I believe that there is merit to what tnt has had to say. It is one thing to wrestle to become all you can be, and entirely another to resort to whatever lengths possible in an attempt to demonstrate that your opponent is a lesser person. In my opinion, it is not required to make the other guy look bad, talk trash to him while you score 15 or twenty points on him, bump him after the match, shove him around when you go out of bounds, etc. , etc. there are a few really good wrestlers right now that can close the gap with any opponent, that realize that it accomplishes nothing to publicly humiliate your opponent. Those people have achieved maturity. alas, some guys spend so much time improving their wrestling that common courtesy is a foreign concept to them. One of the reasons that I enjoy competion in smaller communities is that people in the smaller towns know they have to live together every day, so they have at least a minmal amount of courtesy to one another. In the more populous areas where you will never see the fellow again, the way you act toward that person reflects a lot on who you are. For the most part, I would rather have my son coached by a guy that wrestled and had limited success and worked for it than a four timer that was mean to everyone, because that mentality is not likely to stop when wrestling is over.

I think Bobby Bowden (Florida State Coach) said it best when someone accused him of running up the score in games. "It is not my job to stop our offense, it’s the job of the other team's defense to stop our offense".

I think it is fine for wrestlers to work on their skills (takedowns) during a live match I have had my wrestlers do this before, and it wasn’t to set any records or demoralize the opponent. I think that sometimes a real match situation helps hone the skills more so than practice. I also feel that you have to know when to call off the dogs, because it can go too far. As for running up the team score in a dual, there is no such thing.

Who is to say that the record is meaningless. If records are meaningless, then stop keeping them. I have seen Chenowith several times, the takedown record is within his grasp. He has the talent and ability, as long as we are going to have records then why not go for it. It may be meaningless to you, but we all have our goals, and they are not the same for everyone. If I had these kid's talent, then I guarantee I would try for the record. Go to most any high school and you will see people from 20 years ago with some kind of record on the wall. They can bring their kids and share those old moments with them, as a parent it demonstrates that we have already walked the road we are trying to lead our kids on, we do understand that victory takes sacrifice.

Myself, I wish my son had 1/2 of the talent of any of the wrestlers mentioned here. God gave him the desire, unfortunately his body cannot hold up its end.

Jim

See I too had the desire but my parents didn't give me much to work with *L*- Dern it anywho

tnt- I agree with everything you said. Sportmanship goes a long way when presenting an image: be it school, community, sport or individual.

As to Mark Rechtfertig and the accusation that he humiliated inferior opponents, I offer this. I don’t know if he did so every time but I recall a couple of matches where he pinned an opponent in fairly quick order.

No one has mentioned the emotional or psychological battle that is part of wrestling. How many quality wrestlers, did Mark and his takedown skills, breakdown psychologically? In my opinion, part of wrestling is convincing someone that “you” are his Daddy.

Now, I don’t agree that convincing a weak or overmatched opponent, that he doesn’t belong on the mat with you, is any kind of victory. But, there is something to be said for proving domination against proven opponents. Surely a few wins were against wrestlers who had the tools to stop Mark but due to the strategy employed, did not have the ability.


“the cops told me, I had the right to remain silent … but I didn’t have the ability”

[quote] I just wouldn't want to be the guy who holds the record for most escapes, How many times were you taken down?????????????????????[quote]

I probably have that record...I might have the combined record for most points in the least amount of time for a match before termination of the match. I believe the score was 25-20 or 20-15 when I pinned a guy in 1:30 on varsity my sophomore year in Chapman, I'll go find the record book at the high school one of these days.

What a funny topic. Sounds like some people got tramatized in high school. Maybe it was there kid. Maybe if everyone good takes it easy on one bad kid he will, in time get better?

What a funny topic. Sounds like some people got tramatized in high school. Maybe it was there kid. Maybe if everyone good takes it easy on one bad kid he will, in time get better?

If you can pin your opponent you should do so. I tell my wrestlers that the greatest stats of any wrestler I have coached is that of Jeff Boyle's 28 takedowns and 28 pins, no other stats at all. Now that is perfection. Jeff practiced his moves in the practice room.
However Lance Roe this year got a good number of takedowns because he can't even pin his sister !!!!!!

I used to feel anytime I saw a wrestler "playing" with an opponent..it was all about himself. Making the opponent embarassed, stringing the match along. I was corrected when I asked the question "why not just DO it..end the match?" If all a wrestler does is PIN his opponent from the get-go..what mat time does he gain in doing so every single time? Because there will be that 1 kid whom you can't pin and you won't know how to wrestle the entire time because all you HAVE done IS pin in the first period. So I watched those that could and did not. I gained new understanding. Some do it to humiliate...MOST do not. They respect their opponent and gain mat time. Also giving their opponent a chance to wrestle.

I agree with Coach Johnson. Pinning is the ultimate win in wrestling. At Goddard we only keep track of wins, pins, and team points earned. I don't have a problem with cutting guys, but there is not a better way to help the team than by pinning your opponent. I think that if by cutting a guy a few times will break him enough to get the pin, than go for it. If it is to humiliate him, don't even think about it.

Speaking of pins, why do people always say "I got caught and pinned," but never "I got lucky and caught the guy for the pin?" HMMMMMM.?

Jilka

That's usually a better quality to hold. Being able to pin your sister means that you have once tried to pin your sister meaning you are probably to close to your sister. I take the route of keeping my distance. It might just be preference because I don't live in Arkansas.

A couple of weeks ago I was at Eskimo Joe's and Chris Barnes was discussing his record of 205 takedowns in a season at OSU. 205 for him, zero against him. That is CRAZY. If you can do that at the DI level, you are more of a man than most WNBA players!

Hey Shoes...what is so bad about Arkansas

I know that not all of the people agree with my tactics of getting several takedowns per match, but on dual nights that was how I kept my weight down. If I were to just pin my opponents in 30 seconds then I wouldn't have been able to sweat off very much weight. But I took those matches as a time to get a workout and burn some weight off as well as working on perfecting some of my takedowns. I know it didn't work at all against Taplin, but it helped me to takedown some of my tougher opponents this year, and to make weight.

See??? And just because Lance Roe of Norton can't pin his sister means Coach Johnson hasn't recruited well enough :p

Curtis--you make some very valid points. We had a very good wrestler at BV named Mark Denning, who used multiple takedowns to prolong his matches and keep his shape at it's peak. He, like you, was very capable of ending his matches much sooner, but needed the mat time. Congrats on a tremendous season.

Thank you very much. How did Denning do this year.

Mark (2X State Champ, 1X State Runner-up) Denning graduated in 1999. Went to Missouri on wrestling scholarship, but sustained neck injury and has not wrestled since.