Greensboro College Names Kevin Birmingham Head Coach
GREENSBORO, N.C. – Erik Wince has stepped down as Greensboro College’s head wrestling coach to join the wrestling staff at Division I American University, interim Director of Athletics Dr. Robin Daniel announced Tuesday. Kevin Birmingham, an assistant coach for the Pride the past two seasons, will succeed Wince as head coach. “Erik has built a solid foundation for our wrestling program, and we wish him all the best for the future,” Daniel said. Wince became the Division III Pride’s inaugural head coach in February 2015 and guided his teams to 18 dual victories during the past four seasons. In addition, Wince coached multiple wrestlers who achieved individual rankings and one who earned All-American honors in 2017. “I want to thank President (Lawrence D.) Czarda, former Director of Athletics Bryan Galuski, and Assistant Director of Athletics Randy Tuggle for entrusting me with the opportunity to build the Greensboro College wrestling program from the beginning,” Wince said. “This has been an unbelievable experience, and I wouldn’t have traded it for anything. Rest of the story at https://portal.nwcaonline.com/articles/NWCA_News/Greensboro-College-Names-Kevin-28-8-2019
Greensboro College Athletics – Link
Writing Time: New passions are fueling Gwiazdowski’s mind, pursuit of gold
Given the choice, Nick Gwiazdowski would rather not be fielding run-of-the-mill wrestling questions. He’d prefer to talk about the Outlaw country music regularly pumping through his speakers, his newfound interest in art or the latest book he’s reading. He finds these interview topics more compelling than monotonous talk about takedowns and turns.
“I’ve been trying to find ways to become more diverse than just wrestling,” Gwiazdowski said last week after a World Team training camp practice in Colorado Springs. “The things I’m becoming more diverse in I feel can help my wrestling skills with creativity or getting your brain to function faster and just react faster to things when it recognizes something or sees something it knows the response. “(They’re) not things I sit down and focus on super hard and try to train, but rather things you do consistently every day, every day, and I think it builds those connections to be a little bit stronger and a little bit faster.” The 26-year-old New York native is trying to discover every little edge he can find in his quest to become the heavyweight king of the World. He claimed bronze medals the past two years at the World Championships and he’ll try in a little more than three weeks to seize the throne that’s belonged to Georgia’s Geno Petriashvili and Turkey’s Taha Akgul for the past five years. The two-time NCAA champ from North Carolina State has beaten most of the top contenders at 125 kilograms and he sees a path to beating the ones who have bested him in the past. Rest of the story at https://www.trackwrestling.com/tw/PortalPost.jsp?postId=1679886132
NFHS reports high school wrestling participation up for boys and girls in all categories for 2018-19
BY GARY ABBOTT, USA WRESTLING | AUG. 26, 2019
The National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) has released its 2018-19 High School Participation Survey, and the sport of wrestling has grown in all five categories reported. This is the second straight year that high school wrestling has grown in all categories. This growth in wrestling has occurred while overall participation in all high school sports has declined, the first overall decline in 30 years.
The biggest jump within wrestling came in girls wrestling, which grew for its 30th straight year. There were 21,124 girls participants in 2018-19, an increase of 4,562 athletes from the year before. This is a tremendous 27.5% increase from last year. The number of schools with girls wrestling climbed to 2,890, an increase of 539 schools. This marks a 22.9% increase from the previous year.
Girls high school wrestling has climbed to the No. 17 most popular high school sport for girls. There are currently 18 state high school associations which have developed or announced official girls high school wrestling championships, an increase from just six two seasons ago.
Boys high school wrestling remained the No. 7 sport among boys on the high school level in terms of participants, and the No. 8 sport for boys in terms of number of schools. For the second straight year, boys high school wrestling grew in terms of participants and teams. Prior to these two years of growth, boys wrestling had declined for six straight years.
In 2018-19, boys high school wrestling grew to 247,441 athletes, an increase of 1,877 athletes from last year. Among the top 10 participation sports for boys, wrestling saw the third biggest increase, behind only track and soccer. The number of boys wrestling teams for 2018-19 grew to 10,843, up 68 teams from the previous year.
The combined number of high school wrestlers, including both boys and girls, grew to 268,565, an increase of 6,439 athletes, which comes in at a 2.5% growth.
The top 10 states for boys wrestling participation are: 1. California (22,602); 2. Illinois (14,170); 3. New York (11,184); 4. Texas (10,998); 5. Ohio (10,313); 6. New Jersey (9,648); 7. Pennsylvania (9,460); 8. Washington (9,251); 9. Michigan (9,167); 10. Minnesota (8,058)
The top 10 states for girls wrestling participation, from states that report to the NFHS, are: 1. California (6,014); 2. Texas (4,421); 3. Washington (1,864); 4. Missouri (956); 5. Illinois (676); 6. Hawaii (620); 7. Oregon (597); 8. Arizona (481); 9. New Jersey (477); 10. Florida (475)
Rest of the story and complete report at
https://www.teamusa.org/USA-Wrestling/Features/2019/August/26/NFHS-stats-show-high-school-wrestling-growing-in-all-categories?fbclid=IwAR1FO5XWLWB2nwoAnhZ6VV8-5LufjiHbslGD_ufIlKGGVV4Gp94PRZkPbz8
Foley’s Friday Mailbag: August 23, 2019
T.R. Foley, InterMat Senior Writer 8/23/2019 foley@intermatwrestle.com
The Junior World Championships wrapped up last weekend in Tallinn, Estonia, with the United States capturing a handful of medals in freestyle, women’s wrestling, and Greco-Roman. The success of the Junior team was a positive sign for the health of their program. Cohlton Schultz securing silver — along with Alston Nutter, and Peyton Omania capturing bronze — led to the best Junior performance for Team USA in Greco-Roman since Washington hosted the Junior World Championships in 1984. While the freestyle team sucks up a lot of the oxygen in the United States, it’s important to take note of this accomplishment, last year’s silver medal by Adam Coon, and the gold medals from the Pan American Games. The progress has been slow, but it’s also been pretty steady. Not every level will win gold and not every year, but it is obvious that the team is picking up steam and that success can very quickly build on itself
Congrats to everyone involved in the program. From Matt Lindland to Gary Mayabb and many more of these successes are happening because these leaders are investing their time into the program and making sacrifices to see our nation improve in the classic style. To your questions … Rest of the story at http://intermatwrestle.com/articles/22276?fbclid=IwAR1ZKffqnI2u55C9gDzATPMdn3G1gpRrfmg_SZijXXaGbj7H_KNnr0Eh0_4
Amateur Wrestling News All-Decade Team, 2010-2019
Want to start a fight?
One sure way to get something started: put together some sort of list of “all-time great” wrestlers.
Amateur Wrestling News — the nation’s oldest wrestling publication, covering the sport since the mid-1950s — has carried on a longstanding tradition with its an All-Decade Team for 2010-2019, put together by the magazine’s writers. And what a decade it was! In the nearly 90-year history of NCAA D1 wrestling championships, only four men have earned four national titles … and two of them did it in this decade: Ohio State’s Logan Stieber … and Cornell’s Kyle Dake.
The magazine its selections for the top three wrestlers in NCAA Division I each weight class … along with “honorable mention” choices. In presenting the list, AWN’s Jim Kalin provided some of the ground rules: “Many of the decade’s best wrestlers competed at multiple weight classes during their college careers. To help sort this dilemma, one of the guidelines for our writers was to place choices at the weight they had wrestled at least two seasons …”
“The main stipulation was that the wrestler had to compete at least two seasons in this second decade (2010-2019). That eliminated greats such as Brent Metcalf/Iowa, Jake Varner/Iowa State, and Angel Escobedo/Indiana, all who were seniors in 2010.”
Kalin anticipated the discussion/arguing about their choices.
“There will be disagreement from our readers regarding this All-Decade Team. There was disagreement amongst AWN writers.”
As Kalin points out, the top three wrestlers in each weight class are ranked in order as named by AWN writers … with their placements for each year at the NCAA Division I championships.
125:
1. Spencer Lee, Iowa (1st place/1st place/TBD/TBD)
2. Jesse Delgado, Illinois (7/1/1/0)
3. Matt McDonough, Iowa (1/2/1/0)
Honorable mentions: Nico Megaludis, Penn State (3/2/2/1); Nathan Tomasello, Ohio State (1/3/3/3); Darien Cruz, Lehigh (0/7/1/5); Anthony Robles, Arizona State (0/4/7/1).
Rest of the story at
http://intermatwrestle.com/articles/22277?fbclid=IwAR1iN5X2rF8BQeAEm75ah5wgNl9g2kE74a9iC7VPdA20VlV0l26AXOhbevQ
Winning and Losing
By Nancy Justis, Outlier Creative Solutions
“Sometimes when you win, you actually lose, and sometimes when you lose, you really win, and sometimes when you win or lose, you actually tie, and sometimes when you tie, you actually win or lose. Winning or losing is all one organic mechanism, from which one extracts what one needs.” -Gloria Clemente, White Men Can’t Jump
“Coach, what is the difference between winning and losing?”
I think for a moment, knowing that this must have been on his mind for a long time to be asking me so early in our conversation.
“Three inches.”
There was silence on the other end of the line. I waited. I would have waited as long as it took while Preston tried to figure out what his old coach was trying to tell him.
“Okay, coach, I give in. What does that mean?”
“What does it mean to you?”
“Well, if I know you well enough, you are getting deep on me right now, and it doesn’t have anything to do with the scoreboard.”
He knows me well.
“When was your last practice?” I ask.
“Early this morning.”
“Did you run sprints?”
“Yeah, lots.”
“Line to line?”
“Yes, I always touch the line.”
“Does everybody touch the line?”
Rest of the story at
https://www.thepredicament.com/2019/08/winning-and-losing/?mc_cid=c5b71cd582&mc_eid=2ef7cbca4b
2019-20 Notre Dame College Team Preview* 2.0
ByBryce Villa
You may notice a very large asterisk at the end of the top line. That is in large part to the fact that I have had to completely redo their projected lineup and after we add up the points, they will no longer be the second-ranked team in NCAA Division II wrestling. I am not saying I got everything wrong, but I certainly made mistakes on some things that will immediately impact their team point total. I take full blame for this, there were resources outside of the coaching staff I could have explored, but instead, I decided to soldier ahead on my own. With no guidance I was made my best guesses, which it turns out were wrong. That being said, I have made some changes.
What is going on at Notre Dame College? The early favorite to win the title in 2019-20, it seemed like it would take a miracle to unseat them. It turns out that miracle was the slow death of the Wheeling Jesuit wrestling team and the subsequent transfer of two national titles to the University of Pitt-Johnstown lineup. That should not have been enough though to seemingly knock Notre Dame out of the top five though. Whatever has happened since the promotion of Sonny Marchette to head coach of the Falcons, this much is clear, Notre Dame College is in trouble. It began with the defection of seventh-ranked Cornell Beachem to Division III to play football. Not the end of the world, but certainly creating a hole that needed to be filled. Then came the news that seventh-ranked Jashon Hubbard would be transferring and now suddenly Marchette’s team needed a 165 and a 174-pound wrestler. Ok, that is tough, but it is not like they do not have the depth to fill two spots on the roster. Then came strike three, three-time All-American Kam Teacher parted ways with Notre Dame College and drove north to rival St Cloud State University. We will probably not see Teacher as a Huskie this season, but the loss of his points meant Notre Dame was down a potential finalists points. I know what you are saying, what else could go wrong for Marchette in his first year at the helm? I am glad you asked. Rumors abound that not only is 2018 All-American Taylor Misuna ineligible until second-semester, they will also be without 2019 National Champion Jose Rodgriguez for the same reason. Rest of the storya t
Friday at the Bill Farrell Wrestling Center at USOPTC: The longest day in the busiest wrestling room on earth
BY GARY ABBOTT, USA WRESTLING | AUG. 24, 2019
Yesterday, Friday, August 23, could have been declared Wrestling Day in America. All three U.S. Senior World Teams are conducting training camps at the Bill Farrell Wrestling Center at the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Training Center (USOPTC) in Colorado Springs, in preparation for the 2019 World Championships in Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan in September. All three of wrestling’s Senior National Teams programs are here: men’s freestyle, women’s freestyle and Greco-Roman. In addition to the 30 Senior World Team members, there are numerous members of USA Wrestling’s National Teams at these camps, as well as other elite wrestlers. Included in the mix were three top women’s wrestlers from Canada, joining in the USA women’s workouts.
Add in dozens of coaches, families, the medical staff and other USA Wrestling staff, and the room is as busy as it gets. In addition, USA Wrestling broadcast partners FloWrestling and Trackwrestling are here collecting content for their World Championships coverage. They needed every one of the eight mats in the Bill Farrell Wrestling Center to accommodate all of them. Another unique person in the house was U15 World champion Aden Valencia, a lightweight wrestler who was working out with many of the top U.S. women lightweights in the room. The future learning from the present. Rest of the story and pictures at
https://www.teamusa.org/USA-Wrestling/Features/2019/August/24/Longest-day-in-busiest-room-on-earth?mc_cid=88b8f0180f&mc_eid=2ef7cbca4b
Why hire a new head coach in May: The Lindenwood situation
by Gabrielle Lord-KleinPosted onAugust 23, 2019
In May, Lindenwood University—Belleville announced plans to eliminate most undergraduate programs at the conclusion of the 2019-20 academic school year, citing ongoing financial issues. The idea was that LU-Belleville’s sister program, Lindenwood University, would absorb undergraduate transfers. Initial statements indicated the full continuation of athletic programs through 2020 with the exception of swimming and ice hockey. Separately announced was the promotion of Graham Karwath to the position of head men’s and women’s wrestling coach; Karwath was tasked with recruiting and leading both programs through the sport’s final year in Belleville.
Several weeks ago, coach Karwath and the women’s wrestling team were notified the program would be discontinued immediately. Women wanting to compete this year would be required to transfer to the St. Charles location or find another home. If remaining at either LU location, scholarships will remain intact. So why hire a new head coach at the Belleville location in May only to announce a last-minute consolidation to St. Charles at the end of July? It turns out that on the St. Charles campus, Andrey Rodriguez resigned from her position as head coach mid-summer. Administration found the future of the St. Charles program coach-less, with the tail end of the Belleville location sporting a new head coach with just one season of competition left.
Tom Wagganer, LU’s Senior Associate Athletic Director, said, “Instead of splitting our resources, we decided it would be the perfect opportunity to consolidate the programs right now, with a more focused investment in a long-term coach to take our program into the future . . . we are excited to move forward with the team as a stronger unit, together, rather than dispersed at sister schools waiting for an inevitable junction just a year down the road”. Rest of the story at
https://www.transitionwrestling.com/why-hire-a-new-head-coach-in-may-the-lindenwood-situation/?mc_cid=78081b2102&mc_eid=2ef7cbca4b
Mike Mena Named Women’s Wrestling Coach
Vice President for Intercollegiate Athletics Brad Wachler has named Mike Mena as the new women’s wrestling head coach. “Coach Mena has a wealth of coaching experience and a great track record of success both academically and athletically,” Wachler said. “With his personal accomplishments on the mat and his lifelong involvement in the sport, I know he will energize our women’s wrestling program and position it for great things in the future.”
Mena brings 18 years of collegiate coaching experience to Lindenwood, most recently as the assistant wrestling coach at California Baptist University in Riverside, California. After winning the RMAC Team Championship and the 2018 NCAA Division II Super Regional, the program finished third at the National Championship, producing four NCAA Division II All-Americans, three finalists, and the 149 pound NCAA Division II National Wrestling Champion. Rest of the story at https://lindenwoodlions.com/news/2019/8/23/mike-mena-named-womens-wrestling-coach.aspx?mc_cid=78081b2102&mc_eid=2ef7cbca4b
How to Celebrate Wins, When One Kid Isn’t Winning
Content from TrueSport
A young athlete’s teammates, siblings, coaches and teachers can leave a lasting impression, but parents have the greatest impact on how a child feels about his or her performance in sport, says Joel Fish, PhD, sports psychologist and author of101 Ways to Be a Terrific Sports Parent. When you have two or more children in sports, it can be a challenge to give each one the same level of positive attention – especially when one seems to be winning all the time, while the other is struggling. Fish shares advice on how to find the right balance between celebrating success and prioritizing progress rather than just winning.
Praise Effort Not Results
It’s natural to be excited about a win, and there’s nothing wrong with celebrating it. “But focus more on your core values versus results,” continued Fish. “Make sure you’re praising other successes, like developing new skills or putting in a strong effort. You have a great opportunity to teach children multiple goals – there are other ways to define success that aren’t results-driven.” This applies to both your winning child and the one who’s struggling in sport – it’s a great way to give both children equal amounts of praise and attention.
Check Your Reaction
Understanding how important your reaction is, and becoming aware of it, can go a long way toward promoting good behaviors on your part. Rest of the story at https://www.thepredicament.com/2019/08/how-to-celebrate-wins-when-one-kid-isnt-winning/?mc_cid=78081b2102&mc_eid=2ef7cbca4b
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
