Opening Day for Iowa Wrestling is a great day for me and a lot of fans.  Tuesday October 10 was the official first day of practice for the Iowa Wrestling program. This marks my thirty-fifth year of going to practices in the Iowa Wrestling room and if anything, it is getting better for me as a fan.  Each year is a new beginning while building on the past.  

By Opening Day every year I have already had a good look at the new recruiting class when they were working out on their own.  There is always the changing of the guard of the previous year’s seniors that are now in the Hawkeye Wrestling Club and changing roles to help the new guys like HWC members had helped them.  

The real big change on Opening Day is intensity.  No matter how intense a workout gets when Iowa wrestlers are working out on their own, it is nothing like Opening Day.  Tom and Terry Brands are legendary for their intensity.  You could feel the intensity in the air and even as just a fan I find myself sitting up a little straighter in the bleachers in an environment like that.  

The anticipation of the upcoming season is in the air and there is a sense of urgency once the official practices begin.  I really do not have a lot of new thoughts to add for this blog as my previous blogs about the last two Open Practices have taken care of that.

To start with, I downright love what I am seeing from our number one rated Recruiting Class of 2017. This class may be headlined by Lee and Warner, but this group from top to bottom is full of hard workers and very tough wrestlers.  I am expecting a lot of success from this class of recruits.  

I am also excited about the new members of the Hawkeye Wrestling Club.  Seeing Thomas Gilman, Cory Clark, Sammy Brooks, and Alex Meyer working with the younger wrestlers as the torch is being passed down has been the cornerstone of Iowa Wrestling since their great success began over forty years ago.  When I interviewed Iowa Wrestling legends for my book: Domination: An Inside Look at Iowa Wrestling, they all brought up the importance of the Hawk Club wrestlers that helped to develop them when they first arrived on campus.  The Hawkeye Wrestling Club may have been the most important aspect of the success of the Dan Gable era.

All of the energy, resources, and fund raising for the Hawkeye Wrestling Club in just the last six months has definitely made a huge difference in the Iowa Wrestling room already.  The recent success of Thomas Gilman winning a World Silver and Sammy Brooks making the U23 World Freestyle team is a great influence on the younger wrestlers.  Alex Meyer had a great showing in the Greco Roman U23 World Team Trials.  Having that Greco-Roman influence in the room and program will only help.  Cory Clark is getting healthy and about to begin what I think will be a great career in International Freestyle wrestling.  Great job to keep those four graduating seniors in the room and with the HWC and great job by those wrestlers for their recent success.  All of this adds up to momentum for the entire Iowa Wrestling program.

Iowa Wrestling will put a very tough team on the mat this year and will have at the most two seniors (Sorensen and Laux) and very few juniors.  We will see a lot of sophomores, freshman, and possibly a true freshman in the lineup this season.  Yes, the future looks great, but I am pretty excited about the present.

As a fan, I am hoping for a healthy Sam Stoll this year.  This guy has faced a season ending injury in each of the last two years and has come back better than he was before.  That speaks of a lot of heart, toughness, and guts.  I am a big fan of Stoll and I want justice to be served in seeing him get the opportunity to showcase what he has.  I have found over the years to never place limitations on someone with that type of toughness.

I spoke briefly with Tom Brands on Saturday at the Open Mat.  I told him that Iowa Wrestling is my entertainment and that I plan on being very entertained by his wrestling team this season.

Iowa Wrestling 2018.  Let’s get ‘em in the middle.

It is great to be an Iowa Wrestling fan.