2011 has been a banner year for Jordan Burroughs (Photo/Tony Rotundo, WrestlersAreWarriors.com)By now, you know what Mr. Burroughs was able to accomplish on the mat this year: World championship, NCAA title, Hodge Trophy, InterMat Wrestler of the Year, Pan Am gold. But what has made his ascent so pleasurable to witness is the graciousness he exudes in accepting attention and praise. There are plenty of self-important men in wrestling, but Burroughs has remained humble -- a virtue lacking in most other professional sports all-stars. Wrestling is a sport of heels and heroes, disagreements and vitriol, so it is pleasant to know that most opinion-makers, coaches and athletes can agree he's a bad dude on the mat, just be thankful he hasn't bought-in to that image.
2. Maryville University
When the University of Nebraska-Omaha program folded its wrestling program on the same night it won the 2011 Division II title last March, there was a worry that the maniacal clawing of wannabe athletic departments knew no moral bounds. But then Maryville happened. A small enrollment-based school in St. Louis took a chance on Coach Mike Denney and his athletes, offering spots to those interested in taking a chance on revival and renewal. It is likely that Coach Denney will win another NCAA title. He has a Nick Saban seriousness that promotes honest effort from his wrestlers, but the retrenchment of tradition will take longer. Regardless of his wins and losses, Coach Denney and Maryville show the adaptability of wrestling, and the cowardice of Trev Alberts, who sits in his monolithic administration building hoping will become Division I royalty, unaware that winning isn't bought, it is earned.
3. Parity
Cornell beats Minnesota, Minnesota beats Penn State. The 2011-2012 NCAA wrestling season is nary underway, but already the arrangement of talent in the NCAA is widespread enough to allot five teams aspirations at a national title and 15 a chance at a trophy. The breadth of wrestling talent means that schools with bigger facilities and large recruiting budgets can do well, but it also allows for perennial also-rans to acquire local and national media attention with the success of their athletes. Writers everywhere are thankful.
4. Frankie Edgar, Gray Maynard and other MMA Pros
Whether you like MMA or not (again: it is not going away) the current collection of former college wrestlers in MMA are something to behold. Many hold championships, others are top contenders, and all make the sport of amateur wrestling shine. The qualities possessed by our top alumni are transferrable to us all, marking the sport as the toughest on the planet, not just for our own glad-handing, but in the minds of millions of sports fans. You want acclaim for wrestling? MMA is the No. 1 way to showcase that talent year-round. Watch Michael Chandler's recent fight, or the Maynard-Edgar trilogy and understand that your impulse to gloat, is equaled by onlookers impulse to lavish praise.
5. Women's College Wrestling Association
The governing body of one of the fastest growing sports in the country might be the future. The women are in their fourth season and getting it done on the mat, yet most wrestling media and fans have ignored their accomplishments, or their powerful PR they could be for the sport. Nobody can make you a fan, but there are four medals up for grabs in women's wrestling in 2012 and wrestling fans love a winner. And just so the record is clear: The 13 programs of the WCWA are not composed of dainty-wristed walk-ons, but well-conditioned, highly competitive athletes that deserve the respect of the American (and Canadian) wrestling community. Give them a chance in 2012 and you won't be disappointed.
Tom Brands has his Iowa Hawkeyes ranked No. 1 by InterMat (Photo/Tony Rotundo, WrestlersAreWarriors.com)Wrestling needs its heel and if you're not an Iowa fan, Tom Brands is probably yours. Love him or hate him, Brands has been a rightful steward of the country's most successful amateur wrestling team by never relinquishing or compromising on his ideals on what makes a great wrestling. The coaching progeny of Gable have tentacles in dozens of Division I wrestling, but nowhere else does the Iowa-style persist with more purity and success than in Iowa City. The man and his team are as tough as the flannel shirts he wears, and it is just that type of single-minded wrestling style and sartorial decision-making for which we should all find pause to give thanks.
7. Wrestling isn't Football
Amateur football in America has become a disaster. Scandals and media investigations have ruined the lollipop, poodle-skirt image of amateurism and forever corrupted the game for millions of fans. By contrast wrestling stands unchanged in its simple beauty and unscathed by the potent corruption of big-time money and populist expectation. Rules have been altered, styles have morphed, but as adaptations are made, the execution of the athletic feat remains pure, even as it battles to remain solvent and relevant.
"Preponderantly in and because of the country the sport has lived on in the general manner of pasture blues, or field daisies, or other more or less global and substantially invincible wildflowers. Time and time again pasture bluets can be and have been burned away by scorching drought or trampled into smothering mud or dust by the heavy hoofs of close grazing herds. Yet with mystic stubbornness and effectiveness the pasture bluets rise and bloom again.
Wrestling is like that. It thrives, meets apparent destruction or widespread abandonment only to rise again, taking resurrection from a good and folkish earth. This has come to pass in many nations; it keeps on happening in our time."
-- Charles Morrow Wilson, The Magnificent Scufflers 1959
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