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How far beyond has Iowa fallen?

This is a lot different than the post you started this thread with being you are the OP.
Started with, "Iowa guys wrestle with great effort, but it's obvious Iowa doesn't have the talent to compete for titles right now."
And then on page 11, you jump on the bash the staff boat... and take a different approach.
I think we've all been pretty consistent.

Recruiting is on the coaches - and they don't do it well.

Training is on the coaches - and we say the SAME.... SHIDDD.... EVERY... YEAR...
 
I don't even know that I believe Brands is capable of major change at this point.
56 year olds who emulated their former coach when they started coaching and who have done the same thing for the last 20 years are not agents of change. At all. Doesn't matter the profession. In fact my experience is that those people resist and impede change as much as possible.
 
56 year olds who emulated their former coach when they started coaching and who have done the same thing for the last 20 years are not agents of change. At all. Doesn't matter the profession. In fact my experience is that those people resist and impede change as much as possible.
Do you ever try to resist the need to come to here and talk negative about the Hawkeye staff & program?
 
56 year olds who emulated their former coach when they started coaching and who have done the same thing for the last 20 years are not agents of change. At all. Doesn't matter the profession. In fact my experience is that those people resist and impede change as much as possible.
Not true. Look at Nick Saban.

Completely HATED spread offenses and the 'direction it is leading' - but he hates losing more than being stuck in his ways... hire Lane Kiffin and they're off and running.

Tom and Terry have been given the information, they just refuse to change.
 
Do you ever try to resist the need to come to here and talk negative about the Hawkeye staff & program?
Where am I talking negative about the staff and program? I worked in a corporate structure for many years and came across many different management and leadership styles in my career. Tom Brands is what I said he is, but that does NOT mean he doesn't do a good or great job. People like Tom bring stability but are not innovative people. Over time, younger innovators have a tendency to nibble away around the edges until one day you wake up and someone is eating you lunch. And that is especially true in business, but can be used for this discussion. You are taking all this too personally. I have heard nothing bad about Tom Brands. Sounds like a great guy to have a beer and shoot pool with.
 
$$$… and hire real assistants beyond the stagnant crew we have. Great guys but Mstar and Telford are multiple levels below. And Terry needs to go to hwc and bring in more new opinions. The answer is so obvious.
PedU has a big pot of cash, very much like the years Carver supported the Hawks. New facilities are great but money talks to get all the top rated recruits.
 
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Where am I talking negative about the staff and program? I worked in a corporate structure for many years and came across many different management and leadership styles in my career. Tom Brands is what I said he is, but that does NOT mean he doesn't do a good or great job. People like Tom bring stability but are not innovative people. Over time, younger innovators have a tendency to nibble away around the edges until one day you wake up and someone is eating you lunch. And that is especially true in business, but can be used for this discussion. You are taking all this too personally. I have heard nothing bad about Tom Brands. Sounds like a great guy to have a beer and shoot pool with.
Not really the point, but he doesn't drink alcohol. Maybe a non-alcoholic beer? Or you could have all the beer lol.
 
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Not true. Look at Nick Saban.

Completely HATED spread offenses and the 'direction it is leading' - but he hates losing more than being stuck in his ways... hire Lane Kiffin and they're off and running.

Tom and Terry have been given the information, they just refuse to change.
That's a good name, and I still wonder how he did it.
 
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Very hard for me to support a Nitwits point of view and as much as I hate their presence on our board, I feel this to be true. I’ve wanted new assistants for some time. This might be a little windy, so I’ll apologize in advance…

Though a great guy, I’ve never understood Morningside as an assistant coach at Iowa, especially considering how painful his matches were to watch as a wrestler. It’s a great gig for him. He can do something he loves, for a program he loves, raise his prize pigs, all from the comfort of “home” and I couldn’t be happier for him. He’s just not the dynamic assistant coach Iowa needs to begin competing with the level of athletes PSU puts on the mat. I feel similar about Telford but admit, I have enjoyed watching the progress of our upper weights this year.

Ultimately, Tom is responsible for the whole & sadly we’re just not seeing improvement from the majority of our athletes and certainly not at the level needed to more consistently compete for championships.

The product has gotten stale and if I’m honest with myself, I’m tired of the same ‘ol, same ‘ol. We clearly need to see changes, at minimum with the assistant coaches but I find myself questioning whether Tom “sees the big picture” well enough to make it happen. He’s also likely to be too close to his assistants to make the changes needed to better the program. Change can be scary.

I’d like to see some younger more dynamic energy in Iowa City. With the new facility in place, if we don’t see significant improvement in the product on the mat, a change needs to be made. Considering Tom’s contract, the folks in charge have time to gauge interest, evaluate staff and hopefully put a “plan B” together.

If the new facilities help recruiting and we see positive changes in the program, we move forward with the head Hawk we all love.
good points. unfortunately Tom doesn’t do change because he only believes in one way, therefore the “Iowa Way”. which is why so many recruits do not consider Iowa.you have to WORK extra hard at recruiting when you are playing catch up and that doesn’t fit Tom’s ideology. (if you do not want to come here we are not going to lower ourselves to try to convince you that you are wrong)
 
FYI - I'm a Penn State alum and probably a lot older than most of the people posting here. I saw Dan Gable win his first NCAA title in our own Rec Hall in 1968, saw him lose to Larry Owings in the finals in 1970 and saw him win the gold medal in Munich in 1972. In fact, I even spoke to him about 45 minutes before he went out to beat the Russian for the gold medal. I'm a huge fan of everything Cael Sanderson is doing at Penn State nowadays, but as things stand at the present, I still feel that Gable has to be considered the greatest college wrestling coach of all time. For now. Sanderson may take over that title in the future.

That being said, I'd like to throw some additional information out there for everyone to think about. I don't know how much it will affect everyone's thinking on the current topic, but it's something I haven't forgotten in over 35 years. I was at the 1988 NCAA tournament at Iowa State, and the awards for each weight class were given during the finals after the final match for the next highest weight had finished. Every time an Iowa wrestler stood on the podium for placing, Gable walked up to the podium after the awards were given and personally congratulated his wrestler. He then walked with his guy over to the spot where the Iowa crowd was seated while talking to him the whole time. I'm sure he had something very personal to say in the process. He was the only coach who did that for the awards, and I have never forgotten it. It told me that he must have had a very close rapport with each of his guys.

Are Brands & Brands doing anything similar? Have you guys seen them do things that indicate they have a close rapport with their wrestlers? (I doubt that badgering a reluctant lightweight into doing a lateral drop is the right approach.) If something is lacking at this level, it might be a clue to where some change is needed.
 
FYI - I'm a Penn State alum and probably a lot older than most of the people posting here. I saw Dan Gable win his first NCAA title in our own Rec Hall in 1968, saw him lose to Larry Owings in the finals in 1970 and saw him win the gold medal in Munich in 1972. In fact, I even spoke to him about 45 minutes before he went out to beat the Russian for the gold medal. I'm a huge fan of everything Cael Sanderson is doing at Penn State nowadays, but as things stand at the present, I still feel that Gable has to be considered the greatest college wrestling coach of all time. For now. Sanderson may take over that title in the future.

That being said, I'd like to throw some additional information out there for everyone to think about. I don't know how much it will affect everyone's thinking on the current topic, but it's something I haven't forgotten in over 35 years. I was at the 1988 NCAA tournament at Iowa State, and the awards for each weight class were given during the finals after the final match for the next highest weight had finished. Every time an Iowa wrestler stood on the podium for placing, Gable walked up to the podium after the awards were given and personally congratulated his wrestler. He then walked with his guy over to the spot where the Iowa crowd was seated while talking to him the whole time. I'm sure he had something very personal to say in the process. He was the only coach who did that for the awards, and I have never forgotten it. It told me that he must have had a very close rapport with each of his guys.

Are Brands & Brands doing anything similar? Have you guys seen them do things that indicate they have a close rapport with their wrestlers? (I doubt that badgering a reluctant lightweight into doing a lateral drop is the right approach.) If something is lacking at this level, it might be a clue to where some change is needed.

They have a close rapport with the guys. Especially Terry.
 
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I remember Teske or Brands talking about recruiting Teske when he entered the portal. Brands asked him if he was ready to be a Hawk? That was basically the extent of the conversation. I think that is how they generally recruit. If you want to be a Hawk, then you will be . If you do not want to be Hawk, then they will never be able to talk you into it, so they do not try.
Brands even spoke about Nolf. He said that he thought they had him, but Sanderson does not give up. That sounds like they are not willing or able to play the recruiting game very well.
I can say that the Hawks seem very different from the outside looking in than they do when you get to meet the actual kids on the team. The kids are awesome or at least the ones I have met.
 
FYI - I'm a Penn State alum and probably a lot older than most of the people posting here. I saw Dan Gable win his first NCAA title in our own Rec Hall in 1968, saw him lose to Larry Owings in the finals in 1970 and saw him win the gold medal in Munich in 1972. In fact, I even spoke to him about 45 minutes before he went out to beat the Russian for the gold medal. I'm a huge fan of everything Cael Sanderson is doing at Penn State nowadays, but as things stand at the present, I still feel that Gable has to be considered the greatest college wrestling coach of all time. For now. Sanderson may take over that title in the future.

That being said, I'd like to throw some additional information out there for everyone to think about. I don't know how much it will affect everyone's thinking on the current topic, but it's something I haven't forgotten in over 35 years. I was at the 1988 NCAA tournament at Iowa State, and the awards for each weight class were given during the finals after the final match for the next highest weight had finished. Every time an Iowa wrestler stood on the podium for placing, Gable walked up to the podium after the awards were given and personally congratulated his wrestler. He then walked with his guy over to the spot where the Iowa crowd was seated while talking to him the whole time. I'm sure he had something very personal to say in the process. He was the only coach who did that for the awards, and I have never forgotten it. It told me that he must have had a very close rapport with each of his guys.

Are Brands & Brands doing anything similar? Have you guys seen them do things that indicate they have a close rapport with their wrestlers? (I doubt that badgering a reluctant lightweight into doing a lateral drop is the right approach.) If something is lacking at this level, it might be a clue to where some change is needed.
If you made a donation earmarked for Iowa wrestling, no matter large or small, you'd get apersonal thank letter from Gable. No form letter - a real letter Gable composed and signed. I've got manner of them. He stopped at nothing to support every aspect of Iowa wrestling. It is no wonder he was so successful.

A little story (maybe some of you haven't heard it). When Bobby Douglas arrived at Iowa State in 1992, he was at the office before 6:00 am for his first day of work and decided to phone Gable to let him know he serious about busting his butt in his new coaching job and was going to outwork him. He phoned Gable at home - Kathy answered, Bobby asked to speak to Dan. She told him he had already left for work an hour earlier to catch a plane to meet with a recruit.
 
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In case you guys don’t know, once you graduate from any college, you are no longer eligible to be on an Ivy League team. That info comes from the former AD at Cornell who happens to be a personal friend.

Yes. That’s true.

I believe they give you 4 years to complete 4 seasons, unless you use an Olympic redshirt.
 
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I don’t think Gable coached the way many of you think he did. I thought his most striking characteristic was how open he was to the possibility of improvement and how unafraid he was to consider changing. I think excellence was his highest priority…so high that he wouldn’t allow allegiance to a particular method to move ahead in priority. Despite all his success, he would and does readily state that he should have done things differently. Practices were grueling but not for the purpose of being grueling or serving as some toughness contest. It’s not simple to emulate someone.
 
When is Iowa going to wake up and hire Doug Schwab as their next HC? Thats your guy. He will get it done.
I think they need to completely break out of the "Old School Iowa" mold but he does make me wonder. He has had some successful guys and he isn't starting with the cream of the crop plus with way less support and resources. A number of his guys have been pretty offensive and can scramble. He could be like Tom minus the whole we hate everyone and everyone hates us deal. Iowa resources and a coach that doesn't mind running down recruits and to go with that gets along with all the club coaches.
 
When is Iowa going to wake up and hire Doug Schwab as their next HC? Thats your guy. He will get it done.
Totally agree! Not a brands clone at all. Great with athletes. Very personable for recruiting! Very likable fair but tough as nails. Good friends with askren too! Hes gotta be in top 5 of all realistic options. He may never become or is a cael but he’s better than what is that Iowa now.
 
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Cael has been coaching 20 years now, which of his wrestlers are the up and coming coaches you are pining to hire? The ones to improve on his legacy, the anti-Brands?
 
Totally agree! Not a brands clone at all. Great with athletes. Very personable for recruiting! Very likable fair but tough as nails. Good friends with askren too! Hes gotta be in top 5 of all realistic options. He may never become or is a cael but he’s better than what is that Iowa now.
I’d love to hear some clarification on whether this opinion is based on the “eye” or gut test, or in some tangible results you can list.
 
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This is an outstanding post - one of the best I've ever read on this forum. I think you've done an excellent job articulating the problem with Iowa's training/mentality. Thanks for the insight and for sharing your experience. If you don't mind sharing, who are you or what year were you wrestling at Iowa? Completely understand if you prefer to remain semi-anonymous.
I told you guys over 10 years ago on this very board exactly why Caels appoach is far superior to the way Brands goes about things. You tried to laugh me off your board.

Yeah yeah....go ahead now and say it never happened.
 
I told you guys over 10 years ago on this very board exactly why Caels appoach is far superior to the way Brands goes about things. You tried to laugh me off your board.

Yeah yeah....go ahead now and say it never happened.
I told you guys over 10 years ago that Cael's approach can go f*** itself.








That hasn't changed, and it's not a matter of waiting for it to happen, either. It's merely the principle of knowing that his approach can go f*** itself and stop ruining the sport.

You're welcome. :D
 
I told you guys over 10 years ago on this very board exactly why Caels appoach is far superior to the way Brands goes about things. You tried to laugh me off your board.

Yeah yeah....go ahead now and say it never happened.
You're a lowlife, dishonorable, POS troll. Nobody here respects you or cares what you say or said. The only time I had the slightest shred of respect for you is when you honored the fact that you are banned from this site and stayed away.
 
You're a lowlife, dishonorable, POS troll. Nobody here respects you or cares what you say or said. The only time I had the slightest shred of respect for you is when you honored the fact that you are banned from this site and stayed away.
04063b26-3684-4ccc-8f49-c580d129465a_text.gif


:rolleyes:⚒️
 
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I haven't watched the Austin & Spencer flo documentary yet, but that was certainly my experience. I grew up idolizing Iowa wrestling and the Gable way. I always wanted to go to Iowa. I was recruited by Cael and neglected to even visit because I was so sure I wanted to be a hawk. I was all about outworking everyone, being tougher than everyone, and the Iowa way. And Brands' system certainly was exactly that.

Having gone through Brands' program, I recognize many positives. In this program, you will become extremely positionally solid. Mental and physical toughness will be achieved through grueling practices and very frequent verbal reiteration from the coach(es). And clean living will be preached consistently. After a year in the room, you only have yourself to blame if you can't get off bottom or if you can't hold up to heavy hand-fighting or pressure.

However, I'm somewhat older and (I think) somewhat wiser now. I still think it is great to learn how to stay in great position, to practice clean living, and to build physical and mental toughness. However, it takes so much more than these attributes to be truly great and to really continue to elevate your game. These attributes can get guys on the podium. If guys were already phenomenal coming in, they can sometimes even get you to the top of the podium. There are even a few guys who really thrive in this environment.

But, I've come to believe this coaching/training system is critically flawed with regard to helping guys reach anything near their potential in the vast majority of cases. One reason is that the Iowa style and Brands' persona and the way he talks to the team (and to the media) combine to foster an environment where most guys feel they have to prove their mental and physical toughness in the practice room and in competition day-in and day-out above all else. The result then, is that the vast majority of guys (if not all) come in to practice each day focused more on out-toughing their partner than on mastering the sport by improving in positions/skills where they need to improve. So, they need to outlast their partner in each live go. They need to drill harder than their partner. They need to push their partner into the wall or off the mat when hand-fighting or live wrestling. They need to be completely exhausted at the end of each live go and at the end of the practice in order to feel like they accomplished anything.

But, if your aim is now to outlast your partner, you're no longer incentivized to wrestle a high-pace or take risks or be creative because you might open yourself up to expending too much energy too quickly when your partner is not making that 'mistake' and now they can take advantage and make you look 'weak' by pushing you around the mat or into the wall or off the mat. Instead, you're incentivized to conserve your energy because the practices are so long and grueling and full of hand-fighting and long live wrestling goes that (it at least seems like) the only way you'll be able to last the whole time without looking 'weak' in the way mentioned previously is by pacing yourself. You're still going to be exhausted at the end of practice either way by nature of the practice structure, but you'll at least have proved your toughness by being able to last the whole time and hopefully demonstrably more so than your partner did. Is this the best mindset to have if you want to efficiently and continuously improve in all positions and facets of wrestling?

Another reason I believe the Brands system is critically flawed is that the frequency and intensity of these types of grueling practices, coupled with this emphasis on proving your toughness, often results in wearing down guys' bodies (increased injury rate), especially after spending multiple years in the program. This is not to say I don't believe in hard work or toughness or pushing yourself to your limits in order to extend your limits. I most certainly do believe in such things. But, I also believe there's so much more to wrestling than these things.

Yet another reason for believing Brands' system to be critically flawed is that, when you constantly preach 'doing it right' and 'clean living' and 'you get what you earn', you set it up in athletes' minds that they pretty much have to be perfect in order to succeed. But perfect is an impossible standard and the athletes know they aren't meeting this standard. So, now they're going into their matches with this nagging feeling that they didn't do it quite right enough and they haven't been living quite clean enough and they haven't been quite earning what they want to get enough. The result is a lack of belief that they have earned the success they are trying to reach.

Additionally, many athletes with a coach or coaches who preach these things expect the coach or coaches to perfectly exemplify these things themselves. And, even though the Brands brothers and the other coaches do a decent job of exemplifying these things most of the time, the athletes are quick to take note when they don't live up to the incredibly high standards they set. For example, if a coach relaxes the standard for clean living with some athletes and not others due to some athletes being deemed too valuable to the team's success to properly hold them accountable for their actions, the rest of the athletes may take notice of that, which can result in feeling like the coach is a bit of a hypocrite the next time that coach starts preaching 'do it right' and 'live clean' and 'you get what you earn'. That's not a great recipe for building trust.

There are other reasons I have come to believe the Brands system is deeply flawed, but this post is already super long so I'll wrap it up with a few closing thoughts. For one thing, I've come to think the grueling practices can and should be had, but that this should be done with utmost moderation. Instead, the majority of practices should be structured to incentivize the type/style/pace of wrestling you want to see your athletes exemplify in competition. Instead of reciting in team speeches and media interviews that you want to see your wrestlers be more active and 'pull the trigger' more, how about actually facilitating this by structuring practices (and team talks and media interviews) in a way that builds in your athletes the confidence to do so rather than essentially structuring the program to achieve the opposite effect. Instead of feeling like you've got to push your team to work harder by structuring your practices and team talks and media interviews in this way, why not trust your athletes to be self-motivated to improve and then facilitate even more self-motivation in your athletes by constantly fostering in them a genuine love for the sport and confidence that they're growing/improving in the sport by focusing on helping them to achieve positional/technical mastery in as many positions as possible?


Bo goes into some of the stuff you mentioned at app an hour in this podcast in regards to how it’s done at PSU.

You’re getting pushed back for multiple reasons, the first being you claimed to be an Iowa wrestler, I mean a former Iowa wrestler. I have no reason to doubt you and I do believe you which makes your criticisms more pointed and probably more accurate. I would tend to agree with you from what I see from the outside.

However, what you’re laying out is much more than we’ll just recruit harder and change how we train a little bit and voila’ we’re back on top. Nope, what you’re laying out will take an entire restructuring of the program from top to bottom.

That’s difficult because you need to be able to do what you’re laying out and I doubt many people are capable of that outside of Cael then you have to take your lumps for approximately a year or so, possibly regressing a little.

You also have to do it in light of what Penn State is doing right now Which will make it a little bit more difficult now. Things were more of an even playing field with a few schools back in roughly 2010 when Sanderson started at Penn State .

Iowa was obviously doing well, I believe Oklahoma State was challenging back then, and Minnesota was fairly strong. But while the schools were in pretty solid shape, they were vulnerable to a coach like Sanderson restructuring PSU with their inherent advantages. For years Penn State fans were wondering why we didn’t do better at wrestling when we’re in the best recruiting area in the country. I just saw on BWI that Pennsylvania had the most division one NCAA qualifiers this year That was followed by I believe Ohio and New Jersey or New Jersey then Ohio. Three schools at 97 D1 qualifiers right in Penn State’s backyard,

Sanderson dove in at the right time and from what I understand, he called Penn State twice, Tim Curley didn’t call him back the first time. He just thought Sanderson was trying to leverage more money from ISU or something dumb like that. I’m not a big Curley fan, though he did help land Sanderson when they realized he was serious.
 
Mike Z took some heat for spending more time on Lake Fork chasing 10 lb bass than keeping The Cesspool clean(er). However, I never understood the need to let the vermin back in on his way out the door. Perhaps a parting gift. But the level of moderation seems to have gotten worse.
 
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I told you guys over 10 years ago on this very board exactly why Caels appoach is far superior to the way Brands goes about things. You tried to laugh me off your board.

Yeah yeah....go ahead now and say it never happened.
you are the lamest person on this board (and that's an accomplishment)

you're bragging that you (a psu fan) told everyone carl was a good coach after he won his third straight championship

so glad we had your expertise around
 
I don’t think Gable coached the way many of you think he did. I thought his most striking characteristic was how open he was to the possibility of improvement and how unafraid he was to consider changing. I think excellence was his highest priority…so high that he wouldn’t allow allegiance to a particular method to move ahead in priority. Despite all his success, he would and does readily state that he should have done things differently. Practices were grueling but not for the purpose of being grueling or serving as some toughness contest. It’s not simple to emulate someone.

This. It's the biggest problem with Brands - it's how THEY succeeded. And just like all of us fuddy-duddies - we all believe we had it harder than it actually was/is.
 
You have to be one of the best examples of living vicariously through the PSU wrestlers that I've seen. Posting on the Iowa fan forum about how amazing PSU is. Name dropping that you talked to x or y parent or relative.

Hate to break it to you man, but those accomplishments and successes don't belong to you. The reality is that you're a nobody fan who spends significant time gloating on an unmoderated opposing team's message board.

And you speak as if you know all the answers. "Winning is a mindset". Cringe.
try living amongst these false idol worshippers who bumped into Beau at the Dollar Store and are now besties with the insight to determine future Iowa decisions based on that chance encounter....
 
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