Well wrestling fans, my step into the world of Facebook has been a quick and eventful journey so far.  It is hard to believe how I can take the same blog that I have been writing for years and get to so many more people.  My Timeline on Facebook is like the strolling scores at the bottom of the screen on ESPN.  The great news is that the news is for wrestling.  When you factor that this is the slowest time of the year for wrestling and I just started on Facebook, I am preparing myself for the upcoming season.

I have been impressed with the overall scope of wrestling fans that I have connected with. Just as I suspected, over half of the people that read my Iowa Wrestling articles are not Iowa Wrestling fans. I have sent out a Friends Request to current and past wrestlers, their parents and coaches from Iowa’s biggest rivals that were accepted.  I will continue to do just that.  I want to promote wrestling and I can do that by getting people to read my Iowa Wrestling blog.  I am flattered that people want to read my blog, and I want more.  I must admit that having people from all over the country and world reading my Iowa Wrestling articles is cool.    

To take it one step further, I have become friends with wrestlers, former wrestlers, coaches and wrestling fans from all over the world.  It was great to get comments from Argentina, Brazil, Turkey, Russia, and India about my article on Coach (Brad) Smith from Lisbon.  That article was my introduction to what Facebook can do.  I have especially enjoyed the videos and pictures on my Timeline from Goji Koguashvili of Russia.  I did a quick Google search and found that Goji was a five-time World Champion and four-time Olympian for Russia in Greco-Roman.  He is now their GR Head Coach.  I am getting updates on their training as they prepare for the Olympics.  My knowledge of GR and Russian training is not the best, so this is a learning experience for me.  I could field one hell of a current and past wrestling team and coaching staff in all styles with my Facebook friends.

I am also getting updates from wrestlers and coaches from several countries as they are all in deep training for the Olympics in Rio.  I have really had my eyes opened as to how big wrestling is throughout the world and the country.  From following MMA, especially the UFC, I am somewhat well-read on jiu-jitsu.  The popularity of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is amazing and yes, they know about and want to read about Iowa Wrestling.  I had better add MMA to that group as well.  I am sure that the UFC has had a big part in the national and world-wide growth of wrestling and jiu-jitsu.  In my opinion, the UFC has been the single biggest promoter for wrestling in my lifetime.  There are more than few former wrestlers making a living as a grappling/wrestling coach in MMA gyms across this country.  Whether it is for wrestling, jiu-jitsu, grappling, mma or what I call extreme fitness, there are people all over the world that know about Iowa Wrestling and I am proud to say are reading my blogs and supporting my Iowa Wrestling Fan FB page.  I’ll take it.

I have also been impressed with how many women that are involved with wrestling, jiu-jitsu, grappling, and fitness at an extreme level.  Women in sports has come a long ways in just the last five years.  I am again going to point a finger at the UFC.  The impact of Ronda Rousey, an Olympic Judo medalist and champion in the UFC, can not be overstated.  I look for the number of women in these categories of wrestling, grappling, Jiu-Jitsu, and what I call extreme fitness to skyrocket in the next five to ten years as more and more young girls are being influenced every day.  There is no age limit to this though.  There are women of all ages doing amazing things in their sport as well.  

I have stated several times over the last three years that college wrestling just keeps getting better and better.  When I look at all of the wrestling camps that kicked off over Memorial Day weekend, it is not hard to see why.  The number of wrestling camps all around the country this summer is staggering.  This is great in several ways. The first observation is that these camps create a way for a young wrestler from anywhere to get top-notch coaching and experience.  In the not too distant past, these opportunities were not available and the young wrestler was dependent on their local wrestling coach, if they had one.  Then, what if their local coach was not available or was terrible?  That is not a problem now.  That is why you can be from absolutely anywhere and go out on your own to improve your wrestling career.  Look for more and more college wrestlers coming from non-traditional areas like the Southeast.  They do not all play football in SEC country and there are a lot of North people that have moved into the South.  Speaking of which, with all of that football money, you would think the SEC should/could add wrestling.  

The second way that these wrestling camps are great is that they are providing an income for former wrestlers.  Between camps and the explosion of Wrestling Clubs, former wrestlers now have a source of income that was not available even five years ago.  I plan on devoting an entire blog on the massive growth of wrestling clubs in America.  That alone will keep wrestling on the way up.

Through FaceBook, I was able to get in contact with Keith Mourlam.  Keith was a mentor of mine.  In my book Domination: An Inside Look at Iowa Wrestling, I thanked Keith for all of the time he spent teaching me about wrestling.  Mourlam was also my teacher for Coaching Wrestling that I took at the University of Iowa in 1992.  I still have my notes from that class.  We had a guest speaker one day for that class.  A young Tom Brands.  I would be hanging around the room watching practice.  As the head coach of the Hawkeye Wrestling Club, Mourlam was training Hawkeye wrestlers for the Olympics and World’s.  He would stop and come over to make sure that I had learned what he was talking about for technique.  We would also talk about Iowa Wrestling by the hour.  Every October we would go over the entire Iowa Wrestling roster, Hawkeye Wrestling Club roster, and the coaching staff, and give our predictions for the upcoming year.  Not a bad way to evaluate recruits and to learn about recruiting.  

I also learned one of my few “Golden Rules of Recruiting” from Mourlam.  That will be worth an entire blog, should I chose to share it.  Keith is a wrestling coach at Clearview Regional High School in Mullica Hill, NJ for the last eight years.  He said it has been a very rewarding experience.  Those kids at that high school are learning from an NCAA Runner-Up at Iowa, former Iowa Wrestling Assistant Coach, former Hawkeye Wrestling Club Head Coach, and one of the all-time great clinicians I have ever seen.  They are lucky to have him.  Great to hear a small town Iowa guy is still making a difference in our sport.  I never really knew why Mourlam spent all of that time teaching me.  I think maybe because he knew I wanted to learn about wrestling.  Many thanks, Keith Mourlam.

Northwestern has been making some much needed changes for their wrestling program.  After having a very solid program for years, the Northwestern program went downhill in a hurry when head coach Drew Pariano and Northwestern parted ways before the  beginning of the season last year.  In just the last several weeks, it has been announced that NCAA National Champion Andrew Howe will join the the Northwestern coaching staff.  With Howe’s background of wrestling at Wisconsin and Oklahoma and growing up in Indiana, that will be a boost for the Northwestern program for recruiting as well.  Also, 2015 NCAA National Champion Cody Brewer of Oklahoma will be joining the Northwestern coaching staff as an Volunteer Assistant.  Brewer was rumored to be heading for the Nittany Lion Wrestling Club at Penn State before this news broke.  Ed Giese has been named as the head wrestling coach of the Chicago Regional Training Center at Northwestern University.  Geise is originally from Illinois and was an All-American at Minnesota.  

And last  but not least, it was recently announced that Welsh-Ryan Arena will undergo a $110 million renovation.  The wrestling, basketball, and volleyball teams will be assigned an alternate venue while renovations take place from March 2017 and to be completed by the fall of 2018.  Welsh-Ryan Arena is also home to The Midlands.  It looks as though the 2017 edition of The Midlands will be held at another location for the first time ever.  With the addition of three new coaches and a renovated arena in their back pocket, I am sure the Northwestern staff will be hitting the recruiting trail with a passion.  It looks as though Northwestern Wrestling is positioning themselves for a comeback.

I have always know Drew Pariano to be a damned good wrestling coach.  I met him when he was the coach at Cornell College and it was easy to follow his career in the Big Ten at Northwestern.  This guy can coach wrestling.  I knew that in time we would seem him back in the sport.  I was able to contact Drew through Facebook.  He is now running Pariano Wrestling Camps and it looks as though things are going real well for him.   For more information, go to: https://sites.google.com/site/parianowrestlingcamps/.  For some reason that link will not copy to my blog, so you will have to do a copy and paste.

Vic Avery of Edinboro announced yesterday that he will joining the Ohio State Regional Training Center to pursue his International wrestling career.  Avery placed third at 184lbs. in 2015.  Avery will be a good addition to the Ohio State Wrestling program.

Unfortunately, one of the biggest stories in the wrestling world recently has been the Minnesota Wrestling article that implicated wrestlers dealing prescription drugs.  The last that I heard, head coach J Robinson has been put on leave while the investigation continues.  I am sure that all involved with Minnesota Wrestling is looking for a speedy conclusion to this issue.  With the huge push for recruiting beginning on July 1st, the timing is not good.  But for an issue like this, any time is a bad time.  I am not going to pass any judgement at this time.  All we can do is wait for the results of the investigations.

The World Cup was exciting, but I can’t help but wonder “What if?”  What if Jordan Burroughs  and Tervel Dlagnev would have been able to compete?  The U.S. finished fourth at the World Cup, but their young Freestyle team will be very tough by August in Rio for the Olympics.  I will do my best to get a Daniel Dennis interview before he leaves for the Olympics.  I am sure that his schedule is filled and I will do what I can.  What a great story of perseverance Daniel Dennis is.

I am still upset about the number of weightclasses at the Olympics.  That just does not seem like enough.  James Green from Nebraska is an outstanding wrestler that won the Bronze at the 2015 World Championships, but his weightclass was eliminated from the Olympics.  With all of the obscure events that are questionable to even call a sport at the Summer and Winter Olympics, this is a bad deal.  Green was named as the USA Wrestling Wrestler of the Week for his 4-0 performance at the World Cup where three of his wins were against World ranked wrestlers.  70kg should be a weight in the Olympics!  I do like that the World Cup and the World Championships have the two weightclasses that are not in the Olympics, but I still find it unfair for our sport.  I will not accept to just be happy to have wrestling in the Olympics.  The cancellation and then re-instatement of Wrestling in the Olympics was a crooked and corrupt bunch of bullshit from the start.  Time to move on.

I really enjoyed my interviews with Bill Zadick and Troy Steiner last week.  I look for USA Freestyle Wrestling and Fresno State to both make a big move with those former Hawkeye National Champions as head coach.  More successful college wrestling is definitely needed on the West Coast and of course as a fan, I always want our Freestyle team to do better at the Worlds and Olympics.  With Zadick’s new position leading the men’s freestyle team and Terry Steiner leading the women’s freestyle, that gives us two former NCAA National Champion Iowa Hawkeyes at the top for our country in freestyle wrestling.  Something to brag about for me.  Best of luck to all.

For upcoming events, the Junior National Duals for Freestyle and Greco-Roman will be in Tulsa, OK.  GR will be held on June 22-23.  Freestyle will be held on Friday and Saturday, June 24-25.  This competition will have a lot of nationally ranked wrestlers competing right before the big recruiting push of July 1st when coaches can make contact with the Class of 2017.  The month of July should be full of news of recruits verbally committing.  I have been finding as many college wrestling programs on Facebook to Like that I can so that I can get that information.  Recruiting is exciting news that helps us wrestling fans get through summer.  I am trying to bring attention to wrestling with recruiting coverage the way that college football does.

And of course, the big tournament is Fargo for the Freestyle and Greco-Roman Cadet and Junior National Tournament.  “The largest wrestling tournament in the world” will be held July 16-23rd.  

And the ultimate for our sport, the Olympics in August will have us all buzzing about wrestling when as a country we come together to take on the World!  That Olympic theme music gives me chills every time.  I believe that Team USA Freestyle will have a great Olympics.  Go Daniel Dennis!  Go Red, White, and Blue!

The Olympics should tide us over until Labor Day when the interest in Iowa Wrestling really picks up with the start of the school year.  So wrestling fans, we’re in for a hell of a ride.  I’ll do my best to keep you covered.

Be sure and “Like” my Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/IowaWrestlingFan/  if you have not already done so.  You can help out by telling others to do the same.

Let’s have a great summer!