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 Sanderson has been replaced by Kevin Jackson who in his collegiate competitive days transferred to Iowa State after LSU dropped wrestling.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.
Showing posts with label Randy Lewis. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Randy Lewis. Show all posts
Monday, November 30, 2009
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Lacin' em up one more time
“Carr, Banach, Gadson, Trizzino, Moreno – Lewis”. As the announcer called mat assignments at Saturday’s Northern Plains Freestyle Championships it felt like a scene from a “Back to the Future” movie – that I had traveled back in time to a dual meet featuring Cyclone and Hawkeye wrestlers from the Seventies and Eighties. In a way – it was “back to the future’, because these were the sons of those great athletes – Nate Carr Jr., Riley Banach, Kyven Gadson, Nick and Joey Trizzino and Michael and Gabe Moreno. But Lewis – well – that really was Randy Lewis being called to the mat.
If you’re any kind of wrestling fan you’ve been following this story for the last month. Randy Lewis – two-time NCAA champ, Pan-Am Games champ and 1984 Olympic Gold Medalist – announced that he was going to “lace them up” one more time to see if he could compete with this generation of freestyle wrestlers, some of whom were not even born when he won Olympic Gold. Just a couple of weeks before his 50th birthday he planned on entering the Northern Plains Open.
The announcement immediately captured the imaginations of fans and the wrestling media. Andy Hamilton of the Iowa City Press Citizen, J.R. Ogden of The Cedar Rapids Gazette, Dan McCool of The Des Moines Register and Gary Abbott from themat.com all wrote columns or blogs in the days and weeks leading up to Saturday’s event. The best coverage, however, was provided by Kyle Klingman and Jason Bryant from Wrestling 411.
Long known for his flamboyancy, many wondered if Lewboo (as he’s known to most wrestling fans) would follow through. After all – he’s made the “comeback” announcement before. Most wondered about just what he would be able to do against wrestlers half his age. Would he still have the “impossible leg” – the ability to let opponents in on his leg and then turn that into his own takedown?
Randy reached the height of his career at a time when freestyle wrestling might have been its most exciting. His epic battles with Lee Roy and John Smith, Darryl Burley and Ricky Dellagatta are legendary. They could ring up more points in a single match than many of today’s wrestlers (under today’s freestyle rules) will score in an entire season. For fans, it was awfully fun to watch – all that movement, all that scoring. In what has long been considered the most controversial match in American wrestling history, the 1984 Olympic Trials bout between Randy and Lee Roy Smith, the scoring came so quickly that the actual score is still debated today – 25 years later. Thanks to youtube you can watch many of those matches. Allow your self some time – you’ll get hooked – you’ll watch one and then have to watch another and then have to fast forward to John Smith vs. Sergei Belaglazov – its addicting stuff.
As I drove to Waterloo Saturday to watch, the question kept coming back – how much of the old Lewboo will I see? I had been fortunate enough to watch Randy in person once and on Iowa Public Television’s College Wrestling several times during his Hawkeye career and then again on television at the 1984 Olympics. Well – the matches are all up on youtube so you can see for yourself – but here are some observations. In the first round the old “impossible leg” was in evidence. In the second round he showed that amazing mat savvy and positioning that was always one of the keys to his success.
The irony of the semi-finals was that he was matched up against someone that wrestles in the style of a young Randy Lewis. Two-time UNI All American, Moza Fay, is a counter wrestler and a scrambler who is very comfortable “rolling around on the mat”. Moza just had too much for Randy in that match and, fittingly, he won it on the mat – using tilts to win the first period and a leg lace to win the second. Then Moza showed that he was feeling what we were all feeling – tremendous respect for one of American wrestling’s icons. He raised Randy’s hand and kept him on the mat letting the ovation from the crowd swell and last. It was a classy act.
That respect – that’s what I take away from Saturday. I got goose bumps when all wrestling stopped for his matches and everyone in the arena crowded around to watch. From the high school competitors to Olympic Bronze Medalist, Lincoln McIlravy (and his whole family) - we all wanted the best possible vantage point.
Its true in all walks of life that younger generations often don’t have enough respect for the accomplishments of those that precede them. Its not entirely their fault, we – their parents and grandparents - don’t always take the time to familiarize them with the history. We don’t take them to Stillwater to the National Wrestling Hall of Fame or to the Dan Gable International Wrestling Museum in Waterloo. We don’t tell them about Lee Kemp or Bruce Baumgartner.
USA Wrestling has planned ceremonies to honor Iowa natives and Olympic Champions Glen Brand (1948) and Bill Smith (1952) at the World Team Trials in Council Bluffs on Saturday May 30th. I hope I feel the same respect among the fans that I felt Saturday in Waterloo.
If you’re any kind of wrestling fan you’ve been following this story for the last month. Randy Lewis – two-time NCAA champ, Pan-Am Games champ and 1984 Olympic Gold Medalist – announced that he was going to “lace them up” one more time to see if he could compete with this generation of freestyle wrestlers, some of whom were not even born when he won Olympic Gold. Just a couple of weeks before his 50th birthday he planned on entering the Northern Plains Open.
The announcement immediately captured the imaginations of fans and the wrestling media. Andy Hamilton of the Iowa City Press Citizen, J.R. Ogden of The Cedar Rapids Gazette, Dan McCool of The Des Moines Register and Gary Abbott from themat.com all wrote columns or blogs in the days and weeks leading up to Saturday’s event. The best coverage, however, was provided by Kyle Klingman and Jason Bryant from Wrestling 411.
Long known for his flamboyancy, many wondered if Lewboo (as he’s known to most wrestling fans) would follow through. After all – he’s made the “comeback” announcement before. Most wondered about just what he would be able to do against wrestlers half his age. Would he still have the “impossible leg” – the ability to let opponents in on his leg and then turn that into his own takedown?
Randy reached the height of his career at a time when freestyle wrestling might have been its most exciting. His epic battles with Lee Roy and John Smith, Darryl Burley and Ricky Dellagatta are legendary. They could ring up more points in a single match than many of today’s wrestlers (under today’s freestyle rules) will score in an entire season. For fans, it was awfully fun to watch – all that movement, all that scoring. In what has long been considered the most controversial match in American wrestling history, the 1984 Olympic Trials bout between Randy and Lee Roy Smith, the scoring came so quickly that the actual score is still debated today – 25 years later. Thanks to youtube you can watch many of those matches. Allow your self some time – you’ll get hooked – you’ll watch one and then have to watch another and then have to fast forward to John Smith vs. Sergei Belaglazov – its addicting stuff.
As I drove to Waterloo Saturday to watch, the question kept coming back – how much of the old Lewboo will I see? I had been fortunate enough to watch Randy in person once and on Iowa Public Television’s College Wrestling several times during his Hawkeye career and then again on television at the 1984 Olympics. Well – the matches are all up on youtube so you can see for yourself – but here are some observations. In the first round the old “impossible leg” was in evidence. In the second round he showed that amazing mat savvy and positioning that was always one of the keys to his success.
The irony of the semi-finals was that he was matched up against someone that wrestles in the style of a young Randy Lewis. Two-time UNI All American, Moza Fay, is a counter wrestler and a scrambler who is very comfortable “rolling around on the mat”. Moza just had too much for Randy in that match and, fittingly, he won it on the mat – using tilts to win the first period and a leg lace to win the second. Then Moza showed that he was feeling what we were all feeling – tremendous respect for one of American wrestling’s icons. He raised Randy’s hand and kept him on the mat letting the ovation from the crowd swell and last. It was a classy act.
That respect – that’s what I take away from Saturday. I got goose bumps when all wrestling stopped for his matches and everyone in the arena crowded around to watch. From the high school competitors to Olympic Bronze Medalist, Lincoln McIlravy (and his whole family) - we all wanted the best possible vantage point.
Its true in all walks of life that younger generations often don’t have enough respect for the accomplishments of those that precede them. Its not entirely their fault, we – their parents and grandparents - don’t always take the time to familiarize them with the history. We don’t take them to Stillwater to the National Wrestling Hall of Fame or to the Dan Gable International Wrestling Museum in Waterloo. We don’t tell them about Lee Kemp or Bruce Baumgartner.
USA Wrestling has planned ceremonies to honor Iowa natives and Olympic Champions Glen Brand (1948) and Bill Smith (1952) at the World Team Trials in Council Bluffs on Saturday May 30th. I hope I feel the same respect among the fans that I felt Saturday in Waterloo.
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