So things have been pretty sweet lately for our family in wrestling.
To start, the Iowa HS State Wrestling tournament took place last weekend. I did the rankings and wrote a lot of articles for the state of Iowa's oldest wrestling publication... and I did the rankings for Class 3A...so that was interesting. I was on the floor covering state the entire weekend and it was pretty sweet. I took some heat on Twitter, for accidentally sending a tweet that I meant to send as a pm...I caught it in 30 seconds and it was still noticed by someone and screen-shot and sent to our competitor called IAwrestle...where they blasted me on Twitter...as they should have, really. The pm gone wrong was to a kid that we've known through my brothers and other Mepo kids for years who had just won state and for whatever freaking reason...I wrote to him, "hey, CONGRATS on winning state! Also, was wondering if we can get an interview with you when those IAWrestle tards aren't around." The problem here, of course is that I referred to these guys as "tards" and even though I do not have discriminatory feelings towards people with developmental disabilities, it's still in bad taste and unprofessional....the publication I work for prides itself in being professional, so this was pretty bad. The owner of IAwrestle, the morning after state posted that screen shot (I swear I caught it in 30 seconds) and @'d me on Twitter with the caption, "haters gonna hate." I took a TON of hate for that. I've been receiving hate mail all week from people who are offended and basically demanding that I be fired....whoops. However, the funny thing is 50% of my pm's are from people who thought it was funny and were elated that someone finally said something like that about them publicly...which don't get me wrong, it was terrible judgment for me to write that, but it's funny who and what comes out of the woodwork in situations like these. Some people are soooooooooo pissed because I used the word, "tards." Kind of difficult to defend myself on that one.
Anyways...
What has been AWESOME is that my youngest brother is a true Freshman who wrestles for Graceland University in IA... My brother who is 21 wrestles there also. Anyways, my youngest bro, Brennan started out the year with mono and up a weight (174 when his current weight is 165) because he couldn't cut weight... so he started out slow. However, ever since the Missouri Valley Invite, which is a tourney where there are 64 man brackets with a ton of NAIA schools, he has been on a roll. He was JUST starting to get over the mono at that point and beat the #1 and #2 seeded guys in the bracket who are returning AA's. He beat a ton of good kids to place 5th in a jam-packed 165 lb. bracket. That was about a month ago and was just the beginning. Since then, he has been on an absolute tear. He hasn't lost. He has stepped it up to a level that we always knew he was capable of and has been performing so well as a TRUE FRESHMAN. He won the Sioux City Invite where he defeated a 3 time Florida state champ, HS national AA and collegiate national qualifier. He is a candidate to win it at the JUCO level and hadn't lost for over a year at least. He continued to win every dual... then came the Heart of America Conference this past weekend, which is the national qualifier tournament for Graceland. In his bracket were the #5, #19, #11, and #1 ranked guys in the nation at his weight. Brennan had worked his way up to #9 after his strong showing at the Missouri Valley Invite. So he dominated the first two guys, defeated his teammate in the semis who is a returning National Qualifier himself and was paired up against the #1 ranked guy from Grand View who was a state champ from Boston and successful at the collegiate level in HS. He also placed 3rd in the nation last year. He has several wins over top D1 competition this year (and the previous 2 years), for example...he defeated Shane Griffith from Stanford, 3-1. Griffith has only lost twice this year... once to this #1 ranked NAIA kid, Ryan Niven, and once to a guy named Vincenzo Joseph from Penn State...Joseph is a Junior who is on pace to being a 4 time D1 National Champion...he won it as a Freshman and Sophomore. He only beat Griffith 6-5...just to give you an idea how good this Niven kid is.
So I am covering the event for The Predicament and have to film the finals matches...I couldn't shut up during Brennan's finals match because he is my brother and he ended up BEATING THE #1 RANKED GUY IN THE NATION AT HIS WEIGHT TO WIN THE HEART OF AMERICA CONFERENCE. He was then awarded the OUTSTANDING WRESTLER award!!! And this week he is the Heart of America Athlete of the Week. He wrestles in nationals in a couple weeks and I am assuming he will be seeded in the top 3 as a TRUE FRESHMAN!!!
Here is the video of the match and an interview with him afterwards, right before he was given the OW award... CHECK IT OUT!!! MY BROTHER IS A TOTAL BAD ASS!!!!!!!!!
Don't make fun of me too bad...
At the end I'm all like, "GOOD JOB BROTHER!!!" I probably better let someone else film him from now on for I am supposed to remain neutral, for I represent a respected wrestling media outlet... lol.... Also, you can tell when things get pretty tense, for my hands begin shaking at the end of the video!!!
Brennan is in the blue.
Here is the interview after the match... I was still shaking at this point. Handsome whipper-snapper, that Brennan!
I AM ONE PROUD OLDER BROTHER RIGHT NOW!!!! ON TO NATIONALS!!!!