Takedown Report

Wrestling History

Leistikow: NCAA needs to do right thing — vote ‘yes’ on eligibility after mass coronavirus cancellations
There’s a seismic vote planned for Monday that could change the near future of college sports. The NCAA’s Division I Council is set to determine whether athletes whose seasons were cut short from concerns over the COVID-19 pandemic should be granted an extra year of collegiate eligibility. The decision, especially for spring sports athletes whose seasons were just getting under way when the NCAA determined to cancel all winter and spring championships, would on the surface seem to be a no-brainer. And the 40 or so administrators who are convening Monday know that, too. But in this case, the right decision is going to be the most difficult decision. Voting yes to an extra year of eligibility would mean signing off on the possibility of millions of extra dollars in scholarship costs to universities already in more precarious cash-flow positions by the cancellation of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament … with the possibility of a washed-out or shortened football season further crippling budgets. The easiest, cleanest decision for the Council on Monday is to vote “no” — to both winter and spring athletes who saw their seasons (or careers) end. Wash your hands of this, say it was an act of God and this was an unfortunate, extraordinary circumstance. You can go to bed knowing that future competitive balance won’t be thrown out of whack and knowing that America has far greater losses to worry about right now during the coronavirus pandemic.
But the right decision Monday is to vote “yes” to eligibility relief. Vote “yes” to spring sports athletes. Vote “yes” to winter sports athletes whose postseasons were cut short. It was extraordinary and unprecedented for the NCAA to cancel the men’s and women’s basketball tournaments, the wrestling championships, hockey’s Frozen Four, the baseball and softball College World Series and every other spring sport. Likewise, administrators should search for extraordinary solutions in the wake of this pandemic to do what is right for what aligns with their core values. Coaches at all levels encourage their athletes to fight to the finish. Never give up. When the game or match is on the line of when unforeseen circumstances like injuries occur, always search for a path to success. Will administrators hold themselves to the same standard? Probably not. They are too often led by the bottom line, not by what their own core values address. From the NCAA’s website: The missive is about “prioritizing academics, well-being and fairness so college athletes can succeed on the field, in the classroom and for life.” …. story and pictures at https://amp.hawkcentral.com/amp/2938124001?__twitter_impression=true&mc_cid=1270ffe756&mc_eid=2ef7cbca4b

Introducing the Dynasty Duals: Cast your vote to determine the best college team of the last 40 years
How would this year’s Iowa squad stack up against the Hawkeyes of Gable’s glory years? How would the powerhouse Penn State teams fare against some of Oklahoma State’s loaded lineups?  Welcome to the Dynasty Duals. 
We’re taking every national championship team from the past 40 years, plus the top-ranked Iowa squad from this season, and putting them up for a fan vote. The top 16 teams in the balloting will go into a dual bracket that will begin Saturday and play out over the course of a two-week stretch to determine the top team of the past four decades — or at least how wrestling fans see it.  We’ll put each individual matchup up for vote with the winners picking up dual points based on the outcome using the following scale: …. story at  https://www.trackwrestling.com/PortalPost.jsp?TIM=1585709491042&twSessionId=hoqlsectkh&postId=779192135&mc_cid=1f2298c90d&mc_eid=2ef7cbca4b

ESPNU to air NCAAs from 2010, 2013, 2016, 2018, 2019 on Saturday
Want to catch some NCAA wrestling on TV while in quarantine? ESPNU will be airing five years of NCAA Division I Wrestling Championships on Saturday, April 4, from noon until 9 p.m.
Saturday, April 4 on ESPNU
Noon 2016 NCAA Wrestling Championships
2 p.m. 2010 NCAA Wrestling Championships
4 p.m. 2013 NCAA Wrestling Championships
6 p.m. 2018 NCAA Wrestling Championships
9 p.m. 2019 NCAA Wrestling Championships …. story at https://intermatwrestle.com/articles/23489?mc_cid=c504aeb86a&mc_eid=2ef7cbca4b
Breaking Down Oklahoma State’s Legacy in Professional Wrestling
Seth Duckworth looks at former wrestlers with a history in pro wrestling
Collegiate wrestling is a unique animal in that it produces professional athletes in a few different fields. Naturally, Olympians or Senior level wrestlers is the main arena and more recently MMA has been an outlet dominated by wrestling and notably by a number of former Cowboys. Something I haven’t really written much on, but felt was worth discussing with Wrestlemania coming up this weekend, is OSU’s legacy in professional wrestling. Here’s a brief synopsis of a few former Cowboys’ careers in pro wrestling.
1. Earl McCready
Before Chuba Hubbard, Earl McCready was the first “Canadian Cowboy” to make his way to Stillwater. He went undefeated in his college career from 1928-1930 and was the first three-time NCAA champ, and he also played football for Oklahoma A&M at the time. He wrestled for the Canadian Olympic team in 1928 and went on to a professional wrestling career. According to the Pro Wrestling Hall of Fame, he was a “top-notch competitor” during his career that spanned the next three decades before he retired in 1958.  He competed mainly in Canada, New Zealand, and Australia, and worked for Stu Hart’s Stampede Promotion during the time. …. story at https://pistolsfiringblog.com/breaking-down-oklahoma-states-legacy-in-professional-wrestling/?mc_cid=1f1b7bdc6e&mc_eid=2ef7cbca4b

Dynasty Duals: Iowa 1997 vs. Oklahoma State 2003
First Round 
No. 1 seed Iowa 1997 vs. No. 16 seed Oklahoma State 2003  …. lineups and story at https://www.trackwrestling.com/PortalPost.jsp?TIM=1586054948351&twSessionId=fiqxcdtpaw&postId=779371135&mc_cid=3d6cefac15&mc_eid=2ef7cbca4b

’92 Iowa downs ’18 Penn State on bonus points after 5-5 split
 ’92 Iowa downs ’18 Penn State on bonus points after 5-5 split
Iowa’s 1992 team used one-sided wins from the first three wrestlers in its lineup to knock off fifth-seeded 2018 Penn State 22-20 on bonus points in the first round of the Dynasty Duals after a 10-match split in the voting.  Chad Zaputil, Terry Brands and Tom Brands won more than 80 percent of the fan vote in the first three weight classes. Terry Brands topped the 90-percent pin threshold by picking up 93.1 percent of the vote — the highest total in the tournament to date.  Penn State’s five national champions — Zain Retherford, Jason Nolf, Vincenzo Joseph, Mark Hall and Bo Nickal — each won their respective votes. …. story at https://www.trackwrestling.com/PortalPost.jsp?TIM=1586314002397&twSessionId=usyfopeeob&postId=779456135&mc_cid=9b0303e966&mc_eid=2ef7cbca4b

April 16, 2020 Posted by The TakeDown Report | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

TDR Editor's Notes — III

The TakeDown Report Awards
For over twenty years The TDR has named a Top 12 listing of the Top 12 wrestlers in each weight class of wrestlers in eastern North Carolina. This year’s list has been delayed, as almost everything has been, by the pandemic crisis. The cancellation of the NCAA National Championships was upsetting, stunning, and hard to fathom. Yet, I am just a fan. Can only imagine that it is much more distressing for wrestlers and coaches and their families.
The big trophy awards will be eventually given to the six wrestlers in eastern North Carolina who completed their season as an undefeated state champion.We have the awards and the engraved wooden plaques that will be presented to the top wrestlers on the Top 12 team. Once the wrestlers are announced on here we will need the coaches or wrestlers or fans to contact us to make it so we can arrange for some sort of presentation or transfer of the awards. May need to use a shovel with a 6′ long handle. To be clear —
The TDR Top 12 Team will be announced along with the ‘Big 4″ Awards (J. Johnson, R. Heaverly, M. Stokes & L. Carroll) before the end of the month.

April 16, 2020 Posted by The TakeDown Report | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

OId Dominion dropping wrestling may herald grim future for the sport

TDR Editor’s Notes ; This article is truly alarming as it explains the reality of priorities at Division I schools. More than just alarming, it is depressing news in these hectic times. We hope that this school will realize the error of their actions and reverse course on this in the fall.
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By Brad Wilson | For lehighvalleylive.com
So how much of an alarm bell is Old Dominion dropping wrestling for the collegiate mat community? Pretty loud, we’d say. And it might get a lot more alarming depending on what happens with the COVID-19 pandemic. ODU’s move was pitched by its PR flacks as being related to the pandemic, but taking one look at its reasoning and rationale shows that to be a bogus cover story. The Monarchs, located in Virginia’s Tidewater region, were determined to drop wrestling no matter what, and the pandemic became a handy excuse.
It wasn’t like ODU was struggling. They’d qualified four wrestlers for the NCAA Division I tournament, had had an All-American in 2019, and were bringing in top-shelf recruiting classes, perhaps, besides Missouri, the best the Mid-American Conference, which the Monarchs competed in in wrestling.
Their coach, Steve Martin, is familiar to many scholastic wrestling fans as the coach at Great Bridge (Va.), a program often seen at major tournaments such as the Beast of the East, until he took the ODU job in 2004. Old Dominion sits in an area where wrestling is a significant sport and produces plenty of collegiate talent. The annual Virginia Duals are located nearby. But none of that matters to the “consultant” who recommended wrestling get the boot. The usual numbers were cited, with the drop in D-1 programs from 146 in 1981 to 89 in 2007 to 75 now, and the whole Title XI business, all too familiar to wrestling fans. There were two elements, though, that could be new factors in cutting more programs. One was citing that no other Conference USA members — ODU is in C-USA for all other sports — sponsor wrestling.
That angle could cause wrestling a real problem if it gets expanded to, say, “only X teams in our conference have wrestling”. That’s because, outside of the Big Ten, where all 14 members wrestle, and the Ivy League (6 of 8) there’s not a major college conference in the nation where a majority of full members wrestle 6 of 15 in the ACC; 1 of 14 (Mizzou) in the SEC; 4 of 10 in the Big 12; 3 of 12 in the Pac-12, 4 of 12 in the MAC. Grim numbers, and easy for a consultant to grab onto with a we’re-out-of-step-by-having-wrestling argument. The other is this line in the consultant’s report: “Without question, the historic way of ‘doing business’ must be modified if ODU is going to be nationally competitive in NCAA Division I.”
Of course, what that translates to is football and men’s basketball, and it is certainly true that ODU has not been a regular fixture in the Top 25 in either sport of late. Its football team was in the FCS until 2013 after restarting a program in 2009 that had been dormant since 1941. In contrast, wrestling started at ODU in 1957.
But by that standard, no other athletic program should survive at most schools (some universities make money on ice hockey, baseball and the like, but not many), and one suspects the only way many do is by the NCAA standard that requires minimum numbers of teams.
Right now, according to the NCAA, “Division I member institutions have to sponsor at least seven sports for men and seven for women (or six for men and eight for women) with two team sports for each gender. Each playing season has to be represented by each gender as well.” It’s easy to see how wrestling becomes the odd man (so to speak) out here. The real issue at stake is many Division I athletic programs wanting to pump as much money into football and basketball as possible while maintaining minimal standards elsewhere. As Wyoming Seminary wrestling coach Scott Green puts it, we are seeing the “continued minor-league-ization of football and men’s basketball,” and no amount of money is enough. Such pressures are most keenly felt not, perhaps, at established powers such as Penn State and Ohio State, or at smaller universities relatively content with where they fit in the big picture such as Lehigh, say.
But for everybody else, wrestling can become a target — take the mat money and re-do the football weight room! Or add even more $$$ to overpaid coaches and staff. Or, especially, spend more bucks on buildings in the facility arms race that has infected Division I of late. The question becomes just what are college athletics for? Are they, as Green notes, for producing semipro squads in a limited number of sports or are they for the general benefit of the entire student body and the physical education of students?We suspect we know the depressing answer to such questions. And now we have the nightmare of the COVID-19 pandemic striking, with its potentially devastating impact on college athletic budgets.
Old Dominion may have used the pandemic as a convenient cover for its kicking wrestling to the curb, but there is no doubt that the virus’ long-term effect on collegiate sports could be devastating. Just mention the possibility of there being no 2020 football season to a D-1 athletic director and keep the smelling salts handy to revive them after they faint at the thought. And, again, which sports will feel the pain?
Here’s longtime Division I athletic director Bill Bradshaw on likely budgetary priorities as quoted in a terrific Philadelphia Inquirer story: ‘Division I football, Division I basketball, and women’s sports will be the highest priorities, “in that order.”
Guess what that leaves out. …. story at https://www.lehighvalleylive.com/sports/2020/04/oid-dominion-dropping-wrestling-may-herald-grim-future-for-the-sport.html?mc_cid=e9d5e5bec8&mc_eid=2ef7cbca4b

April 16, 2020 Posted by The TakeDown Report | Uncategorized | Leave a comment