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I mean I wasn’t studying them, but he did look smaller to me in the Iowa photos than others he’s posted in the past few months

This you, @ILLINIWrestlingBlog? good watch

Yup. The other guy (uncle I presume?) in particular’s t-shirt is definitely cringe. I also got a kick out of “bag secured”

AJ is not on a roster.

He does not yet appear to be enrolled. But I don’t see why he would have just cut 20 lbs or so if he wasn’t expecting to wrestle this season

Which of Gomez and Cassioppi is an NCAA champ?

I don’t think they did. Gomez isn’t suspended. You bring some good discussion, but your trolling (and obsession with calling out whenever someone says Stevenson) gets annoying.

Iowa’s linebackers coach confirmed he’s not expected to wrestle this season

Outside of the obvious, he’s been on the roster and not starting. Gomez was just added.

How many of the kids were there on the boys and girls clubs scholarships, and how good were they?

He’s on the roster https://mgoblue.com/sports/wrestling/roster

Don’t they need to have an Italian grandparent or something to be eligible?

You’re grandstanding

Yes this was brought up earlier, I’m just skeptical wrestling teams are getting much of that scholarship money

Correct but haven’t football and basketball also been majority minority for awhile? I have no idea, are a high % of the players on private school football and basketball teams on scholarships and how does that compare to the % of wrestlers on scholarships on private school teams?

Not necessarily but I’d say odds are yes Edited: maybe not “wealthy” depending on your definition, but at least upper middle class

I do care what you think, but if you’re not interested in sharing your thoughts with the entire board after making declarations that certain actions are racist, no I don’t care to ask you privately

Agree, however it does seem that wrestling, particularly at the elite level, is becoming more and more of a "wealthy" sport. For example last year 3 of the 10 national champs (including one black one) were products of private high schools. This could be yet another barrier to minorities achieving success.

So are we expecting to see AJ wrestling at Soldier Salute?

No idea how to prove this either way but I’d lean worse. Maybe mostly because there are probably less black wrestlers as a % of participants than other sports.

I love that this discussion was happening on Christmas lol

I thought it was interesting Nickal said he hasn’t even been hit yet in an actual fight, so it will be good to see him actually be able to take a punch.

I just listened to the podcast. Did he talk about religion at all?

Why is it a problem? I don’t believe God/Jesus helps with athletic preparation, but as long as public university coaches aren’t preaching it to their athletes (which I don’t know if is happening) and athletes aren’t putting down other religions in NCAA finals interviews (which unfortunately has happened), who cares? Most of the guys that can’t stop taking about religion are some of the best, so whatever helps them, cool. They also tend to be high character individuals…Ferrari of course an exception to that.