Askren has to be the best middleweight youth coach ever

[Truzzcat]

Messenbrink (NCAA finalist looks like he's going to be a 3x champ)
Keegan (2x NCAA 4x top 3)
PK (NCAA champ 4x top 3)
Scoles (redshirt freshman 13-3)
Mulvaney (true sophmore  10-3 NQ last year)
Millard (most recent product only loss came in the opening weekend of the season 10-9, has a 9-4 win over Chittum and a 10-3 win over Siebrecht)

[MNRodent]

They definitely do a great job and their guys transition well to the college game.  They are building quite the conglomerate with I think 6 or 7 locations and maybe 10+ coaches.  Most of the guys on the Minnesota roster (as well as the Mirasolas) wrestled primarily at Max Askren's location.  It's a good business model and I think the guys can go to different locations to get different partners for a change of pace.

[666]

There's no denying the success of those guys listed above, but how much of their success do they owe to Askren? Weren't all those guys HS studs before hitting the Askren Academy?

[Truzzcat]

9 minutes ago, 666 said:

There's no denying the success of those guys listed above, but how much of their success do they owe to Askren? Weren't all those guys HS studs before hitting the Askren Academy?

Mitchell,Keegan,Sinclair all came up in AWA as kids Im not as sure about the Mirasolas,Parker,Millard etc. All of them were very good high school wrestlers but I believe the Mirasolas,Sinclair,Parker,Keegan were the only top 25 big borders scoles and Millard may have been close? @Husker_Du would no for sure. I know that Ben's plan is to not make these kids the best junior high or even high school wrestlers, he wants them to be able to continue to improve into college and they all seem to be doing that. Mitchell took 7th at super 32 his senior year and then in the same 12months beat haines and got a silver at junior worlds. Millard beating Chittum would have been nowhere on my radar, he was good but he took a lot of losses this last year.

[Gus]

Who would be Askren's competition? The Harvey Twister's had a ton of hammers come through. Young guns has put out a lot of hammers. 

[Truzzcat]

2 minutes ago, Gus said:

Who would be Askren's competition? The Harvey Twister's had a ton of hammers come through. Young guns has put out a lot of hammers. 

I would definitely say young guns would be the next best bet but PA vs Wisconsin so I am giving the edge to Askren given the state depth. KD has Jayden James and PJ duke which is a smaller sample but they could both be generational I think. Seabolt puts out a ton of high level high school guys but they have not had the college results yet to my knowledge.

[Tyler]

53 minutes ago, 666 said:

There's no denying the success of those guys listed above, but how much of their success do they owe to Askren? Weren't all those guys HS studs before hitting the Askren Academy?

I think most of them started at AWA really young. Messenbrink’s dad is also a coach there. I thought he coached the Askrens also. But I may be wrong

[MNRodent]

9 minutes ago, Gus said:

Who would be Askren's competition? The Harvey Twister's had a ton of hammers come through. Young guns has put out a lot of hammers. 

Pinnacle puts out quite a few.

[1032004]

1 minute ago, MNRodent said:

Pinnacle puts out quite a few.

Thats a pretty diverse group of teams they’re going to too

[Gus]

28 minutes ago, Truzzcat said:

I would definitely say young guns would be the next best bet but PA vs Wisconsin so I am giving the edge to Askren given the state depth. KD has Jayden James and PJ duke which is a smaller sample but they could both be generational I think. Seabolt puts out a ton of high level high school guys but they have not had the college results yet to my knowledge.

Some of the Harvey Twisters that I can think of (the Illinois people surely could add to this list) are Steve, TJ and Joe Williams, Tony Davis, BJ Futrell, Cassio Pero, TC Dantzler, Isaiah White, Yahya Thomas, Kamal Bey, Nate Jackson, DJ Washington, Josh Ogunsanya, Nassir Bailey, Kordell Norfleet, Albert White

[MizzouFan01]

29 minutes ago, Tyler said:

I think most of them started at AWA really young. Messenbrink’s dad is also a coach there. I thought he coached the Askrens also. But I may be wrong

He did in High School yes, at Hartland Arrow Head. He coached Mitchell and Keegan as well at the same school. 

[Husker_Du]

they have Wolbert in '26 as well.

[Truzzcat]

3 minutes ago, Husker_Du said:

they have Wolbert in '26 as well.

saw he took a loss to davis parrow this season whos game I am not familiar with.

[Truzzcat]

8 minutes ago, Gus said:

Some of the Harvey Twisters that I can think of (the Illinois people surely could add to this list) are Steve, TJ and Joe Williams, Tony Davis, BJ Futrell, Cassio Pero, TC Dantzler, Isaiah White, Yahya Thomas, Kamal Bey, Nate Jackson, DJ Washington, Josh Ogunsanya, Nassir Bailey, Kordell Norfleet, Albert White

That is a pretty nasty list, Izzy probably has a pretty damn good one for Illinois as well.

[MNRodent]

8 minutes ago, Truzzcat said:

saw he took a loss to davis parrow this season whos game I am not familiar with.

Yes, they have split wins this year.

[Truzzcat]

11 minutes ago, MNRodent said:

Yes, they have split wins this year.

Both close? I saw it was 10-9 at the holiday classic.

[MNRodent]

29 minutes ago, Truzzcat said:

Both close? I saw it was 10-9 at the holiday classic.

Wolbert won 4-0 in the finals of the Cheesehead Tournament.

[Gus]

1 hour ago, Truzzcat said:

That is a pretty nasty list, Izzy probably has a pretty damn good one for Illinois as well.

from Izzy trained website

• Real Woods – 3x NCAA All-American (Stanford, University of Iowa)
• Jordan Blanton – 3x NCAA All-American (University of Illinois)
• Tony Ramos – NCAA Champion and All-American (University of Iowa)
• Will Lewan – 3x NCAA All-American (University of Michigan) and Cadet World Champion
• Dylan Ragusin – NCAA All-American (University of Michigan)
• Mikey Caliendo – 3x NCAA All-American (North Dakota State, University of Iowa)
• Jack Dechow – NCAA All-American (Old Dominion University)

[juniorvarsity]

Is there a club the St. Ed's kids go to? They had a streak of NCAA All Americans from like 1982 through like 2019. I do not know if the streak ended. I think it did. Can we point their success back to someone? Caveat, I think they get a lot of move ins but I don't really know. I never lived around there.

[MizzouFan01]

24 minutes ago, juniorvarsity said:

Is there a club the St. Ed's kids go to? They had a streak of NCAA All Americans from like 1982 through like 2019. I do not know if the streak ended. I think it did. Can we point their success back to someone? Caveat, I think they get a lot of move ins but I don't really know. I never lived around there.

It ended with Alan Hart losing in the blood round his Sr year. 

[wrestle87]

He is amazing.  There is no doubt that he is an absolute pioneer in the headspace portion of competing effectively.  

[MPhillips]

4 hours ago, juniorvarsity said:

Can we point their success back to someone?

Fried oftentimes credited, West Shore Wrestling Club...

Edited Tuesday at 12:32 AM by MPhillips

[Konquest]

8 hours ago, 666 said:

There's no denying the success of those guys listed above, but how much of their success do they owe to Askren? Weren't all those guys HS studs before hitting the Askren Academy?

Quote

 

No.  Most were AWA attendees well before high school.  Also, right now I'd give the edge to Max (Mequon/North Shore location) as far as D1 wrestlers.  But all these kids have been training with each other for a long time.  It's not surprising that Mesenbrink's closest match recently was with Scoles.  Agreed on the "late bloomer" stuff, too, with some of these guys.  Scoles would've whipped Mesenbrink in high school.  Aeoden Sinclair or Connor Mirasola would've whooped Keckeisen in high school.  

 

[BarSeries]

Expanding:

 

[MidwestMan]

On 2/17/2025 at 2:26 PM, juniorvarsity said:

Is there a club the St. Ed's kids go to? They had a streak of NCAA All Americans from like 1982 through like 2019. I do not know if the streak ended. I think it did. Can we point their success back to someone? Caveat, I think they get a lot of move ins but I don't really know. I never lived around there.

Howard Ferguson was the coach responsible for building St. EDS into a power house program in Ohio.  Ferguson was a self made millionaire that wrote the book, "The Edge", that was an inspirational book about how to achieve success.  He started coaching St Ed's in the 70's and with his resources and drive, they built a dynasty.  I bought a copy of the book in the 80's and loaned it out to several of my wrestlers over the years.  I still have it in my collection somewhere.  I just assume he was also involved with the feeder club(s).