The Bryant Blog: Life, Wrestling, Pop Culture

I’m short on motivation today, although I did polish off six miles on the second week of my 26-week marathon training. Me and my roommate Tim (if you haven’t guessed, I went from living by myself for three years to living in a house with four other people — you could really do a Real World Arden Hills out of this place) walked up to Jake’s Sports Cafe and got dinner.

Counterproductive? I don’t think so. Three miles up, water and a salad (yes, I actually like salads, although my waistline didn’t always show it) and three miles back. Walked/Jogged at a pretty good clip. Still not on the full running thing yet, but based on the program I noted the other day, I’m getting to the point where 3-4 mile walks/jogs don’t tire me out and my feet still aren’t hurting.

Halloween’s tomorrow and we have a pot luck in the office. I was assigned to “drinks” last time … pretty unimaginative. I got salad for tomorrow. So rather than buying a bag o’ salad and faking it, I got two different types of lettuce, fresh carrots, cucumbers and tomatoes. Boiled up some eggs and grated them, chopped up some ham and turkey and cooked up some chicken breasts in a homemade lemon pepper glaze. They’re just gonna love me tomorrow … as I’m dressed in my costume. Pictures, I’m sure, will follow.

I haven’t been “in shape” in a long time. Hell, I’ve even curtailed the social aspect of life since the Tommie-Johnnie game.

Weather today was great … sported the Missouri Wrestling shirt, the cool dry-wicking stuff that Cliff Keen’s got. Those killer long sleeves from Fargo — yeah, they rock. Blue Chip in the house!

I’m also now a Minnesota resident as my driver’s license will show.

Weather: It was 71 today!? It was awesome.
Gas: $2.09 and steady as we head towards Election Day.
Mileage: 21 miles
STL: 171 days.

I wanted to pass this message along from Greg Hatcher down in Arkansas about how the boom in wrestling down there has been very positive. They’ll be sanctioned by the Arkansas Activities Association for the first time this year.

Here’s Greg’s e-mail.

I wanted to drop all of our participating schools a note and let you know that I am hearing from schools and it appears that the number of wrestlers at each school is skyrocketing.  I’ve already heard from Conway and they have over 100 wrestlers, Springdale Har-Ber has 98 wrestlers signed up, North Little Rock High School has 48 wrestlers signed up and that’s not even counting those athletes who are in fall sports who will sign up as soon as the fall season is over.

I wanted to drop each of you a note and ask you to send me back an email telling me approximately how many wrestlers you had in your program last year and how many you expect to have in your program this year.  These don’t have to be exact numbers, but ballparks.  If you did not have wrestling last year and this is your first year then your last year number would be zero and this year would be the number you expect or have signed up now.

In addition, when you get your rosters of wrestlers if you want to email them to us we will add under your schools icon a listing of all of your wrestlers and their different weight classes.  It’s our goal to continue to build our website to provide more and more information to the wrestling community.

Finally, don’t forget about our new wrestling message board that you can link to on at our wrestling website at www.arkwrestling.com or you can go directly to it at www.arkwrestling.freeforums.org/ .

The story of Olympic Champion Henry Cejudo is well-documented. He’s explained it in nearly every newspaper story and television interview. A rough upbringing, a non-existent relationship with his father, a dynamic relationship with older brother Angel and a very strong-willed mother.

Now Henry’s speaking about his travels, as seen here in the most recent story by The Denver Post.

Next week, Henry will come to Minnesota on behalf of The School of Champions.

The School of Champions is a very unique coaching and practice situation. It provides very low-cost practice sessions with All-Americans and National Champions. Instead of heading out after a day of class or work, these guys are providing an intense training sessions for the kids in the Twin Cities area. Some schools have wrestling clubs tied to their college programs. The School of Champions, while manned by many a former Golden Gopher, isn’t “the club” with Minnesota. However, with the Gopher Wrestling Club and the School of Champions, Cejudo will come in for a Fall Clinic at Bloomington Kennedy H.S. on November 7.

According to The School of Champions web site, there’s time to still register for the Clinic.

What’s personally impressive is how the staff of The School of Champions, rather than being wild former wrestling 20-somethings, they spend evenings coaching kids. When I first moved here, I called a few of the guys up to see what was going on for, say, Monday Night Football. “Sorry dude, we’re coaching tonight.”

Bringing in Cejudo is icing on the cake for programs like this. Kids get great coaching and technique and a chance to meet an Olympic Champion who’s close enough to their age to where they can relate directly. Henry’s become an icon for American wrestling. He’s personable and quick-witted, so those of you who live in the Twin Cities with kids looking to get an extra edge, check out The School of Champions — and for those of you who want to meet an Olympic Champion, mark down November 7.

Yes, I’m being a complete wuss about my animosity towards the cold weather and snow. The worst thing about living up here is going to be getting used to the winter chill that’s already in the air. The best part about living here is easily the people. It’s really hard to find a nicer bunch of people (collectively) than those I’ve met in the upper Midwest.

I’m watching the Wild-Blackhawks game as two of my roommates are there watching. I’ve got another roommate shooting darts behind me. I’ve already beaten him in Cricket tonight so my undefeated streak here in Arden Hills remains safe.

I’m going to have to get that health club membership soon. Why? I need a place to run, jog and walk. As I noted before, I’ve decided to give the Go! St. Louis Marathon a shot come April. I started to get in the frame of mind last week. I walked/jogged 13 miles last week and tonight, did more running than I had on a short “Route 66″ two-mile trip. There’s a convenience store just across 35W which is a mile from the house. An up and back is what I call “The 66.” It’s now an Exxon or something, but it used to be a Phillips 66 as my roommate Joe (Tired of Renting?) explained.

I’m tracking my progress at running-journal.com, but I’m looking over things for the running rookie, which I am, and realized my start date last week was exactly 26 weeks from the marathon, which works well with MarathonRookie.com’s 26-week training plan. I’ll basically be spending the next 11 weeks getting myself into a state where I CAN put some foot to pavement with some speed and distance. Right now, it’s just slow jogs and brisk walks.

Two more miles Monday. It’s freakin’ cold.

Weather: Beautiful, clear and COLD. 38 degrees here, but 39 degrees back home!
Gas: $2.15
Mileage: 15 miles.
STL: 174 days.

This is Halloweentown
One thing I do like about the office environment I have here in Minnesota is the relationship Kyle and I have with the other entities in the office building. The other half of the building is occupied by J Robinson Camps and the staff over there is incredibly fun to work with. While we’re not working with them directly, the office dynamic is laid back, fun and you can always find someone cracking a joke or, as I found out, making very useful signs on dry-erase boards and appliances.

This Friday will be our monthly “Pot Luck” lunch where we all bring something in and grub out. It’s also Halloween. The girls love this, as I’ve seen in pictures posted around the office. They’re all quite creative.

Streak @ 32 ends @ 3
I won’t be going to the Super 32 this year, which will end a three-year run in Greensboro. Dave Barker, Sara Koenig and staff have done a great job making that event what it is today — the most talked-about and most competitive preseason tournament in the nation. Not bad for a little club tournament not even 10 years ago. I really enjoyed going down there, but not being on the East Coast makes a one-day trek across the country most difficult. I knew this in advance, so I tried to make up for it by going down to Iowa on Saturday, as I talked about yesterday.

I’m waiting to unveil my Halloween Costume, but it would have been cool to wear it at a tournament. I will look forwarded to checking out the historic “First Avenue” that Sunday, though. I’ll be attending a concert by Minnesota’s own Atmosphere.

Book it!
Anyone remember the Book It! Campaign back in the late 80’s and 90’s? It rewarded kids for reading books with personal pan pizzas from Pizza Hut. Man, talk about inspiring a nation of bookworm, cheese-bread munching WoW players. Just kidding. But I’m back on the book kick again. Why? Give Mark Palmer of RevWrestling.com the credit for this one. After reading his review of “The Fighting Scots of Edinboro,” I jumped right online and headed over to Amazon.com to make this purchase. I’d read “The Silent Gladiators” earlier this year and was rather disappointed. I’m hoping to read a wrestling book that will not only educate, but will be well-written. I just finished “The Granby Roll,” a short biopic about the late Billy Martin.

Before I left Pennsylvania, I headed out to Pier Village, N.J., to visit my former partner in crime, the forum’s infamous prognosticator Gripsnhips (Herbert dec. Askren 5-4). After housing a GreaseTruck-sized sandwich, he made me read a chapter from this wacky book. He insisted that I take it with me. I neglected to, but upon purchasing “The Fighting Scots” the book I so desperately tried to remember, was sitting there on the “recommended reading” from Amazon. SCORE.

So after the ‘Boro book, I’ll dive into the Chuck Klosterman offering pictured.

Cyber-things
The Wrestling411 web site has been undergoing some rather odd hack/attack attempts in the last two days. Keep an eye on some great news coming from the NWCA/InterMat that will really change the way wrestling results are distributed and accessed. This is going to be a great asset for the wrestling community and the national media — not wrestling media — but the mainstream media. We will have some substance, trust me. Kyle Klingman released an interview with Wisconsin coach Barry Davis on Wrestling411 today, as well.

It’s now Sunday and chilly in the Twin Cities. The last four hours were spent trucking up I-35 heading back to Minnesota from a Saturday jaunt to Des Moines, Iowa for the USA Wrestling Preseason Nationals. Preseason folkstyle tournaments have grown in popularity since the explosion and exposure of events like the Delaware Fall Classic, the Lock Haven Classic and the Super 32. Kansas City now has a large event and now, so does Iowa.

The brain child of Brian Keck, the “Barn” in Des Moines hosted the 12-mat inaugural event with nearly 500 competitors in grades 9-12, which is very good for a first-year event.

Keck’s got a few tournaments he’s running out in Iowa now and with the support of USA Wrestling and the staffing of the Iowa pairing folks and coaches coupled with trackwrestling, this tournament has a lot of room to grow and fill a void in this part of the country.

One of the better matches of the day came at 171 pounds with Jake Dorulla of Michigan and Kyven Gadson of Iowa. Both were state runners-up and both showed tremendous ability in fighting off each other’s attacks, countering and taking advantage of their strengths.

Jesse Thielke was the tournament’s outstanding wrestler. The returning state champion was undefeated last year for Germantown in Wisconsin at 112 pounds. Thielke defeated another undefeated Wisconsin state champion, Alex Dieringer 9-1 in the finals. Dieringer won the title last year at 103 in Division I.

For the full release and results, click here.

USAW’s Chris Moen, Steve Buening and new NCEP director Sam Barber were all in the house. Good people.

The layout of the venue was perfect for wrestling. Lots of floor space, ample seating for spectators and parents and good sight lines. I think the only thing that needs to be improved, and this is not a shot, but I’m sure it’s something Brian’s already working on, is more officials. 14 officials for 12 mats is rough for the men in stripes. I’m sure that will be addressed, but from all accounts and my own observations, this tournament was a big success and will only grow in the future.

Scott Casber of Takedown Radio was manning the PA and I stepped in to do some play-by-play with Steve Foster for the finals. We had two falls in the finals and a couple of overtime matches.

Keep your eye on Alex Polizzi of Wisconsin this season. He topped Kyle Caylor in the finals, but Polizzi doesn’t look like a prototypical 215-pounder. I think he’d be a 189 who didn’t feel like shedding any weight for this event. It’s the first time I’d had an opportunity to see him wrestle. Looks like a real good D1 prospect. Good movement, strong and a thick mop of shaggy hair atop his head.

After the event, I headed out with Scott Casber to his place and we watched the UFC from Rosemont, Ill. Good card, but it’s unfortunate the Patrick Cote-Anderson Silva fight ended the way it did. They don’t measure “reach” with the legs, but Silva looks like he could kick you from Montana, that’s if you’re still sitting in suburban Chicago.

The Mangler
Mark Manning won two NCAA Division II titles in the 80’s for Division II Nebraska-Omaha. Now the head coach at the University of Nebraska, the 40-something coach had been “having words” with a former Husker football player. Long-story short, they settled it on the field.

Here’s the video, but here’s a thread on themat.com that explains it a bit better than my explanation.

Manning only had to stop the trask-talking <grin> strength coach once to prove his point.

Word is Brian Smith at Missouri’s going to give Tigers Strong Safety William “Willie Mo” Moore a shot at pass coverage.

Oh, and I still hate snow
The drive back through Iowa was met with insane crosswinds and snow. Yes, SNOW. I was getting pushed all over the highway by the winds coming from the west. Corn husks were flying through the air, pelting my trusty Blazer … then the snow came. Eh. I know there’s going to be worse days than this, but I didn’t expect to see any of the white stuff until at least Halloween.

Cal Baptist Open
One of the first college opens took place yesterday out in California with first-year NAIA program California Baptist hosting the CBU Lancer Open. John Petty, formerly an NAIA head coach at Embry-Riddle and Northwestern College, leads the Lancers into their first season.

How’d things go? Check out the results here.

For the past 14 years, I’ve considered myself a journalist, a broadcaster, a webmaster, and a pretty good dart player.

Martin Floreani thinks I’m only out for my own self interests.

I started covering wrestling before I ever stepped on the mat – the sport became addictive – so much so I ended up making an effort to start into the sport my junior and senior years of high school. I’ve explained my career was about as short as a message on a Post-It note.

My high school wrestling coach, Billy Ruff, once said to me, “You’ll do more for this sport doing what you’re doing now than what you’ll ever do for me on a wrestling mat.”

Years later, those words weren’t meant to hurt, but they were very prophetic. It started in 1997 when I took my limited internet knowledge and started a web site covering Virginia high school wrestling out of my dorm room at Old Dominion University.

I spent more time updating Mat Talk On-Line than I did going to class. I also held on to a part-time job working at a daily newspaper in Newport News. I started working at the Daily Press before my senior year in high school was even underway.

I get longwinded … and this is a VERY long post, so if you’ve got some time to kill and want to know the REAL story …

(This is all truthful and factual and cannot be considered slanderous or libelous by definition).

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