Takedown Report

Johnson Memorial

Inspring coach, wrestler and role model.

September 28, 2019 Posted by The TakeDown Report | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

From NCAA to MMA: More college wrestlers are fighting on

PITTSBURGH — This is his home, and these are 18,000 of his friends, so Ben Askren doesn’t hesitate when he sees a pocket of open seats. “Are these taken?” he says to three middle-aged dudes in Iowa State gear.
How the bond between Woodley and Askren changed Missouri wrestling
The strangers immediately recognize Askren — the UFC star and former Missouri All-American wrestler — but they barely look up from the eight matches below. Here at the NCAA wrestling championships in mid-March, Askren is an A-list star, but he’s like a famous person at his own family reunion — so popular and well-known that nobody really bothers him for selfies or introductions. He’s just good ol’ Uncle Ben walking around. The Iowa State fans wave for him to come on in and have a seat. One guy squishes his legs to the side, craning his head past Askren’s body so he doesn’t have to miss a single second of the wrestling below. Askren offers an important window into the latest evolution in the sometimes delicate relationship between wrestling and MMA. It’s long been accepted that there is no better base for MMA success than wrestling, and more specifically, American folkstyle wrestling. Rest of the story at https://www.espn.com/mma/story/_/id/26424694/more-college-wrestlers-fighting-on

September 28, 2019 Posted by The TakeDown Report | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Championship Wrestling Coaches – Division III

The Division III (D-III) National Championships were first held in 1974 in addition to the Division I (D-I) and Division II (D-II) championships.  So far 46 championship teams have been crowned.  Ten different schools have won at least one championship.  Recent fans of the D-III teams may find this hard to imagine as it for the last 25 years only two teams have traded off championships.  It has been a relatively safe bet that a ‘burg’ would win as Augsburg University or Wartburg College has been the champion each year.  In 17 of those years the other school was the runner up or tied for that honor.

Wartburg has won 14 team championships and ranks first among the teams.  Augsburg won their 13^th championship in March to rank 2^nd just behind Wartburg.  The College of New Jersey and the State University of New York-Brockport are tied for 3^rd place with 5 team titles each.  Ithaca College is 5^th with three titles.  Montclair State University won two titles before dropping the sport in 2006 to rank 6^th.  The four remaining championships were won by Buffalo University, John Carroll University, St. Lawrence University and Wilkes University during a span from 1974 to 1988.

The list ranking top individual coaches is not as clear.  Jeff Swenson of Augsburg has won the most D-III championships with ten in a 17 year span.  He has the most as a head coach yet there is another consideration for that title.  Wartbug College won the championship for three consecutive years in 2011-2013 with co-head coaches in Jim Miller and Eric Keller.  With three titles this c0-head coaching team ties for 6^th in ranking of coaching titles.  Keller went on as the sole head coach to win four titles in the next five seasons.  Thus Keller was part of the top leadership in seven championship teams.  He would be tied for 2^nd place with seven with Jim Miller of Wartburg.  Miller coached the team to seven championships over 14 seasons before he was a co-head coach with Keller.  Therefore if Miller’s three co-head coach titles are combined with ones he led by himself then he would be tied for 1^st with Swenson at 10 titles.  Thus we have some confusing or intertwined list like a wild scramble position often seen in college wrestling.

Wartburg has the longest streak of consecutive titles in Division III with four in the 2011-2014 championships but three consecutive is the longest for any head coach as the first three were with Miller & Keller yet with Keller continuing as the sole head coach he could be considered as having the longest with four.  Swenson and Keller have both won three consecutive titles along with the Miller-Keller combination.  Since the co-head coaching arrangement is distinct from a sole head coach they shall be ranked separately.

Thus Miller is 2^nd on the list as he led his Wartburg College teams to seven championships on his own as the head coach.  Tied for 3^rd with five championships are coaches with long and successful coaching careers in Dave Icenhower of  The College of New Jersey and Donald Murray of the State University of New York-Brockport.  Their titles were in a 16 year period from 1977-1992 before the ‘burgs’ dominated the top spot as mentioned earlier.  Keller is ranked 5^th on his own and he shares a spot with Miller for 5^th place tied with John Murray of Ithaca College.  Current Augsburg coach, and defending champion, Jim Moulsoff is in 8^th place with a pair of championships

Tied for 9^th place are seven retired coaches, listed below, each with one of the remaining championships. Each of the coaches that have guided their teams to National Championships are commendable and worth recognition.  Next article will look into who was the coach of championship wrestling teams in the NAIA and then National Junior Colleges. 

# = school now competes on the Division I level.
            ** = school no longer has a team
           ‘* = active coach

September 28, 2019 Posted by The TakeDown Report | Uncategorized | Leave a comment