Takedown Report

National Wrestling News – October # 1

TDR Editor’s Notes ; Looking over the sport in general for news we have quotes to live by (#1), Fund raising (#2), Generosity (#4) and cuts to programs (#3 & #7) and even to the NCAA (#5). Coaches share what they learned from wrestlers (#6, & # 8) while Gary Abbott remembers four great coaches that he learned from (#9). The last story is a longer column with an overview of the time of uncertainty between seasons (#10) .+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
1 } – WRESTLER FOR LIFE STORY OF THE WEEK: NINE WRESTLING QUOTES TO LIVE BY
USA Wrestling’s “Wrestler for Life” program is accepting submissions for “The Story of the Week”. It can be about anything wrestling related, whether it’s a particular wrestling match you’ll never forget, or a life lesson that the sport taught you. If your story is chosen, it will be featured on TheMat.com, and winners will receive a USA Wrestling t-shirt.
Send your submissions to: Wrestlerforlife@usawrestling.org
This week’s submission is by Bob Morris.
As a wrestler, we learn holds and techniques, how to train, and how to win. And later in life we come to appreciate that we were a wrestler and how the sport shaped who we are. As a coach, we come to realize the life lessons we’ve learned in the sport, and to share those with the youngsters we work with. The sport of wrestling has taught me many lessons, which still impact me on a daily basis. Some I can identify with specific quotes- some from private conversations, some I merely read. Here are nine favorites.
1. “Wrestling is not a recreational sport.” – Werner Holzer, Olympian
Nobody ever got up from Thanksgiving dinner and said, “Let’s go shoot some takedowns.”
2. “Strength is to wrestling what height is to basketball.” – Doug Blubaugh, Olympic Gold Medalist
Every human endeavor encompasses certain Key Factors for Success. Identify them, leverage them, exploit them.
3. “If you can’t slick ‘em, hurt ‘em.” – Ron Bessemer
A few years ago I went to see my old club coach. He was in his mid 70’s. All through dinner, his cell phone was blowing up with kids calling to work out under his tutelage. Always have a Plan B.
4. “Pressure is a privilege.” – John Smith, Olympic Gold Medalist and champion coach
If you suddenly find yourself ranked #1 embrace the situation. I can’t remember which famous college hoops coach said it, … rest of story at _{https://www.teamusa.org/USA-Wrestling/Features/2020/August/27/Wrestler-for-Life-Story-of-the-Week-Quotes?mc_cid=3ae5d43d10&mc_eid=2ef7cbca4b}

2 } – Clackamas Community College wrestling attempts to pin $30,000
With COVID-19 canceling Crab Feed and other fundraisers, an online fundraising campaign is underway
It is no secret Clackamas Community College has a successful wrestling program. That success comes in part thanks to fundraisers like the annual Crab Feed and Auction, which was among COVID-19 cancellations this year.
So, the college is attempting to help the wrestlers make weight, in dollars that is, by hosting an online fundraising campaign for the team at give.clackamas.edu/wrestling.
“I’m devastated to announce that due to COVID-19 our Crab Feed, wrestling camps and tournaments have all been canceled,” said CCC wrestling coach Josh Rhoden. “These are our only sources of funding this nationally prominent program. Without the revenue these events generate, I worry that we will give up ground that took us 15 years to gain.” … rest of story at _{https://pamplinmedia.com/cr/25-sports/478212-386528-ccc-wrestling-attempts-to-pin-30000?wallit_nosession=1&mc_cid=ea5a873124&mc_eid=2ef7cbca4b}

3 } –  Brown University Emails on Cutting Sports: Shift Anger and Frustration Toward Federal Court
Emails released on Thursday show an effort by top administrators at Brown University and powerful alumni strategizing on how to minimize the impact of the 1998 agreement which dictates participation in women’s sports. The backdrop is a battle over cuts to Brown sports and compliance with a federal — and now nearly two-decade-old consent decree — on compliance with Title IX regarding women’s sports.
The emails show Samuel Mencoff, a billionaire co-founder of Madison Dearborn Partners, one of the country’s leading private equity firms in the United States, expressing his frustration over the consent decree.
“Kill the Pestilential Thing”
More than 100 pages of emails and documents released by the RI ACLU show frustration at the highest level of the university to comply with the requirements of the federal consent decree and functionally linking the requirement to support women’s sports as the cause of the poor performance for Brown’s athletics.
“But here’s an idea. Could we use this moment, where anger and frustration, especially from track and squash, are intense and building, to go after the Consent Decree once and for all?” wrote Mencoff in an email to Brown Christina Paxson.
Paxson and Brown Athletic Director Jack Hayes announced cuts to nearly dozen Brown sports this year.
Mencoff, who serves as provost at Brown, went on, “Could we channel all this emotion away from anger at Brown to anger at the court and kill this pestilential thing. The argument would be that the Consent decree is forcing us [Brown] to eliminate these sports, and the court would be bombarded with emails and calls as we are now.” … rest of story at _{https://www.golocalprov.com/sports/browns-internal-emails-shift-the-and-anger-and-frustration-towards-federal?mc_cid=3ae5d43d10&mc_eid=2ef7cbca4b}

4 } – Anonymous donor pledges to replace Haselrig’s stolen hall of fame ring
The Pennsylvania Chapter of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame, thanks to the kindness of an anonymous donor, will replace the late Carlton Haselrig’s stolen hall of fame ring and present it to his family, according to the organization’s treasurer. “We took it on as a challenge and we felt it was something that needed to happen,” said Lloyd Rhoades, treasurer of the state chapter of the national hall, during a telephone interview on Wednesday. “We had a donor step forward and the donor is covering the cost of the ring. The donor wishes to remain anonymous.”
Carlton Haselrig was inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in 2016 and was presented the ring during an induction ceremony in Stillwater, Oklahoma. Haselrig’s widow, Michelle, fought back tears upon learning of the news. “I want to thank the donor,” Michelle Haselrig said … rest of story at _{https://www.tribdem.com/sports/anonymous-donor-pledges-to-replace-haselrig-s-stolen-hall-of-fame-ring/article_19a98c02-e7f8-11ea-9bb1-d31aef5cb2c7.html?mc_cid=1f5a8a16f5&mc_eid=2ef7cbca4b}

5 } – NCAA will furlough its entire staff amid financial difficulties from the coronavirus pandemic
NCAA employees are facing furloughs this fall and winter.
The governing body sent out a memo to its staffers at its Indianapolis office on Wednesday outlining mandatory furloughs that will take place from September through January. While executives at the NCAA will not be furloughed, the NCAA had previously announced that its upper-level management would be taking pay cuts because of the coronavirus pandemic. The Associated Press obtained the memo, which notes that each furlough will be a minimum of three weeks:

The latest belt-tightening measures include voluntary separation and early retirement packages being offered to many NCAA employees.
“There decisions are unfortunate but necessary as we continue to identify ways to cut costs across the national office,” Emmert wrote. He said all the measures represent “top of budget cuts in every national office group totaling nearly half our operating budget.”

The NCAA lost over $1 billion in revenue when it canceled the men’s and women’s basketball tournaments in March amid the COVID-19 pandemic. … rest of story at _{https://sports.yahoo.com/as-coronavirus-pandemic-has-rattled-the-college-sports-world-the-ncaa-will-furlough-its-entire-staff-212119389.html?mc_cid=48f6ce54f3&mc_eid=2ef7cbca4b&guccounter=1}

6 } – Rob Koll: What I learned from Kyle Dake and Yianni Diakomihalis
Rob Koll, head wrestling coach at Cornell University, coached Kyle Dake in college and is currently coaching Yianni Diakomihalis.
Dake is a four-time NCAA champion at four different weights (2010-13) and a two-time World champion (2018-19).
Diakomihalis is a two-time NCAA champion with two years of eligibility remaining and a two-time Cadet World champion.
The following are Koll’s thoughts on what he has learned from Kyle Dake and Yianni Diakomihalis
Friends and family matter
I will say the most apparent is the parents. Both have come from families that are willing to make ungodly concessions to help their children reach their personal goals. That’s something that’s universal with all the great wrestlers. Very seldom — not saying it has never happened — but very seldom does an athlete achieve greatness in a vacuum. They almost always have very, very strong parental support.  I think parental support does a couple of different things. … rest of story at _{https://www.trackwrestling.com/PortalPost.jsp?TIM=1599190255218&twSessionId=prmtaddzlx&postId=864670135&mc_cid=fd098ddc36&mc_eid=2ef7cbca4b}

7 } – See the idealism in cuts made by college athletics?
It’s been nearly two months since Stanford announced it was cutting 11 sports from its athletics department. Nine of the sports, including men’s wrestling, were in the Olympic pipeline.
One can hardly vilify Stanford. Before these cuts, Stanford had offered a whopping 36 sports (the NCAA average is half that) and had for decades done the heavy lifting for the U.S. Olympic program. At the 2016 Olympics, Stanford athletes produced a number of medialists equal to South Korea, which placed 11th in the medal standings among entire nations.
Stanford’s decision mostly affected sports that were not sponsored by the NCAA, such as rowing, sailing, squash and synchronized swimming, or were in decline regionally and made scheduling difficult, such as field hockey and fencing.
Wrestling was the biggie; though unlike programs at Midwest powerhouses, Stanford did not offer a full complement of scholarships, coaches and resources. And the cut to field hockey necessitated a reduction of a men’s sport to maintain gender equity and Title IX compliance.
Stanford said all those cut could maintain a presence on the campus as a club sport, supported by students and alumni. Times are tough. The coronavirus is playing havoc with everyone’s budget. College athletics are no exception. Schools in the Power Five conferences that don’t play football this fall figure to lose, on average, $62 million each.
Stanford’s action, though, opened the floodgates. Other colleges followed suit. The University of Iowa announced in August that it was eliminating men’s gymnastics, men’s and women’s swimming and men’s tennis after the 2021-22 academic year.
As of Aug. 21, the Associated Press reported that 73 NCAA Division I sports were cut. In Division II, it was 58 sports. In Division III, it was 60. The NAIA saw 29 sports eliminated, but mainly that was because Holy Family closed and JWU-North Miami eliminated its entire athletics department.
But, are colleges truly cutting the fat from their budgets to make ends meet? In this round of belt-tightening, did they target expensive, budget-consuming sports — or did they just chop out sports they don’t want to be bothered with anymore? … rest of story at _{https://www.starcourier.com/sports/20200903/see-idealism-in-cuts-made-by-college-athletics?mc_cid=fd098ddc36&mc_eid=2ef7cbca4b}

8 } – Northern Colorado head coach Troy Nickerson – OTM614
On The Mat returns as Kyle and Andy talk with Northern Colorado head wrestling coach Troy Nickerson. A New York native, Nickerson was an NCAA champion and a four-time Division I All-American at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. He’s entering his sixth season at the helm in Greeley.
Join Kyle Klingman and Andy Hamilton On The Mat, the flagship podcast of Trackwrestling.com. … rest of story and show details at _{https://www.mattalkonline.com/podcast/trackwrestling/on-the-mat/northern-colorado-head-coach-troy-nickerson-otm614/?mc_cid=72ed629a09&mc_eid=2ef7cbca4b}

9} – ABBOTT BLOG: A LABOR DAY THANK YOU TO MY WRESTLING COACHES, AND ALL COACHES ACROSS THE USA
Labor Day, which recognizes the hard-working Americans who make our nation great, is an appropriate time to thank our wrestling coaches all across America.
Being a wrestling coach is a labor of love. Wrestling coaches don’t command the kind of salaries as football or basketball coaches at the professional and college levels. Many wrestling coaches are paid, and deservedly so, but so many others are strictly volunteers, giving freely of their time to our nation’s youth.
For wrestling to continue to be an important part of our culture in communities across the United States, we need to support our existing wrestling coaches, and recruit new talented leaders to bring our great sport to the next generations of boys and girls, men and women.
I had an opportunity early in my early adult years to coach wrestling. My positions included serving as a volunteer coach at my alma mater Boston University, while at the same time, serving as the head coach for a private junior high school in Newton, Mass. called the Fessenden School. (I coached the sons of John Irving and Ted Kennedy at Fessenden). I spent a year as the head coach at Weymouth North High School in Massachusetts, and a number of years as the volunteer Greco-Roman coach for Massachusetts USA Wrestling. I enjoyed coaching and helping young wrestlers, so I understand a bit about why people choose to be wrestling coaches.
After joining the USA Wrestling staff in 1988, my coaching career ended. Yet I was surrounded by great coaches at all levels who have made an amazing impact on the lives of the wrestlers they mentored. I have kept learning from coaches, even though I no longer compete or coach. It is fair to say that wrestling coaches are the backbone of our sport, year in and year out. A coach can make a life-long impact on the lives of the athletes they teach. I was blessed that I was coached by four excellent head coaches, numerous great assistant coaches and some talented club coaches. I take a few minutes on my Labor Day holiday to salute these coaches, including the four head coaches during my competitive career. … rest of story at _{https://www.teamusa.org/USA-Wrestling/Features/2020/September/07/Abbott-Blog-Thank-you-to-my-coaches-and-all-coaches?mc_cid=72ed629a09&mc_eid=2ef7cbca4b}

10 } – Between Seasons, Column 30: A stormy Spring & a canceled Summer; Gains & losses on and off the mat; and the return of work &…Wine
“April showers bring May flowers” but the storm that struck the World this past Winter and Spring brought greater changes to the human landscape than any event since World War II. The Chinese Virus killed another hundred people and damaged the health and hopes of a thousand more before you finished reading this sentence. Contextualizing Sports in general and wrestling in particular was a bridge too far for this author until the truth finally settled in. The realization that, despite all gloom and portents of impending doom, the hunger for the joy of life never ceases. However that joy is manifested. On these pages it shows itself in a celebration of the greatest sport, an appreciation of freedom in both employment and movement, and a limited but growing understanding of the gift of Bacchus. So, as this column originally stated and has not wavered from since, these news and notes on wrestling, travel, and wine.
A MODEST PROPOSAL, WITH CREDITS TO SWIFT(1) AND KOLAT(2)
The alteration of the wrestling season and the cancellation of many of its championships has given the sport an opportunity to make lemonade out of lemons. Or perhaps chicken salad out of a less palatable product. At the collegiate level certainly, where the calls for a shortened season, a dual meet championships, and a restructuring of seasonal eligibility parameters make more and more sense. Take ALL of November out of the wrestling equation. Move the CKLV, the Midlands, the Southern Scuffle and one of the Eastern tournaments(3) to a singular window beginning the Wednesday AFTER the Football Championships. Each would have approximately 16-20 teams, a manageable number. Incentivize schools to rotate among the events year to year, giving their student athletes a greater range of competition and a deeper appreciation and understanding of all the areas of the U.S. Next, 4 weeks of dual meet competition. Conference tournaments 3rd weekend of February. Current championships 2 weeks later, same 3 day format. Then, the big alteration. An 8 day, 16 team Dual Meet Championship, comprised of the teams that finished 5-20 at the 3 day tournament. First weekend, teams 5-12 host teams 13-20 across a standard draw. The 5th place team hosts the 20th place team, 6th place team hosts 19th place team, etc. The 8 winners battle each other at a bidded on site to win the Dual Meet title. The event would occur after the Final Four. Wrestling season would shorten by 20%. It would change from 11/1-3/21 to 12/15-4/14.(4) That makes for significant reductions in accumulated costs, physical as well as financial. More teams would have access to improved competition levels and would be increasing their footprint, simultaneously shrinking their expenditure windows while expanding their brand recognition. This columns author is undecided on a functional change re eligibility determination. Surely some opportunity to compete without losing a years eligibility can be agreed upon, though. … rest of story at _{https://morewrestlingplease.wordpress.com/2020/08/27/between-seasons-column-30-a-stormy-spring-a-canceled-summer-gains-losses-on-and-off-the-mat-and-the-return-of-work-wine/?mc_cid=1f5a8a16f5&mc_eid=2ef7cbca4b}

October 4, 2020 - Posted by The TakeDown Report | Uncategorized