dragit

https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/39337111/miami-te-cam-mccormick-granted-ninth-year-eligibility Our 6th and 7th year guys are pikers, apparently.

Nice. Props to Tim Johnson, who I oft criticize, for that classic call.

Dake was too expensive so they hired AJ?

All worthy candidates but I vote Snyder for dropping his redshirt to beat a guy on an 80+ match winning streak who was 50 pounds heavier in a classic overtime match at Madison Square Garden to cap off a night of great matches.

There were dozens of gems, thanks to all who posted there; and it's so subjective, but for pure farcical value, I was partial to the very first post: How much money is Cael offering you to take over for Aaron Brooks?

It seems to me that the fact that people are talking about the possibility that this student athlete might find a team to wrestle for in NAIA illustrates why continuing discussion of the issue (on a wrestling board) is not gratuitous. Not only would allowing him to injure another victim be immoral, one would think it would also expose the new university to substantial liability.

Agree. Particularly because he comes across as an intelligent guy in his interviews, which makes his directing of this s#%$@ show so surprising and tragic.

The dad appears to have substantial sway. Does he honestly not understand that the behavior is unacceptable for student athletes, or does he facilitate this because he thinks that the notoriety derived from lawless and/or classless behavior will be ultimately financially rewarding through WWE, UFC, internet sales, etc.?

Snark alert. Absent Aaron Brooks getting run over by a bus (or someone hitting his car doing 100 mph in the wrong lane) AJ isn't going to be a 4 timer even if Northern Colorado gives him a singlet this yeat.

Speaking of mothers, it needs to be emphasized again, how amazing and how great for the sport is Mrs. Lilliard? If you've read her posts that Mineo posted by screenshot, they are starkly honest, direct, dignified, and forceful -- and with zero malice toward the wrestler who injured her son. Although the subsequent events have been opaque, it appears that her decency and determination are the only things that have finally put a stop to this dangerous conduct.

Agree. They and she don't seem to be providing further information, so while it's possible that the school finally took action on its own, based on past performance, my guess is that the coach, although pissed, hadn't kicked him off, and the athletic department continued to slumber, then her complaint comes in, it triggers some sort of a reporting protocol, which leads to someone with a working cranium and/or someone with an active bar card finally being looped in (at least a year late), which leads to a quick realization that the mom's son has a very strong claim against the university (complete with videotape!), which leads to a quick dismissal of the athlete from the team, and the beginning of settlement discussions, which leads to both sides not commenting further publicly.

Nicely put. The focus here should be on the university. Putting him on the mat again was indefensible and actionable. As WKN said, hopefully the student will graduate from college and have a good future without wrestling. Any school who would put him on a mat after last year's atrocities is fully responsible for its reckless conduct. Any plaudits Nickerson might deserve for Alirez are more than wiped out by this disgrace.

This was one of my posts from a year ago, for which I was pilloried. The word in question IIRC was "irredeemable." That this would happen again was a 100% sure thing. Only surprise is that it took this long. The coach and athletic director are responsible for the injuries caused by their wrestler. They, not him, are ultimately at fault. He clearly can't help himself from doing this when he wrestles. I don't know why and I don't care. For all I know he may be a good guy and a solid and productive citizen off the mat. It's quite possible he honestly doesn't understand that what he does is at all problematic. But it doesn't matter, and the problem hasn't been with him since the second incident; its the university's decision to continue to put him on the mat which is wholly indefensible.

Correct. His argument doesn’t really make any sense under the circumstances (incredibly close call based on reaction time that wins the match against number one ranked guy if reversed). And his sub-argument about the lung break was exactly wrong based on others' immediate and firm reaction. Burroughs very clearly and forcefully said that they should challenge because Echemendia was gassed from the flurry, and Woods obviously saw it too because he shot on the whistle when OT started. Combine this with the brain fart at 174 (I can't picture Tom Brands not knowing the score and the riding time of a match in the final seconds, nor do I think he would have failed to challenge at 141 if the roles were reversed) and Coach Orange had a very bad day. He said in his press conference that everything had gone against them, but they were the ones who screwed up, whereas Iowa lost two AAs and a seasoned starter to the vagaries of the NCAA, made a canny move at 174/184, and got the job done on a day that many thought a torch would be passed.

Wow!! So cool. The same thing happened to me, I was out on a date with Gisele Bundchen at the time and it was so embarrassing.

Kyven Gadson got to the top of Mt. Everest first. Griffith is actually the best. Just a smart, thoughtful guy.

If he does move somewhere, I'd recommend he ship his stuff, not bring a car, and do wind sprints to wherever he's going.

The cheers for him during his two AAs were really neat, particularly after his last match his last year. The genuineness of his efforts through his titanic struggles was profound.

OP is dead on. Wow. Just wow. He played with his food for a few minutes. And by "his food," I mean the Hodge Trophy winner who dominated a good field last month. It would be so great for USA wrestling and fans if Steveson could get the $ he wants and keep his interest in wrestling. We have all kinds of threads here about GOATs. If he wrestled every year and had his heart in it --

100% agree that Ramos was at least as big a story as Lee, particularly in context, given the first match they had and then the way he finished the job this time -- and that the broadcast should have done more with that angle, including his parents if they were known to be in camera range. And I'd personally prefer that they show zero or at least way less of the family reactions, in this and other sports. It's absolutely brutal in tennis -- they show these guys' model girlfriends like they are playing the match or something. But given the way that sports is covered today, I thought that was well within bounds. The reality is that they are in the visual business and that was a powerful visual, and the families know they're on camera in a public place. That all being said, though, Mr. Lee's emotion, particularly at the end of the interview, has got to make you feel for these loving parents.

Mr. Lee comes off as a very good guy and a wonderfully devoted father. I was genuinely moved by his authentic emotion at the end of the interview, just wanting his son to be healthy. But there is still this weird disconnect they have in terms of not simply stating a specific reason for why someone who just won three matches won't take the mat to try to make a world team. He went out of his way to give a lengthy interview very quickly, but in 19 minutes he really doesn't give the most basic information that anyone would expect in such an interview. He basically just says that Spencer isn't right physically, and that because of that he didn't wrestle back in Tulsa and is withdrawing from the Open. He at one point said that 10 months after double ACL surgery is tough. But he never says in anything resembling a declarative sentence, unless I missed it, what the physical reason is for his withdrawal. Is it knee pain? Is it general problems with his legs not being strong enough? Is it general exhaustion because he can't wrestle a lot because he has to go easy on his knees 10 months after ACL surgery (which they apparently waited for many months to have after he redshirted last year)? There isn't any reason not to start the interview by just stating what the specific reason is. Again, he went out of his way to give the interview. And he can't compete for the world team this year, so there isn't any competitive disadvantage to saying, My knee hurts (and it's not like no one knows he's got bad knees anyway). As people have noted, this is what is expected of big time, famous athletes who have a following and are the subject of substantial media attention. In any other sport, the athlete or someone speaking on their behalf would say, It's knee pain, or it's general fatigue and soreness from coming back from surgery, or whatever. When he wrestled this, his first tournament as a professional, the announcers noted that he had signed two contracts for money. One is an endorsement deal for a product predicated on the idea that he is of substantial interest to people who watch the sport and buy shoes. He is a well known professional athlete and the reason a lot of people were interested in this tournament. He blitzed two guys and was a point from blitzing a third and then went off a cliff. The average viewer is not an asshole for wanting to know why. If you immediately give an interview to try to address public interest, just say what the issue is. I don't think that they are bad people or cowards or CIA secret keepers. I just think they literally don't understand, or want to accept, the basics of sports media and information sharing. Another, lesser, example of that was Mr. Lee opining that ESPN shouldn't have shown the clip of Mrs. Lee breaking her glasses. While I know that this was a difficult moment for the family and I'm sure they would have preferred that people not have used the clip in some of the ways it was used afterwards, it's just not realistic to think that ESPN, in a prime time broadcast, is not going to use a clip like that after the biggest upset in the sport in 50 years. While I absolutely deplore what he says was said to the family in the arena, at the hotel, etc., and while I'd personally prefer that ESPN show zero family shots, happy or sad, ever, that clip was well within the bounds of basic live sports coverage. And that's coverage that on the whole has been very, very good to that athlete and his family. I'll stop now and fervently hope that Spencer can be healthy enough to take his best shot at the Olympic team next year. Mr. Lee's pain was palpable and, although it's not as personal for non-family members, there are tons of fans who find it very sad that the guy who blitzed the field in first 2.5 matches keeps being betrayed by his body.

Penn State's coaches seem to be able to get great development out of a variety of different personalities and styles of wrestlers from each other and from the coaches. Something that just struck me is that the one real substantial example in recent years of an Iowa wrestler developing and posting a big NCAA result well over his recruiting ranking has the same last name as the coaches. Make what you will of that.

Wait. So are you saying that this thread, including the original post saying that OU and its administrators "have now landed Bill Zadick," has zero factual basis; and your purpose in starting it was to somehow get OU to want to hire Zadick and Zadick to want the job?

True - that's a bad sign. I made that transition in the last few years, too, and I would guess that others have as well.

I'll offer a theory out of left field that they saw baseball, the National Pastime, realize it had to make fundamental changes, which are working, and took that as a message for a sport with similar problems in terms of an aging fan base.