Team Banquet

We held our team awards banquet on Sunday. Tommy Owen did a great job organizing and running the event. We held the banquet in our team meeting room (aka a large trailer behind the field house). All in all, I thought it went well but we did get a few laughs out of our choice of venues.

We were able to honor every guy on the team with a wooden plaque that had the team photo prominently displayed. I hope the guys like the award and display them in their home or office. They should be proud of their efforts. It is not easy being a wrestler, especially at the D1 level.

We gave out 5 individual awards. We honored our top freshman and upperclassman who carry the highest GPA. DJ Dwyer and Seth Robertson are doing quite well in the classroom. In the end, the education guys get from Mason is what will serve them well throughout their life. I want the team academic awards to be coveted and sought after awards by the guys on the team.

Denny Herndon received our Leadership award. He will be missed. This year he did a great job rallying the team. He led by example by giving his best effort. He also gave freely of his time and knowledge to help his teammates and the program grow.

Our two national qualifiers received the outstanding wrestler awards. Vince Rodriguez won the freshman outstanding wrestler award. Bagana Tovuujav won the team outstanding wrestler award. These guys definitely earned the recognition.

As crazy as it feels, the school year is almost over. We will have no more mandatory workouts or meetings. The guys will focus on finishing the well in their classes. Guys will have the freedom to train when they can. I want the stress level from structured training to be less. Nevertheless, I still want them to get their training done.

I am hopeful we will have a bunch of guys prepared to compete at the University Greco-Roman and Freestyle Nationals May 31-June 2. I think having a competition in the horizon helps guys train with more focus and resolve.

Olympic Trials

Does the wrestling season really ever end? In my opinion, no. I hope it never ends. The NCAA championships ended March 17, but our schedule has remained hectic at George Mason. We have been busy trying to finish work from the past season and more importantly build for the future. I often get asked “what do you do now that the season is over?” Well, to be honest, I have been quite busy. I did take Easter Day off, but otherwise, I have been working. We have been busy recruiting, building our college program (as well as our club program), and keeping guys on track in school, athletics and socially.

I was able to attend the Olympic Trials this past weekend. It is a very emotional event to attend. I watch it mostly from a coaches’ perspective and try and learn as much as possible. Try to see what techniques are scoring for America’s best. See how guys carry themselves on and off the mat. I watch what coaches do before, during and after their wrestlers compete. It was great to see the large crowd support the athletes who have trained and dreamed for many years to have the opportunity to represent the United States at the Olympics.

We will have our season ending awards banquet on Sunday, April 29. It has been difficult preparing for the event. I guess that goes with the job. I hope it is a day to celebrate the seniors and the hard work the team put in this season.

We are also preparing to host our first summer camps. There are lots of hurdles to cross to prepare for a summer camp. We want to put on a camp that people walk away from feeling it was a worthwhile experience. This year we are going to have a team camp (July 8-12), technique camp (July 8-12) and a father/son camp (July13-14).

NCAA Tournament

We came up short at the NCAA Tournament. On paper we were supposed to go 0-4. I believed we could do better. Sadly, we did not.

Bagana wrestled well. He had the #3 seed on the ropes in the opening round. He was close to scoring the upset. He had people talking. In his first consolation bout, he lost in overtime to a guy who had pinned him during the regular season. The match was frustrating, because Bagana controlled much of the bout but made some mental errors that caused him to lose on the scoreboard. Little things make the difference in close matches. Bagana was certainly good enough to place. I will miss watching him compete. He is a fun wrestler to watch.

Vince had a tough first round draw. He wrestled a guy who ended up losing in the round of 12 for the second straight year (This year he lost to the first and third place guy in a close bout). Vince struggled making weight and seemed a little overwhelmed by the environment in his first bout. In his consolation bout, I felt he looked much better. The guys scored off of Vince’s attack to win. I think Vince has a much better understanding of what the national tournament is like and what he has to do to win. My hope is this experience will spur him on to greatness.

We had a few of the other guys attend the tournament as spectators. I had encouraged the team to attend. I believe it will help them succeed when it is their time. The more they take in the environment of the tournament, the more prepared they will be. I also think it helps give them a vision. I was excited listening to a few of them talk about their experience and how it has motivated them as a result.

Now that the season is over, it is a time for reflection. We need to analyze. What did we do right? What did we do wrong? How can we improve? There is lots of work to be done. We need to keep moving forward.

A few of my goals on the mat in year one were achieved. I had wanted to compete with a full line up in every competition. We were able to meet this goal. A few times, I had to move guys up a few weight classes, but we were able to put a guy on the mat. A few times, guys had to wrestle hurt. I appreciate the guys sacrificing for their team. It is a harder goal to achieve than one would think. I also wanted guys to wrestle a harder pace on the mat. I believe guys were making improvements in this area.

A few goals were not achieved. I was hopeful for better results. We lost some dual meets I felt we could win. I felt we could have qualified more guys for the national tournament and had guys win matches and place.

Off the mat we were able to reach some of our goals. I was pleased we were able to start a booster club. I was also pleased we were able to sell season tickets. We have worked hard to get the guys to understand that being elite requires you to commit to a lifestyle. Some of the guys are buying into it. We hope to get everyone on board.

We did falter in some of our off the mat goals this season. I had wanted to retain all 30 guys on the team (12 returners and 18 new guys). Typically, there is lots of turn over with a new coach. I had a goal to keep everyone who started the season. In the end, we had 26 guys on the roster. We lost guys due to academics, injury and life circumstances. Some things are out of our control, but some of the things were not. I also wanted to do a better job on the fundraising front, rallying alumni, and getting more people involved with the program. We need to improve our off the mat performance.

We are now headed into an important time with recruiting. The team will now change their focus to the international styles of wrestling. Our new club team will be training for Freestyle and Greco-Roman competitions. I will meet individually with every team member over the next few weeks. I will also meet with our advisory board to evaluate and plan for what we will get done in the spring and summer. The college season really never ends.

I have received positive feed back on this blog.  Thus, I will try to keep it going.  Please check back from time to time.  I probably won’t update it every Monday, but I will write as warranted this spring and summer.

Tournament Time

It is NCAA week. This is one of the best, if not, the best wrestling event in the world. It is a great celebration of American wrestling. I am excited to be at the event.

We have two guys competing. Bagana Tovuujav won the conference tournament and received an automatic invitation. Vince Rodriguez finished 2nd in the conference meet and he received an at-large berth on Wednesday. He had a good season and was rewarded for it.

I am excited for both wrestlers. I want them to go in to the tournament with the mindset that they can win it. I want that to be their dream. At the same time I want them to focus small. I want them to focus on every scramble and to be in the moment. Dream big and focus small.

I spoke to the guys about the tournament. I want them to be prepared physically and mentally. Some of the things we talked about were:

-Worry and stress can take a toll this week. I advised the guys to control what they can control and try and let the rest of it go. I told them to give their stress to the coaches.

-I want them wrestling with excitement. If it is not there, fake it. The excitement will come.

-Be aggressive and dominating, always thinking about bonus points. Think about how much you want to do and how little time they give you to do it. Have a sense of urgency. Have a purpose.

-Push the style and pace you have trained. Force the issue. Do not let a guy hang in the match. Force your style.

-Sometimes you will get a bad break during a match, change it. You have the power to get a fresh start. You can do so in the blink of an eye.

-Do not change your style. Finish all periods with intensity. Keep intensity on the edge of the mat.

-Sometimes you will need to make adjustments during a match. Do so. If you are not sure what to do, look to the coaches.

-If you lose your wits, things get out of control. Take a second to center yourself and get refocused.

-Great times to score – second shots, re-shots, go behinds, right after an escape, right after a flurry.

-If you are riding, think how you are breaking the other guy. If you are getting ridden, think about how tired you are getting the other guy. Change your mind set to help you see the positive for you.

-If you scramble hard when a guy shoots on you, think about how you took his best attack and shut it down. Know that you have gained ground by fighting so hard.

-Sometimes the easy route is not the best option. Force what you want. Drive instead of crack down. Lift instead of cutting your opponent.

Thursday can’t get here quick enough.

CAA Tournament

I felt the guys represented themselves well this weekend at the CAA Championships. As a whole, we wrestled better matches against our CAA opponents than we did earlier in the season. I believe it is a positive sign for the program. We had 3 guys place.

Denny Herndon wrestled a great tournament. He lost a close match to the top seed in the quarter-finals. After the loss, he won 3 straight matches to finish 3rd. He wrestled with lots of determination. Denny put himself in position to get an NCAA bid, but lost a close bout in the true 2nd match. He will now have to wait and see if he gets an at-large bid.

Vince Rodriguez finished 2nd. He scored bonus points for the team in the quarter-finals and semi-finals. Vince came up short in his finals bout, so he too will await the committee’s decision on the at-large bids. I believe his body of work this season puts him in a great position to receive an at-large bid. We will wait and see.

Bagana Tovuujav won the 197lb CAA title. He wrestled well. The only points scored on him during the tournament were escapes. Even though he was the top seed, he ended up wrestling the 2nd, 3rd and 4th place finishers. He definitely earned the title.

I am amazed at how fast the season has gone. Time does fly. Next week, we will head to St. Louis for the NCAA Championships. We will find out later this week if Denny and/or Vince will join Bagana. I would love to coach all three at the NCAA tournament.

National Collegiate Open and CAA Prep

This past weekend we had 6 guys compete in the National Collegiate Open in Richmond. It is great having this event so close to home. I was happy the guys chose to compete. They all wrestled unattached which means they had to do everything on their own. When guys choose to pay their own way and compete when not required you know they are trying to get better. It is a good sign of effort and drive. I was excited one of the guys won his first college match. It was also fun to see some of the guys I use to coach at Minnesota competing at the event.

The CAA championships are on Saturday at Binghamton. Our training is complete. As the old sayings go, “the money is in the bank” or “the hay is in the barn.” The remainder of the week will be geared to rest, recovery, making weight and getting mentally ready to compete. After our dual with Virginia, the guys went through a couple of short training cycles. The intent was to fine tune their technique, supplement their conditioning, and get their intensity level as high as possible. For the most part, things went well.

We have a few guys who could not participate in the entire training cycles due to injuries sustained during earlier competitions and sadly another guy got hurt during the last training cycle. This time of year is always tough as a coach. You want to push the guys and make sure they are ready to go, but you certainly want to make sure they go into the tournament as healthy as possible. I gave a long speech before we started our final push stressing being careful, being good partners, and protecting each other as best we could from injuries. After the speech, I spent the next week worrying about guys not getting hurt. It is hard for me to keep it out of my mind. Nevertheless, in the last workout, one of the guys was hurt. He was hurt in a scramble position I find extremely dangerous. It is a position; I think should be immediately stopped as potentially dangerous in competition. I have seen numerous knee injuries from guys in this position. I told the guys to stop if they were in this position in practice. As luck would have it, during a live go, one of the pairings got in this situation and did not stop. Unfortunately, one of the guys got hurt.

The injury and the timing of the injury are disappointing. The situation is hard on everyone involved. Sometimes life doesn’t seem fair. Being in a combat sport, injuries happen. You just hope they don’t happen when a guy doesn’t have time to recover.

We depart Friday morning for Binghamton, New York. The seeding meeting will be Friday at 4pm. We should know our first round draws by that evening. The school is allowing us to take extra guys to the event. These guys will act as training partners for the starters. I think this will help the starters. I also believe it is beneficial for the training partners to be at the event. It will help them grow as wrestlers and someday as coaches. I am excited the administration is supportive of the growth of the student athletes and helping the starters during the competition.

Maryland and Virginia

The regular season has come to an end. Now it is time for the fun to begin. I want to make sure the guys are prepared for the conference tournament. I want them excited to compete.

We finished off the regular season with 2 duals this week We hosted Maryland on Thursday. We lost the dual, but felt good about the effort. Vince Rodriguez beat a hirer ranked opponent. Denny Herndon and Bagana Tovuujav both won their matches in their final home competitions.

We were also able to honor 5 seniors at the dual. All of them are on pace to graduate – Brian Benton (Art and Visual Technology); Denny Herndon (Finance and Management); Frankie McLaughlin (Finance with a minor in Economics); Hunter Manspile (Education) and Bagana Tovuujav (Business and Global Affairs). There is nothing easy about college wrestling. To be a division 1 college wrestler for 4-5 years is impressive. These guys have also done well in the classroom and will leave George Mason with their degrees. I have tons of respect for a guy who competes hard in the wrestling room and in the classroom.

While I was watching the Virginia AAA State Wrestling Tournament, it was determined we would leave a night early for our dual against the University of Virginia. There was a winter storm warning, so to be prudent, we decided to depart Saturday night. The snow didn’t start to fall until it was time for our dual to start on Sunday afternoon. Oh well, at least we were prepared.

We lost to UVA, 29-7. Again, I did feel the guys were wrestling better. There is no doubt they have improved this season. We lost a few close matches to ranked opponents. We also had 2 guys win individually. Bagana Tovuujav continues to impress. Shohei Takagi stepped up in weight class and won his bout at 157.

The CAA championships will be on March 3rd at Binghamton University. The next two weeks we will focus on getting ready for that tournament. This time of year, you hope to get guys as healthy as possible, excited about competing, rested, and firing on all cylinders. I love this time of the season.