Packed up, but hardly ready to go … the Blazer’s gassed up, oil’s changed and it’s almost time to hit the road. The Turf Mug is packed and ready for the trip too. It’s 88 degrees, gas is expensive and I’m listening to Weezer’s “Pork and Beans.”

Kocer wins ESPY Award
Spoiler Alert! The ESPY Awards, ESPN’s version of the Oscars, Emmys or whatever, were taped on Wednesday with Justin Timberlake as the host. This is why I don’t watch this type of thing. Bill Murray was the best host the ESPY’s ever had. Anyway, Ryan Kocer, a three-time South Dakota State Champion who lost his leg last year in an accident on his farm, was nominated for Best Male Athlete with a Disability. He didn’t win a fourth title this year, but he managed a fourth-place finish and came back to wrestle in January at The Clash. He’s the second wrestler in recent memory to win the award — Kyle Maynard was the other. For the local story, click here. To check out the ESPY’s … (at your own risk), watch Sunday on ESPN.

Congrats to Ryan and the wrestling community for supporting him in the vote!

Former wrestler killed in Afghanistan
Former Campbell University wrestler Pruitt Rainey was killed on Sunday July 13 in Afghanistan. The Haw River, N.C. native was on the Camels wrestling team during the 2004-05 season. While his collegiate career wasn’t as successful as his high school one was at Graham High School, Campbell coach Billy Greene said: “Pruitt was a peacemaker and a very caring, loyal spirit, and that came out in his actions.” For the full details on Rainey, click here.

Team Takedown taking WEC by storm
Several stories have come out in the past two days about the trio of fighters from Team Takedown who have signed on with World Extreme Cagefighting. The WEC, another Zuffa promotion like the UFC, has been picking up momentum and has been finding many of its rising stars via wrestling. Urijah Faber and Frankie Edgar are two who have come through the WEC. Faber’s the face of the organization right now, but you can now add Johny Hendricks, Jake Rosholt and Shane Roller — all former Oklahoma State All-Americans — to the mix. Here’s Sherdog.com’s Jordan Breen’s take on the deal.

Research Project
Folks, I’m still going to be working on this research project in identifying when all the dropped programs were cut. Right now, it’s about 200 teams I have found dates for, but I’m still 400 short. Here’s the list: http://www.intermatwrestle.com/college/dropped_project.htm click on the “dropped” tab. If you know when any of the dates in yellow were cut, drop me a line at jason@bryantwrestling.com (yes, I’ve got a wrestling domain, Why? I dunno).

I’m driving to Fargo tomorrow, thus I took my trusty 2000 Chevy Blazer to Jiffy Lube and got the thing checked out. I used to do all my own stuff under the hood, but since moving to an area where driveways are essentially non-existent, I’ve had to make do with the local Signature Service down in Willow Street.

Anyway… this one will be eventful, so I must get decent sleep tonight.

Yeah, ok.

Gas: About to get higher as I drive west.
Weather: About to get hotter as I drive west.

Recruiting ranks released
InterMat released it’s 2008 Division I Recruiting Class rankings earlier today and Minnesota comes in team with the nation’s best haul of incoming freshman. People are making a big deal about Jake Deitchler being a Minnesota recruit, but newsflash people, he was ranked #1 by InterMat all season long at 152 pounds. A three-time champ from Anoka, he’ll join some studs like Mario Mason, Ryland Geiger, Atticus Disney, Cody Yohn and Matt Mincey. There’s some great depth in these classes, so to check it out, hit up the Premium Service breakdown here.

Keep going …

The next UFC card has much wrestling to it
I was reading a blog today from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer about the upcoming UFC fights on July 19 and noticed something quite astounding. Reece Andy, Brandon Vera, Frank Edgar, Cain Velasquez, Jake O’Brien, Jesse Taylor and C.B. Dollaway are all former collegiate wrestlers. Andy was a two-time All-American at Wyoming and a 1996 NCAA Finalist. Vera wrestled at Old Dominion before joining the Air Force, Edgar wrestled at Clarion, O’Brien at Purdue, Taylor at Palomar and Cal State-Fullerton while Dollaway and Velasquez were All-Americans at Arizona State.
It’s a very wrestling-heavy card. Good stuff. Oh, Marcus LeVesseur is fighting the same night in Fargo for some local MMA outfit. If I get into town soon enough, I’ll have to check it out.

A new twist to Title IX
I subscribe to several “Google Alerts,” one of which is on Title IX. Mainly because I want to read what the media’s perception is of this law gone wrong as it relates to athletics. Well, you know the days of writing congress about our plight in wrestling with our programs being dropped? I think we just picked up a serious ally in the fight for the return of common sense to Title IX — scientists! Yes, the white lab coat is as far removed from a singlet as you can get, but the Oregon (of all places) Commentator had an interesting blurb today. Here’s the quote I found most telling from someone from the scientific community worried this “quota” (yes, the smart people are calling it that too, not just the meathead wrestlers) would slow down scientific progress in their respective fields.

“Colleges already practice affirmative action for women in science, but now they’ll be so intimidated by the Title IX legal hammer that they may institute quota systems,” Dr. [Christina] Sommers said. “In sports, they had to eliminate a lot of male teams to achieve Title IX parity. It’ll be devastating to American science if every male-dominated field has to be calibrated to women’s level of interest.”

I think the most pertinent statement there is “has to be calibrated to women’s level of interest.” It’s already been devastating to men’s non-revenue Olympic sports.

Here we go again … I can already hear the WSF and like organizations talking about what defines interest and there being no studies to define it, then contradicting themselves saying “why do you need to measure interest?” Uh, because how else does anyone know ANYONE is interested? Common sense, get here soon.

Fargo Points of Interest
Green Mill, Buffalo Wild Wings, Granite City, Bison Turf, the other Buffalo Wild Wings, Borrowed Bucks Roadhouse, Playmakers, the Subway across the street from the FargoDome, anything in Moorhead.
Food: Wings, Buffalo Burgers, Wings, regular burgers, wings, Subway.
Birds: Mosquitoes.
The Fargo-Moorhead Red Hawks will be in town, too. One of my buddies from college plays for’em. Another guy does too, but I didn’t know him too well.

See you guys in Far-goh!

Oh, and if you’re on 94 and you see a Maroon Blazer with its hood up … stop.

And I didn’t spell check this today.

I was watching Family Guy either last night or sometime this morning, I’m not sure when, but on came one of my favorite quotes from the shot. For those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about … you may skip to the Four Points at this time.

Anyway, this always makes me laugh.

Peter Griffin: Well, I bet if Hillary Clinton becomes senator, she’ll straighten it out even though she could never straighten out Bill.
Lois Griffin: I love when you use topical humor. It’s just like watching Murphy Brown.
–cut to random Murphy Brown sketch –
Character1: Hey, Murphy, blah-blah-blah John Sununu.
Character2: Murphy, blah-blah-blah Tipper Gore.
Character3: Hey, Murph, you can’t blah-blah-blah-blah the Ayatollah.
Murphy Brown: Blah-blah, Bishop Desmond Tutu, blah-blah.
(canned laughter)

Gas: $3.95
Weather: 85 and blah-blah Tom Brands and blah-blah Fargo.

East Stroudsburg drops to Division II
There’s good news and there’s bad news for alums and wrestling fans of East Stroudsburg University. The program is no longer going to be Division I, but there will still be a scholarship program at the school nestled in the Pocono Mountains. The school announced on Tuesday afternoon it would be moving its volleyball team to club status and it’s D-1 wrestling team would join the rest of the athletics department in Division II. Three-time All-American and two-time Division I champion Jack Cuvo is probably the most notable ESU wrestling alum. Oddly, it was Cuvo (and current Western New England College head coach Anibal Nieves) who last took the podium for the Warriors back in 1989. Their best threat to medal in recent years when Jeremy Sluyter made four EIWA finals, winning in 1998 and taking second in 1997, 1999 and 2000. The shift leaves Division II PSAC schools Edinboro, Bloomsburg, Lock Haven, Clarion and Millersville wrestling in Division I, while Shippensburg, Kutztown and new members Mercyhurst and Gannon will wrestle with ESU in D2.

Support your Olympians
There’s been a few threads on both themat.com and thewrestlingtalk.com about this, but it was time we did something somewhat “official” in terms of our Olympic wrestlers. InterMat has launched and easily viewable page for fans to get an eye on some of our Olympians tshirts. There’s also a link to USA Wrestling’s Fuel the Dreamcampaign, aimed at helping wrestlers and their families get to Beijing. These guys and gals grit it out day in and day out to represent our country — the least you could do is buy a shirt or send them a donation. It’s what, three or four gallons of gas? Andy Hrovat has six designs available — the G.I. Joe one is probably my favorite.

It’s official: Hughes to Lehigh
Pat Santoro must be good at schmoozing. He lured former Penn State National Champion John Hughes away from his alma mater to coach at rival Lehigh. Santoro spent time in State College as an assistant prior to moving on to Lehigh the first time and, as Denny Diehl points out in the latest issue of the Lehigh University Wrestling News, the pair have known each other for over 15 years. But to lure an assistant away from his alma mater to a bitter wrestling rival — that be about as rare as hen’s teeth. Oh, Hughes and Santoro have their work cut out for them trying to pick up a 29-match differential in the all-time series, which Penn State leads 61-32-3. I guess Hughes can’t wag the finger at Santoro anymore … and could find some good-natured jabs and fingers pointing “scoreboard.” More high fives to Denny for those stats.

Schwab returns to coaching; still in Iowa
Mark Schwab stepped down as the head coach at Division III Buena Vista University earlier this year. But the Osage native didn’t stay out of it too long, stepping in to take over at North Iowa Area Community College after former head coach Richard Fergola resigned after just one year at the helm. Schwab, older brother of 2008 Olympian Doug Schwab, inherits a team going into its second year and has a boatload of Division I talent waiting to be picked up by the nation’s best teams. A year or two under Schwab will be a godsend for some of them. He was a two-time All-American at Northern Iowa for coach Don Briggs.

No point in babbling about a day fighting with my e-mail.

Gas: $3.99
Weather: 82, sunny and stuffy

Branch the man at Wyoming
With rumors circulating about the University of Wyoming’s courtship of Terry Brands for its open head coaching position, lost in the shuffle were other notable candidates. One of which ended up getting the job and he doesn’t have to change mascots. Oklahoma State assistant coach Mark Branch was announced as the new head coach in Laramie on Monday afternoon, leaving Stanford and Cleveland State as the only two open Division I jobs. Branch, a two-time NCAA Champion at Oklahoma State, inherits a strong recruiting class but still has some work to do. With the solid upperweights recruited by the previous staff, first thing might be getting a good heavyweight coach to work with incoming recruits L.J. Helbig, Jacob Scharborough and Alfonso Hernandez.

Fargo coverage
Well, one of my last official acts as “InterMat Guy” will be covering the USA Wrestling Cadet & Junior Nationals. This will be my tenth summer spent in the friendly, but fly-ridden, confines of the Fargodome (I never know if you capitalize the D). And this will be the third time I drive.
Yes, I’ll drive out to North Dakota for a third time, but luckily this time, I’ll be lopping off about four or five hours off the drive. Last two times I did it, I started in Norfolk. Now I’m starting from behind a horse and buggy. I’ll hopefully arrive sometime Saturday, only missing the first day, which would actually be a first. I’ve never missed the first day — I’ve been late to a session or two back in my Mat Talk On-Line days (Thanks to one grecobob), but we’ll be back picking up the action the rest of the week.

Benihana

Benihana founder dies
Rocky Aoki passed away on Monday. The 69-year-old founder of the popular Benihana restaurants was a former Japanese national champion and a three-time U.S. champion as well. Aoki’s string of Benihana’s introduced the “culinary acrobatics” which are popular at hibachi style steakhouses across the country. He was inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame as an Outstanding American in 1995. More on Aoki here. I love those places. When I was at the Northeast Duals, we went to this place called Kyoto … pretty solid stuff, but I think the cook had too much sake. Next time I see or locate a Benihana, I’ll go, more or less to pay respect to a man I never met, but apparently innovated cuisine in this country.

Have mats, will purchase, details apply
The U.S. Army is looking to brand itself on wrestling mats in the Indiana (Pa.) Area School District. It’s not uncommon for high school schools and even some colleges to have sponsors on the edges of the wrestling mats, but the Army wants to purchase the mats for the school — and have Army Strong emblazoned on them. And they want to hold a few functions at the school. For more details, click here.

Oddly, I’m just thinking this would be a great way for some corporations to get some branding on the sport. There are decals we’ve used at the All-Star Classic and National Duals that work well. Hey, if the Army wants to pony up for some new mats, great. But of course, this could have political overtones all over the place. I don’t see this as pushing anyone to join the service — recruiters used to come to my high school all the time, but that didn’t mean I was going to enlist. But I hate politics, so I’ll save my opinion on the matter for later.

I’m bringing back the Four Points on Recruiting with the upcoming 2008 Division I Recruiting Class Rankings setto be released within the next 48-72 hours. The biggest pain the butt right now for me isn’t the publishing of it, it’s figuring out the publish, the potential trip (or not trip) to Fargo and all the other things that go in to cleaning up the job so whoever comes in after me here at InterMat is ready.

Yeah, take that English Class … love that run-on sentence!

Quickly, I went to Long Branch, N.J. and Long Island this weekend. The first, because I was on my way to New York, and the second because long-time friend Gary Abbott was getting married. Congrats to Gary, but I will say there is one place in Belmar, N.J., I might have to get to at least one more time in my life. Wow.

I also saw a piano-shaped house somewhere on the Jersey Shore.

Long Island was cool and got to see some friends who were attending Gary’s wedding. I’ll keep the details on that to a minimum … it’s not my place.

Gas: $3.95 (As opposed to the $4.50 I filled up with on Long Island, UGH.)
Weather: Warm, sticky, humid, UGH.

It’s not always the size of the class
As I was talking about before getting sidetracked discussing the nuances of Grease Truck Sandwiches and dives into the Atlantic, it’s not about the sheer numbers of one’s recruiting class which dictates which position said school will garner. If you have 15 kids coming in, all of them state qualifiers or low state placewinners, great. That’s building depth, giving you workout partners and some stability. It might not get you wins, but you’ll have good numbers. Then you can go with 2 superstars and a bunch of practice fodder, a few of which have placed, or even won a state title. Eh, depends on how many you’re bringing in. Give me seven pretty solid wrestlers over 20 marginal ones — that’ll dictate some part of the class rankings.

Immediate Needs
This is where the bigger programs actually struggle, because at programs like Iowa, Oklahoma State, Minnesota, et al, it’s not the fact you’ve gotten the stud wrestler to commit, but will he be able to fill a need within the first year or two he’s at the school. If the #1 recruit in the country is going to a school where the #1, #2 and #4 from the previous years are attending, and they’ve settled around the same weight, filling that spot with yet another blue-chipper isn’t exactly filling a need, unless those #1, #2 and #4 have problems curtailing the Beast Ice and 3 a.m. Taco Bell runs. Then, I’d say need filled, until that kid ends up with 3 a.m. a beer-swilling heavyweight does NOT count as a need. 

The rankings
Here is a major problem with dictating how teams can shake out with the class rankings. Some coaches are high on kids and they’ll let you know about it, especially the moment you rank their class below what they feel they did. Honestly, recruiting rankings are kind of a slap in the face to some people, although that’s not the intention. Putting a value on how you feel one coach did over another, when there’s so many factors that come into why one coach recruited someone over another, is hard to quantify. Rankings are the biggest can of worms surrounding high school wrestling (well, that and athletic transfers). If recruiting classes are based around when the Top 100 first come out, they can look vastly different afterwards, as in, when the season has completed and some Top 20 kid becomes a bust and ends up like fourth in the state after coasting once he signed an NLI. Yeah, those things happen. But we can’t predict HOW a kid will do, but it’s more of how we think he might do provided the right environment. Too many times, though, we see someone with talent, who is ranked highly and has some baggage might get the benefit of the doubt and cause a ranking to shoot up. Whereas the kid who has some talent, but a huge upside is an unknown and gets almost no respect. Not everyone we think is a stud is going to do something in college — and this is a problem with the rankings.

Intangibles
Transfers, second-chances, missions, dropped programs, coaching changes, family problems, graduate degrees … so many things can factor into those “intangibles” that will affect a recruiting class. Transfers, typically, play a minor role unless they’re one of those can’t-miss guys (ex: Mo Lawal, Steve Mocco). Sometimes this is where one media outlet, coaching staff or camp counselor will know minor details about a kid and either A) pitch him to someone and say “take a chance on this kid,” or B) guide him to a program where you see fit. Sometimes it’s not about how much a coach likes a recruit, but the rapport between that coach and maybe the kid’s high school coach. I mean, how many times have kids ended up somewhere because their coach is friends with another assistant, or has “Worked camp” with someone? It’s not news to you folks out there who know how the game is played, but for those novices out there who look only at who attends a school to decide “so and so is a good recruiter.”

So many more things go into it … and thankfully, I’m almost done objectively trying to figure out who did what.

Serenity now…

Back in the office on a Friday and I’ve learned Gmail is the absolute bomb. As I’m transferring my work e-mail to something I can communicate with folks after I venture away from Lancaster.

So as I set up my new Gmail account, I realized how many contacts I have and have to transfer over. My cell phone will be a bigger problem.

Gas: $3.95
Weather: Hot…

NYC Minute
It’s been a notable week for wrestling coverage nationwide, as this week saw wrestlers featured in the New York Times and Sports Illustrated.

Minnesota’s 18-year-old Jake Deitchler, who is blogging here on InterMat about his experiences on the way to Beijing, was featured in the New York Times. He’s quickly becoming a national media sensation, and we’re still four weeks away from the Olympics. Jake’s already a good speaker and has a grin that will really draw favorably on the sport — although his cauliflower ear is pretty wicked.

Sports Illustrated
While there’s only been one wrestler (amateur) on the cover of Sports Illustrated, we’ve seen wrestling get a good amount of ink in the magazine. Deitcher and T.C. Dantzler have been noted in the magazine recently and the latest was a featre SI does that features the stars of the future. Both Logan and Hunter Stieber of tiny Monroeville, Ohio, were noted. Collin Palmer was featured in the same section this year and Justin Schlect of Dickinson State and Louis Bland from California were in Faces In The Crowd. Dave Kreider has gotten much of the prep stuff into SI.

University Worlds
So far so good for the U.S. at the University World Championships in Greece. Tervel Dlagnev won a title in men’s freestyle at 120kg, Jake Herbert got a bronze at 84kg. Katherine Fulp-Allen, Elena Pirozhkov and Stephany Lee won women’s freestyle titles. The Greco gets going on Saturday.

Early commit
McDonogh School’s Shane Milam was the latest junior to announce an early commitment, but he actually did it after July 1. A multiple-time placewinner at the National Preps has verbally committed to Steve Garland at U.Va. Garland, who brought in a strong class this year, has already started building the following class.

It’s a rarity that I’ll give Christine Brennan any such high fives or props, mainly because of the continually one-sided stories regarding a certain gender equity law. Of course, the common sense approach is never discussed and those who support reform of this law are never quoted on how much they support women’s athletics and sports.

But I’ll hold off on the T-9 bashing today and concentrate on a topic which Ms. Brennan wrote in a very solid piece in USA Today.

Brennan, who despite my distain regarding her agenda-based push of T-9, is a fine writer. Numerous awards, hard-hitting stories, yadda yadda yadda.

But her Keeping Score column, “Olympic trials can be unjust for the world’s best,” could be debated by wrestling fans who believe we should be like the Russians, and actually pick the team, rather than “wrestle off” for it.

Then again, that’s assuming wrestling fans pay attention to anything other than the collegiate styles. Did you read my Greco column in W.I.N., or did folks ignore that, too?

Let’s draw some parallels here.

Brennan: Tyson Gay, one of the fastest men in the world doesn’t qualify in his best event.
Bryant: Harry Lester, two-time world medalist doesn’t reach the finals in his weight class. 

Gay, however, will still make the Olympics in other events. But then there’s Paul Hamm, the gymnast who sat out the Trials and was put on the U.S. Team anyway.

If that were the case in other sports, like wrestling, track and swimming, our Olympic Trials would be devoid of the great stories like Jake Deitchler’s improbable run.

Then again, gymnastics, with all its drama, subjective judging and politics has rules that dictate such. Brennan points to a challenge race scenario, for example.

I do believe we’ve seen these before with world teams - wrestlers injured for one reason or another at the U.S. Nationals or World Team Trials get special wrestle-offs AFTER qualifying events are concluded. Granted, it’s sometimes more than just injury.

Daniel Cormier beat Dean Morrison in a two-out-of-three wrestle-off in Fargo one year. Chris Bono and Bill Zadick did the same. Mary Kelly and Clarissa Chun had a wrestle-off prior to the 2006 World Championships.

It’s not uncommon in wrestling, but there has to be a champion sort of situation. Would the entire Lester quandary had been solved had he won U.S. Nationals and then waited for either Deitchler or Faruk Sahin?

Of course, folks on themat.com forums can’t seem to let the whole Russian scenario unfold, picking the “best” they feel can medal or win, versus who won the trials.

Let’s look at this from a gymnastics standpoint (or the Russian wrestling one) and see what our 2008 Olympic Team could have looked like if we didn’t do things by wrestling them out.

Here are some weight examples:
Women’s FS 48kg: Patricia Miranda would be the pick, multiple-time world medalist. Decision would be made more difficult because Clarissa Chun beat her twice, instead of just once in the challenge tournament.

Women’s FS 71kg: Ali Bernard. She’s not been on the national scene as much as the others in this stacked weight, where there were two former world champions (Kristie Marano and Iris Smith) another world medalist (Katie Downing) and rising star Stephany Lee. Bernard chose to wrestle collegiately in Canada and has been a medalist on the Junior world level, but with Marano’s NINE world medals, it seemed anyone but Bernard would have been the choice despite her national title.

Men’s FS 84kg: It was Mo Lawal’s title to lose and Andy Hrovat took the finals series. This was the discussion back in 2006 when Hrovat made his first world team, pinning Lawal in the process. He wasn’t the best guy, people snickered. Well, with Hrovat doing this a SECOND time and beating Lawal two out of three, even the dynamic “King Mo,” who came inches (and a referee hose job) away from beating Sajid Sajidov in 2005, has less of an argument.

Men’s GR 66kg: We’ve beaten the Deitchler-Lester thing to death already. If Lester wrestles U.S. Nationals, could the 18-year-old have beaten the world bronze medalist two out of three matches instead of two out of three periods? Probably the case in wrestling, most similar to Gay’s case in the 200-meters.

Men’s GR 96kg: Case in point - fans know Justin Ruiz was an All-American at Nebraska. Fans don’t know where Adam Wheeler is from.

Although I do think Steve Mocco would have been the guy at 120 regardless. Like he said in his post-match interview - he’s looking forward to the pollution and smog - he’s from New Jersey. That’s a benefit he would have had internationally over Tommy Rowlands, who grew up breathing cleaner air in Ohio.

Honestly, I don’t care we’re not sending what could be viewed as “our best,” because talk like that cheapens the accomplishment of winning the Trials. Oh, you beat him, but he’s better, so we’re putting him on the team.

Nice sissy way out of it … like, well … nevermind. Here’s to all our Olympians, may you all bring home gold. You guys earned the right to be there.

It’s been hectic since getting back from Tampa, but here’s the Four Points for today, not much going on in Lancaster, other than rain, so I’ll spare the details.

Gas: $3.99
Weather: 75 and raining (torrentially)
ZWLC: 262.2

Adam Frey Update
Was talking to a friend on AIM last night and was met with a “Did you hear about Adam?” Not realizing which Adam they were referring to, I was quickly met with “Frey” on the response. A few more lines went back and forth and then I zipped over to adamfrey.us and found that there has been a recurrence of cancer with young Mr. Frey. Just when it seemed like Adam had literally tech-falled his cancer, there are signs that it’s back and chemo-resistant. Rather than give all the details, I’ll just say hit his blog up. He tells his story so much better than I could and it’s heartbreaking to see “the big C” come back after it had seemed like the worst was behind him. Prayers still going out to you buddy.

Recruiting Ranks are on the docket
One of my last duties here will be to put out the final Division I recruiting class rankings for the Class of 2008. In 2006, they came out in June, when some recruiting wasn’t quite finished and we caught some flack. Last year, they came out in July, after the start of the new recruiting cycle. So hopefully within the next week, these things will be polished off and released for scrutiny from everyone, fans and coaches alike. Ah, the things you can never win with.

Recruiting numbers
With the amount of commitments slowing down from the Class of 2008, the tally is currently over 1,680 wrestlers committing to wrestle on the next level. They included Division I, II, III, NAIA, Junior College, California Community Colleges, women’s programs and the USOEC. A steady stream of freshman and transfers hit the mats next year. There are just a few unsigned/uncommitted wrestlers from the Top 100 left.

Movement
We’d seen coaching shifts earlier in the year with Pat Santoro heading to Lehigh and Kerry McCoy heading to Maryland, but Cleveland State’s job opened up on Monday, and Wyoming and Stanford are still seeking people to fill their respective positions (Wyoming does have an interim coach). Wes Hand left his post at Iowa on Tuesday, surprising more than a few people, while the search is underway to find a replacement here in Manheim. Millersville is open, too.

The news went out yesterday that I was leaving my post here at the National Wrestling Coaches Association as the Director of Media Relations and “InterMat Guy.” Even though the second part isn’t an official title, it’s basically what I have to explain to folks when they might not recognize me or the name, pretty standard, really.

Well, here’s some backstory, for those that might be curious. If not, the Four Points will be in full force tomorrow.

Growing up, my dream was to be a sports broadcaster. I obsessed about sports, watched ESPN constantly, played a litany of sports — baseball was my best — and did the things kids did, but I knew at a very early age what I wanted to be “when I grow up.”

Enter a move to Poquoson from Newport News and the opportunities started to rise. Miffed about getting cut from an AAU basketball team, the new kid said screw it and quit sports in this little town. It was another sport that brought me back to competitive athletics — wrestling — and it was Poquoson’s fault. Not to mention wrestling coach Billy Ruff. Well, during high school, I was announcing eight sports, going to wrestling practice, getting the crap beat out of me, doing stats and then as a senior, I started working at the Daily Press, the local daily paper that serves Hampton, Newport News, Williamsburg, York County, etc.

In college, I assumed roles as the Sports Director for the campus radio station AM 1570 WODU. Broadcasting took hold, but at the same time, so did a little web site I created in Whitehurst Hall, room 440B on October 25, 1997.

Through wrestling, I got more chances to get on the mic — one love was facilitating the other — so I was getting the best of both worlds. As my writing progressed, my mic skills honed and my behavior calmed, things started going well with work.

After seven years at Old Dominion, I moved into a full-time position at the Daily Press. I was a solid page designer, a pretty fair copy editor and I was the only one willing (and eager) to continue the wrestling beat. Rankings hadn’t been in the paper in over 20 years until the “Mat Talk On-Line/Daily Press Peninsula Wrestling Rankings” made their appearance. Yeah, that little Mat Talk web site, which was derived from my old radio show on AM 1490 WXRE in Hampton, took over.

I’d love to tell you I was one of those kids who went to class and knew how to balance work, responsibility and hobbies — yeah, I didn’t learn that until year five.

Anyway, the Mat Talk thing got me freelance gigs with USA Wrestling. I was cheap to hire and would usually be at these events anyway. A chance trip to Fargo was a big reason there — Mike Newbern calls me up and goes “Hey Twinkie, want to go to Fargo?” I never competed in Fargo, but my teammates had.

That was where the USAW folks saw me working, about to turn 19, on Mat Talk On-Line, fighting over phone lines with the folks at NCMat (just kidding Sara). That led to freelance work and chances to cover the 2003 World Championships and the 2004 U.S. Olympic Trials.

All the while, I’m still broadcasting 2-3 basketball games a week, working nights, doing wrestling rankings and of course, being a college student.

When the NWCA approached me, it was basically to cover college wrestling for InterMat as a freelancer. I swapped freelance duties and my education in college wrestling really began. I knew it before, but now I had to “know” it.  That year was also my first real gig with television. I’d been a spotter/stats guy for ESPN at the 2004 Championships and had a slew of radio time, but this Comcast deal was the chance to see if I could handle the camera.

The CAA launched that idea and it eventually showed up in the NCAA News (my mug and all). Then came another TV gig doing the actual play-by-play on a local TV station. Yes, I’m still active in wrestling while doing all this.

In St. Louis that year, I got a heads up that Tom Owens was leaving his position and the NWCA was curious if I’d be interested in the position. I’d quit the newspaper in November of 2004 and the night I finished up, I was in a van heading to Lock Haven the next day to cover Mat Town.

Wrestling was going to be a factor. I left my last job because they cut my wrestling off. My trips to the Beast, gone, Fargo would mean taking vacation. Yeah, wasn’t too keen on that.

Well, fast forward, I took the InterMat job, moved to Pennsylvania, started announcing some sports at F&M like wrestling and women’s lacrosse and now this.

It’s hard to write a press release about yourself. Even harder to come across humble in a blog, but if anything, I’m thankful to all those wrestling fans out there who enjoy what I write, how we present news on the website and the overall level of coverage. It’s a lot more work than people think it is. It’s a lot of long hours and late nights.

So now I’ll have the opportunity to again have one love facilitate the other — wrestling has pushed me into the television medium. How I handle it remains to be seen, but it’s just that much closer to achieving my childhood dream. Wrestling has provided me those avenues.

So this job basically won’t be much different in terms of traveling to events, but instead of writing for a web site or a publication, I’ll have a hand in producing, writing, managing content and some on-air and voiceover work. I’m pretty excited about the opportunities that are ahead.

My sister sent me a myspace message last night and it made things clear … I have been staying the course and following what I want to do with my life. Thankfully, I’ve had people around me and a good support system that have helped me along the way.

I’ll miss some things and there’s some things I won’t miss, but at least I’m still here doing what I can to not just self-servingly help myself, but do something to help wrestling in the process.

… some of you have heard/read by now.

I’ll go into some “bloggish” type of details later on tonight. I’m staying involved in wrestling, but I’ll fill everyone in on what the plan and vision of the future are (well, those who care to know).

JB