Voice of the Quakers

Amit is the defending world champ. For once, the Japanese are worried about a US woman.

HWT is also qualified.

Cox was…not good i mean, by his standards

I’m not sure Snyderman has much to worry about. No way he loses two matches to any of these guys. Hard to see Cox getting step outs or shot clocks against Kyle

Messenbrink like a barking puppy out there, while JB was the old dog treating him with disdain. Not sure why we expect all these guys to be lovey dovey. There is only one spot on the team.

Also, CHROMEBIRD, I think you're absolutely right about beach wrestling. I think the IOC/UWW will eventually create a one-day beach wrestling tournament for men and women at the games open to anyone already competing in FS or GR. Again, more competitions, more medals, and no more athletes.

Let me correct your last comment - my son is NOT going to be an Olympian. (He will swim D2 or D3 in college.) But, the fella he regularly swam against last season on the YMCA circuit, Daniel Diehl, may make the Olympic team this year. Daniel finished 3rd in the US Nationals last year in the 200 Back, just missing going to the open Worlds. So, all he did was go to World Juniors and win 3 golds and 2 silvers. My son and I considered it a "win" anytime he touched the 3rd wall before Daniel touched the 4th wall in a 100 and when he didn't get lapped in a 200.

From working in media for the past 30+ years, I can tell you the three most popular sports in the Olympics are swimming, gymnastics and track and field - nothing else is even close, not USA basketball or whatever your personal preference. But, understand even these sports are under roster pressure. The US swimming roster is capped this year at 26 men and 26 women. In the pool, there are 14 individual events for men and women, three relays for men and women and one mixed relay. In addition, there is a 10K open water race for both men and women. While the US can enter up to two swimmers per race, only the trials winner in each race automatically qualifies in each race, and runners up are reliant on super swimmers like Michael Phelps to win multiple events at trials so that they can go to the games. (Of note, my son has swam against one of the favorites in the 200 back this summer in MD; he is one those racers who, if he doesn't win the trials, will need to help to get to the games as he doesn't have a realistic chance to make the games in another race.) So, while the IOC wants more swimming events, they don't want any more athletes at the games - even for the most popular sports. I do believe you will see the IOC/World Aquatics add the 50 Breast, Fly and Back as well as additional relays (200 Free, 800 Medley, more mixed gender races) for future games. But, I won't be surprised if they continue to further limit the number of swimmers even the US can bring.

I believe the biggest issue is the number of athletes at the summer games. Target right now is ~10,500 and the IOC does not want the event to be any bigger athlete-wise. As the IOC seeks to add more sports, roster cuts will come from other sports. It is far more likely that the IOC will seek to cut more weight classes from wrestling than to add weight classes. Before anyone asks whether it would make sense to add more weight classes and reduce the entries per weight class, I would ask if anyone really wants to see an 8 or 12 man bracket. Qualification would be comically difficult. Wrestling is not the only sport that feels this pressure. I've previously mentioned that taekwondo is down to four weight classes (men's HWY is 80+ KGs). Even women's gymnastics has seen reduced competitors, with team competitions changed from "6 up, 5 count" to "3 up, 3 count" per appartus.

Don't feed the trolls.

https://lancasteronline.com/sports/local_sports/5-million-gift-will-fund-franklin-marshall-wrestling/article_7dbcf3a2-3d34-11e4-b8f2-0017a43b2370.html

In 2017, OU announced Lincoln Riley as Bob Stoops' replacement the day Stoops stepped down as head football coach. Maybe procedures are different now; maybe OU simply sidestepped the "interim" language. If Coleman is the man, I'm just surprised the messaging isn't well-coordinated. Not everyone gets this right. My hometown school (Syracuse) has the nation's premiere communications school and couldn't get its ducks in a row when Jim Boeheim retired as head basketball coach. https://www.newson6.com/story/5e349de8527dcf49dad838dc/lincoln-riley-releases-statement-on-taking-over-for-bob-stoops https://www.google.com/search?q=bob+stoops+retires&rlz=1C1GCEA_enUS1099US1099&oq=bob+stoops+retires&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOdIBCDM5OTJqMGo3qAIAsAIA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

Why the interim title for Coleman then? We all agree - this makes no sense.

Meanwhile, people are critical of Penn's transition process...

I mentioned this in my Twitter feed over the weekend... This seems to me like a good old-fashioned hometown call from the best and worst days of FILA. We saw many of these in the 90s when tie bouts would go to a referee's decision after nine minutes. That being said, I was stunned the referee initially awarded to the TD against Bayramov in the first place - if he waits a beat, then the officials could've more plausibly "confirmed" the no call after video review. Including this Chamizo-Baymarov match, Azerbaijan qualifying their remaining five FS weights at their home tourney should be best described as...unusually coincidental.

I wasn't a killer - that's why I was in his 2nd class, although I was also recruited by the other Ivies as well as Michigan (man, that was a fun visit), Syracuse and Rutgers, as well as other schools. Roger was hired at 26 after Penn tried to drop the program. By the time my class graduated (1993), we were getting votes in the Top 25. In 1996, Penn won the first of four straight EIWA team titles. Honestly, I'm not sure why I'm responding to you or Three Point Takedown - your responses have repeatedly demonstrated you have no freaking idea what you are talking about. Good day.

Whether streaming is included in those TV numbers "depends", but you can assume that most of the viewing to the finals matches are captured in Andrew Spey's chart.

There is a lot of conjecture in your last two posts that are completely unwarranted. Two points I will leave you with: 1) Penn does not have a roster cap. 2) Roger is a fantastic recruiter- trust me, I was in his 2nd recruiting class.

I do not want to trash Alex or the Tirapelles. I thought the hire was a good one at the time - Alex was a high academic achiever himself, had coaching experience at Stanford, and there was the possibility of opening up recruiting channels in CA. By any and every metric, Penn’s performance on the mat under Alex was poor. Team morale was terrible. And, I don’t think Alex ever embraced the ecosystem at Penn (BTS to PRTC). Regarding the alumni, the large and small donors (I am a longtime, but small, donor.) largely speak with one voice. There was no panic regarding Alex - everybody knew things were not working and a change had to be made. Recruiting and results improved immediately upon Roger’s return. We may not be where we quite want to be - Penn had Top 10 results at NCAAs in Roger’s first stint, and Cornell has since raised the bar for Ivy League wrestling expectations- but we hope for continued improvement under Matt.

Penn coaching timeline: - Reina steps down first time, Penn hires Zeke Jones as HC from WVU. - Zeke leaves in the middle of his 2nd season for Colorado Springs, Penn promotes Rob Eiter to head coach. - Rob - great guy, love him - doesn’t work out. Penn hired younger Tirapelle. - Younger Tirapelle REALLY doesn’t work out. Reina returns from athletic administration to right the ship. - And now, Valenti steps down from athletic administration to step in for Reina. i have a lot of thoughts about what’s going on at Penn, but for now I will just say I believe Matt is going to be a very good head coach for Penn.

Congrats to the Spartans on becoming the Wolverines' farm team. I sincerely hope this leads to some serious conversations in East Lansing about funding and NIL.

I thought the Brands Bros. had made that small change when they brought in Kemdog and the rest of the Key-Hawks. Those kids were different on and off the mat from who had been there before. Maybe the kids they will keep bringing in via the transfer portal will continue to evolve the Hawkeyes. Maybe, someday, they bring in someone from outside the family to help with coaching. But, the results this year and the recruitment of the Ferraris make me skeptical.

I think the Brands brothers are underachieving at Iowa - bringing in the Ford Focus to Iowa City was a sign of desperation. But, so long as Carver-Hawkeye sells out and Iowa wins 90 percent of their matches the Brands brothers will be fine for the foreseeable future. Beth Goetz has two much, much bigger fish to fry: 1) Figuring out the transition from Kirk Ferentz to whomever is next. Guessing that relationship is already frosty having made the HC fire his kid. 2) Figuring our the transition from their maniac Men's basketball coach (Fran McCaffery) to the next coach. That dude has had a sustained run of mediocrity, his son is transferring out, Iowa State's MBB program is in the Sweet 16, and those March Madness "points" pay a lot more to the school than success on the wrestling mat does.

Of course. Penn State transfer. He was vertically challenged.

The Penn wrestling team withdrew from school en masse in 2020-21 to preserve everyone's eligibility. (I would also hope avoiding paying $80K for a bogus year of all virtual classes was part of the motivation.) Practically all of the impacted wrestlers used up their eligibility this year, so you won't see anyone in the transfer portal like Neil Antrassian (wrestled his final season at UVA) was a couple seasons ago. Still surprised to see so many kids around the Ivy League made the decision to stay in school that year - many who were early in their academic careers and nowhere close to graduation - knowing full well they were going to "lose" the year.