John Huckaby
Imagine if Robert Montgomery Knight would have been a wrestling coach.
Think about the quotes we would have enjoyed.
Love him or hate him, there’s no doubt Knight, who resigned as head basketball coach at Texas Tech, filled many a reporter’s notebook with quotes that gave life to the sports page and to basketball.
Wrestling doesn’t have many of those quote machines. Heck, wrestling at times is happy to get any quote in the newspaper whether it’s coach speak or a legitimately interesting quote.
There are a couple of coaches today in the upper reaches of college wrestling who provide some enjoyable quotes.
Tom Brands, the coach at Iowa, is usually good for a good one.
Take this one, at an Iowa media day, “The challenge is the same every year. The battle is instate. The battle is the Big 10 Conference. The battle is national. The battle is planet Earth. And if they find life out there, then the battle will be universal.”
A little spacey perhaps but a good quote.
And about his superstitions, “Nothing that’s overboard, but you probably wouldn’t want to live in my head for a day. There’s a lot that goes through that coconut.”
Brands isn’t alone with some off-the-wall comments. State College’s own, Rob Koll, the coach at Cornell University, can dish it out with the best of them.
An article by Meredith Bennett- Smith in the Cornell Daily Sun, gives some great examples of Koll’s wit.
Jordan Leen, an All-American at Cornell, told Bennett- Smith that one of his favorite Koll stories is about assistant coach Tyler Baier. Koll, according to Leen, credited Baier’s strength to his childhood growing up in the country where he carried cows all around his family farm, according to Koll.
The next day Baier categorically disputed Koll’s claim, responding that he had in fact never carried a cow ” around a farm or otherwise ” in his entire life.
In another article in the Sun, profiling freshman Mack Lewnes, Koll said Lewnes was discovered during a trip meant to scout current junior Steve Anceravage.
“If it wasn’t for (Anceravage) getting whipped by Mack, then Mack might not be here today,” he said.
The next day at practice, Anceravage did not find that comment quite as funny as the rest of his team did, according to the Sun article.
It’s too bad most coaches still swear by coach speak. An off-the-wall comment here and there might help put a little more levity into the sport.
Mat results
Two days after beating Minnesota 20-13 in Minneapolis, Iowa’s wrestlers nearly left their No. 1 ranking in Madison, Wis. The Hawkeyes held on for a 22-20 victory.
Wisconsin came through with two significant upsets to nearly stun the Hawkeyes. At 141, Kyle Ruschell majored Dan Leclere 8-0 and at 285, Kyle Massey topped ranked heavyweight Matt Fields.
There were three interesting results in Oklahoma State’s 18-14 victory over Minnesota on Sunday. At 165, Tyler Safratowich registered a 5-1 overtime win over Jake Dieffenbach of the Cowboys. Later, Gabe Dretsch of the Gophers topped Brandon Mason 5-3. Then at 184, Jack Jensen of the Cowboys edged Roger Kish of the Gophers 5-3. Kish, a two-time AA and onetime national finalist, is 8-5 for the season. Some of his troubles are linked to injuries but it doesn’t look like the nation’s top recruit when he came out of Lapeer, Mich. won’t realize his potential.
Recent Results
Here are top recent dual results and the upcoming schedule: Rider 19, Drexel 14; Ohio State 35, Purdue 6; Indiana 23, Michigan State 9; West Virginia 30, Lock Haven 6; Maryland 22, Columbia 12; North Carolina 26, Drexel 12; Cornell 28, Hofstra 14; Oklahoma 31, Arizona Setate 9; Wisconsin 26, Michigan State 12; Bloomsburg 22, Clarion 15; Columbia 21, Bucknell 16; Michigan 22, Illinois 16.
The schedule
Friday: Lock Haven at Bucknell; Michigan at Penn State; Minnesota at Northwestern (Big Ten Network); Oregon State at Iowa State; Iowa at Arizona State; Oklahoma State at Oregon; Ohio State at Michigan State; Wisconsin at Illinois; Indiana at Purdue; Oklahoma at Missouri; UT-Chattanooga at The Citadel; Penn at Harvard; Hofstra at Lehigh; Saturday: Columbia and Wagner at Cornell; Edinboro at Cleveland State; UT-Chattanooga at Virginia Tech; Sunday: Minnesota at Purdue; Iowa at Boise State; Oklahoma State at UC Davis; Oklahoma at Nebraska; Michigan at Ohio State; Bloomsburg at Central Michigan; Illinois at Indiana; Iowa State at Arizona State; Oregon State at Missouri.
John Huckaby reports on college wrestling for the CDT.
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