Tom formerly Tofurky

If only the same could be said for another program about four hours west of there.

Word on the street is that Coach Denney didn't retire on his own time schedule. This may have been due to coach having upset an administrator or two over time. He is a very strong willed person, if you don't know him. Also, there has been some push back since his retirement on what many around the program have been calling "fake culture." I found that to be surprising.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/Cx--nThONNf/?igshid=MTc4MmM1YmI2Ng== Who is gonna hire him?

Coach Denney was treated not much better than this on his way out of Maryville. I'll miss him being around on Saturdays. He dedicated his adult life to developing good humans.

And Tom Turkey knew you

Clay Davis approves this message.

One of the MANY "Prides of Maywood, Illinois" right here, baby!

I'm in no way suggesting something rotten is taking place, but it can't be ignored that Micic has been struggling to "get small" since college. As recently as 2022 he competed for Serbia at 65 kilos. Great kid and great wrestler, but odd situation and absolute hell on his body with all that yo-yoing.

I don't see Sads as someone who goes for propaganda. He comes off as so eone who loves the sport through and through. He did MFF out of the tournament, so...

While true, it's certainly not done without attention to developing Freestyle skills. If I understood the OP, the effort in their original post was to state that American Folk is a superior form to Free.

Calm down, tiger. The sarcasm was clearly lost on you. A warm glass of milk and bed is the right call at this hour, fella. Sleep tight; don't let the bed bugs bite.

He NEEDS Iowa/Brands, like, yesterday.

I'm more interested in how D1 wrestlers would do at World's.

Kids events usually have a big following, for obvious reasons. High school is a mix of supporting kids and tribalism based on where you live/went to school. College is the next step in tribalism, too. People want to identify with institutions. The individual names change, but the constants remain the same. If the product at all those levels was Freestyle you'd very likely have the same support as American Folk has now. Freestyle results are increasing due to RTCs and the ability to support yourself via success in the sport, not because American Folk has improved.

They need to get with North Korea and borrow one of their paper U.S. currency printing machines... just for wrestling', of course.

Like many, I would guess it's the latter. That dude is a horse. Where has Russia been hiding that kid?

The kid (20 years old) has won the Asian and Arab Championships in the last year. Far from mind blowing results, especially in light of what he accomplished today. His height/leverage was an absolute asset against both Snyderman and Sads. Incredible!

There's an interview out there after DT beat Colin Palmer at "The Match of the Century" when both were in high school. In it, DT predicted he'd be 174/184. That plan has been in the works since DT was a wee child.

The winners in the college crisis are largely going to be JuCos and public universities. Their costs are lower, they offer more programming and they receive state and federal tax funding beyond FAFSA filings. This route has ALWAYS been sensible, and will be there long after most of these other places fade into obscurity. In terms of wrestling CCCAA and NJCAA offer great options for student-athletes, and wrestling fans!

Not even Pendelton, huh? The rest are stretches, for sure, but that doesn't mean they won't shoot their shots. I imagine Mark Perry will be in that mix, too.

Branch, Pendleton, Erisman, Ward, and a lot of other qualified dudes will more than likely throw their proverbial hats in the ring for this, too, if/when the time comes. It would be a tough sell to administrators to pluck a guy with zero head coaching experience as the new face of what they hope to return to dynasty phase when you have that many alumni with head coaching experience, as well as who knows how many other non-Okie State candidates from bigger programs who will make a run at the job leading the Cowboys back to prominence.

This is the biggest aspect that I think most fans of college wrestling forget about assistant coaches moving into head coaching roles. The amount of mat time is significantly decreased, because the amount of administrative tasks which require head coaching oversight increases exponentially. I guess Tony will have to weigh out which one is more important to him at this time. That said--and not to turn this into an OSU thread--I have to wonder what Esposito was thinking would happen if he didn't leave for a shot at being a head coach somewhere else, like Coleman did. It doesn't appear that he or Guerrero before him were being set-up for longer term coaching success within that OSU structure.

This

Chatted the other day with a friend who is very close to the Oregon situation. I referenced the ideas in this thread, specifically about the return of wrestling at UO... he laughed really hard at the notion that anyone beyond this board and the wrestling community in the state are even considering it.

As the world becomes more secular, there is less need for small schools, which tend to be religiously affiliated. They rely less on whatever organizations founded them, and their older, religious, dedicated alumni are dying off, and not leaving much, if anything to these schools in their wills. ABU was tied to the Baptist Church. The solution for a lot of them is to jack up tuition (the illusion that "you get what you pay for", even if what they really mean is that school has only a local reputation for quality education) and start sports programs to bring in numbers. Most of these schools are enrollment driven, so when the tuition is too high and/or students start leaving with mountains of debt, those schools numbers go down, which then has a negative impact on short and long-term giving. Many of these schools are also caught up in the "arms race" of the modern college landscape, where boards are approving the construction of brand new buildings or other tangible additions to their campuses (rock climbing walls, gyms, and other recreational facilities) before they shore up their shrinking endowments. One other strategy is mimicking what community colleges have done, and start embracing the dual credit model of earning college credit for gen eds while in high school. Some of these small, private schools are banking (pun intended) on forming an allegiance with many of these students so that they will enroll at said institutions after graduation. It's still fairly early in the game to indicate any real stability for most schools. Sure, these schools can offer majors that everyone else has, but then the market becomes watered down, and after the last financial crisis and COVID, private schools (more specifically their tuition rates) don't have the same gravitas they used to have. The other end of that is that trends in labor change. Jobs that are popular today, may be antiquated in five years from now with the rate of technological development. Kids are learning more and more and more, too, that many employers don't value them beyond what they did that day. "The Great Resignation" or whatever term you want to use for it, hasn't disappeared, and people don't stay at jobs very long anymore, especially when they don't feel valued or supported. So, you can go to college, incur a ton of debt (in some cases), start with an employer only to have them treat you poorly or you can just go to work and eliminate that college debt, which seems to be what a lot of folks are doing. Add to that that college debt is being reported on so much these days that it is scaring the peepers out of a lot of kids whose families have scraped by n the last decade or so, and earning money right away seems to be a better option for many who were already on the proverbial fence about going to college. Anyway, I apologize for rambling. I am on both sides of this as an employee in higher education, and as a parent of four teenagers discerning what/if higher ed is right for them, and I have no easy answer for that. The only thing I can say is that I have yet to personally meet a person in any line of work who said, "earning that college degree was a waste of time." I am sorry for everyone around the ABU decision to close. That is heartbreaking news.