Ed Pendoski

So true! It is a slippery slope to answer questions about academy results. In our opinion, Chertow is the greatest at promoting what he does...and anyone that has drove past a Chertow camp and won a big tourney, gets their name in the flyer as Chertow trained! ha! In the couple academies that we've been associated with, we have had kids that trained with us A LOT and others that would just come and get some extra workouts in and for the most part, we had a good relationship with a kids and their 'home school' coaches. Our philosophy has always been to help a wrestler to the best of our ability, but within the parameters of what his coach wants first and his parents want second. (it can get really difficult when a hs coach and parent disagree!)

This was a tough decision for the ISWA to make and you don't have to be a major player in the Indiana Wrestling scene to know that there would be 'pushback' from the member clubs of the organization for mandating local freestyle tourneys to qualify for freestyle state. I've been involved with the ISWA for a while now and there have been decisions made by our organization that I thought were outstanding and some that I thought sucked eggs (please don't make me list them publicly! ha!). Truth be told, the ISWA is a large and very mature wrestling organization. I always love coming back from an out of state USA Wrestling tourney. If you go to Central Regionals when it's held in MI, you'll appreciate how well our organization works. The qualifiying process of two local tourneys to qualify for freestyle state was established to help grow freestyle opportunities. I'm under the impression that a couple local clubs in different areas of the state are in the process of getting a freestyle tourney. That's exactly what the ISWA was hoping would happen. The question of whether this was a good idea or not is still left to be decided. I know in last weekends meeting I specifically brought up the question of whether this qualifying process is going to be evaluated and up for discussion in the future and it will be. It might turn out to be something that was awesome and this is an outstanding decision made....or it could be awful and hurt the growth of freestyle opportunities. Either way, our organization will make adjustments. I sat through all the meetings in the past as freestyle season was shortened because more and more people wanted folkstyle tournaments and our organization acted accordingly. Now our organization is trying to find a way to encourage freestyle opportunities. My reason for this post is to hopefully rally the troops to look at the ISWA as 'OUR' organization. There have been decisions that have been made in the past that have totally pissed me off (again, please don't make me post this list either! ha!). Other decisions I thought have been great. I do feel that while our organization is far from perfect, is the best in the country. The worst thing we can do is "pick up my ball and go somewhere else". I believe that the worst thing could happen to Indiana wrestling is if we had a pocket of Indiana that is AAU another pocket of Indiana that is USA Wrestling and another pocket that is MYWAY. I am far passionate about all the things USA Wrestling does and it's effects on ISWA, but it's OUR organization and I feel that it is best for all of Indiana Wrestling if we act together. If you don't like what happens in the ISWA, then contact the office. You can send an email to your section rep and they can present it at the meeting if you cannot attend. I think the webcast idea is awesome and I'd bet that the board would make that happen if there truly was an interest in that. More importantly my hope is that we look at our organization as OURS and everyone does as much as they can to continue making it the best in the country.

Really?

There is a background story to the Vega vs Ramos matches too...but I won't make them public! The Hesseltine vs Neagle matches were always a blast too. Our staff could never relax because Neagle would rip you head off if he headlocked you. I remember sitting matside coaching Hesseltine at the state tournament knowing the Neagle had the EMD guy. We heard the crowd erupt as Tharp says, "hmmmm, sounds like a Neagle headlock. We've been there"

Bradbury vs Ramos was always fun. Bradbury wrestled Ramos 13 times between his junior and senior year with the last one being in the state finals match. Bradbury lost all 13 matches, but I believe that he was winning of those in the 3rd period. We thought for sure that karma was on his side the 13th time, but Ramos did a great job finishing a match.....again.

We're pretty excited about our tourneys this weekend in Carmel. On Satuday we expect close to 200 Carmel kids wrestling in the fieldhouse at the same time: Carmel Varsity Triple Dual Carmel Freshman Invite All 3 of our middle schools and SMG (private school in Hamilton County) triple dual. On Sunday CUSAWC is hosting the Dan Nelson CUSAWC Folkstyle tourney and the numbers are growing for that.

I believe that Portage was in this tourney in the late 80s. In 94 they went to Kokomo Invite, then started going to N. Mont in 95. I still am not happy with JD Minch for making me coach on New Years Eve when I was in my 20s!

CUSAWC has spots left in our Sports Nutrition Seminar on Sunday at CHS at 4:00. http://carmelusawrestling.org/pdfs/Carmel_Wrestling_Nutrition_Flyer_2014.pdf Please contact us if you would like a spot in the room. Lindsay is an expert on sports nutrition and very wrestling friendly. She also has great tips on how to pack/prepare meals for a day! Ed Pendosk ependosk@ccs.k12.in.us

Dual meets for the elementary guys is an awesome experience and has done wonders for programs I've been involved with...but it has also been nightmarish at times. I think the issue with dual leagues is that you have to start putting rules in place. After you set the rules, then you have to trust that people follow the integrity of the rules. Jim Watkins is the head coach at Calumet High School and has always been a mentor of mine. I've repeated his phrase often, "It's always right to do the right thing. It's not always easy to do the right thing....but it's always right" For example, as we look at the history of elementary dual tourneys in Indiana, there's been situations where Team A might have not have had enough kids in their club to compete, so they picked up a couple local kids from surrounding schools to help complete their lineups. Then Team B would do the same, but would pick up a couple kids to 'complete their lineup' that accidentally were multiple time state champions. Now here's the tough part....how do you set the rules or guidelines for these situations? If Team A is a couple kids short of filling a lineup and the kids on Team A have a couple friends in neighbor schools that don't have a dual team, I think it's great that they're growing the sport by including others to fill their team. If Team B has enough kids (or even if they don't!) and they go searching for elementary killers so they can pound other local teams, then I think that shows a lack of integrity. There are many examples of things like this when dealing with elementary wrestling. One person says in this thread, "What do you do with 6th graders and 3rd graders that weigh 80?" I've been lucky enough to run some rooms that have had some tough hombres in them. Kyle Ayresman, Stevan Micic, Sean McMurray, Jason Tsitrsis, Eric Roach, Mitch Sliga, Cody LeCount could all wrestle the guy 3 yrs older than them, or 20 lbs bigger when they were in elementary school. In fact, it was probably better for them if they did to that. (I think there's 19 IHSAA State Championships in that group of elementary guys!). That doesn't mean everyone is supposed to wrestle older bigger. Carmel USA ran a freestyle duals tourney last spring. I was asked by all 5 teams that entered the tourney, "do we have to have a team made up of only kids from our schools?". My answer was, "we're trying to put a competition together so kids can wrestle freestyle in a dual format. If you come with an all star team of killers, you will murder every team there. You'll get a $2 medal and I will publicly taunt you in front of many people." (ha!) We intentionally reached out to schools that we know have integrity and it was an amazing event. CUSAWC is currently in their third year of our Youth Wrestling League. We split all of the kids into 4 teams (we have about 80 this year). We have practices on Mon/Wed and in November, we have 'competitions' on Monday nights. There are no weigh ins and zero parent coaches. On days of competition we have coaches match kids up from both teams so there is as quality of wrestling as we can try to get. Our goal of YWL is to provide a place for all elementary guys to learn about the sport, improve they physical skills, and have a great time. We have put together an elementary team from guys in our YWL. We are hosting small triple dual elementary meets once a month. I believe that they are full for Nov/Dec. Ed Pendoski CUSAWC Coach ISWA Kids Director

The wrestling program at Carmel is starting to have a presence on the American Football field. Harley Frey, Simon Pachciarz, and Deshawn "Tank" Williams all rotate on offensive line. Sam Hipple (LB) and Andrew Verhultz (DL) spend a lot of time on the field on defense. Nick Fox is special team extraordinaire. Greyhounds are undefeated this season and ranked #1 in 6a and I believe #22 in the nation. The Warren game this Friday might change some things in those rankings though. Nothing better than having the OL coach come to us and say he's pissed about the 2 offensive lineman that only made it a week in our room last winter, because their footwork stinks! ha!

Carmel USA WC is excited to have St. Vincent's Sports Performance Nutritionist come talk to us on Oct. 26th from 4:00-5:00 at Carmel High School. Lindsay Langford has great tips for wrestlers and their nutrition. She has wonderful insight on both what to consume, and how to prepare for a day's worth of eating. (nothing worse than making locker neighbors mad because of the smell from your afternoon snack's egg whites! ha!) This is open to the public and rather inexpensive because of the group setting. More info and flyer information is on our website www.carmelusawrestling.org Please contact Coach P if you'd like to reserve a spot. ependosk@ccs.k12.in.us

It's going to be a great weekend in the room this weekend. We're going to have to shut down online registration as there's over 50 signed up. Please email me if you think you're interested. The talent in the room is pretty darn good and we'll take a couple more if they will enhance the room even more. Please email me if you have any questions. ependosk@ccs.k12.in.us

OK, the numbers of kids coming to this camp is impressive. As of today, 1 in 6 of kids signed up is a returning state qualifier. We'll be at the IHOP this weekend talking to kids to come workout in a great room of partners and welcome the new Purdue staff. Please click on the link to get registered. We will close online registration when we get to 50 kids. As of time of typing this, we have 30.

We're getting a great response about the upcoming weekend with Coach Ersland and the rest of the Purdue staff coming to CUSAWC, so we've started a form to sign up for this camp. We'll need to know how many mats to put out for the staff. https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1E3m30YPIZZH7-AxKbHK5XzkuOEdJHNEVPCf41HKX4u8/viewform We've contacted some coaches about this weekend. Please feel free to reach out to us if you'd like to bring a group. We can discuss options depending on how many are coming. ependosk@ccs.k12.in.us 317.701.1512

With our short notice on this camp, we've got a nice group of kids signed up for this weekend. The first session will be technique with Mitch showing his elbow pass to single and then how to transition that to a turn (or breakdown for folkstylers). The second session on Saturday will be a lot of live wrestling. We'd like to wrestle matches in freestyle and talk about scoring and strategy. The third session will be finishing takedowns and starting turns, with live situations at the end. Please contact us if you would like to attend of if you have any questions. ependosk@ccs.k12.in.us 317.701.1512

With our short notice on this camp, we've got a nice group of kids signed up for this weekend. The first session will be technique with Mitch showing his elbow pass to single and then how to transition that to a turn (or breakdown for folkstylers). The second session on Saturday will be a lot of live wrestling. We'd like to wrestle matches in freestyle and talk about scoring and strategy. The third session will be finishing takedowns and starting turns, with live situations at the end. Please contact us if you would like to attend of if you have any questions. ependosk@ccs.k12.in.us 317.701.1512

Because of lack of numbers in the k-7 group we have shut it down for that age group. We now have 6 teams in the 7-12 age group and are opening it up for 4 more teams. It's honor system on weigh ins this year. We hope this makes it easier for everyone and not taken advantage of. We are excited about what this could grow into. We think we can run 5 duals on complete mats and be done by 1:00. Please contact me as soon as possible if you can get a 10 man team. ependosk@ccs.k12.in.us 317.701.1512

Because of lack of numbers in the k-7 group we have shut it down for that age group. We now have 6 teams in the 7-12 age group and are opening it up for 4 more teams. It's honor system on weigh ins this year. We hope this makes it easier for everyone and not taken advantage of. We are excited about what this could grow into. We think we can run 5 duals on complete mats and be done by 1:00. Please contact me as soon as possible if you can get a 10 man team. ependosk@ccs.k12.in.us 317.701.1512

We are accepting applications to our Freestyle Dual tourney on Apr. 13th. Our goal is to give a team setting while wrestling freestyle. We have created modified age/weights for it easier for local clubs to fill a team. We are setting the limit of 6 teams in both age groups. We will get 5 duals in and we expect to finish quickly with smaller team sizes, so we hope to get some exhibition matches. There are only a couple spots left in both divisions. Here is the link to the event: http://www.iswa.com/wp-content/uploads/Carmel-Freestyle-Duals.pdf There is a typo on the website. Weight classes are as follows: Grades K-7 50, 66, 68, 76, 84, 92, 100, 110, 120 175 Grades 7-12 105, 115, 125, 135, 145, 155, 165, 180, 200, 285 Also, CUSA Wrestling Club is starting is Spring sessions. Our club is open to anyone. We currently have wrestlers from 7 different school systems. While we believe that RTCs are a great place wrestle live, we also believe in the importance of developing a system. Our offseason workouts are open to anyone looking to improve there offense/defense, strategy, training habits. Our staff at CUSA has helped supplement the training of over 30 IHSAA Champions. We understand the development from elementary to middle school to high school and eventually college. Please contact us if you have any questions. Ed Pendoski ependosk@ccs.k12.in.us

We are accepting applications to our Freestyle Dual tourney on Apr. 13th. Our goal is to give a team setting while wrestling freestyle. We have created modified age/weights for it easier for local clubs to fill a team. We are setting the limit of 6 teams in both age groups. We will get 5 duals in and we expect to finish quickly with smaller team sizes, so we hope to get some exhibition matches. There are only a couple spots left in both divisions. Here is the link to the event: http://www.iswa.com/wp-content/uploads/Carmel-Freestyle-Duals.pdf There is a typo on the website. Weight classes are as follows: Grades K-7 50, 66, 68, 76, 84, 92, 100, 110, 120 175 Grades 7-12 105, 115, 125, 135, 145, 155, 165, 180, 200, 285 Also, CUSA Wrestling Club is starting is Spring sessions. Our club is open to anyone. We currently have wrestlers from 7 different school systems. While we believe that RTCs are a great place wrestle live, we also believe in the importance of developing a system. Our offseason workouts are open to anyone looking to improve there offense/defense, strategy, training habits. Our staff at CUSA has helped supplement the training of over 30 IHSAA Champions. We understand the development from elementary to middle school to high school and eventually college. Please contact us if you have any questions. Ed Pendoski ependosk@ccs.k12.in.us

Indiana Wrestling will miss Mike. I cannot think of anyone that has done more for our sport than him. He truly dedicated his life to the kids in our sport. His leadership in the ISWA has set our state as one of the best in the nation and that footprint that he has left will be felt forever. I'm only sorry I didn't have the chance to look him in the eye and say "Thank you".

I think we need to be careful what we wish for on this one. Do we really want the IHSAA to start policing each weigh in? There is a computer in Portage that has a saved email from the IHSAA stating the 1.5% rule is for alpha weight only. .....and this might start to bring back the concept of centralized weight certification. That would definitely cause more headache than help.

[table] Carmel31Westfield28[/table]Westfield dual 01/15/2014 106- Wilhelm vs. Hudston win 6-1 113- Jerde vs. Arndt loss 6-11 120- Pruitt vs. steel win 8-3 126- smith vs. Belden loss by Tech 8-23 132- Bernard vs. eldred loss 6-16 138- Patterson vs. Eldred loss 1-9 145- Fox vs. Helm loss 1-3 OT 152- Carlson vs. Steel win 4-3 160- Krege vs. Kainwrath win 16-6 170- Theriot vs. Jakositz win by fall 15-2 182- Johnson vs. Schaffer win by fall 4-1 195- Hipple vs. Mazura win by fall 2-0 220- Garcia vs. Milton loss 3-5 285- Pachciarz vs. Dollens loss by fall 1-0 Varsity Team Score: win 31-28 JV team score: Loss 28-35

We're getting a lot of emails about our tourney and we will be going on Jan 12. This year's tourney will be at CHS in the fieldhouse. Please enter in door 21 in the back. Registration and weigh in sheet info is on our website: http://carmelusawrestling.org/ Contact us if you have any questions: Ed Pendoski 317.701.1512

The Bradbury/Birge match was fun to watch and we knew it going into it. They both scored a lot of points. I think Bradbury scored escape to go up 14-13 with 20 sec. left to get taken down with 10 sec. left and then score reversal at the buzzer to win 16-15. Bradbury lost to Ramos 13 times his junior and senior year, and I think he was winning in the third period 7 times. Each of the 13 times we thought we could win, but Ramos would find a way to win. I saw Brands/Gilbert finals of Big 10s that was awesome if you were in the crowd. Gilbert pushes Brands out of bounds right at the start and the Iowa faithful go nuts as you can see Brands swell and go into rage mode....then Gilbert leg throws Brands and has him on his back for a while until get gets out of bounds. Brands breaks him and ends up teching him. I've shown kids that one...it's on youtube somewhere.