Girls Wrestling Growing!
Florida high school grad breaks barriers on wrestling mat, and sets record with incredible 11.3 GPA
TAMPA, Fla. – A Florida high school student is graduating this month with a mind-boggling high grade point average, while also breaking barriers outside the classroom. Bhavya Bansal posted an incredible 11.3 GPA to become Valedictorian at Middleton High School in Tampa for 2023.
Not surprisingly, that is the highest-grade point average ever earned at Middleton High. The super student didn’t only dominate in the classroom. She was the only female on the school wrestling team, and also competed on the swimming team. Bhavya plans to attend Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland this fall, and says she eventually wants to be a surgeon. … rest of story at … Florida/06/08/high-school-grad-breaks-barriers-on-wrestling-mat-and-sets-record-with-incredible-gpa
Pioneering Grassfield wrestler — the first area female to win a state tournament match — lands scholarship
By JIM MCGRATH | PUBLISHED: June 7, 2023 at 11:09 a.m. | UPDATED: June 7, 2023 at 5:38 p.m.
One of Hampton Roads’ female high school wrestling pioneers has decided on a college.
Charlize Shuler, Grassfield High’s standout grappler, recently accepted an academic and athletic scholarship from Presbyterian College in Clinton, South Carolina. Her new team, the Blue Hose, sported an 8-3 mark in the National Collegiate Women’s Wrestling Conference last season and had three All-Americans, capping their season with a No. 12 national ranking in Division I and a ninth-place finish at the NCWWC Nationals.
Shuler was a three-year varsity starter at Grassfield with a 58-28 career record against boys, and she qualified for the Class 6 boys championships twice at 106 pounds, becoming the first female from South Hampton Roads to win a state tournament match.
“When I visited Presbyterian, I really liked the head women’s coach and the friendly atmosphere,” said Shuler, whose grandfather, Don Shuler, was an All-American wrestler at Arizona State and coached at Liberty University. “It was also important to me to be somewhat close to home, so I can stay connected with family and friends. It was really the perfect place for me because I know I can reach my academic and athletic goals. I also loved the Grassfield wrestling program, my coaches and my teammates. I picked PC because it was the closest fit to Grassfield out of my options.” … rest of story at … Pilotonline/Grassfield-wrestler-charlize-shuler-a-three-year-starter-on-the-boys-team-and-girls-state-champ-will-wrestle-at-presbyterian
Alabama State Games partner with Alabama Girls Wrestling Alliance
Girls-only Folkstyle Tournament being added to the wrestling mats for 40th Annual State Games
GCM Staff Report
MONTGOMERY — Wrestling has become an Alabama State Games mainstay sport since the 1990s. This year, it’s evolving.
Freestyle, Folkstyle and Greco-Roman tournaments are scheduled for June 10 at Hoover High School. This year — through a partnership with the Alabama Girls Wrestling Alliance — the 40th Anniversary Alabama State Games will feature a separate, girls-only Folkstyle Tournament.
“This is a tremendous opportunity to take one of the more traditional Olympic-styled sports and push it to the next level by partnering with the Alabama Girls Wrestling Alliance,” said Ron Creel, Alabama State Games Founder and CEO. “The work done by the AGWA to grow the sport of girls’ wrestling in the state of Alabama has been phenomenal. It’s exciting to see their passion for this sport.”
Go to alagames.com. to register for wrestling or to learn more about the 21 sports offered during the 40th Anniversary Alabama State Games.
“Girls are innovating the sport, crossing over from other activities. They are bringing gifts such as flexibility, rhythm and timing, adding new twists to moves and techniques,” said TJ Zito, AGWA Media Director. “I have served as the announcer for many girls’ tournaments and have been telling everyone that girls’ wrestling will take off. Girls’ wrestling is a different product than the boys’ and has a unique energy, atmosphere and fan participation that has to be experienced at a live event to be understood.” … rest of story at … rest of story at … Gulfcoastmedia.com/Alabama-state-games-partner-with-alabama-girls-wrestling-alliance
Appalachian State Wrestling Announces 9 Newcomers from Class of 2023
BOONE, N.C. — App State Wrestling head coach JohnMark Bentley on Thursday announced the addition of nine Class of 2023 newcomers.
The nine prep standouts combined for 15 individual state championships, 21 state finals and 30 state tournament appearances during their decorated high school careers.
Six members of the class are homegrown talents from North Carolina, while the Mountaineers are also adding standouts from Georgia, Ohio and Tennessee.
App State is moving forward from a 2022-23 season in which it went 12-2 in dual matches, finished with a No. 20 national ranking, followed a SoCon regular-season title with a tournament championship and had six wrestlers qualify for the NCAA Championships.
FULL CLASS (BY WEIGHT CLASS)
Bryson Terrell — 125 pounds; Georgetown, Tenn. (Bradley Central HS)
Aldo Hernandez — 133/141 pounds; Asheboro, N.C. (Uwharrie Charter Academy)
Jeremiah Price — 149/157 pounds; State Road, N.C. (Surry Central HS)
Jayden Dobeck – 165 pounds; West End, N.C. (Pinecrest HS)
Alex Hopper — 165/174 pounds; Wilmington, N.C. (Laney HS)
Logan Eller — 184 pounds; Trion, Ga. (Trion HS) … rest of story at Appstatesports.com/news/2023/6/8/Wrestling-announces-9-newcomers-from-class-of-2023
BEACH WRESTLING LAUNCHING ON VA BEACHES!
Weekly Match-ups Will Lay Groundwork for Future Events
Virginia Beach Field House, Virginia Beach- Beach wrestling is COMING to Hampton Roads and Virginia Beach in a big way!
Beginning Thursday, June 8th and continuing each Thursday through the summer I-64 Wrestling/VAWA will sponsor “beach match-ups” for wrestlers of all ages. Walk up registration will begin at 5:30pm, with match ups getting under way by 6pm each evening and continuing until approximately 8:30pm.
Beach wrestling is an emerging Olympic sport and is being touted as a possible addition to the 2028 Olympic program in Los Angeles. UWW has also expanded the Beach Wrestling World Series to include stops around the globe in 2023, and the style is a core discipline for the ANOC Beach Games, which take place this fall in Bali, Indonesia.
Domestically, beach wrestling has exploded in popularity. In 2021 it was added alongside the Spartan Nationals and USA SE Regionals in Jacksonville, Florida. In 2022 the Beach Wrestling Tour of America was launched, with stops in 11 locations from Carolina to California. The 2023 season kicked off May 20th in Carolina Beach with a record crowd including athletes from Barbados and Jamaica. Numerous states, including Virginia, have also recently announced the addition of state beach wrestling championships.
Future events coming to the Hampton Roads area will include the VAWA State Beach Wrestling Championships in late August/ early September, as well as the Trident Beach Wrestling Championships, which will be part of the 2023 Tour of America Series.
VAWA Beach Wrestling Chairperson and Virgina Wrestling Hall Of Fame member Frank Lapoli sees the beach “match-ups” as a great way to introduce the “sport of our ancestors” to local wrestlers. “Beach wrestling is a fun style and a great overlap activity that will benefit ALL styles of wrestling.” He promises great action, great fun, and ultimately envisions the Tidewater region as a launching point for future VAWA wrestlers to represent their state and their country in the Olympic games!
DETAILS
Beach Wrestling Match-ups- Wednesday’s this summer beginning June 21st 6:00-8:30pm. … Rest of story at … USAbeachwrestling.com/beach-wrestling-launching-on-va-beaches
Early Line-up Look: North Carolina Tar Heels
An early breakdown of the North Carolina Tar Heels for the upcoming 2023-24 NCAA season.
Overview
Head coach: Coleman Scott (9th season)
Assistants: Tony Ramos, Jamill Kelly, Mohamed Abdelfatah
2023 NCAA tournament finish: 12th
2023 NCAA tournament points: 42
2023 NCAA tournament record: 17-9
2023 ACC tournament finish: 4th
2023 dual record: 6-9 (2-3)
Returning national qualifiers: 3 (Lachlan McNeil, Gavin Kane, Max Shaw)
Returning All-Americans: 2 (Lachlan McNeil and Gavin Kane)
Last NCAA champion: Austin O’Connor (2023)
Highest NCAA team finish: 5th (1982)
Highest NCAA team finish under Scott: 12th (2023)
Most place winners under Scott: 3 (2022, 2023)
Last 10 NCAA Championships
2013: 22nd (Mock)
2014: 25th (Mock)
2015: 24th (Mock)
2016: 32nd (Scott)
2017: 41st (Scott)
2018: 20th (Scott)
2019: 19th (Scott)
2020: Canceled (COVID)
2021: 16th (Scott)
2022: 18th (Scott)
2023: 12th (Scott)
Summary
North Carolina enters the 2023-24 season following a memorable year. Austin O’Connor won his second NCAA title, making him the first Tar Heel to win multiple championships since 1995. Coleman Scott had his highest finish as head coach and he tied his personal record for the most national place winners during his tenure. Scott’s team showed up when it counted most. … rest of story at Flowrestling.org/articles/11035738-early-line-up-look-north-carolina-tar-heels
FINAL X MEN’S FREESTYLE PREVIEW: OLYMPIC CHAMPIONS BURROUGHS, TAYLOR, SNYDER, STEVESON HIGHLIGHT INCREDIBLY DEEP FIELD SET FOR NEWARK
By Richard Immel, USA Wrestling
The men’s freestyle pairings at Final X feature some serious star power, perhaps more than we’ve ever seen at this stage of the U.S. World Team qualification process.
Eight competitors earned a medal at the 2022 World Championships in Belgrade, Serbia. Seven Olympic medalists, including four Olympic champions, will grace the Final X mats at Prudential Center. 16-of-20 competitors are past NCAA champions, six of whom were awarded the Dan Hodge Trophy as the nation’s top college wrestler.
The June 10 lineup has the potential to be one of the greatest set of matches in a single night in U.S. wrestling history.
We will summarize each pairing in weight order, which is how the matches will be conducted at Final X.
57 kg – Thomas Gilman (State College, Pa./Nittany Lion WC/Titan Mercury WC) vs. Zane Richards (Champaign, Ill./Illinois RTC/Titan Mercury WC)
The 57 kg men’s freestyle weight class has been owned by Thomas Gilman in recent years. Gilman has represented the U.S. in five of the previous six World Championships or Olympic Games, earning four total medals during that stretch. Most notably, he was a World champion in 2021 and an Olympic bronze medalist in 2020.
Last year, Gilman came up one win short of his second-straight World title, falling to Albania’s Zelimkhan Abakarov, a Russian transplant, in the World finals. The silver medal performance earned Gilman an automatic berth to this year’s Final X. He bounced back with a dominant gold medal outing at the Pan-American Championships held in Buenos Aires, Argentina, earlier this month, and is primed to make another run at the 57 kg U.S. World Team spot.
Standing in Gilman’s way at Final X is U.S. Open champion Zane Richards, who has been in the upper echelon at 57 kg for the U.S. this quad. He was most impressive in Las Vegas, particularly in the finals against two-time NCAA champion Nick Suriano, where he scored the winning takedown at the buzzer. Richards is currently No. 3 on U.S. National Team ladder and does boast some valuable Final X experience having wrestled and won a true third match in Stillwater, Okla., last year.
Gilman and Richards have wrestled two matches against each other on the Senior level dating back to 2019, Gilman winning both convincingly.
Most recent match – 2020 U.S. Olympic Team Trials – Gilman tech. fall Richards, 11-0
61 kg – Vitali Arujau (Ithaca, N.Y./Spartan Combat RTC/Titan Mercury WC) vs. Nahshon Garrett (Bethlehem, Pa./Titan Mercury WC/Lehigh Valley WC)
With no returning World medalist, the 61 kg weight class was wide open as far as who would qualify for Final X. … rest of story at Teamusa.org/USA-Wrestling/Features/2023/May/29/Final-X-mens-freestyle-preview
Cuba’s wrestling legend Mijaín López aims to break Olympic record at Paris 2024
Four-time Olympic champion Mijaín López has returned to training with the national team, and he is targeting a fifth Olympic gold in Paris next year.
Cuba’s wrestling legend Mijaín López is poised to make even more history in his sport.
The 40-year-old is already part of an exclusive club that includes only Americans Michael Phelps (swimming), Carl Lewis (long jump), Alfred Oerter (discus throw), and Denmark’s Paul Elvstrøm (sailing). They are the only male athletes to have won individual gold medals in the same individual event at four consecutive Olympic Games.
López is now set to make his international return to competitions, two years after securing the title in the men’s 130 kg (286-pound) Greco-Roman category at Tokyo 2020.
“I am coming back to wrestle at the Paris Olympic Games. I want to become the first wrestler to win five Olympic gold medals,” López announced as reported by United World Wrestling.
Dubbed ‘El Terrible’, the four-time Olympic champion is currently in Croatia with the Cuban national wrestling team, where he will start his preparation for Paris 2024. … rest of story and pictures at Olympics.com/en/news/mijain-lopez-cuba-wrestling-break-record-paris-2024
and
Cuban wrestler Mijain Lopez returns to break Olympic record he shares with Michael Phelps
Cuban Mijaín López plans to return to competitive wrestling in a bid to become the first person to win the same individual Olympic event five times.
At the Tokyo Games, López became the fifth person to win the same individual Olympic event four times after Michael Phelps, Carl Lewis, Al Oerter and Danish sailor Paul Elvstrøm. Japanese wrestler Kaori Icho also won four individual Olympic titles, but over two different weight classes.
If he makes it to Paris, López would also bid to tie the record of winning an individual gold medal at five Olympics, set by Dutch speed skater Ireen Wüst last year. Wüst‘s golds alternated between the 1500m and 3000m.
López last competed internationally at the Tokyo Games, which was expected to be his farewell. But López did not leave his shoes on the mat (the symbolic act of retirement in wrestling) after winning the Greco-Roman super heavyweight (286-pound) title and said later that year that he had not yet decided whether to make a Paris 2024 bid.
Cuban media recently reported that López was back in training, including with the national team in Croatia this week. United World Wrestling then reported Monday that López said he is making another Olympic bid.
López shares the record of five Olympic wrestling appearances and in Paris can become the oldest person to win an Olympic wrestling medal of any color, according to Olympedia.org.
The 6-foot-5 López, whose nicknames include El Terrible, may face a challenge just to make the Cuban Olympic team. Countryman Óscar Pino, 29, won super heavyweight silver or bronze at the world championships in 2017, 2018 and 2019, when Lopez did not compete in any world championships in that Olympic cycle and competed sparingly overall. … rest of story at Olympics.nbcsports.com/2023/05/23/mijain-lopez-olympics-wrestling-cuba-gold-medals
Wrestling helps Football players
Tre Tucker wrestling experience helped put him on Raiders radar
After three fairly sensible picks, the Raiders threw a bit of a curve ball when they selected Cincinnati wide receiver Tre Tucker at 100 overall.
The pick was a head scratcher for several reasons. First and foremost because every draft projection had Tucker closer to the 200s than the top 100. But also because Tucker is exclusively a slot receiver and the Raider already have two good ones in Hunter Renfrow and Jacobi Meyers.
We had questions.
In speaking with Tre Tucker, he mentioned among other things that he was a wrestler in school. A lot of football players talk about having wrestling experience in their background, but usually they’re linemen or maybe linebackers. But a wide receiver?
Tre told the story as to how he used to get in fights with his cousins and they would always win.
“They would slam me all over the place,” Tucker said of his cousins, noting they were state champion wrestlers. “So, I was like, you know what, I think I need to join wrestling. So, I joined it, I fell in love with it all through grade school. I wasn’t nothing but 100 pounds. My freshman year of high school I was wrestling 106. To me it’s just a want-to. I think the sport requires a lot of mental aspects and I think it translates to football. Football is physical, but the mental part is very huge and wrestling kind of boosted that for me.”
Full disclosure, I was a wrestler all through school myself, I naturally respect any football player a bit more with wrestling in their background. It isn’t just a bias thing, it’s knowing the kind of physical skills it instilled in me that benefit me in just about anything else I do.
Raiders GM Dave Ziegler was equally impressed. And it’s those wrestling skills that show up in Tucker’s game that were a big reason he took him well above where most draft projections had him.
“There’s a level of toughness that you have to have to be a wrestler,” Ziegler said. “(Tre Tucker is) a small guy but he plays bigger and he plays with an edge and I think a lot of that toughness comes from wrestling. He also has very good balance and agility when you watch him and if you watch any good wrestlers, that’s one thing that they are able to do is play with leverage, have agility, have balance. … rest of story at Raiderswire.usatoday.com/tre-tucker-wrestling-experience-las-vegas-raiders-radar-nfl-draft-pick
2023 NFL Draft Prospects with Wrestling Backgrounds
by Earl Smith; Photo courtesy of David Stluka
We all love wrestling. That’s what brought us together at InterMat. At the same time, it’s okay to have interests outside of wrestling. For a lot of fans, that interest might be football. And if you like football, it’s hard to beat the NFL draft. There have been mock drafts for months and months (years perhaps), all in preparation for today. Everybody pretends to be an expert and an insider as to how their favorite team will draft.
Bringing it back to wrestling, my thought was, “How many NFL draftees have a wrestling background.” Which led me to looking up the high school credentials over the top-300 draft prospects from a list provided by The Athletic.
We may not hear any of these names on Thursday night, but as the draft progresses, remember these names as they are elite football players that have some sort of wrestling background.
Below are the 11 wrestlers who could get selected in the 2023 NFL draft that have a wrestling background. There’s the possibility that more do; however, we’re just going off of what was listed in their collegiate roster bio.
The number by each prospect is their draft ranking and if accessible, their top wrestling credentials have been listed.
#56 Keeanu Benton (Wisconsin) Defensive Line
High School: Craig, Wisconsin; 2018 Wisconsin DI State Runner-Up.
#59 John Michael Schmitz (Minnesota) Center
High School: Flossmoor, Illinois
#133 Luke Wypler (Ohio State) Center
High School: St. Joseph’s, New Jersey
#182 Anfernee Orjj (Vanderbilt) Linebacker
High School: Rockwall, Texas
#194 Gervarrius Owens (Houston) Safety
High School: Southmoore, Oklahoma
#219 Evan Hull (Northwestern) Running Back
High School: Maple Grove, Minnesota; 2019 Minnesota AAA State Qualifier
#231 John Ojukwu (Boise State) Offensive Tackle
High School: Boise, Idaho
#237 Hunter Luepke (North Dakota State) Fullback
High School: Spencer, Wisconsin; 2x Wisconsin D2 State Champion … rest of story at Rokfin.com/article/13314/2023-NFL-Draft-Prospects-with-Wrestling-Backgrounds
5 OLYMPIC AND 11 WORLD CHAMPIONS HIGHLIGHT LOADED FIELD FOR FINAL X, THE 2023 BEAT THE STREETS ANNUAL BENEFIT
The field is finalized for Final X, presented by Tezos, on June 10 at Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey.
Athletes qualified for Final X by winning a 2022 World medal or winning the 2023 U.S. Open or 2023 World Team Trials Challenge Tournament. The top two athletes in each weight class, based upon the qualifying process, have emerged to compete in Final X.
Final X will determine the 2023 U.S. Senior World Team in all three Olympic disciplines: men’s and women’s freestyle and Greco-Roman. There will be 30 weight classes contested, 10 in each Olympic discipline. The winner of each Final X best-of-three championship series will represent the United States at the 2023 Senior World Championships in Belgrade, Serbia.
The first match of the best-of-three series will be during the first session (2-4:30 p.m.). The second match and third match, if necessary, will be in the second session (6-9 p.m.).
The Final X field features five Olympic gold medalists: 2012 champion Jordan Burroughs (74 kg men’s freestyle), 2016 champions Helen Maroulis (57 kg women’s freestyle) and Kyle Snyder (97 kg men’s freestyle) and 2020 champions Gable Steveson (125 kg men’s freestyle) and David Taylor (86 kg men’s freestyle).
The field includes 11 World champions who have won a combined 30 World titles: Burroughs (6x), Adeline Gray (x6, 76 kg women’s freestyle), Kyle Dake (x4, 74 kg men’s freestyle), Maroulis and Snyder (3x) and Taylor and J’den Cox at 92 kg men’s freestyle (2x). Thomas Gilman (57 kg men’s freestyle), Dominique Parrish (53 kg women’s freestyle), Jacarra Winchester (55 kg women’s freestyle) and Amit Elor (72 kg women’s freestyle) each won one.
It also features 10 Olympic medalists who have won 12 Olympic medals: Synder (2x, 2016 gold and 2020 silver), Maroulis (2x, 2016 gold, 2020 bronze), Burroughs (2012 gold), Steveson (2020 gold), Taylor (2020 gold), Gray (2020 silver), Cox (2016 bronze), plus 2020 bronze medalists Dake, Gilman and Sarah Hildebrandt (50 kg women’s freestyle).
There will be 16 World medalists who have won a combined 53 World medals: Burroughs (9x); Gray (8x); Maroulis and Snyder (6x); Cox (x5); Dake (4x); Gilman, Hildebrandt and Taylor (3x), two-time silver medalist Kayla Miracle (62 kg women’s freestyle), two-time bronze medalist Mallory Velte (65 kg women’s freestyle), … rest of story at Teamusa.org/USA-Wrestling/Features/2023/May/23/FInal-X-lineup-completed
D1 Coaches Weigh In On NCAA Wrestling Rule Change Proposals
To get a sense of how coaches feel about the proposed rule changes, we reached out to the leaders of more than a dozen Division I programs
The NCAA rules committee proposed a set of changes that could lead to perhaps the most transformative period in college wrestling history.
With that has come one of the hottest periods of social media debate in the sport.
Do the rules strike the right balance to inject more excitement and entertainment into the sport? Are the changes too drastic? Did they not go far enough?
Opinions have landed all over the spectrum.
To get a sense of how coaches feel, we reached out to the leaders of more than a dozen Division I programs. Below is a sampling of their responses.
Overall Thoughts
American coach Jason Borrelli
“Overall, I’m happy we’re trying — you know, at least we have people in positions who are looking at the sport through the lens of trying to improve it and trying to increase action. I like that. Our sport, we’re hesitant to change a lot, so anytime we try to make changes we’re fought with some resistance. I think it’s good that we’ve got people in positions that can make change that are thinking about the long-term future of the sport. Trying to increase action and make things more exciting is a good thing. I was OK from that perspective. Now do I agree with every rule change or every proposal? No, but I certainly see where it’s coming from, so that’s good.”
Appalachian State coach JohnMark Bentley
“I’m not a huge fan of a lot of them, to be honest. I think the new rules obviously favor a better athlete for sure. You take mat wrestling out of the equation, you take a lot of the conditioning factor out of the equation, it’s not going to be advantageous for wrestlers who are less talented. I kind of like conditioning and things like that being a part of it, and with mat wrestling being limited, I don’t know how much conditioning is going to be a factor. I like how folkstyle wrestling makes you be well-rounded in all three positions and I’m not a huge fan of losing that. Personally, if those are the rules — and I’m not against all of them, there’s some things I can live with — I feel if you’re moving in that direction and that’s what you want to see and want to take mat wrestling out of the equation, then I would just be in favor of transitioning completely to freestyle.”
Iowa State coach Kevin Dresser
“We’re kind of in digestion mode here and it’s all really new and just seeing whether this is going to help our sport. I know the traditional people don’t like it, but sometimes change is good.”
Little Rock coach Neil Erisman
“I think all of these can be summed up with great intention, we’ll see if it lines out to good actions.”
Missouri coach Brian Smith
“Are we focused on the ground level, or should we be focused on a 30,000-foot view? The bigger picture is why the decline in viewership and attendance and fans not liking the action or whatever the problem on the mat is? When you go out to 30,000 feet, what have other sports done? The last 3-5 years football, baseball, all these sports have found ways to shorten their events and they’re trying to get closer to a two-hour window. Some are longer than two hours, but the object is to reduce it so fans will stay attentive to the event. Wrestling right now, we wrestle one to two tournaments in the regular season as a team and the rest are all duals, which can be confusing to a fan. The tournaments are what’s going to matter, but duals don’t really have a big purpose in our sport, whereas in college football and basketball the regular season game has a purpose. We’re even seeing the purpose of these tournaments don’t matter now, where it’s getting a minimal amount of matches to compete in the tournaments that come at the end. Could this be the issue of why we’re losing fans? Duals on major broadcasts — ESPN, ACC, Big Ten Network, Flo — we’re seeing great excitement to watch some of these matchups. … rest of story at Flowrestling.org/D1-coaches-weigh-in-on-ncaa-wrestling-rule-change-proposals
The Pat Popolizio Coaching Tree
On Monday afternoon, news broke out of Fargo, North Dakota that newly promoted North Dakota State head wrestling coach, Obe Blanc, had hired Hayden Hidlay as his assistant coach. In 2022, Hidlay finished up a decorated career at NC State that saw him leave Raleigh as one of the all-time greats in NC State wrestling, becoming the first four-time (and five-time) All-American in school history and second in career win-loss percentage.
Hidlay and Blanc’s paths crossed at NC State as Blanc was an assistant coach early in Hidlay’s career, before leaving for NDSU. The common ground for both was wrestling or coaching under Wolfpack head coach Pat Popolizio.
When it comes to college coaching trees, no one is larger or more famous than Dan Gable’s when he was the head coach at the University of Iowa. John Smith’s is quite impressive himself as he is now responsible for coaching ten current DI head coaches, which is the most of any coach or school.
What you may not realize is that Popolizio has an impressive list of DI coaches that have either coached alongside him or wrestled under him (or both). With Hidlay’s hiring, that number grows by one. Before the 2021-22 season, InterMat traveled to Raleigh and spoke with Popolizio about this exact topic. When asked about the number of his pupils in the coaching ranks he responded, “To me, you never want to have a kid come here and resent the sport of wrestling. We want it to be a positive experience.”
Some head coaches may view assistants leaving as more work for them in the short-term and a difficult situation in replacing a valued member of their staff. Popolizio isn’t one of them. “I feel confident about the guys on our staff. At some point, they’ll get the call to be a head coach and they’ll be ready because of the day-to-day tasks that are thrown at them. They’re learning the ins and outs of everything I do as a head coach. I already know in our room right now, we have several guys who are going to be great college coaches.”
So who’s next from the Pat Popolizio coaching tree? “Adam Hall, he’s a rock star. … rest of story at Intermatwrestle.com/articles/26746
TDR blog
After 20 seasons of publicizing wrestling The TakeDown Report’s (TDR) focus has changed to the collecting of college coaching records from North America since 1903. We will continue to recognize and reward successful wrestlers in eastern North Carolina (east of Raleigh & Fayetteville), assist with schools in starting or re-starting a team and this blog. Join us on our FaceBook Page – “The TakeDown Report” for photos and news. Please send results, stories, links and news to pass along. E-mail us at takedownreport@gmail.com
Martin Fleming, Editor
Takedown Report
