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My son was a part of this team both this year & last year & it was a great experience for him! The cost was really not bad, $550 for both styles, compared to what they are paying for Fargo. As far as who was on the team, many of the names suggested did not wrestle at Freestyle & Greco State. My son was always taught that doing these styles would improve your Folkstyle wrestling. He placed 1st in Greco & 2nd (behind Konrath) in Freestyle at state. In hindsight, he probably would've been more competitive at a weight class lower, but he also had to bump up a weight class half of the matches because we didn't have a 132 pounder! Encourage these "hammers" to compete at the state level so we can have a better team, but don't complain when the kids who won top spots in our state competition didn't fair as well as you hoped. These kids put in the practice & competed at the state level, so they deserved to go.

Congratulations to Christian on his commitment to serve our country and attend the United States Military Academy at West Point! Not only has this kid put hours of diligence on the mat but has made leaps and bounds in the classroom. I'll never forget when a scrawny 106 pounder with an indifference to his GPA told me over the dinner table three years ago that he wanted to go to an Academy and wrestle. Knowing the rigors of that decision, I rolled my eyes but said "well let's go to work." Three years later, I stand corrected. Good things come to kids who work hard in the classroom. Congratulations to Christian and his family, and Go Army!

Tune in or set your DVR to American Ninja Warrior next Monday, July 3rd, at 8pm to watch former Floyd Central Wrestler Brad Spine compete. We don't know how he did but if you've seen any of his videos he probably fared okay.

Back in the Blue Room tonight! Looking to be the best room yet, and Chad has been banned from dubstep for two weeks! 6:45-8:15

I have been around for a while. I have also coached and been a team leader for national team duals. This is how I see it. Most of our studs continue to wrestle folk style well past our state tournament. They do little to no freestyle or Greco practices or meets leading up to our freestyle and Greco state tournaments. Most of our studs win because they are just better all around athletes and better wrestlers (all styles). Once they make the team they do little to no freestyle and Greco until they get to camp. That brings us to that..... camp! I do think that it is very important, but the timing (especially for the schoolboys) is not good. These kids do this camp for a few days, spend one night at home and spend the next four days wrestling the best kids in America. Come the last day of competition... they are done. And the add in the fact that alternates are not allowed... this makes it hard. Most of the top teams bring extras to keep their studs fresh for when it counts. No way states like Utah should be consistently be killing us. They wrestle these styles more, and prepare better than us. Here are my suggestions.... Continue a 1 day team camp if need be (to organize and hand out gear). Make it a couple days prior to the trip. That way the kids can prepare themselves mentally at the best place possible... their own bed. As soon as folk style state is over... do state team RTCs (one in each iswa section). These will be for those who plan on making a team or wrestling these styles at the national levels. These can take place once a week until state and twice a week after state (once teams are determined). This will also help fill teams and build depth (for alternates). Mandate these workouts to be two hours. One full hour of freestyle and one hour of Greco. Oh yeah.... two state team RTCs would count as one qualifier. Make it mandatory for team members. Weekend tournaments are great, but you can learn soooo much more in a good RTC. As a part of the national team, you should be mandated to attend central regionals if you do not have seeding points. Our seeding is killing us. Look into corporate sponsership or fund raising to help with cost. Just my thoughts. And yes..... I would be willing to help. I'm not the type to complain or suggest stuff, and not help fix stuff.

The best recruiter for the wrestlers are the other wrestlers. These guys know each others twitter, instagram and sometimes even phone number. They keep up each other and talk to each other all the time. If they start selling each other on the idea of a tough team that can compete then we will have one that can compete. If they feel the cause is worth of the effort then I'm sure they will train more to adapt to Freestyle and find a way financially to go. However right now the drive is just not there for many of our solid wrestlers to justify that type of summer effort or financial commitment. Currently they don't know much of a team will actually show and are not sure if they want to commit the effort and fund raising to be there. The state is just recovering from a dismal decade of writing off The Olympic styles all together which isn't helping either since many of our top guys have done very little wrestling in the spring over the last several years. 7-10 matches against top national talent shouldn't be to hard to sell especially if these guys know they are going to be on a good team. I'm sure some big name coaches calling guys early in the process and talking it up would help but getting their peers to take a leadership roll will be the best selling point. I remember hearing an interview with the Oklahoma guys a year or two ago where they said the wrestlers selling the idea of buildings a mega team team to each other was one of the reasons they were able to get so many top guys to commit and also hold each kther accountable to improving their Freestyle ability.

Blake mulkey doesnt wrestle a lot of freestyle (hardly any) he would do well. Good Wrestlers are Good Wrestlers would he go undefeated and win a Fargo title probably not but he would win 75% of his matches

A lot of it comes down to the core things people have an issue with. Cost being the main one. I think we could do a better job of promoting the actual team. I know we got a list of the selected jrs but I don't think we ever got a solid look at the actual team we sent until they were there and put in. I have actually came around to Freestyle in the last couple of years but I think we need to do whatever we can to make it easier for our HAMMERS the Lees, (Brayton, Joe, and Nick), Mason etc to wrestle this was a possible line up 100: Tolin 106: Morin 113: Vidaya, Watts, Curtis 120 Rooks, Triana, Poynter 126 Either Rooks Brother 132 Mulkey or Rooks 138 Nick Lee 145 Sellmer or MacinTosh 152 B Lee 160 J Lee 170 Webster 182 Lucas Davison , Dull 195 A Davioson, L Davison 220 Parris, Pokorney 285 Pokorney , Parris Thats a real solid line up. And Id be curious to hear why some of these studs didnt go (even though its 100% a personal decision.) As for the cost aspect there needs to be some compromises some of these parents spend thousands a year and need any help they can get to make it financially feasible. for example a cheaper price if the wrestler foregoes the camp and gets their own travel/board no need they should have to pay 1100 bucks for that. (The argument of its always been that way is null and void). Im venting a little but its disappointing to see the state of our duals team. I also want to say this isnt a "shot" at anyone or even the ISWA This is an offer of an olive branch at least from me to try and figure out what we can do to improve our kids chances in the international styles. I really became enamored with it watching my boy B Lee take the world by Storm at the Jr. Trials

Room will be jumping tonight! 6:45-8:15. We've had a great group of talent with the college guys around for the summer, and Chad is sure to have his dubstep (aka, video game music) blaring!

I had Schoeff's on there. He has been doing great things, which is why he is the only 6th grader on the list. Brady was killing it this year, sucks that he got hurt because I think he could have won a freestyle national title this month. I am going to make one more update at the end of this month and then start a new one with all the soon to be freshman off the list. @Using