Did anyone else catch The Streak on ESPN 2 last night? 2 hour documentary on Brandon HS in Fl. winning every dual for 34 straight years. Good piece.

It was really good. My wife even watched it with me. Of course I had to put up with an hour of American Idol prior to watching the Streak. I think it is being replayed later in the week. Can't remember when.

I would have liked it even more if they would have included some footage of a head lock not working! Good documentary piece for our sport overall!

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I would have liked it even more if they would have included some footage of a head lock not working!

Chiefstorm, I taped the show, and only watched a couple parts of it, but I had the same impression. Either the Brandon program, or Florida wrestling in general, seems to empahasize headlocks. Very few shots of a wrestler just turning a guy with a half nelson.

I thought it was a great show. It was neat to see the kids are the same no matter where they are or how good the team is. The way the interacted with each other, the way brothers treated each other, the weight cutting, etc.

I also thought it was funny seeing Cesar Grajales Sr. (Eric's dad) doing up/downs. Looks like he needs a little work. Next time I see him I will have to give him a hard time.

Another interesting thing I noticed. The attendance at their state tournament looked like it was about 6000-7000 people for the state finals. People complain about Nebraska's attendance being down (which according to Darin Boysen is false). The Lakeland Center where Florida holds it state tournament has a capacity of 10,000 and on TV it looked like there were a lot of empty seats.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Badger,

I'm not sure on this one Badger, but I would imagine some of the low numbers in Florida(compared to Nebraska) may be climate driven...while you can either wrestle or play basketball up here, I'm betting that you have more choices in Florida because of their warmer and drier weather year-round...plus, I don't think wrestling is as big in Florida(at least on a per-capita basis) like it is here. Again, I would imagine weather and climate plays a role somehow there. Only my logical opinion...not based on any knowledge of the situation whatsoever. They may have less than 4 classes, and that would make a difference too.

I know a number of the Brandon kids and families who were featured; and I think the producers portrayed them as they are. I noticed they did show a few matches out of order - I'm assuming to build suspense - most likely because of the wrestlers they were highlighting. The headlock is a signature Cozart move, but I think it may have been shown more than it's used because viewers like to see people get thrown! Overall, I liked it.

Didn't get a chance to see the show. Would anybody that taped it be willing to make a copy that I could buy?

I saw the show too. I agree about their attendance, it looked like a regular tournament crowd as opposed to a state tournament. Here is a link to their site, some pretty impressive records to say the least.

http://www.brandoneagleswrestling.com/highschoolhome/eaglelineup.html

I believe it is going to be on again on Monday from 1-3 on ESPN2.

It is also on agian on Wensday at 3 am. I have not watched it yet but did set it up to dvr.

After watching that show it made me wonder how come there are no college programs in Florida that have wrestling?

I watched it yesterday, and I have to be honest....That is a tremendous streak...no doubt about it...but I wasn't overly impressed with the quality of wrestling by Brandon or anyone else in the movie...I just didn't see any domination at all. I really feel that Skutt could have easily broke the streak, not to mention several Nebraska teams. I know it's hard to say that without actually proving it on the mat, it's just the impression I got watching it...again, a phenominal streak regardless. A good movie as well...anything about wrestling in a positive way is good.

I'm curious how many out of State Duals they had during this streak, or if it was all in Florida? I wonder how they would do at The Clash?

I wondered that same thing Mr. Pin...quite frankly, I think they would finish in the middle of the pack at best....heck, I wonder how many of those wrestlers even went to the Disney Duals? The team that snapped "The Streak" was in-state. I think if they wrestled outside of the state more often...it would have ended a long time ago. Wrestling, for some reason, isn't very strong in the deep south...again, maybe climate plays a role...but it seems as though the strongest wrestling comes from the Midwest, Ohio Valley, and Northeast.

the highshool was and is very good. in 2006 brandon high had 7 finalists at junior national. they 6 out of 7 because two of them had to wrestle eachother.

I don't doubt your word 74kilos...just going off of what I saw in the movie. The practices seemed quite intense, but take away the top 3 or 4 wrestlers(ones that made it to state finals)the rest seemed just o.k. to decent at best.

Well sometimes a very good wrestler wrestles tougher based on his competition. I'm from Lakeland Florida and wrestled for Lakeland High during Brandon's early years with their win streak. They were great back then too. Their coach is phenomial. The other thing to consider is that just up until a few years ago, the only wrestling they had for kids under junior high age was freestyle and greco...very little to no folkstyle for the little kids.

Let's not forget that wrestling isn't that popular in any state. It would take 4 hours or more just to drive to the northern border of Florida from Brandon...then where's that put you? In Georgia. This means they would have had to fly to the clash...figure the costs...a lot of money...why would they spend that much just to break their win streak...don't make sense. No one is saying that they are the best in the nation...just that they have the best win steak. There are very good wrestlers in Florida and they get over looked in the recruiting many times because of location. If we did a Nebraska vs Florida brawl with State champions at each weight...it would be a close dual. I have coached on dual teams in the past competing against the Florida teams (freestyle and greco)....we lost both times. They always compete at Cadet and Junior National duals and seem to do well there too. Alan Pokorny would probably know more cause Andy has competed against Florida kids a lot too.

As far as the 3 classes...I know that when Dustin was wrestling there his senior year he was wrestling for Lakeland High School in the 3A division...that's the biggest division. I figure it up and there were over 110 schools in that division alone.

Florida wrestling has gotten better and better over the years primarily because it is a state that a lot of Northerners migrate to. I know my coach in Junior high was a college graduate from Pennsylvania and my high school coach was from Pennsylvania too. Seems there are a lot of Ohio and Michigan people moving in all the time. This brings in great wrestling people/coaches.

525...I certainly didn't intend to demean the overall quality of wrestling in Florida...sorry...I wrestled against some great ones while stationed in the Navy in Florida in the 80's. The geographical problems you speak of are very similar to a lot of schools in nebraska.

You are right about their coach...he did seem phoenominal.

I guess another factor that left me not as impressed coming out as going in is due to a Nebraska team's national record that stood before Brandon's...and that's Gering....which I believe had a dual streak of 98 or so that ran from the 70's into the 80's. I grew up in Chadron during that time, and they were one of our rivals(though that is the time period that the panhandle was absolutely loaded, especially in class B)...They were very intimidating...from the wrestlers, to the coach(Chuck Deter), to even the fans...They remind me of the high school equivalent of Gable's Iowa Hawkeyes. Though I didn't agree with Deter's coaching methods, he was highly successful and a tremendous motivator. He put the fear of God in his wrestlers if they lost. Everywhere Gering went, it seemed as if they would bring 500+ fans with them. Every dual back then was in front of capacity crowds...just totally awesome electricity in the air. They didn't crush everyone during their streak...a lot of teams pushed them to the end, but they always found a way to win, whether through the strength of their better wrestlers that were expected to win, or through so-called "nobodys" that would come from nowhere to pull huge upsets to win the dual...Man, do I miss those days!...even though we came out on the short end of the stick to them 90+% of the time.

My opinion, I can't attest to the current or former Brandon teams, though it did show that Grajales and Cozart had been wrestling on the national circuit growing up, they do build through their youth program from what I have noticed. They also mentioned the prior successful family members of some of the current wrestlers, so you know that they grew up around the mat and feel the pressure to compare or outperform their sibblings. There's a Dylan Lucas that is one of the better wrestlers in the country that will be in the schoolboy division next year and he also has a brother, Ty, that performs well on the national circuit and is in novice, both of which were shown on the documentary. I know of a few others as well that are also more than competetive on the national circuit but am not as familiar with them since they don't wrestle at weights near to my sons. Most that I have seen are technically sound wrestlers, good base for any wrestling program regardless of location or competition. Wrestling programs that have community involvement and tradition like Brandon's are more likely to be successful, because it is a team effort from school to coaches to wrestlers to parents to community.
I think that Cozart definitely cultivates that atmosphere and by offering his time to teach outside of the HS team has continued the foundation for success. He offers camps all through the summer and holds tournaments at Brandon after each camp. I know that he's taught at Chertow camps and has brought the entire HS wrestling team along, so these kids are seeing wrestlers from different states and stack up very well according to Chertow. I would be willing to bet that Brandon would be a power house whether located in Ohio, Iowa, Nebraska, etc., because of all the reasons above. 'The Streak' is no different than what Skutt currently has going on in Class B state, so why not Brandon as well? Does anyone know if Skutt has a dual win streak?