and there’s enough time to get to the late night Saturday show after finals.

I urge you to patronize our flood recovering businesses. Virtually anything you can walk to from the US Cellular Center was damaged by the tragedy of 2008. More have re-opened since the last time you were here. The Best Western Cooper’s Mill Hotel and Restaurant is back and is within walking distance of the wrestling action. It’s less than a ten minute drive to our Czech Village district and you’ll find unique shops, bars and restaurants, all waiting to welcome wrestling fans – and all fighting back from one of the most damaging natural disasters in American history.

I’ll once again be holding a reception in the lounge at the Cedar Rapids Marriott from 5:00 to 7:00. Food and beverages are free and all wrestling fans are welcome.

You can visit the following websites to help plan your trip.

Cedar Rapids Convention and Visitors Bureau

Dan Gable International Wrestling Institute and Museum

Theatre Cedar Rapids

Penguin’s Comedy Club

Coe College

Cornell College

Iowa Intercollegiate Athletic Conference

Recipe for a wrestling promotion

2010-02-15T05:33:00.000-08:00

Ingredients

1 established wrestling organization
1 corporate sponsor
1 wrestling fan
2 college administrations
2 coaching staffs
1 theme
2 wrestling legends
miscellaneous additional “spices”

Steps

1. Established wrestling organization (Dan Gable International Wrestling Institute and Museum) selects theme(s) (Coe College vs. Cornell College dual meet and honoring Barron Bremner) for holding a wrestling promotional event.

2. Established wrestling organization contacts coaching staffs and administrations of the two colleges with the idea.

3. Schools respond in the affirmative.

4. Established wrestling organization contacts local fan to act as “organizer” for the event.

5. Established wrestling organization and fan meet and decide:

a. event promotion strategy.
b. “hook” – honoring Barron Bremner.
c. event expenses should be covered by sponsor, if possible.
d. event should be a fund-raiser for the two colleges’ wrestling programs.

6. Fan arranges venue and helps develop an invitation list.

7. Established wrestling organization finds corporate sponsor (Body Bar Systems) so that all ticket sale proceeds can be donated to the schools.

8. Established wrestling organization confirms the participation of 2 wrestling legends (Barron Bremner and Dan Gable).

9. Event is promoted with radio interviews, newspaper article, direct mail, emails and various online postings.

10. Event program is developed: speeches from the established wrestling organization, the fan, the two coaches, the guest of honor (Barron Bremner) and Dan Gable.

11. Mix in a liberal quantity of spices like members of the legendary 1947 Cornell NCAA and AAU champions; 2X Cornell All-American , Lloyd Corwin – who beat 1960 Olympic champion, Doug Blubaugh, in the quarter finals of the 1955 NCAA championships; former Coe wrestler, Mark Olinyk, who was one of Gable’s workout partners before the 1972 Olympics; super fans like Rich Foens and Bob Majors and civic leaders who care about the future of wrestling tourism in Cedar Rapids.

12. Stir it all together with lots of stories, memories and the conviction that wrestling truly is the world’s greatest sport. Serve it HOT.

In the past few weeks, two more NCAA Division I universities, Duquesne and Cal State-Bakersfield, announced the elimination of their wrestling programs. The National Wrestling Coaches Association will once again do the yeoman’s share of the work in trying to save these programs. The rest of the wrestling community will respond with letters, petitions and donations and maybe – just, maybe – one, or both of those programs can be saved.

WAKE UP! The time to save a program is before it is threatened. These are overwhelmingly difficult economic times for most colleges and universities. Just assume that your favorite or closest wrestling team is potentially on the chopping block. Don’t spend your time whining and moaning and waiting for someone – the NWCA, the NCAA, the coach, the alumni – anyone else but you, to fix the problem. ACT! If your ideas for growing – yes, GROWING, intercollegiate wrestling are good enough to post on an online forum, they’re good enough to present to an athletic director or a wrestling coach or the president of the alumni association.

The above recipe can be modified to fit almost any school or situation and it “nourishes” the sport in many ways. Showing college administrators that wrestling is important to a community and to alumni is first among those. It also lays the groundwork for fund raising. I know it isn’t fair when a wrestling team has to raise money to save itself and a softball team doesn’t. SO WHAT! Life hasn’t been fair since Eve talked Adam into eating that apple. Get busy and endow this sport.

Kyle Klingman and Kent Sesker from the Dan Gable International Wrestling Institute and Museum are to be commended for conceiving the Coe/Cornell breakfast. Thank you, Arno Niemand, of Body Bar Systems for sponsoring it.
Kudos also go to Coe AD, John Chandler; Cornell AD John Cochrane and assistant AD Dick Simmons and coaches Duroe and Oostendorp for their participation. However, the true “man of the hour” – the guy everyone came to see – was Barron Bremner.

It made for one heck of a day to be a wrestling fan.

First times

2010-02-08T06:55:00.000-08:00

Julia LaBua is a wrestling fan. A few weeks ago she sent this email to her co-workers.

“Subject: An offer you can (but shouldn't) refuse

Greetings!

You all know that I am a wrestling fan. Most of you probably wonder why. To try to answer that question, I am inviting you to attend the Jan. 31 meet against Michigan State as my guest (spouses, partners, and kids also welcome). This offer includes a ticket to the meet, a soda, and a hot dog (if you indulge in such foodstuffs), as well as answers to all your questions about what’s happening down there on the mat (n.b. They may not be the correct answers, but they will be answers).

Details:

When: 6 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 31

Who: Iowa Hawkeyes vs. Michigan State Spartans

Where: Carver-Hawkeye Arena

Why: Where else will you have the opportunity this year to root for a team of defending national champions?

RSVP: by January 20 to Julia”

The University of Iowa athletic department held a “Family 4-Pack” promotion that night and Julia took advantage to take potential new fans to their first wrestling dual meet.

Here are Julia’s comments on the results, “I just got home from Carver, and I thought I'd update all of you on how my "Hawkeye Indoctrination" plan went. It was a HUGE success, as far as I'm concerned. The final tally was 15 of my co-workers, spouses and kids. The 2-3 of us who know a bit about wrestling were able to explain enough to the others so that they more or less understood what they were seeing. I can tell you that explaining the concept of riding time to a middle-aged woman from Colombia (South America) is a challenge! But she was totally into it even though she didn't know anything about wrestling beforehand.

I was careful to point out key matchups ahead of time -- for example that Gomez was ranked #1 at 133, so that when Dennis pulled out the win in overtime they were all very excited and impressed. I also made sure nobody headed to the concession stand for their free hot dog during Metcalf's match.

Obviously the outcome of the dual was never in doubt, but several of them commented to me afterward that they didn't realize how exciting it could be on an individual-match basis even when the team scores a shutout. Oh, and Hilda, the 5-year-old daughter of one of my co-workers, was very concerned at the end about Erekson and his bloody head. She kept asking if he was OK, and if we thought his nose hurt. I wish I could have taken her down to the mat to meet him. Maybe next time.

The consensus afterward; ‘Wow, that was really fun! We should make this an annual office tradition.’ Just what I wanted to hear!”

I am a grandfather in a modern blended family. I took my son-in-law, Brian, and his kids Cassie (14) and Connor (8) to their first wrestling meet the same night that Julia took her co-workers. Brian is an MMA fan and I was a little afraid that, without the striking and choking, he might find wrestling boring. I shouldn’t have worried – he really got into it – especially the Dennis/Gomez match.

Connor liked the ice cream, pop corn and the juggler at intermission.

Cassie surprised me. She talked about the matches and asked questions all of the way home. Monday she bragged to her industrial technology teacher (who is an assistant wrestling coach at her school) that she had gone to her first wrestling match. I’m taking her to the Northwestern meet this Friday. We may just have another wrestling fan in the making.

I remember the first time I heard Ed Aliverti’s voice. I called in sick to work, went to Carver Hawkeye Arena and bought a ticket from a scalper for the opening session of the NCAA tournament. “Welcome wrestling fans to the world’s oldest and greatest sport!” It wasn’t just the words – it was the conviction with which he said them. You knew that what he said was true. And just when you might be getting a little bored because you didn’t have a favorite wrestler competing would come his famous, “Possible fall on mat 5!” Again – the timbre of his voice raised your excitement level and you were drawn back into the drama.

Ed lost a long battle with cancer last week and as his longtime partner, Sandy Stevens, said, “It’s a sad time for the wrestling family”. No one emerges from the womb as a wrestling fan. Many things have fed the growth of my love for the sport. Ed Aliverti was one of them. Thank you, Ed. We’ll miss you. Maybe he’s calling Abe Lincoln and Plato to the mat right now.

Small gyms, big man

2010-02-01T04:33:00.000-08:00

I live within walking distance of Coe College and once or twice a year I go to Eby Fieldhouse and watch the Kohawks wrestle. For the past few years I’ve made it a point to attend their November invitational.

Twice in January I spent the day at Cornell College in the Richard and Norma Small Multi-sport Center raising money for Tickets for Kids. Cornell AD, John Cochrane, allowed me to set up my table where the greatest traffic would pass – on the way to the mats and right next to the men’s restroom entrance. I was also right in the middle of a wrestling shrine. Behind me, over my left shoulder was the Cornell College Athletic Hall of Fame photo of Lloyd Appleton, longtime wrestling coach at the US Military Academy and Distinguished Member of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame and Museum. Directly to my left were the photos of two other members of the NWHOF, three-time NCAA champ, Lowell Lange, and the winningest dual meet coach in the history of NCAA wrestling, Dale Thomas. A little farther down hangs the picture of Lloyd Corwin, a two-time All-American who beat 1960 Olympic gold medallist, Doug Blubaugh, in the quarter-finals of the 1955 NCAA championships. Then, 12 feet in front of me and just to the right was the really cool stuff – the 1947 NCAA and AAU championship trophies.

Yes, both of these schools have contributed much to the sport of wrestling, but they are, first and foremost, institutions of higher learning – turning out graduates who teach our kids, run our businesses and lead our communities. Each year students arrive on these campuses to build the foundation for their futures. Some choose also to toil in hot wrestling rooms and compete in relative anonymity simply because they love the sport.

One man – one big man – spent his career changing lives at both Coe and Cornell. Barron Bremner was a heavyweight wrestler at the University of Iowa. He also played football on the 1957 Hawkeye Rose Bowl and National Championship team. He then coached wrestling for 16 years at Cornell and 7 at Coe, compiling a 196-39-3 dual meet record. He also served as athletic director and led the financial development departments of both schools. He’s in both schools’ athletic halls of fame and the NCAA Division III Wrestling Coaches Hall of Fame. But, there is more to Barron Bremner than wins and losses.

Television analyst, Tim Johnson, wrestled for Bremner at Coe. “Barron is a man that I deeply love. He is one of the reasons I often add to the bottom of my emails the byline, ‘Never underestimate the power and influence of a coach’”. Tim makes it a point to get together with his former coach at least once a year when he’s in Iowa for a broadcast.

Former Cornell wrestler, Tim Hicks, said, “I would have never continued my wrestling career without the influence of Barron Bremner. He was instrumental in luring me and other potential wrestlers to Cornell…”

There is one story about Barron that, perhaps, says more about him than any other. In an interview with wrestling writer and historian, Mark Palmer; Simon Roberts, the first African-American NCAA wrestling champion – and a team mate of Bremner’s at Iowa - related this, "The only time I can remember any open discrimination was Stillwater [Oklahoma], at the nationals [in 1956]," according to Roberts. "The Iowa team went downtown for our post weigh-in meal. They seated the entire team, about a dozen of us, including me. But the waitress brought glasses of water for everyone but me. Barron Bremner [Iowa heavyweight] seemed to notice it right away, didn't say anything to me, but got up and went over to talk to the waitress. She motioned toward the kitchen, so Barron went through the doors into the kitchen. He was there a few minutes, came out, then the manager or owner motioned to the waitress. They talked a bit, then she brought a glass of water to me. That was the end of it. I was served my meal with the rest of the team without any incident. And we didn't discuss it either."

This Friday morning, February 5th, the Dan Gable International Wrestling Institute and Museum and Body Bar Systems will host a breakfast at the Cedar Rapids, IA Marriott celebrating the wrestling heritage of Coe and Cornell. Barron Bremner will be the guest of honor. Doors will open at 8:15, breakfast will be served at 8:30 and a short program featuring Bremner, Coe coach, John Oostendorp and Cornell coach, Mike Duroe, will follow at 9:00. Dan Gable is one of several wrestling dignitaries scheduled to attend. Tickets are $15 each and all proceeds will go to the Cornell and Coe wrestling programs. You can make reservations by email at orders@wrestlingmuseum.org or by calling (319)233-0745.

That evening Coe and Cornell will square off at Cornell in their annual dual meet. It will also be “Breast Cancer Awareness Night”. Last year’s meet was a barn burner and I expect much the same this year.

You shoulda been there

2010-01-18T07:32:00.000-08:00

You shoulda been there - Saturday night – Carver Hawkeye Arena Iowa vs. Oklahoma State.

You shoulda been there for the history. When the Cowboys come to town it’s a major event. There’s no question that these are the two greatest programs in college wrestling history. The fans of each school love to debate the significance of their respective accomplishments. Cowboy fans like to point out that Ed Gallagher practically invented college wrestling, while those in the black and gold avow that Dan Gable re-invented it with the “Iowa Style”. No matter which side you’re on there’s no denying that when OSU comes to Iowa City there’s more Olympic and World Championship hardware in the building than some countries have amassed in the modern era of freestyle wrestling.

You shoulda been there for the fashion. From John Smith’s usual sartorial splendor to a guy in a gorilla suit, singlet and headgear to Royce Alger’s boots and cowboy hat – it was all there.

You shoulda been there for the ice cream. We took out a second mortgage on our house and then stood in line for twenty minutes to buy the favorite confection in CHA.

You shoulda been there for the noise. No – not the incessant pre-recorded, overloud rock anthems that seem to now be inseparable from any athletic event – I mean the crowd noise. Say what you will about Hawkeye fans – love us or hate us – we can make a racket. It always thrills me to see a young wrestler rewarded for an outstanding performance by the roar that only ever seems to happen in Carver. Montell Marion got his first taste of an ecstatic Hawkeye crowd Saturday night.

You shoulda been there for the kids. If you’ve read this blog for any length of time you know that I am obsessed with getting more kids on the mat. Saturday, the University of Iowa did one of those little things that helps grow the sport – they held a youth clinic before the meet. I know – lots of schools do that – and lots of schools give away tee-shirts to the attendees. It’s their last experience that may stand to inspire them as they journey through their wrestling careers. Many of them got to form a golden human tunnel through which the Hawkeyes entered. Just imagine that you’re ten years old, the lights go down, the fight song comes up and 11,000 fans jump to their feet and roar as Brent Metcalf runs by you. It’s something they’ll always remember.

You shoulda been there for the wrestling. Here comes that debate again. Fans of each school look disparagingly upon the wrestling “style” of the other. To Cowboy fans, Iowa wrestlers are “thugs” who just push and bully. The Hawkeye faithful believe that “track shoes” are a more appropriate footwear for the grapplers from Stillwater than are a pair of Asics Rulons. This argument has been going on for years and will continue to do so – probably for the rest of my life. No less of an authority than Ray Brinzer (one of only two wrestlers to compete for both schools) wrote about the “style” difference in WIN Magazine in 1996 and then posted it to his blog in 2005. Depending upon your viewpoint, Saturday you got to see either the worst or the best of the other’s philosophy. Each team won five matches, but Matt McDonough, Brent Metcalf and Jay Borschel scored enough bonus points to carry the day for the Hawks.

Yesterday, as I sat on my favorite perch at my favorite watering hole, I met another wrestling fan. He lives in Marion so he asked me at great length about the performances of the hometown “boys”, McDonough and Borschel. I described the matches for him, but closed with, “You shoulda been there.”

Finding the next Gable - or Smith - or Borlaug

2010-01-11T09:58:00.000-08:00

It’s time to come clean. I’ve lied in this blog for two and a half years. I’ve always claimed that I never wrestled and that isn’t entirely true. I did win an 8th grade intramural championship at Frank L. Smart Junior High School. In 1963 every boy in Davenport, IA (it was a sexist world) was introduced to wrestling in some way. There were instructional units in our PE classes where we were taught the basics of the single leg takedown, the sitout and the half nelson. At the end of the unit the teacher would organize an intramural tournament and we were encouraged to enter.

At about the same time that I reached the apex of my wrestling glory, 130 miles to the northwest, in Waterloo, a kid named Gable was launching his career. It’s a story of 2 choices. I opted for being a really bad basketball player and he chose to become one of America’s greatest wrestlers. A few years later, in Del City, OK, some brothers named Smith were exposed to wrestling and chose to pursue their dreams – with John going on to win two Olympic Gold medals and four World Championships.

Long before I, or Dan Gable or the Smiths were born a kid named Norman Borlaug stepped on the mat in Cresco, IA. After his wrestling career at the University of Minnesota, he, too, made a choice – to go an to graduate school and earn a masters degree and PHD in plant pathology. His lifetime of food production research saved millions of people around the world from starvation and in 1970 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Dr. Borlaug said of his wrestling background, “Wrestling taught me some valuable lessons. I always figured I could hold my own against the best in the world. It made me tough (my emphasis). Many times I drew on that strength.”

So – what’s the one common thread running threw Dr. Borlaug, Dan Gable, John Smith and me? We were all exposed to wrestling at an early age. We may have all taken divergent paths – but we all had the opportunity to learn the values of wrestling. I’m not sure that enough of today’s youth gets that opportunity.

What’s the answer? I don’t know – but here’s what I’m trying. I must begin by saying that I love NCAA Division III wrestling. Those guys really “get after it”. I’ve attended a few NCAA Division III Championships and the Saturday morning session might be my favorite part of that event. Everyone wrestling then is already an All-American and is battling to determine his spot on the podium. I’ll see more throws, reversals to pins – in general more excitement – in that one session than I might see in a whole season of Hawkeye dual meets. I know that the skill levels are different – but boy do I love watching DIII wrestlers.

What if kids who are new to wrestling got to see all of that fun and action? Would a few of them step on the mat for the first time? Would some of them get motivated enough to stick with the sport when it gets tough? I don’t know – but I’m hoping to find out. I’m raising enough money ($10,000) to buy 1,000 tickets to the Saturday, March 6, 2010 morning session of the NCAA Division III Wrestling Championships at the US Cellular Center in Cedar Rapids, IA and giving them away to kids.

The tickets will go to a variety of kids. Many will be reserved for students at flood impacted elementary and middle schools in Cedar Rapids. Local youth organizations like Boys and Girls Clubs will also get some. Most will probably go to youth wrestling clubs. There is no geographical preference for the wrestling clubs – if you want to bring a group to Cedar Rapids, just let me know.
So far, support has been encouraging. Corporate pledges have reached over $4,000, including an extremely generous gift of $2,000 from the Cedar Rapids Marriott. When wrestling writer KJ Pilcher published an article about the project in the Cedar Rapids Gazette just before Christmas, I got another $600 in pledges in three days. Cornell College has allowed me to raise money on-site at wrestling events. To date a total of about $5,600 has come in.

Some folks have suggested that I should be happy with what has already been accomplished. That’s like suggesting that Gable should have been satisfied with two NCAA titles after the loss to Owings or telling John Smith that a couple of international championships are enough for any man. I won’t stop until we get 1,000 kids in that arena – and I may not stop then.

So, dear readers, I am asking you to help. Several of you already have and to those I offer my heartfelt thanks. But – there’s still work to be done. Will you who haven’t yet contributed join this elite group of fans?

If you want to make a pledge today email me at jim@dmsolutions4u.com. I’ll collect on your pledge in a couple of weeks when tickets actually go on sale. If you want to just write a check now, please make it to, “Tickets for Kids” and send it to:

“Tickets for Kids”
c/o Jim Brown
130 24th St NE
Cedar Rapids, IA 52402-4936.

Your donation may just be the one that puts the next Gable or Smith or Borlaug on the mat.

Thank you,

Jim

PS If you have a group of kids that would like tickets, please email me.

The doers - part 2

2010-01-04T08:30:00.000-08:00

A month ago I asked blog readers to nominate some of the “doers” in the sport of wrestling - the people who may not always get the recognition, but who work tirelessly for the growth and betterment of the sport.

Almost immediately I got an email from Jason Bryant, nominating Pat Tocci and Tammy Tedesco at the National Wrestling Coaches Association. “…(they) are the lifeblood of the organization.” After watching Tammy log dozens of miles as she covers the UNIDome during National Duals, I have to concur.

Jeff McCall, the coach at the University of Texas-Arlington, brought up Jim Giunta, the head of the National Collegiate Wrestling Association. We wrestling fans frequently forget the real purpose of intercollegiate athletics and get obsessed with the sport at only the NCAA Division I or international levels. This paragraph from the NCWA mission statement summarizes the objectives of Giunta and NCWA members.

“The NCWA was founded with the student athlete in mind. We are composed of non-paid volunteers committed to helping our young people accomplish their goals and dreams, and to reach for excellence in everything they do. Through athletic endeavor, club leadership responsibilities and community involvement, NCWA students will leave college life to meet a competitive world head on. They will have been equipped through their academic involvement and athletic success to take the competition to the mat, score and emerge a champion.”

This came in from former Cornell College wrestler, Tim Hicks.

“First I would like to mention my former HS coach at LaPorte City High School (Now Union HS of LaPorte City) Dick Ingvall. He was not only my wrestling coach but also my next door neighbor. He was always there to push me to the edge and encourage me despite a very rough road early in my career. My HS classmates and I were the beginning of hisa couple generations of some very successful years at LPC/Union which included a State Team and State Tourny championship. He built that program from the ground up through starting a junior/youth program.

Second I would like to nominate Bob Siddens. While I was never coached by Coach Siddens, he officiated several of my HS and College matches. Because of our familiarity he was always encouraging me (as well as my teammates and opponents) at every level. He would come to me and others after matches to give us tips and critiques for our continued improvement. He even came up to me after a match against Ohio St. my Senior year at Cornell and asked why I tried a specific move with around 30 to 45 seconds left in the match. I was leading 3-2 and the kid from OSU was riding me (with a leg ride), riding time was not a factor but I thought he was getting ready to call me for stalling and I needed to attempt to get out well my attempt gave up 2 back points and the match was lost 4-3. I learned a valuable lesson about situational wrestling from him at that time.

Barron Bremner and Steve Devries. I would have never continued my wrestling career without the influence of Barron Bremner. He was instrumental in luring me and several others potential wrestlers to Cornell College to compete for Coach Devries. I was all set on Wartburg and Football (with a slight chance to wrestle for Dick Walker) until Coach Ingvall encouraged me to meat and talk to Barron. Barron sold me on Cornell and his impact on wrestling is legendary.”

Coach Devries took a group of good to average wrestlers and developed us into a group of very upstanding individuals not only as wrestlers but as people. He touched several generations of kids at all levels from youth to college. A great motivator and coach he was always there to help us grow as individuals first then athletes. I still carry alot of the principles learned from him in every day life.”

Finally, from Jim Harshaw of Riot Sports Marketing, “John Kammauff of Charlottesville, VA has been instrumental in developing the sport in the wrestling desert of central Virginia. He gives and gives.”

Take a few minutes today and remember the “doers” in your life.

A warrior's battle

2009-12-28T05:01:00.000-08:00

I got a phone call Saturday from Bill Lahman and you could hear the sorrow in his voice.

For those of you who hang out on the internet wrestling forums, Bill is the infamous willyman57. To say that he can be abrasive when posting is to say that Bill Gates made a little money in the software business.

There’s another side to Bill that doesn’t always travel well through the ether. He’s a caring man who is passionate about wrestling – and wrestlers. He and I developed an affinity because we live in the same city and because we were both present at what we old timers consider the most famous athletic event in Iowa high school history – the 1965 football game between Cedar Rapids Jefferson and Davenport Central. I was in the stands rooting for the Central Blue Devils and Bill was down on the field helping the J-Hawks to a 20-18 victory.

Bill’s Saturday call had nothing to do with that game. It was about Adam Frey and the impending end to Adam’s battle with cancer. Telephone conversations are only slightly better than computer messages when it comes to gauging the emotions behind the words, but based on the way Bill’s voice kept cracking, I suspect that there were tears in his eyes.

“Jim, we’ve got to honor this young man – the wrestling community, the NCAA, everyone. Couldn’t teams sew a memorial patch on their singlets? I don’t know, but we have to do something. Have you read the last few entries on his website? Did you read the letter to Adam’s mother from his former teammate at Blair? By God, that says it all.”

Less than two hours after Bill called word came that Adam was gone.

For those who don’t know about Adam – here’s the short version. He was an outstanding wrestler who was a junior nationals freestyle champion. One of Cornell University’s top recruits, he qualified for the NCAA Division I Championships as a freshman. On March 25, 2008 he was in a car accident. Swerving to avoid an oncoming car in his lane, he crashed into a tree. His injuries were not life threatening – but, during a routine scan for internal injuries, three tumors were discovered – one in his lung, one in his liver and one in between his kidneys.

Rumors of his diagnosis immediately hit the wrestling websites and forums. Adam’s friend – and the wrestling world’s go-to web development goddess – Danielle Hobeika, confirmed the diagnosis and had a website created and up for Adam in just a couple of days. It was through this website and his blogs that thousands of us got to know Adam and his family. We learned of his quirky sense of humor, his individualism, but most of all we got a lesson in courage. Bill Lahman was one of the very first to send Adam well wishes.

Adam touched those of us who never met him in ways he couldn’t possibly imagine. Those who did know him – well – Jason Bryant says it this way.

So - how do we honor Adam Frey? How do we keep his memory alive with the respect he deserves. The wrestling community is already rallying. There are early indications that something might be done at the Midlands Championships. This note came yesterday from Pat Tocci of the National Wrestling Coaches Association:

“We are thinking of something that would promote his foundation at the National Duals. It might be something as simple as a table on the concourse (where) people can make a donation and have a book (available) to write wishes for the family. We want to do something that will be sustainable over the course of time.”

As for Bill - he already has a group of people creating a sticker that can be worn on headgear or affixed to equipment bags or laptops – anywhere that will remind us of Adam’s courage.

Ultimately, it’s within us all that his memory must live and it’s obvious that there are many who will never forget Adam Frey.

Dear Santa 2009

2009-12-21T04:51:00.000-08:00

Dear Santa,

I’m late with my list again – sorry.

First, thanks for giving us some of the things I asked for last year. I requested more wrestling opportunities in America’s largest cities and you sent Mike Rodriguez who, with the help of Mark Churella and others, launched Beat the Streets Detroit.

You packed your sleigh with new programs like Baker University and Lake Erie College. You brought intercollegiate wrestling opportunities to untapped areas when new teams were announced at Shorter College in Georgia, Wayland Baptist University in Texas and Ouachita Baptist in Arkansas. Someone at Norwich University must have moved from the “naughty” column to the “nice” column because you reinstated their program less than a year after they dropped it.

Thanks, also, for putting more wrestling coverage under my tree. Just yesterday I got to follow Wartburg’s Desert Duals through a live blog – and boy am I thankful! It’s pretty likely that there will be a shakeup in some individual Division III rankings after the action in Las Vegas.

I’ve kept a couple of items from last year on this year’s list. We still need more opportunities for girls to wrestle. The success of girls’ interscholastic wrestling in Texas, Hawaii, Washington and California and the growth of women’s intercollegiate programs prove that girls want to wrestle. They just don’t want to have to wrestle boys. Please, Santa, send us someone enlightened enough and with enough energy to lead the grassroots effort required to expand girls’ wrestling.

I’m still looking for a “shinier” version of freestyle wrestling, too. I’m afraid that even John Smith would look boring under the current rules.

I’m pretty greedy, so I’ve added a few things to this year’s list. Could we get more press conferences with Tom Brands? I know that a lot of fans love to hate Hawkeye wrestling, but Coach Brands just might be the most interesting interview in all of sports. “Poop his pants” has now been added to his long list of “quotable quotes”.

Can we get more kids on the mat? Dan Gable’s latest catchphrase is, “America needs wrestling”. I watched a video where he was wrapping up a clinic session and he explained a little about what he meant, “We need (toughness). If the power goes out and you need heat you need to be able to use a chainsaw. If the chainsaw breaks you need to be able to use an axe.” Wrestling teaches toughness and resiliency in ways that nothing else does. We need “tough” scientists like Norman Borlaug – and “tough” writers like John Irving – and “tough” leaders like Teddy Roosevelt. Where will they come from? You can be sure that some are going to walk off the mat and into greatness.

Finally, I want more wrestling events in Cedar Rapids. This is a great town, filled with wonderful people – many of whom are still struggling with the devastation of the 2008 flood. By some estimates we are still hundreds of millions of dollars and several years away from a full recovery. Last year, wrestling tourism – the Iowa High School Dual Championships and the NCAA Division III Championships – contributed roughly a million and a half dollars to the local economy. What better way to fight off our backs than wrestling. How about the World Team Trials – or another USA vs. Russia event, but let’s make it even bigger and better. Maybe we could add a kids tournament. Is it too much to ask for people to equate Cedar Rapids with wrestling? I don’t think so.

Until next year, Santa.

Jim Brown

Cedar Rapids, IA

Wrestling fan

Real drama in Carver Hawkeye Arena

2009-12-14T09:29:00.000-08:00

Two events of the past three weeks have brought to mind the single most dramatic thing I’ve ever seen at Carver Hawkeye Arena – the resuscitation of Joel Schatzman.

On February 6, 2000 the Iowa Hawkeyes were leading Northwestern 41-3. The Wildcats’ only victory was an upset by fourth-ranked Scott Schatzman over Iowa’s returning NCAA champion and top-ranked Doug Schwab. I don’t really remember much about the match except that perhaps Schatzman won by controlling Schwab from the top.

Several minutes later some of us noticed stirring behind the Northwestern bench. It started to get quiet in the arena and we could hear a women screaming for help. Then Scott Schatzman started running, hurdled a chair and ran up a few rows into the stands. His father had collapsed from an apparent heart attack. Public address announcer, Phil Haddy, put out a call for help from any medical personnel that might be in attendance. Registered EMT and “avid Hawkeye wrestling fan”, Kevin Greenley, was among the first to arrive. In an interview for the Summer 2000 issue of EMS Update, Greenley said, “The others in the stands (who came to the patient’s assistance) and I, quickly discovered he had no pulse and determined that he needed a defibrillator. We performed CPR to provide circulation until the defibrillator arrived.” Fortunately for Mr. Schatzman an automated external defibrillator had been placed in Carver Hawkeye less than a year before.

Most of us stood as the drama unfolded. It was amazingly quiet. We spoke to each other in hushed tones. An ambulance arrived and the paramedics joined the treatment team. Wrestling no longer mattered. After the ambulance pulled away, Phil Haddy got back on the mic and announced that the meet was over. Joel Schatzman recovered at the University Hospitals and Clinics and a month later attended the Big Ten Championships.

Fast forward to November 20,2009. The Hawkeye meet with North Carolina-Pembroke was just about to start when I got a phone call from my wife. My 85-year-old father-in-law had fallen and at that moment was in a helicopter flying to the University of Iowa Hospital. She was en route and asked me to meet her. University Hospital is roughly a ten minute walk from Carver Hawkeye for a middle-aged, overweight man so I arrived just minutes after the helicopter landed.

As you get older you start to spend way more time in hospital waiting rooms than you would like. My wife, brother-in-law, mother-in-law and I huddled outside of the emergency room awaiting a diagnosis. When it came it confirmed what had been determined by the staff at St Luke’s Hospital in Cedar Rapids – Lee had fractured three vertebrae in his neck and had been transferred up to the intensive care unit. While waiting for permission to go see him Nora, my mother-in-law, said, “I’m sorry to take you away from your wrestling” – and actually meant it. She just hates to bother anyone. I turned to my wife, Cindy, and asked, “Remember the night Scott Schatzman’s dad had his heart attack?”

When we were allowed to go back to see him we met an amazing team. Lee was under the care of an emergency room resident, a trauma specialist, two spine specialists (one of whom bore a strong resemblance to Doogie Howser), an ICU resident and assorted nurses and technicians. That first night Lee was unable to move his right arm or leg and had very little movement on his left side. He was in University Hospital intensive care for ten days before being transferred to the physical rehabilitation unit at St Luke’s in Cedar Rapids. He is making astounding progress and the prognosis is good.

When long-time Northwestern coach, Tim Cysewski announced last week that he was stepping down, I once again thought of Joel Schatzman.

Blogging is self-indulgent by its very nature and today I’m indulging myself. Thank you University Hospitals and Clinics. You were wonderful. If any of you readers are acquainted with any of the staff there – tell them that there’s a doofus wrestling fan in Cedar Rapids who thinks the world of them. I’m pretty sure that popular Hawkeye forum poster, USAFHawk, is on staff there. If you know him – ask him to spread the word among his colleagues.

The doers

2009-12-07T09:18:00.000-08:00

Dan Gable was wounded, but showed up and did his job. Dan fell and broke a bone in his leg on Thanksgiving, but he was in Ames last night with broadcast partner Tim Johnson to cover the Iowa vs. Iowa State dual. It was the opening telecast of Iowa Public Television’s 34th season of bringing wrestling to fans in Iowa, southern Minnesota, eastern Nebraska, western Illinois and northern Missouri.

As I mentioned in last week’s blog, IPTV used the event as a fund raiser – and, true to form - Dan got out his checkbook. He does a fabulous job of “working his audience”. A couple of weeks ago when a touring team of Russian wrestlers was in the area for one of the “Russia vs. USA” Gable invited them to his house. In last night’s appeal he said that those young Russian wrestlers knew about Iowa and where Iowa is on the map. Then he pulled out the “exclusivity” motivator, “They probably don’t know about anyplace else in America, but they know about Iowa and wrestling.”

It’s a sign of what Dan Gable has become – American wrestling’s top advocate. In the past few weeks he has been in California to support the NWCA All-Star Classic and Cal-State Fullerton wrestling; then he was in Mount Vernon, Iowa signing autographs and contributing to the webcast of Russia vs. the USA and last night he was at Hilton Coliseum – crutches and all. He gives speeches, helps with clinics, raises money for new programs – anything that will grow the sport. It goes even beyond that. On Friday, November 20th several wheel-chair bound persons attended the Iowa City Duals. Gable spent time with every one of them – talking, signing autographs and laughing.

It’s no secret that I’m a Gable fan. It was a trip to Ames to see him wrestle that first drew me to the sport. I’d like to think that he has inspired me in some part to achieve whatever small successes I have. He and my father have been the shining examples of a principle in which I’ve come to believe – “Don’t talk – act”.

Wrestling is blessed with lots of “doers” - Michael Novogratz and Al Bevilacqua at Beat the Streets, J Robinson, Mike Moyer at the NWCA, Jason Bryant, Kyle Klingman, Lee Roy Smith and dozens of others from volunteer table workers to the parents who run youth wrestling clubs. Many contribute without any recognition.

Here’s my challenge – tell me about your favorite unsung wrestling “doer”. Who is that person you know who has worked countless hours to get more kids on the mat or more fans in the seats? You can send an email to me at jim@dmsolutions4u.com, leave a blog comment or respond to a forum thread. After Christmas I’ll include your top nominations in a blog. Here’s your chance to thank that person you’ve always wanted to thank or tell someone’s good story.

And, Dan – thanks.

When 1 meets 2

2009-11-30T05:26:00.000-08:00

The anticipation is growing. Number 1 versus number 2 in a contest that won’t determine, but may well influence the outcome of a national championship. No – not Florida and Alabama for the SEC football championship. It’s time again for the annual dual wrestling meet between The University of Iowa Hawkeyes and the Iowa State Cyclones – one of the greatest rivalries in all of sports. ESPN has included this event on its list of “101 Things All Sports Fans Should Do Before They Die”. If you’re a wrestling fan and have never attended – shame on you.

The meet has somewhat of a different feel this year because former Iowa State coach and Cyclone icon, Cael Sanderson, has moved on to become the head coach at Penn State. Sanderson has been replaced by Kevin Jackson who in his collegiate competitive days transferred to Iowa State after LSU dropped wrestling. His matches with Iowa’s Royce Alger are legendary.

Legend – that’s part of the appeal. Fans on both sides have their favorite moments. For many Cyclone fans it’s Dave Osenbaugh pinning Lou Banach. Fanatics in black and gold favor a similar upset by Brooks Simpson over Eric Voelker. Each was a major upset and each won the meet.

The last three editions have featured newsworthy “extracurricular” aspects. In 2006 Iowa coaches Tom Brands and Dan Gable squared off in a heated debate with Sanderson and his assistant, Tim Hartung. It generated one of the most famous photos in recent years. Then came “the curtain” in 2007. Iowa State athletic director, Jamie Pollard, decided to limit seating by curtaining off thousands of seats. (Note: this will not be done this year.) Last year’s edition brought a new NCAA dual meet attendance record. People traveled from all over the country just to be able to say that they were there that night.

This year’s battle will feature two senior-dominated lineups, but two redshirt freshmen just might provide the highlight bout of the night. Both are three-time Iowa high school champions and both are off to undefeated and dominating starts in their first year of varsity competition. The Cyclones’ Andrew Long is from Creston and the Hawks’ Matt McDonough is from Marion.

For over 30 years Iowa Public Television has broadcast this and dozens of other top quality wrestling meets. Thanks to IPTV we’ve had the chance to see future Olympic and World Champions like Kenny Monday, Kendall Cross, John Smith, Tom and Terry Brands, Randy Lewis, Ed and Lou Banach, Cael Sanderson and Kevin Jackson as collegians. IPTV has used this broadcast as a fund raising event for the past several years. In these days of statewide budget cuts they’ll need your support more than ever. A feature of the telecast has been when Dan Gable gets out his checkbook and writes his check “on air” (by the way – according to IPTV’s public records – he writes a big one).

If you’re one of the 30,000 or 40,000 people watching the telecast – please call and make your pledge. If you’re going to be in Hilton Coliseum for the live action, stop now and send your check to

Friends of IPTV
PO Box 6400
Johnston, IA 50131

Make that number 1 on your agenda.

The Russians were here, the Russians were here

2009-11-19T07:00:00.000-08:00

If you wanted to learn how to hold a wrestling event, you should have been at Cornell College in Mount Vernon, IA last night. The USA vs. Russia dual meet had everything a gala should have – pageantry, history, star power, mystery, excitement and a “standing room only” house.

Here are some random observations.

The kids

It was heartening to see so many youngsters at the meet. There must have been at least 40 kids from the North Cedar Wrestling Club seated near me – and what a great job their coach did! He took them on a tour of the facility including taking them to Cornell’s outstanding wrestling room.

As is always the case, dozens of kids had to get Dan Gable’s autograph. However, it was especially encouraging to see some of them – especially the younger ones – getting the autographs of the Russian athletes and coaches. There’s one young man from Linn-Mar who better hang on to that shirt.

The history

Cornell College is one of the most unique places in American wrestling history. It’s the smallest school (620 students at the time) and the only private school ever to win the NCAA Division I championship. It was my good fortune to get to meet, and sit next to, Bob Majors. Bob wrestled at Cornell in the ‘50s and was a team mate of Cornell greats like Warren DePrenger and Lloyd Corwin (who defeated 1960 Olympic champion, Doug Blubaugh in the 1955 NCAA semi-finals). It was a treat for me to listen to Bob talk about wrestling.

Master of ceremonies, Scott Casber, did an excellent job of emphasizing the historical aspects of the evening. He introduced former Cornell wrestlers Richard Small and Lynn Stiles and pointed out American wrestling legends Randy Lewis, Tom and Terry Brands and Zeke Jones.

One of my favorite memories from the event will be the looks on the faces of those young Russian wrestlers when Gable walked over and introduced himself and shook their hands. They have the same respect for him that we do.

I left the event with a distinct feeling of the links between the past of wrestling to the present of wrestling to the future of wrestling.

The crowd

I imagine that fans in other parts of the country resent hearing that “Iowa wrestling fans are the best in America”. Well – we only say it because it’s true. Last night was a prime example. It wasn’t just the size of the crowd – it was the respectful and welcoming applause for the Russian team, it was the ovation for Mike Zadick when he was introduced and the roar when Doug Schwab won his match.

Kudos go out to everyone involved in the evening, starting with the Cornell staff. Athletic director, John Cochrane, and wrestling coach, Mike Duroe, worked diligently to make the night a success. The only potential hiccup on the evening was when the sound system failed for the playing of the Russian national anthem. Assistant AD, Dick Simmons, who seems to be Cornell’s go-to problem solver, fixed it and the rest of the event went off without a hitch.

Tom Lepic and the Hawkeye Wrestling Club also deserve recognition. In case after case we’ve seen how hard it can be to raise money to support wrestling. Tom and the club recruited sponsors for the $2,000 prizes that were awarded to the winners of each match.

We also need to thank USA Wrestling for their support and encouragement.

I’ve already mentioned Scott Casber, but I can’t emphasize enough the role he played in making the event enjoyable.

When it was all over I walked to my car with only one question – “If these folks can create an event like this, why aren’t the Olympic Trials in eastern Iowa?”

(to be continued)

The Russians are coming, the Russians are coming

2009-11-16T08:19:00.000-08:00

When I was growing up in Davenport, Iowa I watched a lot of professional baseball. My dad would gather up my brother and I and take us to Municipal Stadium to watch (first) the Quad City Braves. If the weather was nice we would walk the mile and a half to the stadium. Sometimes we would stop at a stand on the way and buy a big paper shopping bag of popcorn and take it with us.

In 1962 the Quad City team became affiliated with the Los Angeles Angels – then a one-year-old expansion team. It was cheap entertainment and my dad was a fan so we went to at least one game every home stand. Two things happened in 1963 that permanently cemented my love for baseball. First, the QC Angels held a clinic for kids aged 10 – 16. I got to be down on the field and taught by REAL PROFESSIONAL baseball players. I got batting instruction from the Angels’ manager, Chuck Tanner (yep – that Chuck Tanner, manager of the 1979 World Champion Pittsburgh Pirates). I was thrilled.

A few weeks later the “big club” came to town to play an exhibition game. It was a major event. The stadium was sold out. Since I wouldn’t attend my first major league game until the next year – it was the biggest crowd I’d ever seen. Bobby Knoop, Jim Fregosi and Leon Wagner were among the LA Angels that played in that game. Wagner hit a home run that took one bounce after leaving the yard and landed in the Mississippi (think McCovey Cove). To make the event even more spectacular – Gene Autry was there. He sat right behind the third base dugout, his “ten gallon” white cowboy hat visible from anywhere in the stadium.

I still rank that night as one of my favorite all-time sports experiences.

If you’re within driving distance of Mount Vernon, Iowa you have the opportunity to give your young wrestler/wrestling fan a similar experience Wednesday night (November 18th). A team of Russian wrestlers will battle a team with ties to the Hawkeye Wrestling Club in a freestyle dual meet at the Small Multi-Sports Center on the Cornell College Campus. The doors open at 5:30 and wrestling begins at 7:00.

When I first started following wrestling the legendary Soviet heavyweight, Alexander Medved, was the only foreign wrestler whose name I knew and the only time I saw him wrestle was on television in the 1972 Olympics. It wasn’t until I started to study the sport that I learned that he won 3 Olympic gold medals and 7 world titles. Since then I have come to appreciate Russian wrestlers as among the most dominant – if not THE most dominant – in the sport. The advent of youtube has allowed me to watch many matches featuring greats like Sergei Beloglazov and Buvaisar Saitiev.

This could be a once-in-a-lifetime event for you and your kids. Make the most of it. I’m no expert on Russian wrestling, but this is a good team. Yesterday (Sunday, November 15th) they defeated an American team in Chicago that featured Danny Felix, Coleman Scott, Trent & Travis Paulson, Carl Fronhofer, Andy Hrovat and Tervel Dlagnev. (See Craig Sesker’s full write up.). Wednesday the Russians will face a team that includes former Hawkeye NCAA champions Doug Schwab and Steve Mocco and Hawkeye assistant coach and World silver medallist, Mike Zadick. Tell your kids stories as you drive about your favorite Schwab or Zadick match or about Gable in the ’72 Olympics.

Go early so you can revel in the amazing history of Cornell College wrestling. Point to the 1947 NCAA championship trophy and tell the kids that this is the greatest David vs. Goliath story in collegiate wrestling history. Be sure that they see all of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame plaques. Pass on a sense of awe about the accomplishments of Paul Scott and Lowell Lange.

Gene Autry won’t be there, but I’ve been told that Dan Gable will. Get the kids an autograph. I’ve also been told that Scott Casber from Takedown Radio will don a tuxedo and be your announcer.

Tickets are $10 for adults and just $5 for kids. You can buy them today (Monday) from 10:00AM to 2:00PM at the Mount Vernon Bank and Trust, Lepic-Kroeger Realtors (2346 Mormon Trek Blvd, Iowa City) or at the Overhead Door Company (6515 4th St SW, Cedar Rapids). Tickets will also be available at the door Wednesday night.

You have an opportunity to enhance a kid’s love for the sport. Why not do it.

A heavyweight's fight

2009-11-09T04:22:00.000-08:00

In 1974 the University of Iowa battled the University of Northern Iowa in a dual wrestling meet at the West Gymnasium on the UNI campus. Mark Onstott, a member of the UNI Athletic Hall of Fame as a swimmer, was there. “My favorite, non-swimming, athletic memory from UNI was the 1974 Iowa versus UNI wrestling meet. All of the swimmers came right out of practice, sat on the front row and cheered the guys on…It came down to the heavyweight match. Randy Omvig beat the Iowa guy for the win.”

In 1975, Randy Omvig would win the NCAA Division II heavyweight championship and help the Panthers win the team title. On December 22, 2005 Randy Omvig and his wife, Ellen, experienced the ultimate parental tragedy. Their son, SPC Joshua Omvig, committed suicide after completing an eleven-month deployment in Iraq.

A few months later the Omvigs began the toughest battle of their lives – to prevent this from happening to anyone else. They began to study post-traumatic stress disorder and investigate the mental health care available to returning veterans. They created a website to share their story and got feedback from other troubled veterans and parents. They wrote letters, made phone calls and fought for better diagnosis and treatment options. Ultimately, the Omvigs approached US Representative Leonard Boswell, himself a Viet Nam veteran.

In July, 2006, Rep. Boswell introduced HR5771, “The Joshua Omvig Veterans Suicide Prevention Act”. In May of 2007 The VA Inspector General reported that every year an estimated 1,000 veterans in VHA care commit suicide and that there are as many as 5,000 annual suicides among all living veterans. On November 5, 2007 President Bush signed the bill into law. After the signing, Rep. Boswell said this about the Omvigs, “While suffering this personal tragedy, they went on to help other veterans and their families and have advocated for improving all mental health services at the VA.” At the ceremony US Senator Tom Harkin said, “Make no mistake, this bill would not have passed without the personal engagement of Ellen and Randy Omvig.”

My dad, a Korean war veteran, taught me that when we send young men and women off to war we owe them. We owe them our prayers for their safe return home. We owe them our thanks for their service. And for those who are physically and psychologically damaged – we owe them nothing but the best care. We also owe Randy and Ellen Omvig our thanks for taking up the fight to save our sons and daughters, our husbands and wives and the kids we watched grow up.

This week we honor our veterans. Remember – we owe them.

For more on the Omvigs, visit the following sites.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13309.htm

http://www.joshua-omvig.memory-of.com/legacy.aspx

http://www.spanusa.org/files/General_Documents/network_news_SUMR07.pdf

http://vets4politics.blogspot.com/2008/01/iowans-lauded-for-anti-suicide-efforts.html

Gable, Irving and Baldwin say, "California Needs Wrestling".

2009-11-02T04:31:00.000-08:00

A Press release from the National Wrestling Coaches Association

“SANTA MONICA (Oct. 30, 2009) – Author John Irving and actor Billy Baldwin will join Olympic wrestling legend Dan Gable at a luncheon on Monday, Nov. 2, in support of the California Needs Wrestling initiative.

The three will speak to the need for supporters of the sport to mount an effort to sustain college wrestling programs in California, where the state budget crisis has left many collegiate programs in dire need of funding.

Irving, a University of Pittsburgh wrestler, and Baldwin, a Binghamton University Wrestler, who was instrumental in bringing wrestling back at Binghamton University after the sport was dropped, will speak to the role of the sport in helping to shape their lives.

Irving, whose novels include The World According to Garp and Cider House Rules, was inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in 1992. He is currently touring to promote his new book, Last Night in Twisted River.

Baldwin joined the crusade to restore wrestling at his alma mater after the university announced it was dropping the sport in 2003. With the help of Friends of Binghamton Wrestling and New York’s then-Gov. George Pataki, the program was restored the following year. Last March, Baldwin was on hand to applaud Binghamton’s first Division I All-American, Josh Patterson.

Gable has devoted his life to the sport as an athlete, coach and advocate. A 1972 Olympic freestyle wrestling champion, he went on to coach the University of Iowa to an unprecedented 15 NCAA team championships and is now Iowa’s assistant athletic director.

“Wrestling in California needs our help,” said Gable. “There are approximately 27,000 high school wrestlers in the state of California and only eight four-year college wrestling programs to support the exploding interest at the high school level. These programs are fighting to survive as California has already lost 85 college programs.”

The luncheon is being held to:

· Provide head college wrestling coaches in California with an opportunity to cultivate some of their most important alumni/donors and or key decision-making university administrators. This is particularly important in light of the current state budget crisis in the state of California.

· Help college administrators recognize the educational value of wrestling through the testimonials of highly successful wrestling aficionados.

· Promote the “NWCA All Star Classic, Presented by the Wrestling Alumni of the College of William and Mary,” scheduled for Sunday, Nov. 22, at 2 p.m. at Cal State Fullerton. The event is a fundraiser for the Cal State Fullerton wrestling program.

The wrestling alumni from William and Mary have established the non-profit Society for the Preservation of Traditional Sport (SPOTS). Its mission is to help save wrestling and other traditional Olympic sport programs before such programs are cut.”

Also – from an article by Alden Mudge on BookPage.com about John Irving’s new book Last Night in Twisted River:

“John Irving did not actually attend his induction into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in Stillwater, Oklahoma, some 15 years ago. But now he wishes he had. ‘I regret it.’… ‘There have always been these two parts of my life and they don’t overlap very easily. My wrestling friends are not very easily mixed with my writing friends. But it’s an honor that meant a great deal to me because the sport was such a huge part of my life,’ says Irving, who competed in wrestling in high school and college.”

Best wishes for a highly successful luncheon.

I'm just a goober fan

2009-10-19T02:48:00.000-07:00

Mark Onstott is my sister-in-law’s brother. An All-American swimmer at the University of Northern Iowa in 1975, he has gone on to become one of America’s top high school swimming coaches. Mark has led teams to six state championships, been named high school coach of the year in three states and the national coach of the year in 2005. Saturday Mark was inducted into the UNI Athletic Hall of Fame. During his acceptance speech, Mark introduced the people seated at his table. When he got to my wife and me he said, “And there are Jim Brown and his wife Cindy – they’re really here to see the 1950 wrestling team.” He then looked out at Bill Nelson’s table and said, “You guys are quite a draw.”

Some people occasionally refer to me as a “member of the wrestling media”. I’m not. Here’s why – I’m just too much of a big ole goober fan.

I’ve met Dan Gable once. In the early ‘90s I was doing some work with a small company in Iowa City called Giant Step Productions. The owners were brothers who had been wrestlers. One of them had been one of “those guys in the room” for Gable. They produced some early videos for Dan – and both knew I was a wrestling fan. Their studio was on the third floor of a typical “near campus” house and you had to walk up outside stairs to get to it. I had an appointment one afternoon and the older brother, Eric, met me at the bottom of the stairs and kept asking things like, “How long have you had season tickets?” and “Who are your favorite wrestlers?” It seemed odd because we frequently discussed those things more than we did business. When we got to the top of the stairs and entered the studio there was a guy with a grin on his face who said, “Hi – I’m Dan Gable.” My witty response – “I know.” I know that Gable is one of the most accessible “icons” in all of sports – but I was just too much of a goober fan to say anything but, “I know.”

Last year at National Duals I spent quite a bit of time watching the women’s teams wrestle. Sara McMann sat two rows in front of me one session. We’re “friends” on MySpace but I couldn’t introduce myself because I’m just this big goober fan. All I could think was, “Wow, that’s an Olympic silver medallist right in front of me.”

Saturday I rode in the elevator with 3X NCAA champ and Distinguished Member of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame, Bill Nelson, and couldn’t bring myself to say anything. Goober fan.

Before the ceremonies began I surveyed the room. Our table was next to the Briggs family. Former Panther coach Don Briggs is also a member of the 2009 UNI Hall of Fame class. His brother Dick was there – you know Mark Ironside’s high school coach. (And by the way - Don Briggs may have given the most touching acceptance speech of all). And there’s Sandy Stevens, the “voice of wrestling” – and over there – that’s 7-time NCAA Division III Championship coach, Jim Miller. I know Sandy so I did later say, “Hi” and I did manage to introduce myself to Jim Miller, but I was close enough several times to speak to Don Briggs and congratulate him – but didn’t. Big, dumb, goober fan.

When the 1950 NCAA championship Iowa State Teachers College team was introduced I might have been one of the first people to stand. It was inspiring. These men – these men who fought in World War II – these men who became one of the most legendary teams in the history of the sport – these men whose influence on the sport continues to this day – well, I guess I cried a little. Sappy, emotional, goober fan.

Here’s the image I’m going to remember from their acceptance ceremony. Do the math – most of these guys went off to fight a war and THEN went to college. They’re in their eighties. Some use canes and one or two use a walker to get around. As Bill Nelson was accepting the honor on behalf of the team a couple of the gentlemen were offered chairs. They refused – as if to say, “I’m a wrestler – I’ll tough it out.” Awestruck goober fan.

All Hall of Fame inductees were later introduced at halftime of the Northern Iowa/Southern Illinois football game. As they returned to their seats, by the grace of God, Bill Smith stopped right next to me. Bill Smith – decorated WWII veteran, coaching legend and Olympic champion. I couldn’t let the opportunity pass. “Mr. Smith, I’m just a wrestling fan but it is an honor to meet you.”

He smiled and said, “Wrestling fan… good man” – and he reached out and shook my hand. I may not wash it for a week – ‘cause I’m just a goober fan.

And lest I forget – congratulations, Mark – I’m proud to have known you this past 20 years.

The Eyes of Texas Are Upon You

2009-10-13T12:57:00.000-07:00

At long last college wrestling has come to Texas. In a press conference this afternoon Wayland Baptist University announced the addition of intercollegiate varsity wrestling for both men and women. The text of the press release is below.

“Wayland Baptist University will add men's and women's wrestling as intercollegiate sports, Athletic Director Dr. Greg Feris officially announced at a press conference today.

"Intercollegiate wrestling is a win-win situation for the university. It will generate additional students while providing an additional competitive sport for the university community."

The WBU wrestling program will compete in the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) beginning with the 2010-11 school year. Thirty-seven NAIA schools currently sponsor wrestling for men, ten for women.

There are currently no intercollegiate wrestling programs in the state of Texas, despite recent statistics that show an excess of 245 high school boys' wrestling teams and 198 girls' teams in the state. In the Texas Panhandle area, there are approximately 375 boys and more than 125 girls participating in the sport. The boy's team from Randall High School and the girl's team from Caprock High have recently won state championships.

"The sport is growing and is very popular in many regions of the country," added Feris. "Wayland is fortunate to be located in an area where several communities have embraced the sport at the high school level. I think we are going to fill a void in the area for fans of the sport. In addition, we are excited to be able to offer these young student-athletes a new opportunity to continue to participate in a sport that they love while at the same time obtaining an outstanding education in a Christian environment."

Search for a new coach will begin right away. Feris says he hopes to have someone in place sometime after the first of the new year.

Among those present at the press conference were Mike Moyer, Executive Director of the National Wrestling Coaches Association and former Olympic gold medalists Brandon Slay and Dan Gable. Slay, a graduate of Amarillo's Tascosa High School who is currently the resident freestyle coach for USA Wrestling at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, won the gold medal in freestyle wrestling at the 2000 Summer Olympic Games in Sydney. Gable, who did not give up a single point on his way to the gold at the 1972 games in Munich, won two individual NCAA titles as a student-athlete at Iowa State University and 15 NCAA team titles as head coach at the University of Iowa.

The new WBU two teams will practice in the James P. and Nelda Laney Student Activities Center. Duel or tournament events will be held in Hutcherson Center. The addition of the wrestling programs brings Wayland's athletic offering to a total of 14.”

Long-time Texas high school wrestling coach and activist, Johnny Cobb, has this to say about the announcement, “The entire wrestling community in the state of Texas in rejoicing with the news of a NAIA college wrestling program. What a progressive University that can see the value and character building potential a college wrestling program has to offer it's young men and women. Adding not only a men's program but also adding a women's program shows the kind of foresight this University exemplifies. This is a red letter day for not only Texas wrestling but for college wrestling everywhere. Universities can use every excuse in the world, from the economy to title nine, for not adding or even dropping college wrestling, but when a forward thinking University like Wayland Baptist realizes the value wrestling can add to their school, it demonstrates that where there is a will there is a way.

We are still in hopes that West Texas A&M University will also be adding an NCAA D-2 program in the future. They have seriously taken it under consideration.”

Congratulations to Wayland Baptist University – and I’m with Johnny – the more, the better.

Wrestling and "The Four Ps"

2009-10-12T07:01:00.000-07:00

You’re taught “The Four Ps” in Marketing 101: product, price, placement and promotion. Any effort to sell anything must address at least these four elements. There is a movement afoot to change the “placement” of college wrestling. The National Wrestling Coaches Association has proposed a plan that would move the NCAA Division I Championships to April 11 – 13 in 2013. The initial proposal also called for moving the Division II and Division III Championships back and making college wrestling a ”one semester” sport.

The proposal is driven by two concerns – the educational success of the student-athletes and more effective marketing of the sport. The arguments are that starting the season later in the year gives freshmen more time to acclimate to college life and that finishing later moves wrestling’s collegiate championship events away from directly competing against that other tournament whose name cannot be legally mentioned here without paying licensing fees to CBS or the NCAA.

For most fans this seems to be a no-brainer. But hold on – last week I received emails from several Division III coaches debating the proposal – and many of them are against moving the season. Those that are against have valid concerns – many small school wrestling teams share facilities, staff – even athletes – with other sports. For them – changing the season increases their operating budget and thus makes hanging on to their program even more tenuous.

In the current issue of Wrestling Insider Newsmagazine publisher, Bryan Van Kley, has written an excellent editorial on the subject. He offers an alternative plan and solid logic behind it. Bryan makes the case better than I can, so I urge you to pick up a copy of WIN and read his column.

Many marketers will tell you that changing one “P” without addressing the other three will not have the effect you desire. To assume that moving the season alone will popularize college wrestling is to make the most basic of marketing mistakes.

What are our goals – to have more opportunities for the current fan base to watch wrestling on television? To attract new fans to the sport? To get more kids on the mat? Attaining any one of those will spur the growth of wrestling.

Price

This isn’t really much of an issue. Tickets to a college wrestling meet or tournament are a bargain. However, across the board, we ought to make it easier for large groups of kids to see the best that the sport has to offer.

Product

At its core wrestling is a great product – but it’s not perfect. And it may have lost some entertainment value over the past few years. Go to youtube and watch NCAA finals matches like Randy Lewis vs. Darryl Burley or Mark Schultz vs. Ed Banach or Lincoln McIlravy vs. Gerry Abas and compare those matches to last year’s 125 pound final. What’s needed for product improvement? There are lots of suggestions – a more universal definition of stalling, a pushout rule, eliminating the riding time point. All have merit – but maybe the answer is for more coaches and athletes to recognize the value that a more aggressive style has to the sport.

Promotion

Advertising, publicity, sales and branding are all promotional elements. What is college wrestling’s “brand”? Is it – as Ed Aliverti so resoundingly proclaimed for so many years - “the world’s oldest and greatest sport”? Is it “the sport of presidents”? Is it “the sport of opportunity”? It could be any or all of those things. The brand should NOT be, as some fans like to suggest, “the minor leagues of mixed martial arts”. That’s like having Matthew McConaughey say, “Beef: you can use it in hash.”

Therein lies the real challenge – creating a unified brand for college wrestling. Wrestling is both blessed and cursed with several entities who are all trying to promote the sport, each with slightly divergent agendas. From the NWCA to USA Wrestling to the NCAA and even to Beat the Streets – everyone has a different approach. Is there a solution? Perhaps.

Could we organize “The Wrestling Promotion Council” with representatives from all governing bodies, the wrestling media, wrestling product companies – anyone that has a vested interest in the sport? Hold an organizational conference (Cedar Rapids is a very central location), develop a plan of action, raise some money and get started. Let’s not stop with changing the Division I season – let’s also get aggressive about using the other three “Ps”.

Honoring greatness

2009-09-28T04:53:00.000-07:00

They call themselves “Mac’s Boys”. National Wrestling Hall of Fame historian, Jay Hammond has said of them, “It could easily be argued that (they were) the best collegiate wrestling program in the country from 1946 – 1952.” Hammond points out that, “… they crowned 16 individual champions in those years. Oklahoma State had 12 champs, and no other school had more than five in that time frame.” Their numbers include three 3X individual NCAA champions, an Olympic Champion and a silver medallist and enough Distinguished Members of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame that they could have their own wing.

In 1950 they did something that only nine other schools have done – they won the NCAA “big school” team championship. Who are these guys? They’re the wrestlers of Iowa State Teachers College – now the University of Northern Iowa. Led by their legendary coach, Dave McCuskey, and boasting champions like Bill Smith, Gerry Leeman, Bill Koll, Keith Young and Bill Nelson their influence on the sport carries forward to today.

On October 18th the 1950 ISTC NCAA Championship team will be inducted into the UNI Athletic Hall of Fame. Many team members are already in the UNI ‘hall” as individuals. Inducting the entire team is an extraordinary honor. Wrestling writer, Kyle Klingman, says, “This will be a great day for Northern Iowa and for the sport of wrestling.”

UNI Athletic director, Troy A Dannen, commented on the induction and its importance.

“Of the 17 programs at UNI, wrestling has the longest and most consistent history of competitive success, and the 1950 national championship team certainly stands as the best of the best among those teams. While there has been individual recognition given throughout the years to some members of that team, recognition of the achievement of the team as a whole is long overdue.

Wrestling is at the bedrock of the sports foundation of our state. Northern Iowa, as a Regent institution with 90 percent of our students native Iowans, must always reflect the values and culture of our state. As an athletic department, this validates the ongoing commitment to the sport of wrestling. But you can never move forward successfully without knowing where you have already been, and the future success of wrestling at UNI is tied to the great history of success symbolized by the members of this team.

Basically, we recognize this team not only to salute their achievement, but to understand the competitive honor and glory we obtain tomorrow is only possible because they were the standard bearers, and we can never forget how our program was built, and who built it.”

Mac must be awfully proud of “his boys”.

Filled with hope

2009-09-21T03:58:00.000-07:00

Today is the last day of summer. The transition to autumn has traditionally been a time of hope – hope for a bountiful harvest – hope for the new school year – hope for a winning football team.

The World Championships begin today in Herning, Denmark. Danny Felix, Trent Paulson and Jake Varner will take the mat for the United States first. For me, this is the end of the season. Take heart – the new season is just weeks away. Many of the nation’s top high school wrestlers will compete in the Super 32 Challenge on October 24th at the Greensboro Coliseum in Greensboro, NC. USA Wrestling will hold Preseason Nationals the following week (October 31st) in Cedar Falls, IA at the UNI Dome.

I am filled with hope as we transition from one wrestling season to the next. Here are some things I hope to see in the next 12 months.

More kids on the mat.

Kids have innumerable ways to spend their time. Few options can teach them perseverance, mental toughness and self-reliance like wrestling. Family life is strengthened by any activity that gives an opportunity for parental support – but there just seems to be something extra there within wrestling families. If you don’t believe me just watch a wrestling mom at a tournament.

Success at Cal State Fullerton.

The Cal State Fullerton administration has mandated that the wrestling team become self-supporting. According to coach Dan Hicks they need to raise $200,000 in cash by May 1, 2010 and another $200,000 in pledges by August 1, 2010 to keep the program alive. The National Wrestling Coaches Association is helping by holding the annual college All-Star Classic in the Titan Gym. You can buy tickets to the All-Star Classic or donate to the team at the Save Fullerton Wrestling website.

More intercollegiate wrestling opportunities.

High school wrestling participation continues to grow. However, the opportunities to follow in the footsteps of people like Dr. Norman Borlaug, John Irving and Senator John Chafee – and have wrestling as a part of the college curriculum – are not keeping pace. I hope that there are forward-thinking athletic directors who are considering adding wrestling – both men’s and women’s teams.

Butts in seats.

Nothing demonstrates support like buying a ticket and cheering on your favorite team or wrestler. The upcoming college season may be as excitedly anticipated as any in recent memory. The debuts of heralded freshmen like Jordan Oliver and Tyler Graff, the potential for tight team races in several divisions and the move of Cael Sanderson from Ames to Penn State are all generating a lot of preseason buzz. I hope that interest translates into new attendance records. Come on you PSU fans – can you average 5,000 people a meet?

More support for the Living the Dream Medal Fund.

So far 320 of America’s most avid wrestling fans have donated to the Living the Dream Fund. Designed to keep our best athletes in the sport by offering financial incentives for success, the fund is the brainchild of people like Michael Novogratz and Dave Barry. By this time next year I hope to see 10,000 more names on the contributors list. Click here to add your name today.

Oh – I almost forgot – I’m hoping for a Metcalf/Caldwell rematch, too.

Greatness on the curriculum

2009-09-14T03:05:00.000-07:00

Nobel Peace Laureate Norman Borlaug died Saturday at age 95 from complications of cancer. Mark Palmer wrote about Dr. Borlaug’s wrestling background yesterday on examiner.com. He was inducted into the Outstanding Americans wing of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame and Museum in 1992.

The father of the “Green Revolution”, Dr. Borlaug is credited with saving hundreds of millions of people from starvation. He is one of only five people to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Gold Medal. (The other four are Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela, Mother Teresa and Elie Wiesel.) In 1999 he was named one of the “100 great minds of the Twentieth Century”.

In 1986 Dr. Borlaug founded the World Food Prize to “honor those who have made significant and measurable contributions to improving the world's food supply.”

Just ten days ago the Borlaug Learning Center opened in Nashua, Iowa to further research in crop and livestock production and agricultural engineering.

As Mark Palmer cites in his memorial, Dr. Borlaug credited wrestling with contributing to his success. "Wrestling taught me some valuable lessons," Borlaug told the University of Minnesota in 2005. "I always figured I could hold my own against the best in the world. It made me tough. Many times, I drew on that strength. It's an inappropriate crutch perhaps, but that's the way I'm made."

Jim Leach represented me in the Congress for thirty years. Last month he was confirmed as Chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities. An Iowa state high school wrestling champion at Davenport High School in 1960 and a letterman on the Princeton wrestling team, Jim Leach is also enshrined in the Outstanding Americans wing of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame and Museum and in the Glen Brand Wrestling Hall of Fame. In his great book Wrestling Tough, author Mike Chapman cites observations about wrestling made by Leach.

“Wrestling is a pursuit that shares with all sports all elements of competition. What differentiates it is its history, its individual discipline and its ‘equalitarian’ efforts. It does not matter how big or small, rich or poor, black, brown or white a wrestler is or what state he comes from”

“Wrestling imbues one with instincts for fairness and a necessity of preparation that is hard work.”

“Matches pit individuals of similar size, although dissimilar proportions, strengths, skills, stamina and knowledge … knowledge not in the sense of smartness, but athletic wisdom which only experience provides. The talented, unschooled athlete can’t prevail over the dedicated partner.”

Intercollegiate wrestling is under attack. Title IX mandates have created an atmosphere of fear among many college administrators. Eliminating educational opportunities for one gender is far easier than creating opportunities for another so they follow the path of least resistance. The current economic challenges have schools all over the country investigating budget cuts. Administrators are looking for programs they deem expendable. For many – wrestling seems to fill that bill.

It’s obvious that Chairman Leach does not consider wrestling an “expendable” part of his life. Dr. Borlaug considered the lessons he learned on the mat as valuable as those he learned in the classroom. Perhaps we should stop thinking of wrestling as a sport and start thinking of it as part of the curriculum. We could call it “Greatness 101”.

For more on the amazing life of Dr. Norman Borlaug go to yesterday's LA Times Obituary or the World Food Prize website.

The fifth season

2009-09-08T07:57:00.000-07:00

US News and World Report recently named Cedar Rapids one of the ten best places to grow up in America. The article cites our low crime rate, good schools and affordable housing as primary factors.

I’d like to add one – wrestling. Cedar Rapids high schools are probably best known in the wresting community for producing 3X NCAA Division I champion and Olympic silver medallist, Barry Davis; 3X NCAA Division I champion Jim Zalesky; 2X NCAA Division I champion and Hodge Trophy winner, Mark Ironside and 3X NCAA Division II champion Gary Bentrim.

However, the sport has long been a part of the community fabric. Every day I encounter people with wrestling in their backgrounds – from my favorite bartender to the plant manager at the company where I buy most of my printing. If I need new heels on my shoes, I allow an hour to drop them off and an hour to pick them up because I know that Rich Foens, the owner of Smitty’s Shoe Repair, is going to come out from behind the counter and want to talk wrestling.

Several people were kind enough to share their reflections about growing up with wrestling in Cedar Rapids.

Bill Maroney describes himself as being very small when he started school at Wilson High in 1957.

“Coach Bo Cameron saw me in the hallway and talked me into coming out because he needed a 95lb wrestler. He said I could get a varsity letter and that was all it took to get me to try it. I actually loved it.”

When Wilson and Roosevelt High Schools were combined to form Cedar Rapids Jefferson, Cameron became the head wrestling coach and lead the J-Hawks to a state championship in 1962.

As for Bill Maroney, “I fell in love with the sport, it was the highlight of my high school experience. It also helped me in my career (by teaching me) dedication and perseverance. I joined the Marine Corps after high school and stayed in 27 years, going from Private to Major. I have always felt that wrestling helped me throughout my career.”

He continues to love the sport and has been a University of Iowa wrestling season ticket holder for 30 years. He has attended the NCAA Championships for many years – missing only while serving in Vietnam.

Another Bill – Bill Lahman – is widely known as one of America’s most passionate college wrestling fans. Bill was first exposed to wrestling in 1957 as a 4th-grader at Cleveland School. “Bill Quinby was the PE teacher (and) in his first years as a teacher. Bill was very active in setting up all of the sports for us to try; football, basketball, wrestling, baseball and track. He set up a few weeks of practices and then had a tournament at the end for us all to have several matches.”

Bill played football and wrestled at Jefferson and was a member of a state runner-up wrestling team in 1965 (and also a starting tackle on perhaps the most famous football team in Iowa high school history – the 1965 state champions). Bill remembers what it was like wrestling for Jefferson in the mid-60s, “We enjoyed a full gym of around 2,200 for nearly every home meet…”

Bill Lahman (CR Jefferson) defeats (CR Washington) 5-0. The official is long-time Iowa City High coach Clyde Bean.

Bill went on to wrestle for the University of North Dakota and finished fourth in the North Central Conference in 1968.

Bill also shared this interesting photo of two future Division I head coaches just prior to their 1966 high school state championship match.

Sandy Stevens has been frequently quoted as saying that she fell in love with wrestling because, “I fell in love with a wrestler”. Sandy and her husband, Bob (Bear) both attended McKinley Junior High and Washington High School before going to the University of Northern Iowa, where Bear wrestled for Bill Koll.

Sandy taught at Waterloo East High School for two years while Bear began work on his Masters and then both returned to Cedar Rapids to teach at “Wash”. In 1967 Sandy became one of the first (if not the first) women to be certified as a wrestling official. When Cedar Rapids Kennedy High School opened, Bear became their first head wrestling coach. The story is now almost legendary – the night before his very first meet, Bear realized that he had not arranged for an announcer and pressed Sandy into service. Thus began a career that has made Sandy’s one of the most recognizable voices in the sport.

Sandy remembers those early days at Kennedy, “…being involved in the start of a school and a wrestling team was exciting, a privilege and a joy. The fact that Bear and I could SHARE the experience made it even better. But it was also at times frustrating. Many kids wanted to stay at their former schools, especially athletes, so early on, we struggled to find enough bodies to put in singlets and then to win. I remember that one time our smallest wrestler literally weighed in with his winter coat and boots on! But you couldn't ask for more loyalty, dedication, work, and heart than those young men had! And their parents were amazing.”

Robert C. (Bear) Stevens went on to a distinguished career as an educator, ultimately as Superintendent of the Glenbard Township (IL) Schools for many years. Sadly, Bear passed away in 2001. I know one of his wrestlers pretty well and the impact Bear had on those young men is tremendous.

Gregg Dinderman was a self-described, “very poor wrestler”, but there’s no denying his love for the sport. Gregg made this observation, “I do like the notion that wrestlers in CR come from all neighborhoods, all backgrounds and all ethnicities, but still share this strange little sport in common.”

Gregg currently lives in Cambridge, MA and is the illustration director for Sky and Telescope Magazine.

Barry Davis started wrestling in the 4th grade at the YMCA. “I was lucky to always have great coaches, starting at the Y”. He wanted to be an Olympic champion from very early in his career and credits his father with his work ethic. “My dad worked two jobs to put food on the table. I saw the hard work he did and I put that same effort into my wrestling.”

Coach Davis also believes that the Cedar Rapids work ethic is why the community loves wrestling. “They appreciate hard work. They know that things aren’t always easy and that some times you just have to grind things out. And they take pride in what they do and in representing themselves and their community… like Quaker Oats – they take pride in making great products that are sold all over the world.”

Coach Davis wrestled at Cedar Rapids Prairie High School with another Distinguished Member of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame, Jim Zalesky, and remembers the beginnings of the Prairie/Jefferson rivalry, “People came (to the meets) from all over the city – not just from Prairie or Jefferson - to see great wrestling”.

Barry Davis won 3 Iowa high school state championships, 3 NCAA Division I championships, an Olympic silver medal and two silver medals at the World Championships and is currently the head wrestling coach at the University of Wisconsin.

Mark Ironside started wrestling because his older brother Matt would come home from Wilson Middle School wrestling practice and try his moves out on Mark. “At the time I was a 5th grader at Van Buren Elementary. Once he started showing me a couple things I entered a kids tournament at Linn Mar High school where I got beat pretty bad every match but one. Then a few weeks later I went to a tournament at Kennedy High school called the Daybreak Optimist. There were only 4 people in my bracket, but I won the tournament. From there on I was hooked.”

Mark, a two-time Iowa high school state champion at Jefferson, a two-time NCAA champion and 1998 winner of the Dan Hodge Trophy, has some concerns about the future of wrestling in Cedar Rapids.

“I think the wrestling culture in CR used to be a lot tougher than it is now. This used to be a pretty tough blue collar factory city, but now, along with most of society, things have changed. I don’t believe that the kids are raised the same these days with all the technology that they have vs. what their parents had. Hence, the kids today do not need to work for what they get as much and parents are fine with the kids spending hours in front of the TV playing games or on hand held games instead of having them get outside and exercise. That is not a knock on CR as it is the general society as a whole. I think that CR is a fantastic town with lots of pride. Along with the “potential” to produce some fantastic scholastic programs and businesses throughout.”

Mark is currently owner and president of Ironside Apparel and Promotions Inc. and has a website devoted to Hawkeye wrestling apparel. He remains active in wrestling as an announcer for University of Iowa wrestling meets on KXIC-AM radio and a wrestling commentator on our local ESPN radio affiliate, 1600. Mark also puts on his own wrestling summer camp at Jefferson High School and helps coach a freestyle club at Coe College.

One might say that, as a junior at Coe College, Clayton Rush is finishing his “growing up” in Cedar Rapids. I asked Clayton for his observations about the “wrestling culture” in Cedar Rapids.

“I feel like the community here is more responsive to wrestling than it is in Aledo (Clayton’s home town). There are summer clubs that are held here at Coe. In Aledo, there is hardly any summer wrestling that goes on, maybe a few kids. Here in Cedar Rapids there are enough kids that want to do summer wrestling to make a club. That also goes to show the support of their parents and the rest of the community. Not only do they support it, but they encourage it as well.”

I recently watched a video segment of Dan Gable finishing up a clinic. In his closing talk he said, “America needs wrestling. America needs tough (people).” Well – Cedar Rapids needs wrestling. Cedar Rapids needs tough people. We’re still battling to recover from the flood of 2008 – one of the five most financially damaging natural disasters in American history. We are still hundreds of millions of dollars short of what’s needed for a full recovery.

Barry Davis feels that the things that wrestling teaches are helping Cedar Rapids fight back, “It’s an individual sport, but you can’t do it on your own. You need someone to drill with. You need coaches. You can see that with the flood, the teamwork, the pride in the community…”

Yes, Cedar Rapids is a great place to grow up – both of my daughters did and now my grandkids are. It can be an ever better place to raise kids once we finally put the flood behind us. You can help. The Greater Cedar Rapids Community Foundation has a number of flood relief funds and offers portals to other organizations serving flood victims. Click over there right now and make a donation.

And what about wrestling? Well, the NCAA Division III Championships will once again be held here at the US Cellular Center. Set aside the first weekend in March, 2010 to come to our great city and watch some outstanding wrestling.

10 things to do in the next 81 days.

2009-08-31T11:04:00.000-07:00

College football season in Iowa begins this week. That can only mean one thing – college wrestling practice will soon begin. Over the past month or so wrestling super-fan, Bill Lahman, has been periodically counting down the days until the season begins. For many, it will start 81 days from now with the Iowa Duals on November 20th.

Some folks are getting pretty restless for a taste of wrestling. Here are ten things you can do in the next 81 days to get ready for the college wrestling season.

1. Clean your wrestling memorabilia. No one likes a dusty Dan Gable autograph.

2. Read a wrestling book or two. I personally recommend A Season on the Mat, Four Days to Glory, Cowboy Up and anything by Mike Chapman, but especially Wrestling Tough.

3. Order season tickets. I ordered mine last week. Buying season tickets is one way every fan can help college wrestling – regardless of school.

4. Watch old match video. You can find lots of wrestling on youtube, flowrestling, The Wrestling Talk and Iowa Public Television.

This isn’t a college match but it certainly is one of my favorites. It features 2 of the greatest wrestlers in the history of the sport – John Smith and Sergei Beloglazov.

5. Rearrange the wrestling tee shirts in your closet.

6. Subscribe to one of the wrestling magazines. WIN, Amateur Wrestling News and Wrestling USA will add a depth to your appreciation that you can’t always get online.

7. Rent and watch Vision Quest.

8. Visit a wrestling museum. The National Wrestling Hall of Fame and Museum in Stillwater and the Dan Gable International Wrestling Institute and Museum in Waterloo are probably the most prominent, but there are others.

9. Follow the US teams at the World Championships in Herning, Denmark September 21 – 27. Current team members Dustin Schlatter, Jake Varner and Tatiana Padilla will all resume college competition after their respective world championship events

10. Make a list of the 10 “greatest, most, worst… and post it on your favorite internet wrestling forum.

Just for fun, here’s one.

The 10 greatest wrestlers to come from Waterloo (IA) West High School

1. Dan Gable
2. Lowell Lange
3. Dale Anderson
4. Mike VanArsdale
5. Dick Hauser
6. John Bowlsby
7. Tom Huff
8. Akeem Carter
9. Doug Moses
10. Leo Thomsen

An interview with Jeff McGinness

2009-08-24T02:57:00.000-07:00

I first saw Jeff McGinness wrestle on television. That’s an advantage to living in Iowa - all state high school finals matches are shown on split screen. I can’t remember if it was Jeff’s sophomore or junior year. I just remember – wow!

I recently contacted Jeff and he graciously agreed to answer a few questions. Jeff was one of the most dominant high school in Iowa history – a four-time undefeated state champion and a US Cadet and Junior National freestyle champion. Wrestling got into Jeff’s blood early.

“I would venture to say that I was exposed to wrestling, and specifically Iowa wrestling, from the moment I was born. My father has been the treasurer of the H.A.W.K. fan group nearly since its inception in 1975. Thus, I pretty much grew up going to wrestling meets, Big 10s, NCAAs, and frequented the Iowa room as a youngster. While I didn't really get started wrestling competitively until later in grade school, I think it was this exposure and opportunity that really drove my interest level.

As far as who influenced me the most growing up, I started out going to the Iowa evening camps held in the top floor of the old Field House with clinicians like Barry Davis, the Banachs, Zaleskys, and Kistler brothers to name a few. Upon getting to junior high I began working individually with Keith Mourlam who by far played the biggest role in my development technically. Beyond that, having supportive but not overbearing parents helped foster my growth not only on the mat, but off it as well.”

There have been 18 four-time state champions in Iowa high school wrestling history. So far only three – Joe Gibbons, Jeff and Eric Juergens have gone on to win at least one NCAA title. I asked Jeff just how big the leap is from high school to college.

“You often hear NFL or NBA commentators talking about the biggest difference from the college to the pro ranks being the "speed of the game." I think that statement applies equally to the leap from high school to college wrestling. Everyone is faster, stronger and more technically sound.”

This was borne out in one of Jeff’s very first college matches. I used to make the annual trek to Madison for the old Northern Open because it was always one of the first chances in the year to watch wrestling. It also afforded the opportunity to see the incoming freshmen who would be redshirting. Jeff’s freshman year he drew 1992 Greco-Roman Olympian, Dennis Hall, in an early round. In the first period Jeff and Hall locked up upper body holds and Hall threw Jeff to his back for a five point move. I don’t remember the final score, but Jeff mounted a furious comeback in the final two periods to almost pull out the win. I couldn’t resist asking about that match.

“That match sort of serves as an example as to the type of wrestler I was from time to time. If a wrestler was a known upper body specialist, like Dennis Hall, I would want to prove to myself that I could beat him at his game. If someone was known to be a good leg rider, I would take down to prove I could get out of anyone. Getting thrown to my back for 5 understandably caused me to rethink that strategy a bit.”

Jeff’s college career took off from there. He went on to become a three-time All American and two-time NCAA champ and an exciting wrestler to watch. He also wrestled on some of the most impressive teams in Hawkeye history. I was curious about which of his teammates he most liked to watch.

“Practice room match-up: Joe Williams vs. Lincoln McIlravy. Easily some of the best wrestling never to be seen by the public. Beyond that, there were a number of teammates who had amazing skills but because of injuries or other bad luck only wrestled briefly or never cracked the starting line-up. Casey Gillis, Corey Christensen, and Justin Stanley come to mind. All three were some of my toughest competitors in the room and had some great stuff. Gillis could throw from almost anywhere and I saw him put plenty of big names on their head in the room. Christensen was an amazing athlete and nearly impossible to finish on. Stanley was a very well rounded technical wrestler who could pick up and perfect a technique from having seen it once.”

Inevitably, I had to ask what it was like to wrestle for Gable.

“For me it was obviously a dream come true having grown up in Iowa City, in the room, and literally sitting on the bench as a kid. Beyond that general statement, I think what captures my experience the best is my belief that Coach Gable never coached two persons the same - including the numerous twins he had come through the program. His ability to read and motivate wrestlers from very different backgrounds and having distinct personalities was, in my mind, one of the biggest reasons for his success.”

Jeff’s Hawkeye career was not without its hiccups. I asked him about his favorite memories.

“I would say my entire senior year. Unlike my previous years, and after having taken a year off to redshirt following my train wreck junior year, I was back having fun wrestling by only having to worry about wrestling. While the season had some ups and downs, including a partially torn MCL, the ability to not to worry about cutting weight got me back to wrestling for myself and without concern of the outcome - the way I wrestled in high school.”

After receiving his undergraduate degree, Jeff enrolled in the University of Iowa Law School and received his JD in 2001.

“I moved back to Iowa about 2 years ago after having gotten sick of the long hours and long commute working for a large Chicago firm. I was recruited by and joined Simmons Perrine Moyer Bergman where I know specialize in general litigation.”

Jeff remains active in wrestling and still follows the Hawks closely.

“I continue to help out with camps and clinics from time to time. I was also placed on the H.A.W.K. fan board this last year to oversee the creation of the clubs first website. Even when I lived in Chicago I continued to follow the team and have only missed 1 NCAA tournament (Buffalo) for as far back as I can remember. My parents have always had season tickets and we typically go to every home meet.”

Does he have any thoughts on the upcoming season?

“It's hard to say exactly how the season is going to shape up this early in the year. I know the Iowa team has some pretty big holes to fill and has a number of people competing to step into, or back into, the lineup. One of my biggest expectations for the season will be to see whether Caldwell red shirts to pursue his football interests.”

Finally, I asked Jeff for his thoughts on what we, as fans, can do to keep the sport healthy.

“I think having knowledgeable and respectful fans is one of the biggest things we can do to help maintain and grow the sport. One of my biggest frustrations as someone who is proud of the sport is the many anonymous forum posters who hide behind a screen name while they make direct attacks on current wrestlers or spread rumors and innuendo. Myself and other former wrestlers used to post, under our own name, a great deal on sites like themat.com and attempt to give our own insight or personal opinions on topics. The negativity that now infests those boards I feel has driven a number of people away.”

If Tiger Woods were a wrestler

2009-08-17T08:16:00.000-07:00

Y. E. Yang out shot Tiger Woods yesterday to win the PGA Championship. It is the first time in 15 tries that anyone has been able to overtake Woods when he has lead at the beginning of the final round of a “major” championship.

That wasn’t the only news in golf last week. The executive board of the International Olympic Committee recommended the inclusion of golf in the Olympics beginning in 2016. Tiger Woods is leading the charge.

Said Woods, “I think that golf is a truly global sport, and I think it should have been in the Olympics long ago. If it does get in, I think it would be great for golf and especially some of the other smaller countries that are now emerging in golf. I think it’s a great way for them to compete and play and get the exposure that some of these countries aren’t getting.”

The entire IOC council will vote on golf’s inclusion this coming October. Golfing legends like Jack Nicklaus, Annika Sorenstam, Arnold Palmer and Lorena Ochoa are joining Woods in lobbying for acceptance. I suspect that companies like Callaway, Titleist and Ping are waiting in line to become Olympic sponsors. American broadcast rights for the 2016 games have not yet been awarded, but I’d guess that the competing networks are salivating over the possibility of four days of air time for Tiger – one of the biggest ratings boosters in all of sports. Millionaire athletes, major corporations and TV networks – does anyone else think that that’s too much influence to ignore?

Wrestling is one of the original Olympic sports. Milo of Croton, who won six Olympic championships between 540 B.C. and 520 B.C., may have been the world’s first superstar athlete. Wrestling continues as an Olympic event today and has had a women’s division since 2004.

It’s almost certain that the first golfers to tee it up for the United States in the Olympic Games will be millionaires. It’s also almost certain that the next American wrestlers to step on the mat in the Olympics will not be.

With a couple of exceptions, American wrestlers toil in relative obscurity. Unless they wrestle at one of the top ten college programs they are accustomed to competing in almost empty arenas and gyms. And they don’t seem to care. Few wrestle for the “glory” of it – and I doubt if any of them expect to be financially rewarded for all of those grueling hours spent “in the room”.

But – shouldn’t they at least expect to make a living while they pursue their Olympic dreams? And more importantly – shouldn’t they be rewarded for excellence? Some of our greatest past Olympians think so. USA Wrestling recently announced the creation of the Living the Dream Medal Fund. Money from the fund will be used to reward those athletes that take on the best in the world and excel. In the upcoming and all future World Championships, American gold medallists will receive $50,000, a silver medal is worth $25,000 and a bronze gets $15,000. Beginning with the 2012 London games, Olympic champions will get $250,000, silver medallists $50,000 and bronze medallists $25,000. Former Olympic champions John Smith, Dan Gable, Bruce Baumgartner and Brandon Slay and former World Champion Zeke Jones are among the first to contribute to the fund. These great champions of the past obviously care about the champions of the future.

As of July 28th, 170 of America’s most ardent wrestling supporters had joined those greats by donating to the fund. Many of the names on the donor list are familiar – they’re people who contribute to wrestling at every level. You may not recognize all of the donors – but you can be sure of one thing – they love wrestling.

Is your name on the list? If not – why not? Don’t you want to see young freestylers like Jake Varner and Dustin Schlatter stay in the sport for a long time? Heavyweight, Dremiel Byers, has represented the US in Greco-Roman competitions around the world for ten years – winning a World Championship in 2002 and a bronze medal in 2007? Doesn’t he deserve your support? And what about the real pioneers – the women? How can you not want to reward an athlete like Deanna Rix who had to learn the sport by wrestling boys – and twice placed in the Michigan boys high school tournament?

Don’t put this off any longer. If you truly love wrestling, go right now to the Living the Dream website and add your name to an elite list.

Fat guy walking

2009-08-10T07:38:00.000-07:00

I’m fat. Not a little out of shape – fat. I’ve struggled with my weight for the last 25 years. Up until I was 35 I farmed, ran and played tennis and softball – all things that allow you to eat what you want and maintain normal weight. Then I went through a major life change and one of the ultimate results was that I started to gain weight – a lot of it. During the past quarter-century I have lost over 50 pounds three times. The last time was 11 years ago and I lost 65 pounds. I was so successful that Weight Watchers hired me to be one of their very few male “leaders”. I worked for them for four years and for the most part kept the weight off. After I left them I gained 80 pounds. I’m now in the middle of a doctor-recommended effort to lose at least 70 of that (30 down so far).

Believe me, I understand weight loss.

I recently re-read Mark Kreidler’s book, Four Days to Glory. It is the story of now-Hawkeye seniors, Jay Borschel and Dan LeClere, and their quest to become 4-time Iowa high school state champions. When I read a book more than once, I typically take away impressions that I may have missed during the first reading. The Hawkeye fan in me read it the first time, but it was the wrestling fan that read it the second time.

The first time through I was impressed by the dedication of these two young men, their coaches and their parents. The ultimate irony of Tom Brands replacing Jim Zalesky as Iowa head coach and the subsequent transfer of Jay and Dan from Virginia Tech to Iowa colored my interpretation of every page.

During the more recent reading I was struck by how well Kreidler captured and portrayed two prevalent aspects of wrestling. The first is the inbred nature of it – that is – kids wrestle because their dad or an uncle or a brother wrestled. You draw the conclusion that wrestling thrives in Iowa (and probably elsewhere) only when there is a history of the sport.

“The parents know the score. But they were also raised with wrestling if they’re from Iowa, or at least raised with the recognition that wrestling matters and will be accepted, glory and gore alike.”

Kreidler’s documentation of the struggles of weight management are the most poignant observations I’ve ever seen made by a non-wrestler (like me).

“There is, of course, no such thing as a satiated wrestler. To live with hunger, to go to bed with a gnawing feeling in the stomach, is to live the life. It is the season of an athlete who spends most of his waking hours, and some of those when he’s supposed to be asleep, contemplating calories expended and calories consumed, and the long-term cost of eating that French fry, and what is the smallest amount of liquid he can take in and still partially replenish a dehydrated body, and so on. It demands of high school students a kind of self-imposed discipline that is excessive and wildly unreasonable, yet routinely met. It requires the wrestlers to deny their bodies the basis for a more natural growth pattern. They’re actually stunting themselves, and they do it on purpose and in the sort of vague half-knowledge and general industry reassurance that, sooner or later, they’ll be able to get it all back. Maybe they will, maybe they won’t.”

Cutting weight – tactic for success, badge of honor or bad for the sport?

Weight cutting has long been a part of the American wrestling culture. Conventional wisdom has been that the wrestler whose natural, “walking around”, weight is greater than that of his opponent has a competitive advantage. He’s just naturally bigger and stronger even though they are equal at the time of weigh-in. This led in the past to the frequent use of unhealthy weight loss practices such as extreme dehydration. In late 1997 three college wrestlers died while trying to lose weight rapidly. All three were engaged in practices that were commonly accepted at the time – strenuous exercise in an overheated environment while wearing a rubberized suit.

The NCAA and the National Wrestling Coaches Association moved quickly to respond to these tragedies. The NCAA banned the use of saunas and rubberized suits. The National Wrestling Coaches Association began work on what has become the Optimal Performance Calculator – a comprehensive guide to healthy weight management for athletes. Over 7,000 coaches, 8,000 athletic trainers and 240,000 wrestlers participate in the program. Weight loss among wrestlers is healthier than it has ever been.

Yet the culture, or at least the perception of the culture, still exists. Re-read Mark Kreidler’s observations above. I recently read a thread on one of the online wrestling forums called, “The craziest thing you ever did to cut weight”. It became a brag fest of claims involving diuretics, laxatives, self-induced vomiting and extreme dehydration. There were almost three dozen posts before the site administrator deleted the thread. I was not shocked by the claims (I’ve heard them all before), but I was taken aback by the obvious pride expressed by the posters. Internet posting is by and large an anonymous activity so there is no way of knowing if these things were done before or after the rule changes. It doesn’t really matter because the perception still exists.

If our favorite sport is going to experience serious growth it’s going to have to do so outside of the existing wrestling “family” – in cities and towns where the parents don’t fit the mold that Kreidler describes. We’re going to need parental support. We’re going to need moms. How are we going to gain that support if we allow the perception to continue that wrestling is unhealthy? The NWCA is working at it. Coaches are working at it. Tom Brands frequently talks about a “commitment to a healthy lifestyle” and almost never about “cutting weight”. We all – fans, athletes, coaches - need to make a conscious effort to project a positive image for the world’s greatest sport. Why? To get more kids on the mat.

Now I’m going to go get on the elliptical trainer. I still have 40 pounds to go.

A tree of greatness

2009-08-03T07:59:00.000-07:00

Dave McCuskey coached an NCAA Division I wrestling championship team, 2 Olympic champions and a silver medallist (11 Olympians total), the first African-American NCAA individual champion and at least 7 members of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame. That resume alone is enough to make him a Distinguished Member of the Hall of Fame himself.

Last week the Sporting News published a list that they called their “50 greatest coaches of all time”. The online wrestling community arose immediately to question the omission of Dan Gable from the list. Jason Bryant took it a step further and wrote an excellent blog that also pointed out that the great Oklahoma A & M (now Oklahoma State) coach, Edward Gallagher was also missing. As I read the uproar over the original list and the reaction to Jason’s comments, I was surprised by an apparent lack of recognition for Gallagher by much of the online readership. I suppose that relates to a general lack of appreciation of history among the young.

Wrestling super fan, Bill Lahman, has spent the last four years’ tracking the influence on wrestling of the University of Iowa and Dan Gable. Here’s a link to Bill’s list on HawkeyeReport.com. It’s a labor of love for Bill and an impressive piece of research.

I suspect that if you asked most wrestling fans to identify Dave McCuskey (without a Google search) you’d get a lot of blank stares. Some might know that he led Iowa State Teachers College (now the University of Northern Iowa) to the NCAA crown in 1950. A few others may be aware of his later tenure at the helm of the Iowa Hawkeyes. Almost none could outline the “tree of greatness” that is rooted with Dave McCuskey.

Finn Eriksen, a Distinguished Member of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame, was on McCuskey’s very first ISTC team. Graduating in 1932, Eriksen went on to found the famed Waterloo (IA) West High School program. More importantly, he is credited with improving high school and youth wrestling throughout the country.

Bill Smith, one of the Olympic champions coached by McCuskey, is one of the few men to coach high school championship teams in two states. In 1956 the eventual state champions from Illinois and Iowa met in a dual meet and Smith’s Rock Island (IL) Rocks dominated the Iowa state champs from Davenport. He coached at the intercollegiate level at the University of Nebraska and as an interim replacement at San Jose State. At the senior level, his San Francisco Olympic Club teams won three national Freestyle team titles and four in Greco-Roman. In 1968 he was the Canadian Olympic coach. Returning to the high school ranks, his Concord Clayton Valley team won the 1976 California state championship. Today’s coaches and competitors are still influenced by Smith through his technique videos and DVDs.

Keith Young was a three-time NCAA champ for McCuskey. After college he would go on to a long career as a high school coach. Like Bill Smith, he would win championships in two different states – one at Blue Earth, MN and two at Cedar Falls High School.

Another “three-timer”, Bill Nelson taught wrestling for over 30 years, 20 as the head coach at the University of Arizona.

Hall of Fame member Gerry Leeman was an NCAA champion on McCuskey’s 1946 ISTC team that finished 2nd to Oklahoma State. In 1948 he won an Olympic silver medal. In 1953 he took over the reigns at Lehigh University. In his 18 years there six of his wrestlers won ten NCAA individual championships – with Hall of Fame member, Mike Caruso, winning three of those. His 1961-62 team was undefeated in dual meets and finished fourth at the NCAA tournament.

In a career that was wrapped around his combat service in World War II, Bill Koll was undefeated and won three NCAA titles for McCuskey. After graduation, he embarked on a long college coaching career. Koll coached at the University of Chicago while earning his Masters degree from Northwestern. He then spent two years at Cornell College (makes for a great trivia question, doesn’t it?) leading the Purple to an NCAA 9th place finish in 1951. In 1953 Dave McCuskey moved on to the University of Iowa and Bill Koll returned to Cedar Falls to take over the helm at ISTC. In his eleven seasons there he lead the Panthers to four NCAA Division I Top Ten finishes. He was then instrumental in founding the “College Division” (now the NCAA Division II) and would host the first 2 DII tournaments and finish in the Top Ten twice at the Division II level.

While at ISTC, Koll coached future college coaches, Bill Dotson and the man who would replace him as Panther head coach, Chuck Patten. Dotson coached many years at the University of New Mexico and Patten led the Panthers to two NCAA Division II team championships. The “Patten arm” of the McCuskey/Koll success tree branched out into college coaches, Mike McCready, who coached three NCAA Division III individual champions at Upper Iowa University and Jim Miller, who has lead Wartburg College to seven NCAA Division III team championships. Patten’s influence on the sport also extends through successful high school coaches Marv Reiland (three Iowa state team titles at Eagle Grove High School) and Dick Briggs, high school coach of two-time NCAA champion and 1998 Hodge Trophy winner, Mark Ironside. Respected NCAA referees Mike Allen and Keith Poolman also wrestled for Chuck Patten.

Bill Koll’s influence moved east when he took the head coaching job at Penn State in 1965. His Nittany Lion teams finished in the Top Ten at the NCAA tournament six times and posted a 38-match unbeaten dual meet streak from 1969-1973. While at Penn State two of his wrestlers, Andy Matter (2) and John Fritz (1) won three NCAA championships. Koll also coached future Penn State coaches Rich Lorenzo and John Fritz and his legacy runs through NCAA champions like Jeff Prescott, John Hughes, Kerry McCoy, Sanshiro Abe and Jeremy Hunter – all of whom coach wrestling at some level (McCoy as the head coach at Stanford University).

Bob Siddens may not have been Dave McCuskey’s best wrestler, but his influence may have been the greatest. His Waterloo West Wahawks won eleven state championships. One of his wrestlers, Dale Anderson, went to win two NCAA individual championships and help Michigan State University win the 1967 team title. Siddens also coached Dan Mashek, the winningest coach in Iowa high school wrestling history. Mashek coached 1996 Iowa Hawkeye national champion Daryl Weber who is now a successful high school coach at one of the nation’s strongest programs – Christiansburg, VA. Former University of Northern Iowa, University of Iowa and current Stanford University athletic director, Bob Bowlsby also wrestled for Siddens.

And then there’s Gable. “Daniel” Gable wrestled for coach Siddens from 1963 to 1966. As most wrestling fans know, Gable went undefeated in high school and won three state championships. In a Des Moines Register interview prior to Siddens’ induction into the Register’s athletic Hall of Fame Gable said, “He shaped my career. He could always push my right button at the right time, and he helped me, not just as an athlete. As my high school guidance counselor, he knew what to say at the right time.” In what may have been one of the greatest “passing of the torch” moments in all of sports history, in 1997 Bob Siddens handed Dan Gable his 15th, and last, NCAA team championship trophy while Jim Zalesky and Tom Brands looked on. Fittingly, it took place where the tree is rooted – on the campus of the University of Northern Iowa. It’s too bad Dave McCuskey wasn’t there.

How I'd start a college wresting program

2009-07-27T09:08:00.000-07:00

Eighteen years ago I started my own company. I took ten years’ experience working for others, found an underserved niche and took the plunge. In those 18 years I have developed and managed direct marketing campaigns that launched department stores, pizzerias, groceries and banks.

As an outsider looking in – how would I start a new college wrestling program?

Step 1 – Call the National Wrestling Coaches Association.

Mike Moyer and his staff have developed invaluable materials to help anyone that wants intercollegiate wrestling to grow. They work behind the scenes with organizations that are trying to expand the sport at all levels. Their website is a wealth of ammunition for those that want to take up the battle for wrestling. Almost all of the data in this blog is taken directly from www.nwcaonline.com.

Step 2 – Build a constituency.

Few college administrators are looking to add a wrestling team (either men’s or women’s). Someone has to start the ball rolling. High school coaches can be great catalysts for action. Recently retired after 20 years of coaching at Amarillo (TX) Tascosa High School, Johnny Cobb heads up a group working to establish wrestling at West Texas A & M. One of Johnny’s partners in his effort is another prime example of someone who can spearhead a startup – Olympic champion, Brandon Slay. Which prominent athletes, business people, politicians, etc. can you enlist to join you?

Parents of wrestlers can provide a major impetus. Alan Leet, father of Iowa Hawkeye wrestler, T. H. Leet, is one of the leaders of a coalition that was instrumental in bringing Georgia’s only intercollegiate varsity wrestling team to Darton College. Theirs is an excellent model for how to attack the challenge: start with a grass roots group that loves wrestling, enlist the aid of the NWCA and then get Dan Gable to help with your fund raising.

Step 3 – Make your case.

Wrestling ranks sixth nationally in high school athletic participation. Of the ten sports that rank highest in high school participation, wrestling ranks last in opportunities to participate at the intercollegiate level. Only 2.3% of high school wrestlers can go on to compete in college.

There are two areas of the country that are distinctly underserved. The Western and Rocky Mountain States have one-fifth of America’s high school wrestlers and less than 30 college teams. The situation in the Deep South is even worse, with no college varsity teams in states like Texas, Florida, Alabama and Louisiana.

The numbers make sense – especially for a tuition-driven school. A wrestling team would attract 25 – 30 new students (a women’s team an additional 15 – 20). Beloit College recently laid off 40 employees because 35 fewer students enrolled than expected. Startup costs could be as low $20,000 (the cost of 2 mats for a school that already has a weight room and space for the mats), but would more realistically be in the $75,000 - $100,000 range. Annual operating costs (including coaches salaries) will range from $125,000 (according to Baker University) to $250,000. Average 4-year private college tuition is $25,000. Let’s assume that scholarships and other financial aid discount that by 50%. Wrestling not only pays for itself – it has the opportunity to generate positive revenue for any school that is smart enough to add it.

Don’t forget the long term implications. Every additional enrollee is a potential future alumni donor.

Step 4 – Prime the pump.

Yes, the numbers make sense, but every college administrator will be more open to investing in wrestling if you bring financial commitment to the table. Aim high. Get creative. Believe in the value of wrestling. If you had to – could you convince John Jones, the president of Acme Widget Company to write you a $10,000 check – especially if he had no wrestling background?

Here’s the most important factor – someone has to want to. Someone has to take the first step. Is it you?

Forty years ago today

2009-07-20T12:25:00.000-07:00

Forty years ago today I was working at the East Locust Street Dairy Queen in Davenport, IA – trying to earn enough tuition money for my sophomore year at Saint Ambrose College. In between serving banana splits and Dilly Bars I watched Neil Armstrong land on the moon. The manager had brought in a black and white portable TV so that none of us would miss history being made. NASA taught us an important lesson – a group of people can accomplish anything if it means enough to them.

Forty years ago today Dan Gable was preparing for his senior season at Iowa State University. He had not lost a wrestling match in high school or college and on July 20, 1969 most of the American wrestling community thought him unbeatable. Just a few months later, in Evanston, IL, Larry Owings shocked Gable and the wrestling world by winning the 1970 NCAA wrestling championship. Gable would rebound from that loss and go on to a World Championship and an Olympic Gold medal as an athlete and then would coach the University of Iowa to 15 NCAA team titles. Dan Gable taught us another important lesson – you can triumph over setbacks and go on to greatness.

Forty years ago today 226,681 high school boys were anticipating the beginning of wrestling season. In the 2008-2009 season 259,688 high school boys and 5,527 high school girls wrestled interscholastically.

Forty years ago today there were over 250 more college wrestling programs than there are today. It’s a pretty simple observation – there are more potential college wrestlers than in 1969, but at least 6,000 fewer opportunities.

The wrestling world spends so much time fighting the elimination of college programs that we think very little about adding teams – and yet every year new squads enter intercollegiate wrestling. There are many roadblocks to starting a new program – finances in these economic times, lack of alumni recognition, Title IX, etc. Let’s use the lessons taught us by NASA and Dan Gable. Let’s join together and fight back.

Of all of the things standing in the way – the current interpretations of Title IX may be the most steadfast. It will be a long and arduous battle to bring sanity to gender equity discussions. Let’s look instead at schools where gender proportionality is not an issue. (I’ve picked a random school from all divisions but NJCAA). Please note that these selections are based primarily on numbers.

NAIA

Park University in suburban Kansas City has an enrollment that is 51% male and currently has three more women filling athletic roster spots than men. Three other schools in their conference have wrestling teams. One of those, Missouri Baptist, also has a women’s team. Even with Baker University beginning interscholastic competition in 2009-2010, Kansas high school wrestlers are underserved with future opportunities. Park would seem a good prospect for adding both a men’s and women’s team.

NCAA Division III

Green Mountain College

The reinstatement of wrestling at Norwich University still leaves Vermont with only one college wrestling team. Green Mountain’s enrollment is 52% male, but 59% of all athletic roster spots are filled by women.

NCAA Division II

Florida Institute of Technology is 65% male. They have more women’s teams than men’s, but roster spots are 53/47 male to female, leaving room, under proportionality, for a wrestling team. Major League baseball player, Tim Wakefield is a Florida Tech grad and has a history of supporting athletics in Florida (not just baseball).

NCAA Division I

Toledo University is evenly split by gender. According to data on their website they have 185 female athletes and 162 male. That leaves just enough room for a wrestling team. Toledo has a wrestling history, including 1971 NCAA HWT champion. Greg Wojciechowski. They are also in the MAC Conference, which has other wrestling teams.

Does this mean that establishing wrestling at these schools will be easy? No!

Does this mean that these are the only schools that should be targeted for expansion? No!

I offer this up only as a slightly different way to approach the growth of college wrestling.

Next week we’ll discuss the rest of the battle.

You say you want more coverage?

2009-07-13T08:19:00.000-07:00

One of wrestling’s best writers is looking for work today. Last week The Des Moines Register announced the layoff of 36 employees, including sportswriter – and wrestling maven – Dan McCool. Dan covered wrestling for the Register for 25 years. He wrote unique stories about every level of the sport. I hope he finds a new venue soon. Wrestling needs writers like Dan.

The announcement of Dan’s layoff led to a couple of online discussions – one about the extent – or lack thereof – of wrestling coverage and the other about the state of print journalism in general.

“Wrestling doesn’t get enough coverage”. That’s a common complaint among fans, wrestling board posters and even many of the sport’s leaders. Really? Have you been on the internet lately? Web coverage of wrestling began in 1995 with themat.com and InterMat (see Mark Palmer's interview with InterMat founder, Tom Owens). In the time since then we’ve seen the addition of sites like Flowrestling, The Wrestling Mall, The Wrestling Talk and RevWrestling – along with dozens of state-specific sites and hundreds of high school and college team sites.

Live interviews and podcasts are becoming a staple of internet coverage. Wrestling 411 and Scott Casber’s Takedown Radio air lively, informative and entertaining discussions with wrestling’s biggest names.

Internet coverage of wrestling is still growing. Eric Betterman and Ray Brinzer recently launched The Open Mat. In their mission statement Eric and Ray say, “The Open Mat is developing the internet’s most comprehensive web-based wrestling/MMA news and social networking site. This web-based system will allow users to view and contribute news on all aspects of wrestling and mixed martial arts.” – and later – “Our number one goal is to expand the reach of our sport and bring wrestling back to the front page.”

Here’s my question – Does internet coverage really “expand the reach” of the sport? I honestly don’t know. Does the wealth of online videos eventually get more kids on the mat? Does college wrestling attendance increase because of message board discussions? Have the recent internet articles on the addition of teams at Grand View University and Baker University inspired anyone to lead a movement to bring wrestling to a school near them? I wish I knew. But – as the old saying goes – it can’t hurt.

As a long-time marketing professional, I do know this – if our desire for more exposure is to sell the sport – we need a mix of media. There are at least three magazines dedicated to amateur wrestling, WIN, Amateur Wrestling News and Wrestling USA. All provide in-depth analysis that exceeds what is typically provided on the internet. They all face multiple threats. Publishing costs like paper and postage continue to rise. Free internet content is forcing them to provide even stronger value differentiation. Will they all rise to the challenge? I hope so. A well-read fan is a stronger fan.

There are still many wrestling fans who rely on their daily newspapers. That’s too bad. The newspaper publishing business model no longer seems to work. As the overall size of most papers shrinks, wrestling must fight even harder for space on the sports page. If The Des Moines Register is willing to reduce wrestling coverage to cut costs, think what dailies in other parts of the country might do.

Let’s look at this strictly as a marketing problem. Every new kid who takes up the sport is one “sale”. Every person who attends his or her first wrestling meet is another “sale”. Every new donor to a wrestling-related cause is another “sale”. Recent research by AdWeek Media and Harris Interactive found that television still influences buying decisions more than any other medium. So – if our desire is to make more wrestling “sales” – we need more television exposure.

Television coverage of amateur wrestling is better now than at any time in my memory. It still isn’t enough to really help the sport grow. How do we get more wrestling on TV? Well first of all – watch it when it’s on. Except for public television, networks are in business to make money and they make money by selling advertising. Advertisers buy time based on the number of projected viewers. The more you watch, the more it will be on.

Secondly - support those who are fighting to get more wrestling on the air. Wrestling 411 has a great concept – a weekly Sports Center-like highlight show. We all know that some wrestling matches can be pretty boring. If a prospective fan’s first exposure to college wrestling was the 2009 NCAA 125 pound championship match, he might never watch again. Let’s show the public the best that wrestling can be first. Right now Wrestling 411 is live on the internet and then podcast, but Kyle Klingman, Jason Bryant and the rest of the team are working to get it on the air. However, they need financial support and you can help. Do you want wrestling on TV badly enough to do something about it? You do? Then click here.

Television might have been the most influential MEDIUM on buying decisions in the AdWeek/Harris study but it wasn’t the most influential FACTOR. Nothing beats “word-of-mouth” (and personal WOM is twice as powerful as internet recommendation). That’s you. You - talking about wrestling to anyone who’ll listen. You - taking kids to wrestling events. You - organizing clubs. You - convincing alumni and administrations of the value of the sport.

You want more coverage? Join in.

Second anniversary

2009-07-06T07:50:00.000-07:00

For most of us, blogging is a self-indulgent endeavor. Yes, I know – there are professional journalists, scientists, business leaders and educators who write blogs with tangible value. Most of the rest of us, however, just believe that we have something to say and are arrogant enough to think that someone might care enough to read it.

Today marks the second anniversary of The View from Section GG. The title reflects the fact that I have watched a lot of wrestling from section GG (row 12, seat 1) in Carver Hawkeye Arena. It started as a myspace blog because I wanted a way to discuss “the world’s oldest and greatest sport” from a fan’s viewpoint. With the exception of winning an 8th grade intramural championship at Frank L Smart Junior High in Davenport, IA – I never wrestled. The first posting was called, “Blame it on Gable” and explained the beginnings of my love for the sport. Twenty-three people read it.

I tell this story all of the time. In the winter of 1970 a friend of mine who wrestled at Augustana College asked me to ride with him to Ames to watch Dan Gable wrestle. He just wanted someone to talk to and share the driving. I am just a little younger than Gable and had spent all of my youth as a sports fan in Iowa, so I was well aware of his accomplishments. Unless you lived here at the time, it’s hard for most people to grasp the full extent to which the state embraced his success. But – before that night I had never seen him wrestle.

I don’t remember the opponent – either the school or the individual. I don’t remember any of the other matches – except that the Cyclones won. I clearly remember Gable pushing this guy across the mat like he was pushing a wheelbarrow with a flat tire (my friend explained on the drive home that those were called “double arm bars”), then turning him and pinning him. Something struck a chord with me that night and over the years my love for wrestling has continued to grow.

During the season, roughly a thousand people a week read the blog. That number will spike to about 1,500 if the content is in any way related to the Hawkeyes. The busiest week ever was when Iowa Public Television allowed me to post the video of the Dave Osenbaugh upset of Lou Banach. There were 3,500 views that week – most of them probably Cyclone fans watching that match over and over.

It has been a rewarding two years. I’ve “met” some amazing people along the way – people with an unbelievable passion for wrestling.

Photographer, web developer, wrestler and now MMA fighter, Danielle Hobeika, graciously gave me my first interview. Then she did something for which I will ever be grateful – she introduced me to Al Bevilacqua.

Al is zealous about one thing – get as many American kids on the mat as possible. He’s very clear on the best way to accomplish that – make wrestling an urban sport. He walks the walk – Al and Michael Novogratz and the others at Beat the Streets have been phenomenal in bringing youth, middle school and high school wrestling to every borough in New York City. They (and others) are now reaching out to other areas of the country. A Beat the Streets offshoot in Detroit (led by Mark Churella) recently helped launch that city’s first middle school team. Others will follow.

I got to meet Karissa Avallone and her dad, Tony. Karissa is one of the thousands of girls in this country forced to fight prejudice and stereotype – and wrestle on the boys team – just to have the opportunity to compete in the sport she loves. By the way – she’s good.

Natural disaster – and blogging about it – introduced me to a dynamo of a wrestling mom, promoter, supporter and WIN Magazine “fan of the year” – Gail Rush. Gail and her son, 2X Coe College All-American, Clayton, responded to my friend Terrance’s flood loss with great kindness. They also contributed to the first of The Road to Cedar Rapids blogs, promoting the Division III Championships. On the night that I actually met Gail face to face in the Eby Fieldhouse at Coe, she had arranged to bring the entire middle school wrestling team from Aledo, IL to watch the dual meet between Coe and Cornell College.

Speaking of Cornell – the blog introduced me to Mike Duroe, the Rams’ head coach. Mike has coached at every possible level and has a treasure of experiences. Sitting in his office and talking with him about wrestling is just about as much fun as a wrestling fan can have.

The blog led to Mike Moyer of the National Wrestling Coaches calling me on the phone. Be prepared when Mike calls because he’s going to ask you to join in the fight to save college wrestling – and you won’t be able to say no.

Jason Bryant was one of my first regular readers. He and Kyle Klingman are now working diligently to improve wrestling coverage with Wrestling 411. Currently a webcast, it is their goal to also get the show on television as a weekly highlight broadcast. They are fighting an uphill battle – but they are fighting.

Lee Roy Smith, the executive director of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame and Museum, has been wonderfully supportive. Lee Roy and his staff strive to make the Hall of Fame so much more than a repository of wrestling memorabilia. In the past couple of years they have created outreach and educational programs stressing the relevance of wrestling in American history and culture. He was also kind enough to share personal memories for a blog about mothers and wrestling.

Gary Abbott of USA Wrestling honored me be inviting me to contribute to the College Wrestling Network. Gary – I’m just a fan (and occasionally I’m a little too “black and gold”), but thank you.

Thanks, also, to those folks who give me feedback – Sandy Stevens, Ken Chertow, Mark Palmer, Gregg Dinderman and Scott Casber. Maybe you shouldn’t encourage me so much.

I hope you’ll forgive me if I continue to indulge myself.

Living the Dream

2009-06-29T07:21:00.000-07:00

By one account, Michael Phelps has a net worth of $40 - $50 million. Shawn Johnson has gone from Beijing to Dancing With the Stars winner to millionaire. In comparison, fellow Olympic gold medallist, wrestler Henry Cejudo, got a pat on the back and a bag of chips. Oh sure, there were those charming few minutes with Jay Leno on the Tonight Show and a variety of other brief television appearances, but by now – less than a year later – Henry has faded from the minds of the general public. He definitely has not reaped the financial rewards that many other Olympians have.

No youngster takes up wrestling with the thought that it will one day make him or her wealthy. Most kids try the sport because Dad wrestled – or a big brother – or a cousin – or the next door neighbor. When they first step on the mat there are no dreams of Olympic glory either.

Somewhere along the way something seems to happen to a select group of those kids. They fall in love with the sport. Because wrestling teaches you to do so – they set goals – win a kids’ tournament, then a high school state championship - maybe even four or five of them. For some, nothing less than being the best in the world will suffice. So they sacrifice. They train harder than any other elite athletes (as former USA Wrestling resident freestyle coach, Terry Brands, likes to say, “We do things that would make a billy goat puke.”).

They make these sacrifices fully aware that there is no pot of gold – maybe just a couple of round pieces of it – waiting for them. Dan Gable, John Smith, Lee Kemp, Bruce Baumgartner, Tricia Saunders and Cael Sanderson – all were athletes that dominated American wrestling much as Tiger Woods, Alex Rodriguez and Peyton Manning have dominated their sports.

It would be foolish to think that American wrestlers will ever be compensated like Woods, Rodriguez and Manning. However, an alliance led by USA Wrestling has set out to improve the landscape for our elite wrestlers. Last month they launched the Living the Dream Fund. Starting in 2010 a World Champion will be rewarded with $50,000. Silver medallists will earn $25,000 and bronze medallists will receive $15,000. The group will up the ante for the 2012 London Olympic Games. A gold medal there will be worth $250,000, a silver earns $50,000 and a bronze earns $25,000.

Some of wrestling’s biggest supporters are already on board – Michael Novogratz, Dave Barry and the Martori family, for example. The program is also endorsed by the United States Olympic Committee. But – they can’t do it alone.

It’s a sad fact that far too many members of the wrestling family are willing to sit on the sidelines and watch when challenges arise. How ironic that some people who love this sport and everything it embodies, won’t battle for it!

Then - there are those precious few – God love them. You know them – they have a closet full of tee shirts that say things like “Save Oregon Wrestling”. They give $50 or $100 every time someone in wrestling needs help. It doesn’t matter to them: an ailing wrestler needs help fighting cancer – they’re in; a college team is working to become self-sustaining – they’re in; a high school team needs a new mat – they’re in. If we could only have more of them.

If you’re not already a member of that exclusive fraternity that fights for wrestling – here’s your chance to join. You can donate on line right now to the Living the Dream Fund or send a check to

Living the Dream Fund
C/o USA Wrestling
6155 Lehman Dr
Colorado Springs, CO 80918

I’m in – how about you?

Cosmic convergence or collision course

2009-06-22T07:46:00.000-07:00

I had too much time on my hands last week and spent way too much time surfing the ‘net for wrestling-related stories and posts. It just got “curiouser and curiouser” as Alice said.

First, from the Iowa Preps wrestling message board: This post was titled, “Wrestling Scholarship Available in Macon, GA.”

“Dear Wrestler,

My name is Kevin Andres, and I coach the wrestling program at Mercer University. I would like to introduce you to our program and let you know about an exciting opportunity for you to continue your wrestling careers in college. Mercer's team just finished 9th in the Nation @ the National Dual Championships and tied for 23rd at the traditional National Championship Tournament.

My program is part of the National Collegiate Wrestling Association, which includes over 130 colleges of all sizes. The NCWA is entering its twelfth season and has grown in size and competition every year.

I would be happy to answer any questions you might have, so feel free to call (478-301-2404) or email (kandres@mercerwrestling.com).

Thank you,

PS: Mercer University offers many academic scholarships and is also offering wrestling scholarships in various amounts to select wrestlers who qualify. To be accepted you need a minimum 3.0 GPA, 550m/550r on the SAT/ 25 ACT

http://www.gomercer.com
http://www.mercerwrestling.com/rec

HIGH NEED FOR 125lbs, 285lbs wrestlers

Kevin Andres Wrestling Coach Mercer University, Macon, GA 31207478-301-2404”

Then I read a press release that the NAIA-affiliated Mid-South Conference is adding wrestling as a conference sport. Five of the conference’s 17 members already compete in wrestling and this will certainly add incentive for the other 12 to consider adding a team.

After reading the release I searched for more information on the Mid-South Conference and came across this discussion on the Georgia National Wrestling Alliance wrestling forum about which college in Georgia to target next for the addition of another wrestling program. As you read the discussion you’ll see that Coach Andres from the “Wrestling Scholarship…” post is a participant in the discussion. It appears that there is a very active group of supporters who are working hard for the growth of intercollegiate wrestling in Georgia.

This is all good news. Participation in high school wrestling is still growing. While the trend among NCAA member institutions to eliminate wrestling programs is continuing, NAIA and NCWA schools are stepping in to give young student-athletes the opportunity to wrestle as a part of their college educations. The NAIA member, Grand View University added wrestling this past season and Baker University will begin varsity competition in 2009/2010.

I couldn’t let go of the string – I had to keep searching. It was all so positive. I then found this blog from NAIA expert, Jason Dannelly. More good news.

Then the string broken. As one site led to another, I landed on this article from the New York Times. In the settlement of a Title IX lawsuit brought by three female students against the University of California-Davis athletic department, UC Davis agreed to bring the percentage of athletes who are female to within 1.5% of the total female student body percentage. In other words, in 10 years (the time line agreed to in the settlement), if 60% of all UC Davis students are women, 58.5% of all athletes will have to be women.

“Proportionality” is the first of the three “prongs” to determine Title IX compliance. This settlement appears to impact wrestling in a couple of ways. In previous Title IX lawsuit rulings a disparity of 5% was considered acceptable proportionality. That gap is now narrowed. It also seems to continue the trend of making prong one carry more weight than the other two (a pattern of participation growth opportunity for women and matching female participation level to interest level). As more administrations are forced to make budget cuts, the elimination of men’s sports teams will seem a far easier option than adding women’s opportunities. Wrestling will be the first to go at many schools.

So – what does this mean to those schools that are adding wrestling? Grand View’s student body is already well over 60% female – so is Baker’s. Doesn’t it seem as if the addition of wrestling would run counter to Title IX as reflected in this latest interpretation? Will the UC Davis settlement discourage NAIA and NCWA schools from further expansion of wrestling opportunities?

More importantly, will the UC Davis settlement result in unforeseen consequences to educational opportunity as a whole? What do I mean?

More women than men began attending college in the late 1980’s. Since then that trend has continued and the gap has widened. Recent years have seen enrollments drop at small private schools. For many of these institutions 70 –75% of the annual budget comes from tuitions. In those cases, enrollment growth – or at least stability – is an absolute necessity for long-term viability. A reduction in enrollment can be disastrous. Beloit (WI) College recently eliminated 40 staff positions because 36 fewer students than expected enrolled.

Thirty-six students! Grand View added 21 students the first year of offering wrestling and has commitments from at least an additional five for next year. Baker will add 30 or more new students primarily because of wrestling. Doesn’t it seem like the addition of a wrestling program could give one small private college an edge over its competitors in the battle for students? And wouldn’t a school with the foresight and guts to add women’s wrestling have an even greater edge? Doesn’t more schools, offering more activities, actually add up to more opportunity?

What will be the final resolution to these conflicts? Are we headed to a showdown between field hockey and wrestling and only one will survive? Are we willing to sacrifice a small college for the sake of an unbalanced interpretation of Title IX? Or – will we all take a step back and look at the complete picture?

Coming back

2009-06-15T04:55:00.000-07:00

One year ago the Cedar River hit us with a 5 point move – threw us right to our backs.

The numbers were staggering – over 20,000 residents displaced and hundreds of businesses closed. In terms of financial loss, the Cedar Rapids flood of 2008 is the fifth worst disaster in American history (source: Iowa Public Television documentary, City Under Water). Numbers, however, can sometimes be meaningless. But, there’s no ignoring what happened to my friend Terrance and his family (his mother, 2 brothers and little sister) or my friend Jamie, her husband and 4 kids – they lost everything. Taylor School, where my wife and daughter worked for years (and where I volunteered) was declared a loss.

Somewhere along the line we fought off our backs and we’ve started our comeback. According to the latest reports, over 450 flood-impacted businesses have reopened. My friend Jamie and her family found a new home within weeks of being displaced and almost immediately started helping other flood victims. The Taylor School families refused to let their school die and it is scheduled to re-open this fall and my daughter, Emily, will be returning.

Make no mistake – we still have a long fight left. Depending upon whose report you read – once you add up all the money promised us by the state of Iowa and the federal government, we’re going to fall somewhere between $1 billion and $2 billion short of full recovery. As you drive through the Taylor neighborhood you’ll still see flood debris piled at the curve – a tragic reminder of lives forever transformed. Dozens of businesses are gone. Terrance’s family is one of over 150 still living in FEMA trailers.

I’ve learned a lot about the strength and goodness of people in the past 12 months. At our darkest hour, when faced with the closing of our last well – and thus the loss of our last source of drinking water – the call went out for 800 volunteer sandbaggers. Over 2,000 showed up. Officers from the Saint Paul, MN police department worked tirelessly to help people they didn’t even know. Church groups came from all over the country and pitched in. The Americorps volunteers became like family to many of the victims.

You in the wrestling family have also made a difference. After I wrote about Terrance’s losses I started to get emails, “Can I send you money to help Terrance?” I started to get checks and money orders. You all helped his family start over with new kitchen furniture, dishes, towels, glasses, clothes and silverware.

Cedar Rapids hosted the NCAA Division III Wrestling Championships just 3 months ago. I’ve heard a number of stories from recovering flood victim business owners about the kindness and generosity of the DIII fans who were here. Thank you.

As hard as we’re fighting – we still need your help. You can make an online donation to The Greater Cedar Rapids Community Foundation flood relief funds. A simple way to help is to eat more Quaker Oatmeal – or Cap’n Crunch – or Aunt Jemima Syrup – or Fruit Roll Ups. All are made in Cedar Rapids. You can also just come here and stay for a couple of days and watch wrestling – the Iowa State High School dual meet championships will be here in February and the Division III Championships will once again be held here. Come join us.

I leave you with a video of one of my all-time favorite wrestling comebacks. Fittingly, it features a Cedar Rapids native. This is how I see us battling back.

(Video provided by and reproduced with the permission of Iowa Public Television.)

Dear Mary Alumnus

2009-06-08T08:53:00.000-07:00

This week brought one more online request for money for a wrestling program. Norwich University announced the reinstatement of wrestling as a varsity sport, but it was added that they still need to raise $20,000 to meet this year’s financial obligation.

Last week I gave some basic tips on fund raising. This week I’ve written a sample letter from a fictional former wrestler at Smallville College to a hypothetical alumnus who has a history of giving to Smallville, but who has never donated to athletics. In this imaginary scenario the athletic director has just mandated that the team itself raise $100,000 a year or face future removal from the roster of varsity sports.

“Dear Mary Alumnus,

I’m a fellow Smallville College alum (Class of ’96). I loved my time there – the campus, the friends I made and the education I got will always be a part of me. Is Smallville as important to you as it is to me? It’s a great school, isn’t it?

Do you know what part of my Smallville experience I treasure the most? I wrestled. I spent four years on the varsity team and in my senior year I won a conference championship. I have never been prouder of any other accomplishment.

There are those who want to take that same opportunity away from future Smallville students. The athletic department has mandated that the wrestling team become more self-supporting or face elimination. The team must raise $100,000 a year or it will be dropped.

Mary, did the alarm just go off in your head? Did you just think, “Uh-oh, he’s about to ask me for money – for WRESTLING”? Mary, you’re one of our most generous alumni. You’re one of the elite few who help make a Smallville education a priceless investment in a young person’s future. But WRESTLING?!?! Why WRESTLING?

Wrestling taught me things that I never would have learned in any classroom – anywhere. Wrestling taught me to get off my back – literally and figuratively. I have faced adversity in my life since Smallville and the lessons I learned on the mat helped me fight on and overcome. The discipline I learned as a wrestler made me a better student. Today I own a small business and things I learned in the wrestling room contribute more to my success than anything I learned in Jones Hall.

Wrestling is the most democratic of sports. You don’t have to win some type of genetic lottery to be a champion. The competitor that works the hardest and learns the most almost always triumphs. A bi-lateral amputee- Nick Ackerman – won an NCAA Division III national championship. Wrestling embodies The American Dream – and there are those who want to take it away. Are you going to let them get away with it or will you join my fight?

I’m not the only one who believes in the value of wrestling. Nobel laureate, Dr. Norman Borlaug – the man who fed billions – credits wrestling with teaching him the discipline and tenacity he needed to continue his research. Thirteen American presidents have wrestled – from Washington to Lincoln to Theodore Roosevelt. Congressional leaders from both sides of the aisle – Dennis Hastert, Jim Leach, Paul Wellstone - and others - wrestled. Wrestling has been a part of the educations of countless teachers, scientists, humanitarians, business leaders, military heroes – even Plato wrestled.

Won’t you join me in this fight? Won’t you help me perpetuate and strengthen this invaluable educational tool?

Your gift of $1,000 would cover travel expenses to our 2010 conference meet. A $200 check will buy meals for one wrestler for all of our road events this season. A $5,000 donation pays our insurance premium for the year. Please write your check today and return it in the enclosed reply envelope. You can use your credit card if you like.

Or - there’s an easier way for you to help - join the Smallville Mat Clan. It’s simple, go to www.smallvillecollegewrestling.edu and click on Join the Mat Clan. For a minimum pledge of $25 a month for the next 12 months I’ll send you a Smallville wrestling tee shirt and our quarterly newsletter. Why not join today?

Future generations of Smallville students thank you.

Sincerely,

John Doe
Smallville College, 1996
BA Finance

President
Metrowebtech, Inc.

PS FYI – The football and basketball teams are not being asked to make the same sacrifices.”

Will work for a mat.

2009-06-01T07:44:00.000-07:00

USA Wrestling launched the Living the Dream Medal Fund over the weekend. It is an effort to raise money so that World and Olympic medallists can be rewarded for their achievements. Click on the link above for more details.

In the past two or three weeks I have read internet donation requests from the Cal State Fullerton wrestling team, Wrestling 411, and Operation Pass it On. All are worthy causes and a donation to any one of them will only improve the sport.

When it comes to wrestling – I’m just a fan. I have no special knowledge or inside connections and no experience participating in the sport. What I do know is fund raising. I’ve been a direct marketing consultant for almost 30 years and raising money for charities is a part of what I do. If you’re looking for the usual wrestling blog you can stop reading now. If you coach a wrestling team that needs a new mat, are an administrator hoping to endow the wrestling coach’s salary or a club leader in need of new equipment – read on. I’m going to share a few basic tips on the art and science of fund raising that may help you meet your goals.

Pick the right medium.

The most recent statistics show that telemarketing, direct mail and email (in that order) are the most efficient fund raising media. If you are relying too heavily on your website or on internet postings, you are missing a lot of money.

Know your donors.

Build a donor database that tracks at least the following:

Contact information (name, address, email, phone).
First donation date.
First donation amount.
Last donation date.
Last donation amount.
Total number of donations by medium (email, direct mail, website, etc.)
Total donated amount by medium.

You’ll soon learn that all donors are not created equal and you’ll want to customize your approach.

Get the second gift.

The second gift you get from a donor is the most important. A two-time donor is twice as likely to respond to a future request than is a one-time donor. Failing to ask for a second donation in a timely fashion is the single biggest mistake most charities make. However, don’t ask for the second gift with your “Thank you” note. The best pattern to follow is: 1. initial donation 2. Thank you. 3. Second gift request.

Tell the donor what his gift will accomplish.

Be specific. I recently managed a campaign where we asked for, “Enough food to feed a family of four for a week” ($100), “One week’s shelter and food for a homeless mother and her children” ($220), “A whole ton of food” ($700). You will still get a lot of $25 donations, but the number of donors who choose to give larger amounts are more likely to do so if there is a tangible result tied to the larger gift.

By the way – NEVER – let me repeat that – NEVER –say, “Every little bit helps.” No matter whatever else you have said, as soon as you use that sentence you trivialize your need.

Make it easy to give.

Offer multiple payment options – reply envelopes, credit cards, websites etc. Young charity managers often rely too heavily on internet payment. Statistically, major donors are older and more likely to respond through the mail than via the internet.

If you’re trying to raise money for a wrestling related cause and would like a little FREE advice, just send me an email at jim@dmsolutions4u.com.

In Memorium

2009-05-25T07:54:00.000-07:00

Like so many men who came of age in the early 1940s, Glen Brand and Gerry Leeman went to war. Brand, from Clarion, Iowa, joined the Marines. A native of Osage, Iowa, Leeman, became a Naval aviator.

At the end of World War II both men returned to Iowa to attend college, Brand at Iowa State University and Leeman at Iowa State Teachers College (now the University of Northern Iowa). Each also resumed a wrestling career that had begun as a schoolboy. Leeman had been an outstanding high school wrestler, winning a national AAU freestyle championship in 1940. Brand’s interscholastic career was far less stellar. He qualified for the Iowa State tournament only once and did not place.

Leeman won an NCAA title in 1946 and Brand won in 1948. Both were members of the American team that traveled to London for the 1948 Olympics. Leeman won a Silver Medal and Glen Brand won the ultimate prize for an amateur wrestler – Olympic Gold. Both men would continue to influence the sport throughout their lives – Leeman as a long-time coach at Lehigh University and Brand as a major supporter of wrestling at the University of Nebraska – Omaha. Because of their accomplishments and contributions to wresting each was inducted as a Distinguished Member of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame – Leeman in 1977 and Brand in 1978.

Sadly, the parallel nature of their lives continued until the very end and both men passed away this past year.

Gerry Leeman and Glen Brand are just a few of the many Americans who have wrestled and served in the military. Glory Beyond the Sport: Wrestling and the Military, examines the centuries-old relationship between the two. It is written by Roger Moore and published by the National Wrestling Hall of Fame.

Last month Mark Palmer wrote a detailed review of the book for InterMat Rewind.

Read Mark's review here.

You can buy the book on The Hall of Fame's website.

Glory Beyond the Sport is just one of several outreach projects from the Hall of Fame. In recent years Lee Roy Smith and his staff have toiled diligently to emphasize the relevance wrestling has had to our history and society. They also published The Wrestling Presidents: From Pins to Patriots and celebrated the contributions of African-Americans to the sport with a traveling exhibit.

I suspect that Dr. Melvin Jones would be proud. In 1972 Myron Roderick had a dream. The former Oklahoma State coach and first executive director of USA Wrestling wanted to establish a wrestling hall of fame. Myron shared his dream with Dr. Jones. Dr. Melvin Jones had been the youngest full professor at Oklahoma State University and a noted agronomist. When a serious eye injury forced him to give up teaching, he became a successful businessman. Working tirelessly (and giving much of his own money) Dr. Jones helped bring Myron Roderick’s dream to fruition. For those efforts, Dr. Melvin Jones was inducted as a Distinguished Member of the NWHOF in 1996. Dr. Jones also passed away last fall.

On this day set aside for remembering, I hope you’ll think of Gerry Leeman, Glen Brand and Dr. Melvin Jones.

Addendum

I finished writing the above Saturday and was just waiting for my usual Monday morning to post. Each Memorial Day and Veterans Day over the two-year lifespan of this blog I have written one honoring veterans. My dad served in Korea, was active in veterans affairs and taught me to respect those that have served. As strongly as I feel about the debt we owe these men and women there has always been a certain amount of detachment – until yesterday.

Mark Rowell was the best man at my wedding. I have known his son Matthew all of his life. My favorite moment in Matt’s life was when he was six or seven years old. I had just helped Mark move a freezer into the basement of their brand new home and Mark, Matt and I were on their back deck. Mark went inside to get a couple of cold ones. Matt climbed to the top rail of the deck, turned to me and said, “They hate it when I do this. They think its dangerous” - and then jumped six or seven feet to the ground.

A year and a half after he graduated from Cedar Rapids Kennedy High School, where he was a catcher on the varsity baseball team, Matt enlisted in the army. Yesterday, I learned that Matt has been seriously wounded in Afghanistan. The army Cougar he was driving hit a roadside bomb. He will survive, but both legs have suffered massive trauma. Today Mark and his wife, Tami, will reunite with Matt at Walter Reed Hospital.

Its so easy to forget that these young people who go off to war are someone’s son, or daughter, or mother, or father, or brother or sister. All across America today there are those who are remembering a lost loved one or who are worrying about the safety of someone serving in harm’s way. We owe them our best wishes.