npope

Tell that to the families of the two wrestlers who died because of excessive weight cutting.

Weight loss is a tough process and people handle it differently. Just because a coach wants a kid at a given weight because it fills out the lineup is a bad reason to diminish the kid if he doesn't feel it is "right" for him. I come from the time when two University of Lacrosse Wisconsin guys died in the same year from weight cutting (just to wrestle in a D-3 lineup, much less). Coaches should really tread very lightly when assessing how disciplined a guy is when it comes to weight loss. I truly thought the sport was past that...sadly, I guess not.

I am hoping some seasoned veteran of travel to Big 10 wrestling championships might inform me a bit as to the likely costs of attendance at this year's event. From what I see online that tickets to the entire event will run around $900 (or more). Additionally, given the relative size of University Park, I have to think that the city might be overwhelmed with visitors during the event. Is that a reasonable assumption? And last, given the significant influx of spectators beginning on Friday and leaving on Monday, should I presume that catching a flight in/out of the local airport is going to be a challenge, maybe suggesting flying into Harrisburg (for example) and renting a car to get up to University Park. Hopefully one of you more familiar with the situation can provide me with some experienced advice. Thanks in advance!

Yeah - seems that the ranking folks have resisted early recognition of Amos as a heavyweight...until he starts beating some of the more renown big boys. He wrestled Batisda really tight early in the season but...still no love. Time will tell.

I will grant you that different environments have different norms. That said, a quick internet search finds that 44% of Americans own at least one firearm of some sort. Of that 44%, 33% own (at least one) handgun. That gets us down to 14% (44% x 33% = 14%) of Americans own at least one handgun. God knows how many own multiple handguns, but 14% own at least one. How many people keep that handgun in their car? I have no idea, but it is likely significantly less than the 14% already identified. I am just saying that those of you who pack-n-carry (any gun, much less multiple guns) are the outlier - NOT the norm in America.

Geeezzz, hell's bells! Yes, and it is possible that he had been hired to move some gun shop's supply of handguns to a new location. The point isn't that there couldn't be some rational, albeit unlikely, explanation. Rather, the issue is that four handguns in a car is not normal, even though some on this forum seem to have an empathetic bent toward driving a car with multiple weapons available. The point is that it is NOT normal - but rather, it is abnormal - whether a poster does the same thing or not. If a poster also carries four weapons in the car then they too are behaving in an abnormal way - by definition. We don't even have to get into the rationale for doing so; four handguns in the car is not normal behavior. That's not to say that there couldn't be an explanation (as you supply as a possibility), but without such an actual explanation, that behavior is abnormal and deserving of scrutiny.

You make a lot of assumptions to get to "no big deal," e.g., "additional unloaded guns out of reach"; "lightweight on the weed," etc. I don't know where you are from and while you may have had three or more at some point in time, that is NOT typical behavior. The whole thing smells bad and I wouldn't be surprised to hear that he gets a little time for the whole kerfuffle.

Pat Christenson (University of Wisconsin) was an NCAA champ (167) in 1977. Prior to that, he had never placed at the NCAA nor did he place at the state meet while in high school (Wisconsin). Came out of nowhere.

The self-denial associated with weight loss is a complicated personality trait and (thankfully) many people simply are not emotionally ready to buy-into it. I was one of the extreme weight cutters n HS and college; it wore me out by the time I was done with the sport. But I do remember guys on my teams who couldn't (or wouldn't) engage in significant weight loss and at the time, I felt as though they simply didn't have the "commitment" to the sport or the team that I had; I thought less of them as a competitor/teammate. With the benefit of time and perspective I can now better see the error of my thinking. The absolute worst thing about our sport is (excessive) weight loss.

Give us a little more time - we'll get there

Can't wrestlers win two medals? One in free-style and the other in Greco? It used to be that way unless the rules have changed. I know that two isn't four (for example) that might be possible in swimming or possibly track & field, but since we are nitpicking about the number of medals... Just sayin'

Like the swallows of Capistrano, the rise of another Olympic year brings with it an inexplicable rise in the profile of the sport of swimming. I would easily classify both swimming and wrestling as secondary sports with trivial followings in most years, but when an Olympic year rolls around we find not only the Olympic swimming events plastered on TV, but even the US team's trials make the TV screen. In a non-Olympic year no "average-Joe" knows any of the swimmers' (or wrestlers') names. But something happens with the marketing machines of each respective sport during an Olympic year that provides swimming with an inexplicable high-profile platform for marketing the sport. Certainly, swimming is a simpler sport to understand (and that may be the be-all as far as explanations go), but if I were the people in charge of USA wrestling I think I would try to hire-away the people in charge of marketing swimming to do the same for wrestling. The pulse for interest in wrestling among the broader public is virtually nil and doesn't increase at all during Olympic years. What is swimming doing that wrestling is not? Is the "product" really that different?

Sports fans are generally all about the won-lost column, and this especially describes wrestling and its fans, where after a handful of minutes of competition a winner - and a loser - is declared. The success and/or failure of an athlete is very black-and-white in our sport. With the arrival of NIL and the ability of a mere handful of teams to compete for the raw talent in that market, the pools of premiere talent will congregate in a very few schools (we already are seeing it). This concentration of talent will lead to a competitive imbalance, i.e., the strong teams will increase the distance between themselves and the weaker teams (whose numbers will far out-number the teams with money and talent) will fall away and fan-interest will wither and dissipate. In time, you will literally only have a handful of powerful, sustainable teams who will only have each other to compete against - a small cluster of maybe five to ten teams who nobody else other than their own respective fan-bases care about. There won't be enough teams against which to compete in order to have a "season." I can't think of any other sports model where this is sustainable. This concentration of money and talent will surely kill our sport as part of the collegiate experience; it will be lucky to continue even as a club sport because it is such a grueling experience for the wrestlers themselves. The club version used by the rest of the world may be the only sustainable version, but that is a significantly foreign model for Americans to swallow as much of our sporting system has been integrally tied to our educational system. Sadly, I think we are in the midst of the end of our folk style sport as we have known it for the past century.

Okay - let's get this part right. Jordan graduated from the University of WISCONSIN in 1986 where he was a two time national champ. He later picked up a law degree at tOSU. You guys make me doubt that you know anything about what you are saying.

You are the only one saying that I only lost by pins - no one else said that. I said I learned to never quit while there was still time on the clock. Obvious that you aren't reading what is posted and writing your own narrative so you really don't need anyone responding to you - so I'm out - go for it.