[rico]

Originally Posted by Brianfo

Wish there were more wrestling fans in this world, but its a relatively small sport worldwide. I will chime in with some comments.

Youth
I am one of the coaches of our youth wrestling program. We have over 50 kids out from K-6 grade. Pretty good for a small school in the midwest. I have two boys involved and they are both having a great season. My youngest has only lost one match so far and my oldest has lost two. If I can keep them interested without burning them out, there future is very bright.

High School
I still follow high school wrestling very closely. One of the toughest tournaments in the state is this weekend. 5 kids ranked number 1 at their respective weight class and 2 division one recruits wrestling 15 miles from my house. I might try and watch the finals.

College
Once a wrestling fan, always a wrestling fan. I haven't missed NCAA's for 8 years. This year its at Wells Fargo Arena in Des Moines, IA. The nation will get to see what true wrestling fans support. I have many great memories of NCAA finals matches. Caldwell over Metcalf was epic. Mark Perry as a four time all-american. Jake varner as a four time finalist. Ben Askren with his goofy hair and goofy style. Matt McDonough vs. Andrew Long as freshman. Burroughs vs. Howe. Ness over Dennis was another epic match. Anthony Robles with one leg over Matt McDonough was also another amazing match. Watching David Taylor, Ed Ruth, and Q Wright dominate the last couple years has been fun. However, one of the most compelling matches of all-time should happen in March. Kyle Dake vs David Taylor. Most people forget that Dake won it as a true freshman and has moved up a class the last 3 years. He is looking to become the first four time national champion at 4 different weight classes.

International
Solid showing at the Olympics with team USA taking gold with Jake Varner and Jordan Burroughs. Sounds like Varner is not coming back for another shot in Brazil, but Burroughs is. Future is bright for USA wrestling with Burroughs, Metcalf, Dake, Howe, Taylor, and Steibers.

Brianfo in the house! It doesn't appear that there are that many wrestling fans on here for this thread wasn't exactly a hit, so 99% of you probably are unaware of how excellent of a post that was. Muchos proppos.

First off, that high school tournament you described sounded a lot like the Ed Winger in Iowa.

I haven't been following college wrestling as much as I have in the past, but the Taylor vs. Dake match up is exciting. I honestly had no idea that Dake was on verge of becoming first wrestler to do that. Incredible. Did these two meet up at Olympic tryouts this year?....I'm gonna have to start keeping up with the college scene again. I kept up with Midlands, UNI Open, Iowa vs. ISU and Iowa vs. OSU and that's about it.

You coach a youth program with 50 kids?! Are most these kids going to be going t be enrolled at the same high school when older? What year is this for your sons? Do they have that low of an amount of losses for the season or career? Sounds like the future high school program or at least the schools in the area have a nice foundation of kids in place. Good luck!

Good wrestlers are generally generated in youth by parents and youth coaches. With many good high school wrestlers, high school coaches are mostly responsible for maintaining a kids skill set that's already in place and building on it while simultaneously maintaining their mentalities/attitudes. While they should get a lot of credit for how so much of an impact they have with certain kids, youth coaches are the ones who don't get the credit they deserve and are probably the most responsible people for a kid becoming good/great/elite wrestlers. And to think that these influential coaches are generally unpaid, even makes it more mind-boggling. I've coached on the high school (as an assistant) and youth (as a volunteer coach) levels and it was a much more pleasant experience watching one of your wrestlers first start showing signs of being great (because they will probably remain really, really good) then it was coaching kids who had been successful since they were in Kindergarten continue to dominate. I love watching talent emerge and make waves among the spectators....generally happens in youth.

Good luck to your boys in the remainder of the season! If your an Iowan, districts this Sunday...pumped?

Most of my wrestling emphasis this year has been at youth and high school level, for I have one brother who is a Freshman and one who is a 7th grader. A lot of drama. I've wanted to express my personal thoughts on this somewhere, but didn't want to on Iowa youth/high school wrestling boards, for I am not anonymous and everyone in the state at these big tourneys seems to know everyone. To those of you who will read this, give me your input and it will be appreciated big time. Our team is ranked very high in the state. One of the best teams in the state in it's class. Whole lineup is stacked, many kids ranked.

My brother was ranked coming in as a freshman at his projected weight of 106 lbs...one of only a few freshman who was ranked in preseason. I honestly felt weird about it...on one hand, he is really good...placed 4th at state as an 8th grader, 7th at state as a 7th grader, 1 match from placing in years prior. On the other hand...our team is stacked and there is a log-jam at 106 and 113 with an opening at 120. The kid he had to beat out at 106 was a freshman who won state 3 times prior to this season, and while my brother and him had been pretty much even the past couple years in head to head, he was the most accomplished wrestler between the 2. So there is a load of pressure right there... He ended up having challenge matches with the kid, best of 3 wins the spot. My bro wins 1st challenge match 2-0. In 2nd one, he had a 5-1 lead going into the 3rd period and was reversed and turned with 30 seconds left in match to lose 6-5. In 3rd challenge, the kids were back and forth entire match and the other guy ended up winning 5-4 in double OT and wins the spot. Obviously those two are CLOSE. Bro decides he doesn't want to cut anymore weight and goes to 113 lbs where our original 113 lber didn't want to cut weight anymore himself and bumped up to 120 lbs. This kid is a stud in our lineup as well and is my fiancée's first cousin (dads are bros).

So my bro wrestles for 3-4 weeks at 113 lbs and the other guy stays at 120 lbs, while the varsity 106 replaced my bro in the rankings and climbed up them. 120 lber has a bad tourney one weekend and decides to cut to 113 again, challenge my bro and wrestle there if he wins. He did beat my brother in a close match and became our 113 lber. Fair enough. Unfortunate, but fair...just how things go sometimes (made for some awkwardness at Christmas gatherings on my fiancée's side of the family). So my bro bumps to 120 and beats out the 2 other kids who were wrestling JV. Problem is, he was originally a 106 lber and weighs 112-113 lbs on full feed after practice. In other words, he is undersized at 120, which is a huge barrier and not a good weight to be undersized and young at. The 113 lber was given permission to go to 113 on the condition that he didn't ever back out of the spot to go back up because their goal with my brother is to try to get him to pack on some muscle/weight. The head coach and kid promised to my father (who is a paid assistant coach) that he would not be allowed to weight jump for the remainder of the year so we could focus on 120.

So my brother starts drinking multiple protein shakes per day and he starts lifting 1-2 times per day, once before school and once before practice with intentions of bulking him up on the spot. We get him to where he is weighing 120 lbs on full feed...still small compared to the kids who cut 20 lbs to get there, but better than 112 lbs. Then all the sudden our 113 lber decided that he wanted to go up to 120 lbs for the Conference tournament because the 113 lb bracket has got 1 real tough kid and 120 lbs has literally jack-squat and he wanted to become the 4th wrestler in not school, but Conference history to win 4 Conference titles (my D1 28 year old bro was one of these 4). This kid won conference as a Freshman last year and if he wins this year (which he would for sure at 120 lbs), he would have 2 Conference championships out of the way, with only 2 more to go to become the 5th wrestler ever to do it.

He asked the head coach if he could wrestle there for the week and the coach agreed, forgetting all about the promises that were made that the kid would not be allowed to do it. I don't think it was a jerk move on my coach's part, I literally think he "just forgot." He goes back up to 120 while my brother, who our primary focus was to gain weight so he can be competitive at 120 and possibly qualify for state, is asked to cut back down to 113 for conference.

Here is my beef, conference was this past weekend. The first of 2 qualifying events, sectionals (you have to place in top 2 out of 6 teams to qualify for districts, have to place in top 2 out of 4 at districts to qualify for state) is THIS weekend. Freaking 6 days later. Therefore my brother, 1 week before a "much more important than conference" sectional tournament, has to cut to 113 and then try to get his weight, which we had been working on him gaining, up to 120-ish 6 days later for the "important if you have ambitions of qualifying for state" sectional tournament.

Is it me, or was this kid and his family who encouraged him to do this (as mentioned, they are closely related to my fiancée) pretty selfish? Especially to the brother of what will be an official member of the family in a month and a half? Should I be butt-hurt about it? Because I am. It just ticks me off that everything we worked for in terms of growing into 120 lbs. has been jeopardized just because this kid wanted to dodge competition to win 4 pointless (they don't further you in your journey to freaking state) conference tournaments.

It has been great that he has been wrestling varsity for such a successful team, but man his Freshman season has been littered with frustration.

The 7th grader, who is a total stud, has won 10-12 various state championships if you add his Freestyle and Greco championships along with being a state champ in all 3 of the main state tourneys in Iowa (USA, GSS and AAU...AAU being the big one). He wrestled in the Junior High season which only lasts a month and half and became the first wrestler from our school to not give up a single point in an entire season. If he does it as an 8th grader, that means he never gave up a point in school-sanctioned wrestling events in JH. However, since JH season has come to a conclusion, he has taken some frustrating losses. Only placed 5th at GSS state, which is good, but he got beat by a couple kids he should never be beaten by...1 who beat him for the first time in 10 tries. He's kind of at a weight in JH (100 lbs) where there are 7th grade boys who haven't begun puberty and 8th grade men who have gone through puberty and are probably not going to grow much more. My bro is in the "boy" group...one of his main strengths has always been his power...being "out-horsed" has been his main problem this year...he just can't hang in there physically with some of these matured/maturing 8th graders...something we are not used to being an issue with him when he was a 1st, 3rd, 5th grader wrestling 2nd, 4th and 6th graders. Districts for AAU state this Sunday and I'm nervous as hell about it....never know which 8th graders emerge from out of nowhere.

Man, what a frustrating year.

Found some cool shit this year for coaching. Watched a lot of youtube clips of Cary Kolat and joined his site and discovered that; 1.) he is one of the best and most unique technicians I've ever seen...my favorite followed by Wade Schalles and 2.) If you learn the moves, which work very well, to kids (high school and youth), they have a blast learning it. Pretty fun technique that you don't see often. Here are a couple of examples:



Awesome funk.



Love how he shows this lateral...love how he emphasized working from the side/angle to set it up opposed to going straight on. The only lateral I knew in high school was straight on and I rarely attempted it because it always felt risky. This lateral he shows, works like a charm.