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another Indiana high school elite wrestler flees the state


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Bomber, sounds pretty cut and dry with the Indiana University program. Clean house. I hope Fred Glass the IU AD, does his home work for this job. The last thing Indiana needs is a new coach that only lasts a year or two, then move on to greener pastures. We, wrestling fans, in Indiana know what wrestling could be like, here in these state D1 schools, with a good hire.

 

How do you see Purdue? How long has the present coach staff been there? Personally I think their talent level is on average similar to Indiana D2 at best.

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I wouldn't clean house necessarily as I would promote Simmons. The guy has a proven track record. He's significantly improved the technique as a whole, especially on top. He has also drastically improved the recruiting classes which seems to always fall on the assistants for some reason(Mena, Dubuque). Goldman will probably leave when his son graduates anyway so "on the fence" IU fans are just biding their time.

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What proven track record does he have as a coach?  Great wrestler, but what has he done as a assistant.  This is his second year at IU, what of his wrestlers wrestled up above their seat rankings

The guy is a proven winner, period. Give him a little more than two years as an assistant to translate that to the program. As director of wrestling operations at Oregon State he was instrumental in some of their greatest success in program history including, two Pac-12 titles(one was a now defunct Pac-10 championship) and a top 10 finish at the NCAA's, all of which was just in the 3 years he was there. You will never be able to convince me that Taylor Walsh would have led the nation in falls if it weren't for Simmons tutelage. As for recruiting, I doubt Jacob Danishek(4x OH State Champ) and Cole Weaver(3x MI State Champ) are going there for Goldman.

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I agree he is a great wrestler, but laying the success of Oregon State at his feet is just not right.  The have Zalesky for nine years, Associate Head Coach Steiner for eight years, Assit coach Rogers for seven years, Pascoe for five years and back for another two.

 

 

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Like I said I am sure he is a great competitor but lets take some time to see if that translates into a good coach.  If we take a look at those OSU teams, can we correlate wins/losses for their 125,133,141,149 light weights and the same at IU.

 

He may turn out to be a great coach, but only time will tell.

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Like I said I am sure he is a great competitor but lets take some time to see if that translates into a good coach.  If we take a look at those OSU teams, can we correlate wins/losses for their 125,133,141,149 light weights and the same at IU.

 

He may turn out to be a great coach, but only time will tell.

Not until the recruiting classes he plays a big part in start to matriculate.  That is all I'm saying is give him some time once Goldman is out of the way.  I agree that something needs to change, I just think he is the biggest positive they have and hopefully he can steer them in the right direction.

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When Simmons was at Oregon State he was training pretty much full time and not even on the staff as a "coach."

He was still in the room working with the wrestlers, while also coordinating events and home duals. Now we're just splitting hairs, though.  My point was that he played a role in development and seems to win at whatever he does.  Every guy needs time to translate that.  Just out of curiosity, and this could be an entirely new thread, who are some guys that would be a good fit at IU or Purdue?

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He was still in the room working with the wrestlers, while also coordinating events and home duals. Now we're just splitting hairs, though.  My point was that he played a role in development and seems to win at whatever he does.  Every guy needs time to translate that.  Just out of curiosity, and this could be an entirely new thread, who are some guys that would be a good fit at IU or Purdue?

I'll take

Mark Perry

Donny Pritzlaff

Terry Brands

Lou Rosselli

Brandon Eggum

Bryan Snyder

Eric Guerrero

Damian Hahn

 

I am sure any one of these guys would like to have a head coaching gig in the B1G

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I'll take

Mark Perry

Donny Pritzlaff

Terry Brands

Lou Rosselli

Brandon Eggum

Bryan Snyder

Eric Guerrero

Damian Hahn

 

I am sure any one of these guys would like to have a head coaching gig in the B1G

 

I'd say that sounds like a nice list of applicants if they would even consider the job based on the state of the program and AD support, or lack thereof.  Unfortunately many times it is frowned on by the conference to go from one Big 10 school to another to take over as head coach (coach to coach or assistant to coach), so that list may get a little shorter unless the AD really want to ruffle some feathers within the conference.

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Matt, That may be the protocol, for major sports in the BIG, but not for minor sports. Fred Glass will cull out the right guy for Indiana. In conference or out. You can bank on it. And now is the right time to get the ball rolling at Indiana, the university does not need another lost year.

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MattM, Grenadier2012

 

You seem to give him a lot of credit for building osu.  Yet he was not involved in recruiting or year round work in the room.

 

Yet at IU he has been here two years and in the room with them, please tell me who he coached up or developed.  His recruits or not , did the light weights improve in an aspect of their game, neutral, top or bottom.  It is easy  to jump on the Walsh Or Adam bandwagon, but did IU light weights improve.  Most assistants move on by developing their wrestlers.

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It is easy to jump on the Walsh bandwagon because he has more pins this season than his first two years combined.  I guarantee he has something to do with that; you'd have to be a dunce not to see the correlation.  Did you ever watch Simmons wrestle?  They look pretty similar from top. Also, who on IU's starting roster through the first four weights would he have had the opportunity to develop to be successful at the Big10 level? Roach and Duca maybe, but both of them were there well before him. Raley would have done big things had he made the grades(so the rumor goes, don't know how accurate that is). Give him time to develop his own recruits. Even Donny Pritzlaff had to have a couple years to develop his own recruits and really solidify the middle weights at Wisconsin, but he also had the luxury of coaching under a tremendous head coach.

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MattM, Grenadier2012

 

You seem to give him a lot of credit for building osu.  Yet he was not involved in recruiting or year round work in the room

 

Not sure how I got thrown in on this one.  The only part of the post I commented on was Y2's wish list of applicants.  I'll add something if I feel its worth pointing out , but so far I've been out of the Simmons assistant discussion.

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It is easy to jump on the Walsh bandwagon because he has more pins this season than his first two years combined.  I guarantee he has something to do with that; you'd have to be a dunce not to see the correlation.  Did you ever watch Simmons wrestle?  They look pretty similar from top. Also, who on IU's starting roster through the first four weights would he have had the opportunity to develop to be successful at the Big10 level? Roach and Duca maybe, but both of them were there well before him. Raley would have done big things had he made the grades(so the rumor goes, don't know how accurate that is). Give him time to develop his own recruits. Even Donny Pritzlaff had to have a couple years to develop his own recruits and really solidify the middle weights at Wisconsin, but he also had the luxury of coaching under a tremendous head coach.

Not to take anything away from Simmons,

you make some good points about him, in reality just about any one that comes in to the IU situation, as an assistant, is going to look like there is an improvement, in contrast to what Duane has been doing lately.

The Herald-Times Bloomington newspaper did an interview that included Taylor Walsh, his dad and coach Goldman, you need to read. Its archived at about the time Taylor was at about 17or 18 pins in the season. To summarize the article, he and his dad said that he went back to his high school ways of wrestling, doing things his college coaches were telling him not to do. And then right out of Duane Goldmans mouth in quotes, he says, Taylor does everything we tell him not to do. I kid you not.

 

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The Herald-Times Bloomington newspaper did an interview that included Taylor Walsh, his dad and coach Goldman, you need to read. Its archived at about the time Taylor was at about 17or 18 pins in the season. To summarize the article, he and his dad said that he went back to his high school ways of wrestling, doing things his college coaches were telling him not to do. And then right out of Duane Goldmans mouth in quotes, he says, Taylor does everything we tell him not to do. I kid you not.

 

However, you somewhat also have to take the article from a few points of view too.  Walsh felt the coaches were limiting his style too much and it was costing him opportunities to gain bonus points and have more fun in matches.  From his point of view that wasn't working for him in terms of enjoying the sport or winning matches he felt he should have won.  However, as a coach you are trying to get all or at least the majority of your your wrestlers to fall into a specific system you have developed.  Anyone not wrestling that way could be doing "everything we tell him not to do."  That doesn't necessarily mean he is doing it all wrong it's just a completely different style how you want the team to approach matches.  The more open/scramble around/wreckless/throw caution to the wind style of wrestling that Walsh was doing to get all sorts of pins and made matches exciting to watch but its not exactly what most college coaches would be promoting as "the way to do things, in order to win matches."  Sure it was works for Walsh but I'm sure it was also nerve racking as well for the coaches who know that style can also lead to disaster.  I have plenty of moves I can do in wrestling matches, but for the most part I am not going to be showing the majority of them  or promoting most of my wrestlers trying them because I know that in most cases it could lead to them getting in bad situation when they didn't have to be.  I see a similar type of logic in this matter.  The IU staff may not exactly be happy about the risks Walsh is taking on the mat, but after awhile they probably decided that as long as it continues to work they will deal with it, and if it starts not working then they will be their to point out they were right and take the reigns back.  I'd say that may not be too different of a situation than what many coaches would do when they have a wrestlers that is such an outlier in style.  For the most part that is how I took most of the article. I'm just not sure some of that was translated into the article well.    While Walsh may not be a glaring promoter of the IU system, I don't think the comments were completely meant to trash the IU staff, nor was it Goldman basically saying Walsh is being completely insubordination.  That's how I took the article.  I would also guess with the addition of Simmons this year their may have been at least little more openness towards Walsh trying some of this stuff that wasn't their before.

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Taking what was quoted and what they may have meant, aside, what was glaringly evident,  and ironic, in the article is that neither Taylor nor his dad had any praise for the coaches or system, that is in place at Indiana.  So I do agree no one was trashing anyone in the article, just not the love fest that usually comes from coaches and wrestlers in a situation like this.

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Taking what was quoted and what they may have meant, aside, what was glaringly evident,  and ironic, in the article is that neither Taylor nor his dad had any praise for the coaches or system, that is in place at Indiana.  So I do agree no one was trashing anyone in the article, just not the love fest that usually comes from coaches and wrestlers in a situation like this.

 

I would question:

 

Why would IU pursue someone who has that style of wrestling if the coaching staff wasn't a great fan of it in college matches.  It is the same style Walsh has wrestled and won against top national talent while in high school, so it would seem likely he felt it was why he was winning and would want to continue that style in college too.  If that style didn't fit into the IU system, it wouldn't seem beneficial for them to make his recruitment a high priority.  Debouque wasn't that open in his style of wrestling either, so if he was indeed at hte center of Walsh's recruitment, those involved should have known Walsh's style would have clashed with the overall match strategy. 

 

As well, why did Walsh end up committing to IU if he wasn't comfortable conforming to the IU wrestling system.  Even if the coach said sure we are going to let you be you, I would think he could look into the situation more to find out what status quo usually is there. By watching IU wresters in general over the last few years, talking to wrestlers during recruitment, and getting in touch with some alumni it would see you could get a decent feel for what match philosophy IU's coaches expect from their wrestlers. Then rationalize if that will work with your way of wrestling or not.  I know people want to be part of a DI Big 10 program, but they also want to feel they belong to a program that will allow your particular style to grow rather than be suppressed. 

 

Either way from the article it doesn't sound like a great fit for either side if the view of how each side approaches a match is so drastically different.

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Also,it kind of goes along with how erratic "Indiana" style has been the last few years. What really is their style? When a coach has been coaching as long as Duane has, this shouldn't even be a question. Thus, a ship with no rudder. A BIG scholarship is real tempting for any wrestler in high school. If a coach goes after you, as a wrestler, as limited as schlorships are, you would think the coach sees you fitting into his style. I can put the blame 80% coach 20% athlete in these situations. All be it, this may explain some of the  disinterest by state wrestlers, in the IU program.

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Disco, I hope you are right and Glass does his homework on this.  Can't speak much for all in state talent but do know they have brought in some multiple state champs from NY, NJ , Ca and others who have left.

 

People talk about Duane and or if there is a style.  IU needs to step back and really look deep, one coach leaves for Prin., one leaves at start of season for Brown and the current is all about Estrangler (how many times did he compete in season this year, publicly noted at least twice)

 

You can not build a program without stability

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