Im sorry what kind of site are we on i can't remeber oh wait Husker Mat hum sounds like wrestling to me.

I agree, that there are other sports. I also agree that we get decent coverage, but not great. But I also think that part of the reason the interest in wrestling is not there is because of the lack of coverage, hype etc from media outlets. Kids see the other sports being glorified and naturally swarm to those sports.

However, the argument that one should go out and start his own rag is not the answer. I think this further isolates us. If the main media outlets aren't printing it, no one will read it. No non-wrestlers subscribed to NWI online and very few read WIN magazine.

The only way to reach people outside our group is to get coverage in the main stream media. Most people only "HEAR" the negatives...because they scream them. herpes, deaths...they never get to the positives.

This arguement with Diehard is meaningless, he needs to go to a basketball board to fulfill his manlyhood. p.s. my spelling is bad.

Diehard, I have one good example for you that sets basketball and wrestling apart, as far as the difficulty of each sport is concerned: How often have you heard of a "pick up wrestling league" or an open gym for wrestlers to come in and workout? My guess would be never. However, you have middle-aged, overweight men & women who can and do play in pick up leagues at the YMCA/YWCA and other gyms across the country on a nightly basis.

Your argument that basketball is just as hard as wrestling is ridiculous, at best. I can tell you that we did scrimmage our high school basketball team during wrestling season for this very reason and the game ended after about 5 minutes because the basketball players were complaining that we were being too rough. We invited them to come scrimmage with us in the wrestling room for one match a piece and they quickly declined the offer.

Point being: Any GAME that anyone from my 6 year old nephew to my 86 year old grandmother can readily pick up and play at any given moment has nothing on a SPORT that few are able to pursue due to physical limitations in their ability and their desire to physically, mentally, and emotionally push themselves to places their bodies and minds are screaming at them not go - and that's just practice.

I've got a similar example to yours SayWhatWillis?...Back in 1983 at Chadron High School, our basketball team challenged us to a game of basketball. We agreed as long as they'd come up and wrestle with us. They said they would, so we played them in b-ball and kicked their butt. As a matter of fact, none of them could dunk, but our 2-time State Champion HEAVYWEIGHT(Damon Tyree) could! They were winded at their own game, and we were ready to go upstairs afterward. Without surprise, they chickened out. We did more in our conditioning such as running shuttles on the mat, running stairs, running the hallways, and running "the loop" than they did in their practice, and that doesn't count the stretching, warm-ups, drilling,live wrestling, OR games afterwards.

Sorry Diehard, but you're not going to even come close to winning that debate.

I am sure people will be shocked when I write that I believe Diehard is PARTIALLY correct. First in regards to media coverage I think people need to realize that we live in capitalistic system (at least partially) that is based on supply and demand. If demand is high the supply will eventually increase to meet that demand. Right now I don’t believe the demand for media coverage of wrestling is high enough to force the supply of media coverage to go up. I believe the Omaha World Herald and pretty much all other papers to at least some degree respond to what they believe their readers want or what might increase their readership. This forum is made up completely of wrestling fans, but the reality is that wrestling fans are a pretty small minority of the entire population. So in my view it is unrealistic to expect newspapers to give coverage to wrestling disproportional to the amount of wrestling fans who read newspapers. So if you want to increase wrestling coverage you need to increase the number of wrestling fans. I know that part of the problem is, that one of the factors that determines the number of fans anyone sport has is the amount of media coverage that the sport receives. This creates a circular problem, it is difficult to get more media coverage without more fans and it is difficult to get more fans without more media coverage. It would seem to me that the best plan of action is to be very supportive of the coverage that wrestling does get. Let the newspapers know that you are reading the wrestling articles that they are printing and that you appreciate them. Also work to generate more wrestling fans by being an advocate for the sport. Let everyone you can, know what a great sport wrestling is. Let them know how exciting it can be, let them know what a great test it is of the human spirit. This weekend at UNK at the NCAA Division II nationals we saw some great coverage by the Kearney Hub. This should be praised. We also had some great examples of both the excitement of wrestling and how it gives a chance for tremendous displays of courage. Jeff Rutledge’s (I know I am biased) win with a twister in the last second of his second match was absolutely as exciting as any sport ever gets and it was a tremendous demonstration of great courage and a never say die attitude. These are the kinds of things you need to tell your friends about. J.D. Naig’s outstanding performance and third national championship, dominating in my mind wrestlers with more “natural athletic ability” was a great example of what wrestling has to offer. Tervel Dlagnev becoming one of the best heavyweights in the nation, regardless of classification in only six years is another example of what wrestling has to offer. These are the type of stories that need to be told to help make wrestling more fan popular and will in turn bring more media coverage.

To another point that has come up; are wrestlers better athletes than athletes from other sports? Again I might shock some of you in that I don’t think wrestlers are generally superior athletes to the athletes in the more media popular sports. Don’t get me wrong there are some of the greatest athletes in the world that are wrestlers but I don’t think wrestling generally gets the best athletes. When a young person chooses the sports they will be involved there are many variables which go into determining what that choice will be. Most young people are socialized into the sports choose. That might sound a little deterministic for some of you but at the same time I am sure most of you realize it to be true. How many wrestlers had dad or grandfathers or uncles who were wrestlers or had somehow become wrestling fans? Most kids who become involved in wrestling had someone introduce them to the sport and encourage them to participate. So acknowledging that people are socialized into the choice of becoming a wrestler, we must also acknowledge that our culture as whole is more likely to encourage people to become football players, basketball player and baseball players than wrestlers. If this is the case, as I would contend that it is, then it follows that those sports which are getting the highest percentage of the athletes are the sports that are more likely to have the more talented athletes. I think it is simply naïve to think that the most talented athletes are being drawn to wrestling over the sports which are more popular in our culture at large. So I agree with diehard that wrestling doesn’t have best athletes, but I most certainly disagree with him when he argues that wrestling is not more difficult than most sports. One of the major reasons that I believe wrestling doesn’t have the best athletes is because it is so difficult. If you can find success in one of the more culturally popular sports why endure something as difficult as wrestling? Now I actually think this is a good thing, the shear difficulty of wrestling drives some people away (some of the better natural athletes) but it allows those people with less natural talent to succeed often times by their ability to endure the tremendous stress that wrestling imposes on the individual. Though there is no question that “natural athletic ability” can help a person be successful at wrestling and there are plenty of great athletes in wrestling, it is also true that the multiple variables which can help a person succeed in wrestling, will allow an individual of less pure athletic talent to out achieve a person of more pure athletic talent. Don’t be confused if all the other variables are equal (and sometimes even when they aren’t) the better pure athlete will win. One of the beauties of wrestling is that there are so many ways to be successful, you can be a great athlete, but you can also have great technique, great strategy, great endurance, great mental toughness and greatness in many other variables. So no I don’t think most of the best “natural” athletes are wrestlers but I am glad that it is so. I do agree with Diehard that we should appreciate all sports; all sports do require athletic talent, hard work, determination and mental toughness. One of our football/basket ball players is one of the most mentally tough high school athletes that I know. If you have ever been to a cross country meet and watched them when they cross the finish line and can barely keep their balance, you won’t question their mental toughness. The swimmers at our school are also some of the hardest workers that I know of, they have grueling workouts and competitions. All of these sports should be appreciated wrestling does not have any kind of monopoly on mental toughness. The toughest individuals can come from virtually any sport. That being said what I think makes wrestling so difficult for most people is how extremely personal it is. If you have stepped on the mat and faced another person in a wrestling match, if you have ever been pinned by another person then I think you will understand what I mean by “personal.” This is what I think separates wrestling from other sports; it does not however separate wrestlers from other athletes. Wrestling does require you to deal with this difficult “personal” aspect of the sport but that does not mean that non-wrestlers could not deal with that difficulty.

Now what sport helps you improve your athletic abilities the most that is another question. The question here is what athletic abilities are you talking about? If you are a wide receiver in football I believe you MIGHT be better served by playing basketball, but if you are a linebacker, if your are a lineman, or if you are a running back I believe you will improve your football abilities more in wrestling than in basketball. I am quite sure that part of the reason Dirk Desmond (who wrestled 145) was such a great nose guard was because of all the years he spent wrestling. If Dirk had played basketball I am not sure he would have been as successful a football player as he was. Wrestling improves; strength, power, quickness, flexibility, balance, endurance and mental toughness but I doubt that it does much to improve your hand eye coordination.

One last issue, that has come up on this thread, that I want to address, is the issue of the all sports championship. I do believe there are people who care about it and I do believe it is becoming increasingly more important. I think it is a great accomplishment if a school can produce a number of strong athletic teams. I believe that Lincoln East is actually pretty high in the race for that championship this year. Now those of you who know me know that I try to never make championships a goal, but I do think it is a good thing, for a school’s culture, for the athletes of one team to be fans of other teams.

Well if anyone has read this entire post thanks for enduring it and the run on paragraphs that made it up. I don’t think most issues that really matter can be handled in a few words. Keisweitter if you are reading this I know you think there should be a maximum number of words placed on my posts but I still want to thank you for teaching Jeff Rutledge the Twister.

I just read some of the new posts that have been added to this thread so I am adding a quick note. Some of you have added what is called anecdotal evidence, in the social sciences, that wrestling is much tougher than other sports and that wrestlers are better athletes than other athletes particularly basketball players. Well I will offer a little contradictory anecdotal evidence (as opposed to true data) for you. I would contend that Jim Epke an all state quarterback and a basketball player at our school is as mentally tough as just about any high school wrestler that I have known. I believe if he had chosen wrestling even as late as his freshmen year he would have had an excellent chance to be a state champion. I would also contend that no one who has posted on this topic could compete with Michael Jordan in an endurance contest. Again that was simply anecdotal evidence which won’t get you far in the research community. Do I think that wrestling is more demanding than basketball? You bet I do. Do I think that all wrestlers are more mentally tough than all basketball players? No way.

Case closed Tom McCann Fan. Each year Tom McCann challenges his wrestlers to a basketball game. Rumor has it that Tom McCann has never lost. Great athletes are great athletes, regardless of their age or the sport they choose to specialize in. Everything else is hyperbole and image. If you have the promotioal skills, you can compete against the media, the hype, the kutzpa (probably mis-spelled) and the currently popular. But in the final analysis, image is everything. How else can you explain Michael Jordan, Bret Farve, Tiger Woods, Roger Clemens, and 'The Rock'. Until wrestling promotes itself, it will play second fiddle. If Rulon didn't have the occasional near miss, we would never hear about him again, pure and simple. Give the masses a larger than life hero, and they will come.

This is one of those issues that can be disected in so many different ways... I've seen mental toughness mentioned...are all wrestlers more mentally tougher than all other athletes?...probably not...heck, chess players are probably considered mentally tougher than wrestlers, and all other athletes for that matter, but then again, the mind is really the only weapon in chess. Now before you say that chess players are not athletes...that's up to interpetation too. Chess has been classified as not only a game, but a sport...so those who compete in a sport can be classified as an athlete. Do wrestlers have more endurance than a marathan runner?...no way. Is anyone who posted here a better athlete than Michael Jordan?...of course not! Now would the best wrestler be considered as good as, or better an athlete than the likes of Michael Jordan?...Well, who's the best wrestler to put up against M.J.? What do they compete at to determine who the best athlete is? Obviously, no wrestler could beat him on the basketball court, and I doubt that he could beat any wrestler of equal size and with college-level experience...heck, a lot of high school wrestlers of equal size could beat him. So, how do you compare? Who's fastest? Who jumps higher? Who jumps further? Now those 3 categories would obviously favor M.J. since those are 3 major components of the sport of basketball. How about who's stronger? Quicker? More powerful? The wrestler would probably hold the advantage in strength and power. But what would be a fair way to measure quickness? A basketball players quickness (mostly up and down the court, with lateral movement involved as well) is a whole different realm than a wrestler's(stand-ups, switches, takedown shots, etc.). I can't argue that sports like football, basketball, etc. may draw more athletes than wrestling....shear numbers dictate that. What I'm saying is that wrestlers in general are better athletes than other sports in general. It would have to be on a per-capita basis to be a more fair comparison. I just think the sport of wrestling...the dynamic of wrestling...is just more demanding overall than other sports. I just don't think any other sport demands as much out of an athlete than wrestling does... Strength, speed, power, quickness, endurance, mental toughness, technique, and balance. Sure there are many sports out there that may be superior to wrestling in a number of those areas, but I think one would be hard pressed to find a sport more demanding in ALL those categories than wrestling. Then, of course, you have the one factor that separates wrestling from all the other sports(except for boxing...kinda...) and that's the weight management part....(at least to the extent of wrestling's). I guess what I'm trying to say is that I agree that wrestling does NOT attract the best athletes....but I think wrestling PRODUCES the best athletes. When it comes to a popularity contest, wrestling is far from the top of the heap. That is just the way it's always been(unless you go back far enough in time when wrestling was the only sport on earth), and it may be that it's the way it's always going to be. The only thing we can do is continue to do our best to promote the sport in a positive manner any way we can...and try not to tear any other sport in the process. I have respect for all other sports....but I will always believe that overall...wrestling is the most superior of them all. You've got to admit that the wrestling family/fraternity/community/world is in a class all by itself as far as it's closeness, knowledge of the sport, and overall meaning. Just because it's not the most popular doesn't mean it's not the best or most demanding...after all, bowling is the most popular participation sport in America...so is Walter Ray Jr. a better athlete that Cael Sanderson, Michael Jordan, Lance Armstrong, Tiger Woods, etc....??? Not in my book, but I guarantee that some bowling fans will think so. You also have to take into consideration that M.J., Lance, and Tiger are absolute freaks of their sports...super human. In wrestling, you'd have to compare them to the likes of Sanderson, Gable, Baumgartner, Gardner...or how about Karelin? Again, a lot of debates like this come down to perspective, interpetation, and most of all...from what position are you looking at the issue from, and what are you looking at? In the end, it all comes down to opinions....right or wrong....with no clear cut way to determine the absolute right answer. In the meantime, it's makes for some pretty intriguing conversation. Man would it be fun to sit around a campfire, enjoying your favorite beverage, and just getting philosophical with each other like this. This is my story and I'm sticking to it!....WRESTLING RULES!

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Radio Man,

Radio man great post!! I also believe “wrestling rules.” I in fact tell my wrestlers that I believe wrestling is the most demanding sport in high school. I generally limit argument to high school sports because I think you could make a pretty good case for such sports as Mixed Martial Arts (I am sure some would not consider it a sport) boxing, rock climbing, triathlons, marathons, survival tests you name it. No matter what you do there is probably somebody doing something tougher. Even at the high school level as far as just being physically demanding, I believe you could also make a pretty strong case for; cross country, swimming, and any race in track of 400 meters and beyond. So I just think for the sake of credibility and avoiding bias and ethnocentrism, we have to be careful when say wrestling is the most difficult sport. Now completely contradicting myself I have to say honestly that I do believe wrestling is the most difficult sport, but it is not primarily (though partially) due to its physical difficulty. The primary difficulty of wrestling as I stated in my prior post is its personal nature. When you lose to someone in wrestling there just seems to be a much greater sense of how you have lost to that person than in others sports even in individual sports. It is when a person beats you in that one on one combat situation that it has such a personal impact on you. The plain fact is most people simply are not willing to risk losing in this personal way, that is what I believe keeps so many people from wrestling. It is not the physical difficulty that keeps most people from wrestling it is the emotional difficulty. Now I can’t use data to support these claims but I believe that in their heart of hearts most people know (as much as you can truly know anything) that I am writing the truth. I can’t tell you how many tough football players, who had lived in the weight room, told me they were coming out for wrestling in the spring, but for some reason when October and November rolled around things had changed. I actually think many people would really like to be wrestlers, they would like to be able to take another person on in one on one combat but when it comes time to put their reputation as a tough guy on the line the opt out. Now with that being said I have to remember the bible verse which says “God is OPPOSED to the proud but gives grace to the HUMBLE.” So I think humility is always the best approach. I don’t think there is anything wrong with saying that wrestling is the most difficult high school sport and that a wrestler should take satisfaction from knowing they have participated in that difficult sport. For the reasons I have already stated I think we should avoid telling them that they should be proud of being a wrestler. I think we would be better off telling them that they have been fortunate to have been a wrestler. Again I believe humility is always the best way to approach other sports. It would be biased, ethnocentric and naïve to think that your athletes would be better conditioned for a sport than the people who are specifically training for that sport. I have actually seen pride be a huge detriment to wrestlers who have taken up mixed martial arts. Royce Alger (considered one of the toughest Iowa wrestlers of all time) is a great example. He simply believed because he was an Iowa wrestler he was so tough that there was no way someone could beat him in a fight. Well let’s just say he had to eat some major humble pie, he was submitted once in a very short time and knocked out another time. I believe his pride kept him from learning the other aspects of the sport he needed to be successful. Do I think my wrestlers even at top condition could go out and defeat the cross country team in a three mile race? No way. So I have no problem with saying wrestling is the most demanding of high school sports but we must acknowledge that these other sports can also be very difficult and that they contain many very mentally tough individuals.

TMF, use a paragraph!

I'm pretty sure Cael Sanderson, or any Olympic wrestler for that matter could win an endurance test against Michael Jordan. As a matter of fact, I bet he could beat Jordan in just about any sport except basketball. There is no way that you are going to get me to believe that other sports hold a candle to the mental challenges that wrestlers face at least at the college level. And yes, I bet there are quite a few wrestlers at the college level who could give cross country runners a run for their money in a three mile race. Wrestling owns, that's all there is to it.

I would take Jordan in a track meet against Cael. I would take Jordan in a football contest against Cael. Jordan in BASEBALL by far. Jordan had more hand eye cord. He accelerated faster than most athletes in our time do.

quote:

Originally posted by Diehard:
I would take Jordan in a track meet against Cael. I would take Jordan in a football contest against Cael. Jordan in BASEBALL by far. Jordan had more hand eye cord. He accelerated faster than most athletes in our time do.

Would you take Jordan AFTER Sanderson had him on the mat for 7 minutes?

Tiger 135 this quote is simply a biased and naive; "I bet there are quite a few wrestlers at the college level who could give cross country runners a run for their money in a three mile race." Jeff Rutledge wins the UNK campus run (I am thinking it is about 3 miles) every year. Why don't you ask him how he thinks he would due against college cross country runners. As I mentioned before I believe Royce Alger had your mindset when entered MMA, you might want to check out how his MMA career went. Tiger I think wrestling is the greatest sport in the world but I am just asking you to have a little respect for the great accomplishments which take place in other sports. My daughter was a college volleyball player and I am guarnteeing to you that she worked extremelly hard at her sport. It is simply inaccurate to believe wrestling has a monopoly on hard work or mental toughness. It is biased, arrogant and simply does not match up with the facts. Years ago they had a competition called the super stars, which pitted top athletes against each other in neutral sports, Dan Gable was in it, in the middle of his prime, he actually did quite well but was a long way from winning the competition. You might want to consider what your mind tells you not just your heart.

Tiger 135, you are completely wrong. Not only can wrestlers not run with boys cross country team, but they would be embarrassed by a girls cross country team.

As a freshman in high school I ran a 4:47 mile. I didn't go out for track after that year so I could wrestle more in the spring (I hated track). I don't say that to brag, but merely to build a base for endurance credibility. My sophomore year of college I wrestled at 157. To get there I had to work out 3-4 times a day. I had a resting heart rate of ~37 beats/min. Over Xmas break I thought it would be a good idea to run with my little sister who was a high school sophomore then. Talk about eating some humble pie. I was holding her workout back so much she left me and beat me home by over ten min. I have never run with her since.

Jeff Rutledge couldn't run with her when she was in high school either. She was visiting me at college and needed to get a workout in. I called Jeff Rutledge and asked if he could do me a favor. He said yes before I told him what it was, and then couldn't back out of running with a girl. Tom McCann fan was visiting his daughter that weekend too. My sister went over to TMF daughter's house to get Jeff for their run. TMF then made some comment about how Jeff said he was too fast to run with a girl (It was a joke, and Jeff never said that). They ran together for a little bit before Joslyn (my sister) said, "so you think you’re better than girls?" and left him in the dust.

Tiger 135's post is one of the more naive posts I have ever read. Our sport is the toughest for multiple reasons, but we do not run the fastest 40's, have the highest verticals, or best agility scores. What we do have (usually) is the biggest hearts, passion, and commitment. We are nowhere near the best athletes. This is nothing to be embarrassed about, but should be embraced, a sense of pride knowing that our success is not do as much to athletic ability but hard work.

Every year UNK goes on a team retreat. We divide into two teams and play VB and BB among other competitive endeavors (each win worth a point in the overall competition). I can tell you for a fact that we would be hard pressed to beat a Jr. High girl’s team in either of those sports. Keiswetter is so bad at basketball (I'm no better) we never even guarded him, yet he is one of the best wrestlers I have ever been teammates with.

The reverse is also true of college cross country runners. At my college there were two national qualifers on the track/cc team that would come in and drill/spar with our lower weights just for some conditioning. They could run and run and run five minute miles forever, but five minutes of hard wrestling and they were flat out exhausted. Different sports require different types of 'in-shape'. They definetly respected our sport, which trickled down to their team mates, and we better respected them and their team mates because we both knew that their respective teams invested a lot into their sport.

Thinking back to my physiology of excersise class, I think that Cross Country is an Aerobic activity and wrestling is Anaerobic activity. and as chiefstorm are two very different types of in shape.

quote:

Originally posted by Mr. Pin:
Thinking back to my physiology of excersise class, I think that Cross Country is an Aerobic activity and wrestling is Anaerobic activity. and as chiefstorm are two very different types of in shape.

You better remember a little harder.

Either that or you flunked Ex. Phys.

They are both very much aerobic activities.

Mr. Pin is absolutely right. Look at body type. You might find a person with type I muscle fibers (predisposed to excel in aerobic activities) who is a good wrestler, but you will never find a type II muscle fibers in cross country, while they dominate the wrestling seen. A double, a stand-up, a lift to return to the mat,...ect; all short burst activities. AKA-anaerobic work. We go out of bounds, adjust or headgear and kneepads and we're ready for more short bursts. There are elements of aerobic exercise in wrestling, and it would be foolish to not acknowledge that, but if we must classify wrestling would definitely fit into the anaerobic category. So rest assured, Mr. Pin, your financial investment in Ex. Phys was a good one. While WWICM, I would recommend taking the class. You might also benefit from a biochem class or cell physiology.

How hard an athlete is breathing at the end of an event has little to do with weather or not an activity is aerobic or anaerobic. When we do work we use ATP. This is made by breaking the bonds of a glucose (C6H12O6) molecule via glycolysis (anaerobic pathway occurring in the cells cytoplasm), or TCA and ETC cycles (aerobic pathway in the organelle mitochondria). ATP is the desired product, but CO2 and H2O are also side products. During exercise we break down more glucose, and create more CO2. A build up of CO2 can easily be lethal. Healthy blood has an acceptable pH range of 7.35-7.4. A CO2 build up will drop the pH resulting in carboxia. Therefore our body needs to increase respiration to readily remove this threat. O2 coming in has limits in terms of hemoglobin binding affinity, and although heart rate can increase that to has limits. So an increased respiratory rate at the end of a match has the primary responsibility of removing CO2.

Wrestlers utilize anaerobic pathways more because they are much quicker. They produce far less energy, but in anaerobic activities quicker energy is more beneficial than amount of energy.

It's all about quick bursts