Hi 👋

Welcome to Week #58 of the Wrestling Snacks Newsletter.

It’s been a great week for college wrestling! I had the chance to attend the Utah Valley vs. Oklahoma State dual last night, and the atmosphere was awesome. They broke the attendance record with 5,053 fans in the arena. Even though UVU lost the dual, that’s a BIG WIN for the program.

In other news, the NWCA All-Star Classic is tonight at 7 PM (ET). Don’t miss the chance to watch some of the best college wrestlers in the country face off. The main event features Carter Starocci vs. Parker Keckeisen. Starocci is a 4X NCAA National Champion, and Keckeisen won an NCAA title last year. Both are returning national champions from last season, with Starocci now moving up from 174lbs to 184lbs this year. This is going to be one of the best matchups of the decade! Check out everything you need to know HERE and be sure to tune in.

Let’s GO 💪

News Bites

• DI Live Streaming Guide (11/15 - 11/17/2024)

• Thursday's DI Dual Results (11/14/2024)

• Friday's DI Dual Results (11/15/2024)

• Sammy Sasso Makes Triumphant Return to Ohio State Wrestling With Victory in First Match Back After 2023 Shooting

• Gable Steveson Returns to Minnesota

• Marcus Blaze officially commits to Penn State

• Christian Castillo officially commits to Iowa State

• Dee Lockett officially commits to Oklahoma State

• Kevin Dresser has announced that Casey Swiderski will miss the 2024-25 season due to a knee injury suffered in practice earlier this week.

• National Girls High School Rankings for November 2024 released with four new No. 1 athletes

• USA Wrestling Folkstyle Tour of America begins with Bigfoot Battle, November 22-23

• Stanford’s upset over Iowa State triggers movement in Top 10 of NWCA Div. I Coaches Poll

• No. 6 Terrell Barraclough topped #5 Cameron Amine in front of a record-setting crowd of 5,053 on Friday night in UVU's home opener

Snacks

This week's Snacks come from J Jaggers: 4X Ohio State Champion. 3X NCAA All-American, 2X NCAA National Champion, and 2009 Ohio State Male Athlete of the Year. He’s currently the Associate Head Coach at The Ohio State and helped coach the team to a 2015 National Team Championship and three Big Ten Tournament Titles.

Below are some excerpts from our conversation, along with key takeaways and tips that can be applied to improve yourself as a Coach, Athlete, or wrestling Parent.

Origin Story Tip: Encourage kids to play multiple sports while they're young. This broad exposure helps them discover their natural talents and passions. Through these experiences, they can identify what they excel at and choose a path to focus on and go deeper into.

"My story started when I was about five years old. My dad had wrestled, and my uncles had wrestled too. My dad took me to a club he was familiar with because he had wrestled for the man who ran it, Graham Coghill. Graham was kind of an Ohio legend in youth and high school wrestling.

My cousin, who was older, was already on the team. Graham pulled me off the wall and asked if I wanted to participate. I said yes, and the rest was history. I really enjoyed it and was pretty good at it right away. By the time I was six, I was doing well. The next year, my dad let me start competing.

Aside from my first tournament—where my dad mistakenly put me in an eight-and-under division while I was only six—I did really well. I got beat up pretty bad at that first one, but my dad figured it out and entered me in the six-and-under tournaments after that. From then on, I probably won over 90% of my matches each year going forward...

From about kindergarten through fifth grade, I honestly thought I still had a chance to play baseball or football at a high level. I dreamed of being in the NFL or playing Major League Baseball. But around sixth grade, I started to realize that I was better at wrestling from a national standpoint compared to the other sports, where I was only excelling locally.

I was really good at those other sports in travel ball and even playing high school football. But in wrestling, I was on a completely different level from a national perspective. That realization started to hit me as I began to understand just how much better I was at wrestling compared to those other sports.

I played all three sports through middle school. In high school, I dropped baseball and focused on football and wrestling. My senior year was the only year I didn’t play football."

Parent Tip: Create a positive environment for your child with great coaches, teammates, and other parents. Celebrate their efforts and successes in a way that inspires growth without overhyping it. At the same time, teach accountability. When emotions run high or mistakes happen, use those moments as learning opportunities. A tough lesson, like being pulled from a tournament after a meltdown and apologizing to coaches, can instill responsibility that shapes their character for the rest of their lives.

"The first thing is they got me into a really good club with an amazing group of people—from the other parents to the kids. I say this, and I'm sure a lot of people feel the same way, but I truly believe it: I don’t know if there will ever be a group as close as the one I grew up with in wrestling. From the parents to the kids who all ended up going to high school together, it was just every day—I couldn’t wait to get to practice.

Our coaches were tough men, really hard men, and they trained us well. It wasn’t easy, and we respected them so much. There was no clowning around. But when we went on road trips or stayed at hotels, the camaraderie we shared was unmatched. I loved being in that club. My parents did a great job of supporting me too. When I won or wrestled hard, they didn’t run around town making a big deal of it, but they made me feel special. They gave me the drive to recreate those results and feelings.

They cared so much and gave me every chance to succeed. My dad was always in the trenches with me, coaching the high school and youth teams, always watching and engaging with wrestling. My mom was more of a fan, but she supported me in countless ways—doing my laundry after practice, making sure dinner was ready, recording every match. They were all in, doing everything they could to help me succeed...

Growing up, I was such a competitor. Nobody was harder on me than I was on myself. I was already at a 10 out of 10 when it came to being upset about losing—there was nothing anyone could say that would add to it. When I was really young, I acted out sometimes. I remember breaking a headgear once, and my mom had to pull me out of a tournament. I wasn’t allowed to wrestle back, no trophy, nothing. She grabbed me by the ear, dragged me out, and made me call all the coaches to apologize. I was only eight years old, but I never did that again.

I learned how to get upset in private, to have my moments without making a scene."

Coaching Tip: Run a program built on integrity, hard work, and unity, where no one is bigger than the team. Focus on the day-to-day progress of your athletes instead of being consumed by yearly results. Success isn’t always linear, and the margin for error is razor-thin. Acknowledge that everyone is improving, and one tournament doesn’t define a season or an athlete. Let the pursuit of development—not the color of the trophy—be the foundation of your coaching happiness.

"I had the same coaches from the time I started wrestling at five years old, all the way through High School. It was the same core group of five or six men who were my coaches until I graduated at 18 years old...

First thing, they just ran a program that was built on the right stuff—just integrity and hard work. There was nobody who was bigger than anybody else. Everybody was in it together. They ran the program for so long, and they were such good friends. Like I said, so close. It would be hard to recreate it...

Now being a coach, something that I've learned is I try not to be a prisoner of a result or a moment. The national tournament for me is one time a year, right? I've had guys who were so prepared, had incredible seasoned, and lost the NCAA title by the thinnest of margins. Then I've had guys who wrestled a crazy weekend, maybe overachieved, and won an NCAA title.

If you're just a prisoner to what color the plaque is that they bring home one time a year, and you let that dictate how happy you are as a coach for the next calendar year, that's going to make for a miserable, long life. So, it's about falling in love with the progress—the day-to-day progress. Is the kid better now than he was a week ago? How about a month ago? Or six months ago?

If you just think, "Okay, my guy was seventh as a freshman, third as a sophomore, so he should win it this year," it doesn't work like that anymore. The game has changed. Freshmen in college are already coming in crazy talented, and what worked in the 80s or 90s doesn’t apply anymore. There's always someone younger, hungrier, and more talented coming up...

Nobody has a monopoly on development, right? I can get better from this season to the next. But so can eight other dudes in my weight class. We all get better, and then we have to go wrestle the tournament.

In the end, one guy executes, and one guy doesn't. The margin for error is so thin. It's just incredibly tight, and that's the reality of it...

So, getting out of that mindset of letting the result—or the color of the trophy—dictate your happiness is key. Instead, fall in love with the process of trying to get good at wrestling and the relationships you create along the way."

Athlete Tip: Don’t be a prisoner to ego or insecurity. True competitors embrace the challenges of less-than-perfect circumstances. Wrestling isn’t always ideal, but your past achievements or current condition don’t define your ability to show up and compete. True competitors don’t wait for perfection—they step on the mat for the opportunity to compete, no matter what.

"Yeah, I'll give you one that I've been thinking about lately. I don't know if it's the most profound but it's super important. It's about not being a prisoner to ego and insecurity. Sometimes when people establish themselves as a certain kind of wrestler—like a state champion, youth state champion, Tulsa national champion, or something—they start to feel more nervous about competing under less-than-perfect circumstances.

There's always a gamble every time you compete, and some wrestlers worry that losing will take away their ranking or diminish what they've achieved in the past. It happens in high school and college all the time. You hear things like, "My knee hurts a little," or "I'm not 100%," and they use that as a reason to avoid competing. But if you were average and nobody cared, you probably wouldn’t be as worried about wrestling under those circumstances.

Nobody is going to take away who you are. True competitors don’t care if the circumstances aren’t perfect—they just go. If the room isn’t the perfect temperature, if the venue gets moved, if you’ve been looking forward to the event, then you show up and wrestle. True competitors figure it out. Even if their knee is banged up, they think, "I’ve been looking forward to this forever—let’s go."

Sometimes people protect themselves by only wanting to wrestle under ideal conditions. But wrestling is rarely ideal. If you're a true competitor, you embrace that and just go compete. I think some people get scared and try to find ways around it. But true competitors? They show up no matter what."

Negative Impact Tip: Don’t let wrestling—or any sport—become your entire identity. Falling into “main character syndrome,” where you think everything revolves around your achievements, can leave you unprepared for life beyond the mat. Encouraging diverse experiences, like playing multiple sports, can help kids develop broader perspectives and equip them for life after competition. Avoid the trap of over-specialization—it’s about building a foundation for success in life.

"I think I've always had a pretty keen eye on what was going on in the world outside of my bubble of wrestling and not believing that the world revolved around my wrestling. I think that's probably the biggest trap I’d warn people about. Just be aware. As important as our sport is—and this applies to any sport or industry—it’s about avoiding "main character syndrome." So many people think they're the main character in every situation. It’s like, “You were a good athlete 20 years ago. Nobody cares. Move on.”

Equipping kids with the wherewithal to be normal, good people is crucial. I’ve heard people say, “In order to be a champion, you’ve got to be selfish.” But no, you don’t. There’s a way to treat people respectfully and still be good. Some of the sweetest, most humble people I’ve ever met are the best wrestlers. It’s all about balance. If you don’t develop that balance, you’ll struggle to navigate life.

I know people who were incredible wrestlers but couldn’t transition into coaching or other areas because they didn’t have the skills to handle anything beyond the mat. They felt lost and unprepared for the real world. That’s why I value having played three sports and why I encourage my kids to do the same. Having diverse experiences and interests allows you to interact with people from different walks of life and gives you a better understanding of the world. That’s far more valuable than being the kid who wrestles 12 months a year, every year, and spends every weekend at a different dual tournament."

Wrestling Growth Tip: Be realistic about wrestling’s place in the sports world. Wrestling isn’t going to compete with baseball, football, or basketball in terms of popularity or resources, and that’s okay. Instead of comparing or resenting other sports, focus on what wrestling brings to the table. Encourage growth through avenues like adding more women’s programs. Growth doesn’t require a grand solution. Recognize the progress wrestling has already made—bigger audiences, sold-out arenas, and rising social media presence show that the sport is moving in the right direction. Celebrate those wins and continue building on them.

"One, I think maybe being realistic with the idea that we’re not going to be baseball, football, or basketball—that’s not happening. We’re not going to cut out a piece of the pie that they occupy, you know what I mean?

So, stop comparing ourselves. Stop getting mad at football because they have more scholarships and things like that. Do you see what happens every Saturday in the fall in this country?

It’s proportionate. They’re carrying their weight. I think I’d love to see more women’s programs added. I have two girls that wrestle, and it’s becoming really popular. I think it’s awesome for girls—the power, the empowerment, and how it helps them get strong and confident.

In terms of growing wrestling, I don’t have any big ideas. Like, move nationals to a Monday at midnight? I don’t know, man. I kind of stay in my lane. I like helping people with their wrestling, but I don’t know if I’m equipped or smart enough to be the guy that solves wrestling’s problems. If that makes sense.

I want to use the sport as a vessel to help kids. Through my kids, I get to help a bunch of others. I’ve gotten to know so many people, but I don’t have some grand overarching idea for the sport’s future.

I do think it’s okay to recognize the fact that we’ve grown. Listen, I’m at Ohio State. I remember when we had 800 people at a dual meet, and we’d look out there like, “Yo, they’re out tonight!” Now, we have 2,500 season ticket holders, and our arena fits 4,500—it’s sold out every time.

It has grown. Look at some of the most popular guys in the country and their social media followings. The Big Ten numbers prove it. There’s a reason they keep giving us more matches. We are growing."

Growth Bite

This week's Growth Bite comes from Sports Psychologist Bill Beswick on the topic of being a winner. The video clip is 12 minutes long, but I wanted to highlight the segment at the 1:04 mark, where he emphasizes three powerful questions: 1) What do you want? 2) How badly do you want it? 3) How much are you willing to suffer? Take a listen below—this section is just over a minute long:

Community Treat

This week's Community Treat comes from Stanford’s Head Coach, Chris Ayres. After a few years of tireless attempts at throwing his Keurig coffee pod like he's playing cornhole, he finally managed to land it perfectly in the machine—not just once, but twice in a row!