Who pays Tom Brands?

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.

Five years to glory

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.

Fat guy walking

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.

Me and 15,954 of my closest friends

Wrestling history was made Saturday night and, for once, I can honestly say I contributed. The Iowa/Iowa State dual meet broke the all-time NCAA attendance record when 15,955 people jammed into Carver Hawkeye Arena. That’s about 500 more than Carver can actually seat, but the university got special permission to sell reserved “standing room” along the rail at the top of the concourse.

It was a special moment in college wrestling. I talked with one Hawkeye fan who drove from Colorado to see his first dual in Carver. He had to leave right after the meet and drive straight home. I know of a University of Michigan fan who came in to the meet just to have the experience. At least four or five fans flew in from New Jersey. Press row was completely packed.

If a wrestling meet can be a sporting event of this magnitude in Iowa City (attracting pre-meet attention from USA Today and Jim Rome), why can’t wrestling attract more fans in places like Stillwater or Happy Valley or Ithaca? If we can do it in Iowa – why not elsewhere?

Whenever that question is asked, there’s a fairly stock set of responses.

“Iowa doesn’t have any major professional sports teams, so fans gravitate more toward their college teams – even wrestling.”

“The Hawkeyes have won 21 NCAA titles in the last 33 years – it’s easy to attract fans when you win all the time.”

“What else are you going to do in Iowa in the winter?”

“Our school is a (plug in “football” or “basketball” here) school. If Iowa and Iowa State had better football or basketball teams, they wouldn’t care so much about wrestling.”

These comments are often repeated because there is an element of truth in each one. They don’t, however, really answer the basic questions - Why are so many schools willing to accept empty seats as the norm? Why is the American wrestling establishment content with the current level of fan following? The fault would seem to lie at all levels – administrations, organizations, coaches and fans. Even the University of Iowa can be subject to administrative whim. The Hawkeye athletic department recently scheduled the dual meet with Arizona State at 3:00 on a Friday afternoon. (Note: read Jason Bryant’s commentary in the current issue of WIN Magazine for a better perspective on this).

College athletic directors are faced with the fact that wrestling cannot make money. Recent financial statements from the University of Iowa show that wrestling costs the university about $960,000 a year and generates about $300,000 in direct revenue. Any sane person would ask, “If that’s the case, why SHOULD a college support or promote wrestling?” Alumni financial support is one answer. Wrestling fans and former wrestlers are major contributors at many institutions large and small. Educational opportunity is another. College wrestling is on the resumes of countless government, business, medical and education leaders – even a Nobel laureate.

Coaches are another part of the promotion puzzle. Perhaps Tom Brands said it best in his press conference last Tuesday, “Without a product, you don’t generate the excitement. Winning is promotion. I’ve said that from Day One. Winning is promotion. We have to give fans a reason to come, and entertaining wrestling is promotion. Entertaining and winning go hand in hand, and you have a pretty good product. That’s what we communicate to our guys, it’s about how you go out and entertain. It’s not about getting your hand raised, it’s wrestling with a certain energy level, being able to go hard for the entire match, whatever that length is.” Quite simply – you need a great product.

Wrestling fans are a puzzling lot, many clamoring for more and better internet and television coverage, while attending no more than one or two live events a year – if that. We want more exposure for the sport, we want participation to grow and we want more college programs – but only if someone else will do it for us.

Is there anything to be done? This fan hopes so.

Administrators

Understand the value that wrestling can offer your institution. At some small colleges, a wrestling team can increase enrollment. Schools like Jamestown College in North Dakota have realized that adding women’s wrestling can do just that. You also never know when the next Art Martori or Roy Carver or Bill Krause (major donors to higher education) will be wearing one of your singlets or sitting matside.

Aim higher. The standard was set Saturday and you now know what college wrestling can be. Don’t accept 1,000 attendees as the norm.

Become more fan-friendly. Some college wrestling tournaments are notorious for what fans must endure to attend. Limited views, insufficient seating and inadequate restroom facilities are all too common at college wrestling events. In some cases little can be done. In others, a change of venue might be in order.

Promote wisely – but promote! I recently watched the dual meet between Central and Coe Colleges free online. Will that translate into fans attending more events at Central? I don’t know – but it didn’t cost much and it gave their team exposure to a broader audience.

Coaches

I’ve never wrestled and I’ve never coached, so I can’t tell a coach how to win. But – I can tell you what fans like. We like action. We like scoring. We like the Mark Ironside approach to wrestling – score early and score often and winning will take care of itself.

Organizations

It has been said by some (including me) that the way to increase attendance at any wrestling event is to hold it somewhere between Des Moines and Iowa City. While that’s true, it doesn’t really help the sport grow (subliminal suggestion – 2012 Olympic Trials in Cedar Rapids).

The National Wrestling Coaches Association has initiated a marketing study to find ways to increase attendance at the annual All Star Classic. This is a solid first step.

USA Wrestling recently announced the launch of The College Wrestling Network , a partnership of some of the most respected media outlets in the sport. TheMat.com, Intermat, Wrestling 411, RevWrestling, WIN Magazine, Takedown Radio, The Wrestling Mall, tech-fall.com, Buckeyewrestling.com and Michigan Grappler have come together with the goal of making more and better content available on the web. This, too, is a great step forward. I hope they’ll include “more butts in seats” as a part of their mission.

(subliminal suggestion – 2012 Olympic Trials in Cedar Rapids)

Fans

I’m initiating a new movement – “Take a Friend to a Wrestling Meet”. Find a friend that has never attended a wrestling meet and take him/her to the very next meet near you. If you can, take two. I’m guessing that perhaps a thousand or more fans in Carver Saturday night were “first timers”. Many of them will never be back – but some will, and thus college wrestling will grow in popularity. Don’t put this off. Look at the schedule of your favorite team right now and plan an outing with a “newbie”. Don’t sit back and wait on others – take action yourself.

Together we can help this great sport grow.

Oh yeah – Iowa won 20 – 15.

Brotherly love

My brother, Bruce, moved to Seattle about 35 years ago. He is a couple of years younger than me and for most of our youth we shared a room. We also argued, fought and competed – in everything from Jeopardy to Risk to whiffle ball.

When it came time to leave the nest, Bruce and I and our friend, Doug, rented a two-room apartment across the street from the Pink Poodle in Davenport (it’s a laundromat – not a strip club). Our sibling rivalry occasionally erupted there and shouting matches would ensue.

After several months of this living arrangement we all three went our separate ways – Doug back to UNI and I to a different apartment and roommate. Bruce stayed on 15th Street and took on someone else to share the rent. Not long after that Bruce moved to the Pacific Northwest.

In that 35 years we have seen each other far too rarely - the deaths of our parents, an occasional business trip – I was even his “date” for his 35th high school reunion. For a short time Bruce taught at the University of Illinois law school and we did get together a few times during his tenure in Champaign. One of those times I drug him to a Hawkeye wrestling meet. He didn’t enjoy it at all. He couldn’t tell you this – but he got to see Tom and Terry Brands wrestle that night.

Last week, in a move that has been rumored on the internet since before the Olympics, Tom hired Terry to come back to Iowa City and be a Hawkeye assistant coach. That’s right – two of the most volatile (and successful) twin brothers in the history of wrestling have reunited and will be working together. The rivalry between these two in their younger days is legendary.

Hawkeye-land is certainly abuzz and the rumors – and questions – continue to fly. Will Olympic gold medallist, Henry Cejudo, and heavyweight, Steve Mocco follow Terry from the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs to train in Iowa City? Is Terry coming to Iowa City as much to restore the Hawkeye Wrestling Club to its past glory as he is to join the rebuilding of the University of Iowa’s wrestling dynasty? Will tempers ever flare?

The Hawkeye fan in me reacted like this.



The wrestling fan in me has more questions.

Most American wrestling fans were disappointed in the overall performance in Beijing – just 3 total medals. It wasn’t long before there were calls for a restructuring of the USA Wrestling coaching staff – even by national freestyle coach, Kevin Jackson, himself. In the past two weeks Jackson has resigned to become head coach at Sunkist Kids and former World Champion, Zeke Jones was hired to replace him as national freestyle coach. Then, resident development coach, Terry Brands left the OTC for Iowa City.

Are these just the natural personnel changes that inevitably follow a sub-par performance by a national sports team – or could they lead to a fundamental shift in how we train our Olympic wrestlers? Do we really need a national training center?

Do regional training opportunities make more sense? Many of our top competitors work as collegiate assistants to support themselves. For much of the year it is a conflict for them to leave their jobs behind and get to Colorado Springs for valuable freestyle coaching. Is it more logical to have top international-level coaches available at locations all over the country? The changes of the last couple of weeks have given us a de facto opportunity to find out.

Kevin Jackson moving to Arizona, Terry Brands to Iowa City and Zeke Jones to Colorado Springs certainly offers a high level of coaching at those three locations. Throw in John Smith in Stillwater, the New York Athletic Club and emerging private clubs like Sean Bormet’s Overtime and you have the potential for a network of training sites.

Is this an opportunity to create a new development model? As it always is – money will be a major factor. The United States Olympic Committee allocates funds to the governing bodies of all Olympic sports – including USA Wrestling. The level of USOC support, in large part, determines how much is invested in developing our national wrestling teams. At Sunkist Kids, Art Martori and others generously support the betterment of the sport. Are there enough other private funding sources to support the clubs in Iowa City, Stillwater and elsewhere to a level that will produce world and Olympic champions? Can a structure be created that allows the USOC to help with regional center funding?

Are these concepts worth discussing?

Come on fans – what do you think?