Ron Lang talks about his book Mat Return

Ron Lang, author of "Mat Return," discusses his book's focus on the transformative power of wrestling across the United States. He highlights the sport's resurgence, emphasizing its benefits in personal growth and athletic development. Lang, a former football and wrestling coach, shares his passion for wrestling, which he believes is the most transformative sport.

He recounts his journey in starting wrestling programs in Texas and the challenges faced, including convincing football-dominated states like Texas to embrace wrestling. Lang also touches on the importance of showcasing wrestling's strong community in all 50 states and the emotional and inspirational stories within the sport

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Whoa and welcome back wrestling fans to the short Time
Wrestling Podcast. I am your host, Hall of fame wrestling
writer and broadcaster Jason Bryant. Today on the program, Ron Lang,

(00:23):
author of Matt Return, He will talk about his book.
Latest book is his fourth, but this is the first
one about wrestling, So that's what we've got. We're going
to go into a pretty in depth conversation with him. There. Yeah,
it's been a while since I've done a show, and again,
you know, when we get busy into the college wrestling season,
short Time is more like sporadic time in some cases.

(00:43):
But been doing the show coming over at where over
the ten year mark. But first thing I want to
do is congratulate the award winners from the recent National
Wrestling Media Association Awards that has been on the website
at National Wrestlingmedia dot com. So let's give you a
little rundown on who those people were and why they
won things. First, we'll start with the annual award winners

(01:03):
and for those who you are unaware, I serve as
the president of this organization and have for about twelve
years actually, since I was working at USA Wrestling in Colorado.
Springs so well just on our roll. Jordan Burrows ESPN
and NBC Sports was voted Broadcaster of the Year. Kyle
Kleingman of Flow Wrestling was Journalist of the Year. Sam
Janicke was the photographer of the Year. The maatt dot

(01:24):
Com was named the outlet of the Year, Bacha Mania
the Podcast of the Year. Leander excuse me. Leandra Harasseda
was the Division one SID of the Year. That's the
first time that award has gone to an individual that
is specifically covering Division one women's wrestling, as we've only
got four schools currently with the Dell States coming on
board next year. And then Mattie Brink from Sioux Falls,

(01:46):
who covers both the men's and women's wrestling programs at
the Division two school former wrestler too, So that was
a pretty cool thing to learn after the fact as
I was doing some research to write the release. Yeah,
she wrestled in South Dakota growing up, so pretty cool there.
The other ones are the Spotlight Awards, and these are
awards that are out there to recognize individual or team

(02:08):
accomplishments that don't really fall into the room of an
annual type of thing. So Justin Hock was recognized for
his photography. Yes, he was also a finals for the
Photographer of the Year, but it was his chronicling of
the Olympic journey, going back all the way from the
international events in the United States to the Olympic Trials,
through multiple Olympic qualifiers around the world, and of course

(02:30):
the Paris Games. Dave Burkett and Sandy Hooper did an
amazing story featuring Mason, Paris and Normandy, focusing on Paris's
great grandfather who was a World War Two serviceman and
stormed the beaches of Normandy and World War Two. So
interesting introspective and photographs there of Paris going back to Normandy,

(02:52):
or going to Normandy where his great grandfather once fought,
and the pretty powerful stuff there. Tider Meisinger from Flow
Wrestling was not dominate. It was actually given the Spotlight
Award for just his stellar work and putting a lot together,
a lot of the video features that you've seen, including
the Bo Bassett Jacks Forrest Day one recruiting profiles him
and sea On Williams went out to why do the

(03:14):
fundraising efforts there to help those wrestlers affected by the
wildfires of course it was more than wrestling, as we know,
but a lot of great features. That guy does tremendous
work at Flow Wrestling. Aaron Rooney from k c RGTV
has been instrumental in putting high school wrestling on that
channel down in Cedar Rapids, Saint Cloud State alum too,
so she knows a little bit about our broadcasting. It's

(03:35):
a killer broadcasting school at Saint Cloud State. Like I
said this, if I grew up in Minnesota, I would
have gone to Saint Cloud State. And I'm not just
saying that because I work there with certain things now
and Ross Bendick with Wrestlings, actually the actual name of
that is the Foundation for Wrestling Art and Innovation. Ross
has come up with some of these great photographs. These
stick actually their graphics, the artistic graphics with like one

(03:58):
of my favorites I think is like Folks stop Shout
and it's like a silhouette of Metcalfs shoving Caldwell and
like Midair It's it's hilarious. It's a lot of these
things are tongue in cheek, but a lot of social
media usage of these things. He does, like the outlines
of the coaches faces, and then the iconic buildings and
such within the sport of wrestling. Ross just really it's

(04:20):
a cool thing that he does for the sport of wrestling,
and all that information can be found at National Wrestlingmedia
dot com. So again that's a little bit of the news.
Keep an eye out for those of you that are
keeping tabs on the NCAA Wrestling Championships with the guide, Yes,
Wrestling preview Guide dot com. The pre sale. If you've
bought this thing before, check your email because you've got

(04:42):
a special, special deal that's only running between now and
February fourteenth. So I'm not going to sit there and
just give that one away. But if you have bought
that before, check your email, check your spam folder just
in case. It's a special deal out there. For those
of you that have bought that thing before, if you're
listening to this after fourteenth, Wrestling Preview Guide dot com, Yeah,

(05:03):
more promo codes to be coming out on social media
on that. That thing is going to be amazing this year.
The gang goes to NCAA's If you're a fan of
Always Sunny, you're gonna love this stuff too. But now,
if it's Ron Lang, author of Matt Return. And as always,
I'd like to thank you for spending your time with me,
because you've always got time for Short Time Chain Sparks
should love this book. Whoo and welcome back to the

(05:26):
Short Time Wrestling Podcast. I'm your host, Hall of Fame
wrestling writer, broadcaster for an announcer Jason Bryant. Today on
the show, we're gonna be talking with Ron Lang, author
of Matt Return. You may have seen the reviews on
Amateur Wrestling News. He's got some podcasts out there. But
before we bring Ron on, I want to give you
a primer on what we're talking about. This is the book,
Matt Return. We're going to go into the educational system
of it, the foundations of it, antak Ron, but right

(05:47):
I want to preface it with this before we bring
Ron on. Wrestling is the first and oldest sport known
to mankind. It has survived for centuries and is still
thriving in America today. Wrestling is the athletic base for
several mixed martial arts and many other professional athletes. Wrestling
will inevitably strengthen the body and fortify the mind. The
sport is laate a foundation of success for business executives,

(06:09):
Hollywood actors, and community leaders. From Olympic gold medalists to
young beginners, Matt Return delivers intriguing stories of people from
each of the fifty States who utilize wrestling to build
a path to greatness. The value of wrestling is the
universal manifestation of personal growth. Matt Return is the resurgence
of amateur wrestling in the United States and how the

(06:29):
sport is developing more Americans to be champions in life.
That is on the backjacket of the book, Ron Well written,
I loved I just I love that. I wanted to
start to show with that because I think that the
one it's not just an embodiment of what you've written here,
but it's also a great embodiment of the sports. So one,

(06:49):
welcome to the program. In two, that's just the way
to start, man, I mean it's on the back, but
that's the way to start.

Speaker 2 (06:55):
Yeah. I appreciate you having me. And when you started reading,
I was taking Ay, that sounds familiar, so.

Speaker 1 (07:02):
I hope it does. So first things first, Ron Lang,
the question is is like, who are you and why
did you want to write a book about wrestling.

Speaker 2 (07:11):
Well, I'm a football coach, for a long, long time,
over twenty years college and high school football in the
state of Texas. But wrestling. I wrestled in high school,
tried to start junior high, broke my leg before I
was ever able to get on the mat for a match,
But wrestling left in double mark in my life that

(07:35):
still is showing me lessons today, providing me benefits to
this day. And also have coached the sport here in
the state of Texas. When I got out of college
coach and got into high school, I started two wrestling
programs here in the state of Texas at the high
school level. And I just know the benefit of the

(07:57):
sport as you can tell, and obviously played football coach
football and big football guy. But to me, wrestling is
the most transformative thing you can do outside of say
military or religion. But it's the most transformative sport there
is in the world, always has been, and I don't

(08:18):
see it that changing, and so I wanted to help
promote the sport, talk about some of the changes that
has happened for others, And to be honest with you,
I've just always felt like if someone tried to sport
of wrestling through a season without quitting. Whether it be
one season, two seasons, or ten seasons, there will be

(08:38):
a time in their life, whether able to overcome something
or they're able to accomplish something, and they'll look back
and they'll realize much of what's given them the strength
and the courage and the attributes to do those things
comes from wrestling. So I just find it so so
important for people to be able to to learn these attributes.

(09:03):
Wrestling is, like I said, the most transformative sport there is,
and so what I wanted to do is write a
book that talks about the attributes of wrestling, teach us
a little bit about wrestling, some of the history, but
also teach about what's out there. All fifty states are represented.
There is a strong wrestling community in each state, and

(09:26):
I wanted people to realize that and see that there
is opportunity.

Speaker 1 (09:31):
We talk about the transformative motion. A lot of people
when they think Texas, of course, they think high school football,
and high school football is king. I mean, you just
look at some of the videos and pictures out there
of the giant high school football stadiums that are bigger
than college stadiums. A lot of places, like I know,
Alan for example, is one of those ones that gets
thrown around on social media quite a bit. Football is

(09:53):
life in Texas is a high school sport. I mean
we've got, of course, we can joke about varsity blues
and whatnot, but Friday night lights type of thing. But
you've lived it down there, so when it comes to wrestlings,
you know, people always assume, you know, they hear, okay,
Texas should be massively good at wrestling because it's such
a big football state and wrestling makes you a better
football player. When you got down there, what was that

(10:15):
conversation like and was there any convincing to your peers
be like, we need to give this wrestling thing a shot.

Speaker 2 (10:22):
No doubt at all. Actually, one of the schools I
was coaching, I was a military school, and I mean
that's perfect right to bring rest perfect atmosphere and environment
to bring wrestling into. And I talked with him for
it was a couple of years. What really set it
over the top is that there was a guy named
Hazus Wilson who was an Olympian defector from Cuba. Actually

(10:45):
there's a match online with him and Brands Wrestling and
the trial.

Speaker 1 (10:50):
There's an iconic instance with him in brands that it's
made wrestling war with Hazus Wilson.

Speaker 2 (10:56):
Yeah, soh Hayesus Wilson shows up and I'm I'm not
sure how they got connected, but the administration there at
the school finally relented and that's where we were able
to start. And you know, not that not to be
a name dropper, but we were in a private league
then and so at the time we were wrestling against
Bishop blanch out of Dallas that had the Silvers and

(11:18):
some good wrestlers, but also Kenny Monday was a big
part of that program at the time. So you know,
we we we did pretty well. We sent many guys
to State, had a couple of runner ups in our
first year. So you know, I was proud just to
get that program started. But you mentioned the football aspect.
Just a public school, which one of the schools I
coached had near Austin. They they bucked at it also,

(11:43):
but there was some guys wrestling at a club from
their school. They kind of banded together, the parents came
together and things like that. I do think it should
be bigger in Texas. We all know the the with
some football coaches, right the rivalry there that the reluctance
of football coaches and things like that. I do touch

(12:03):
on it in a book about how that's really a
misnomer that. I mean, there's so many coach and football
coaches that are famous, well known, very accomplished that they
look for wrestlers. I mean, obviously we all know Sean
McDermott with the Buffalo Bills right now. I mean, he
was a two time prep national champion. So there's so
many things out there that disproved that that it's hurts

(12:26):
you in football, it really helps you. But the other
thing is about Texas. I will say I do want
to say that it was one of the first states
to adopt women's wrestling too, So I think that's pretty important.

Speaker 1 (12:38):
That is one of the topics. I was just recently
on a show with Mike mal from The Athlete and
we were talking about athlete retention, you know, thing at
the high school level. So being in that high school age,
in that high school level, what has been kind of
the enticement And I'm going to lead this into the
book of getting a kid out for the first time
and then getting them that that light bulb goes off

(12:58):
and they fall in love with the sport, but also
making it to the one where it's it's a tough sport.
You know, if they go through that season, you've got
to get them through the season. I don't believe every
kid is born tough. They have to learn that and
develop that. But what in your mind makes takes a
kid from a first time kid to put them in
a position where they will be interested in what you've
written about learning about the sport even more than just
beyond what's in their district or in their section.

Speaker 2 (13:22):
Absolutely, I think a big part of it is is
let's not change who we are. I mean what we
are as a sport. We don't need to change who
we are, and we don't need to try to be
anyone else. Right at the end of the day, some
people are not going to I tried wrestling in eighth
grade because I was cut from the basketball team. Had
a friend invite me out. I said, hey, that sounds

(13:44):
like funness. I'm physical guy, let's get after. It ended
up breaking my leg. I mean, I'm not going out
like that, right, I'm.

Speaker 1 (13:53):
That But yeah, that's you know, the origin stories are
always very unique.

Speaker 2 (13:57):
Yeah, well, you know, and I think that think about
it was you know, I could have been one, and
it's not even about me. Somebody could have gone out
broken their leg and said this is not for me.
I get it, and that's nothing wrong with that. But
what we need to do is just I feel like
we need to open the doors for more people to
give it a try. And those that it fits and

(14:20):
will be surprised by the ones that it really does
fit and they just love it. Right. But those that
it fits, they will stick with it and they will
love it. I think. A good example I mean to
bring up women's wrestling again. Right, We've given them opportunities
and these girls have come in and said, okay, now
that I can wrestle against other females, I want to
try it. And what have we found out? They have

(14:42):
fallen in love with it, and I think that that's
the greatest thing. So for me, this book is all
about a high school coach or a club coach. They
go up to Susie or Johnny or mom and dad
and say, you know what. You always ask me, why
why would I even try wrestling? The coach can say,

(15:03):
you know what, here's Matt Return. Read any chapter out
of this book or any story out of this book.
And tell me why you wouldn't try wrestling. And for me,
that's the important thing is if we can get people
to just come out and try it, see what it's about,
especially if they're younger kids, you know, they fall in
love with it. Wonderful. We're adding numbers to it. You know,

(15:23):
they can work on you know, on their craft. If
they don't, then they can play basketball or soccer. And
that's okay. I mean, it's okay for people to be different,
right and and you know the days of oh, because
basketball is such a big rivalry or it's the same
time period as the wrestling season, it seemed like there
was when I was in school. Anyway, that almost you're

(15:46):
an inherent hatred or you're supposed to hate them, right, No,
it's okay, play basketball, We're gonna wrestle. We want more
people to come out for wrestling. And and I think
that's the thing is let's not change who we are.
We are them transformed thing there is. It is a
wonderful sport. It's not for everyone, and that's okay. But
the more that we can give people the opportunity to

(16:09):
experience it for themselves, I think that's where the growth happens.

Speaker 1 (16:13):
It just reminds me of the the Abercrombie and fitshirts
that were circulating in the late nineties and it said
wrestling what men do during boys basketball season, and of
course that always went over well when you're walking across
campus wearing those things, especially in college. Now you talk
about again making it an experience, an opportunity, getting more
kids out. We want to talk about your opportunity in

(16:36):
developing this book. Now, this is your fourth book, so
let's talk a little bit about putting pen to paper
and writing books. What your other three books have been.
Obviously they're not wrestling books, but you know what drove
you to write those? What were those about?

Speaker 2 (16:50):
So I actually began writing for my mom. I used
to tell her, you know, you've heard kids say the
darnedest things, so there was I used to latch onto
when adults say things that were incorrect, like, for instance,
an ovulating fan versus an oscillating fan. So they say

(17:10):
silly things like that. I'd used to tell my mom.
She would get a kick out of it. But I
would write I would miss I would not remember them,
so I would write them down so that I didn't
miss the opportunity to tell my mom, and when she
got sick, I went to help her and support her,
and she told me one day, she said, I wish
you would put that in book form and publish it.

(17:32):
Those are so funny people would get a kick out
of it. So in honor of my mom when she passed,
I wrote my first book called Relative Genius, and it's
really just a silly book about the funny things that
people say and adults say. From there, I just I
was working out. One day I was going to do

(17:52):
a book on the Southeastern Conference, which I did do
is called a Seasonal Homecomings. But I was working out
in preparation for that book and stories just kept popping
into my mind about people that I felt were a success.
So I wrote the book Unveiling Success about them, because
to me, success is not money and fame. Those are

(18:15):
fleeting things and that they're not lasting. To me, success
is being happy with who you are and what you're
doing in the impact you make. And people kept popping
in my mind about how they're successful. So I wrote
the book Unveiling Success. This was not a plan to
be my fourth book. I had another another plan that

(18:38):
I'm working on now. But so what happened was I
had opportunities to do some coaching at the US Open
to some other places, and I said, you know what,
the other project was being paused. I said, this is
the time really to focus on wrestling. So I'm at
the US Open a couple of years in a row
has some success out there, and I said, you know,

(18:59):
and I'm I'm meeting some people that maybe I hadn't
met previously. I said, this is the time to do this.
And I always knew I wanted to do something to
help the sport, promote the sport. And I said, you
know this, I think this is a calling right now.
This is the time to do this.

Speaker 1 (19:18):
As I as in full disclosure, Ron sent me the
book back before April. I started on it as I
was on my way to the World Championships, and I
say this, and I've got I got bookshelves, I got.
I mean, I see a wrestling book, I'm going to
pick it up. I'm going to have it. If I don't.
If I don't, if I somebody doesn't send it to
me to give it a shot, read it, I'll get
to it. Trust me, I know people are out there
going why have you read my book yet, I'll get

(19:39):
to it. I'm just slow because I've got probably fifty
to sixty in my bookcase right now. But to the
point is this when I first started reading it. The
first thing is when I started getting to the chapters
and the stories and you outline you've got stories from
all fifty states. It started reminding me a little bit
about Matt Snacks, which is a book Spates wrote. I

(20:01):
don't even know when I remember reading it, and it
was that was more of like it was a really
small book, but it was just like you know, anecdotes
and stories from wrestling people. I remember turning to Pace like,
hey there's Lee Printz, or hey there's so and so.
And as I was a learning fan, I was didn't
know a lot of this stuff when I first read it.
So now I'm going back in time thinking of, am
I this seventeen eighteen year old kid that's really involved

(20:22):
in wrestling or even the college freshman sophomore. I think
that's when I read Matt Snacks, that's going to learn
something from this. And that's what I loved about it
is and you alluded to it before we started talking.
Is it's chapter base, It's the chapters are broken up
in stories where you can pick it up. It's it's
you know, for lack of a betterment, it's also a
really good bathroom book too, because you could just pick
up you can pick it up at a different spot,

(20:42):
learn something new. It's not chronological in terms of the storytelling,
so it's really approachable. It's really accessible. And again for
somebody like me who lives eats and breeze wrestling all
the time, it takes a lot for me to be like, oh,
you know, I will obviously appreciate the effort of some
of these things, but I'll say to be like, yeah,
that's that's that's good. That's good recommendations. You know, I

(21:03):
can't recommend everything that comes through. This is what I
recommend to everybody, even the junkie. You're going to sit
there like, I don't need to know anything more. I
know everything I need to know. I learned something from
this book. So that's that's also my little sales pitch
for it for you, my testimonial, if you will. One
thing that I was really interested in is when it
came time to put pen to paper and collect these interviews,

(21:26):
because I've done countless interviews over my career, and I've
often thought about writing them down and putting them in
a book. I transcribe a lot of my podcasts and
have the scripts. I'm like, what am I going to
eventually do with this? How did you decide to say,
you know, I want to talk to everybody, somebody from
all fifty states? How does that idea come? And how
do you go up about tracking these people down?

Speaker 2 (21:47):
So it just stemmed. It all stemmed from like I
was saying, you know, I wanted to do something that
would promote the sport, and I felt like, you know,
I don't want to just promote the sport the Northeast
or the Southwest or certain regions. I think the wrestling
in our country overall should be promoted. And so that's

(22:11):
where the whole fifty states came from. And you know,
I had different contacts. Of course, at the US Open.
If you don't have contacts and states, that's a good
place to start. You can always find someone from from
every every state. Right, So you know, I've been to
Folks Style National, some other tournaments, and and so the
contacts that I didn't have or didn't have connections to

(22:34):
certain people, I would talk to different folks from the state.
You kind of get their mindset on, Hey, who's who's
the leading club or who's the leading coach, any good
stories that you know of, and it would progress from there.
Then it actually progressed to multiple stories from each state,
because I mean, how do you choose just one. It's

(22:56):
almost like who's your favorite child? Right, So I tried
to limit it and at least keep it pretty much comparable.
But the whole idea stemmed from really promoting wrestling and
then also showing that there is a strong wrestling community
in each state. Right. It may not be in every
corner of the state, which is what we hope to

(23:18):
eventually get to, right, but there is a strong wrestling community,
and I wanted people that picked up the book to say, hey,
that's my state. I didn't even realize that wrestling is
either popular here or that there's a committed group to wrestling, right,
And so that's that's really what I was wanting to do,
is not just promote the sport, but to get get

(23:39):
people to understand, hey, it's in my sport and there
is a dedicated community there. So that me myself, let's say,
I won't I won't single out any state, but in
my state, I could say, Okay, I'm interested in wrestling.
Here's someone that I can contact and reach out to
and maybe get some more information to what I did

(24:01):
with the book. Right, So, if I didn't have many
contacts on a certain state, I'd reach out and I
would talk with him. Hey, maybe who should I talk
with or who are your thoughts? What are your thoughts
on teams coaches good stories in the state. The same
way that people pick up my book, they can they
can read about it and say, Hey, such and such

(24:21):
as here in this town or this state, in our state,
I'm going to reach out to them because maybe they
know they're three hours away from me, but maybe they
know a club that I can send my child to.

Speaker 1 (24:32):
So I'm going to put you on the spot a
little bit. I know you said you didn't want to
single out anybody, but there's three states that are coming
to mind that I want to ask you about. Let's
start high up on the alphabet. Let's go with Alaska.
Where's the discovery with what's going on in Alaska? Because
I have a buddy of mine that coaches up there
at West Valley High School. He wrestled at Old Dominion
with us, and it was like, you know, Kaylin Baxter

(24:54):
is his name, and he's you know, the stories that
him and his family have up there are really cool.
And then I go through and was like, oh, okay,
there's a another cool Alaska story that I'm discovering. How
do you go about tracking down the Alaska What did
you find out interesting about the Alaska story? Because obviously
I find the Mikaela Hutches, the whole Hutchinson family pretty engaging.
She was, of course that first girl to win a
state title against the boys. Then they also have their

(25:16):
their seasons over in December, and the sheer, vastest of
the state lends itself to a lot of possibilities. What
did you find intriguing about your Alaska research?

Speaker 2 (25:26):
You know, it confirmed some of the things about the
state itself, about the travel, Like you and I, right,
we can get in the car and we can drive
to a location. That's not always the case for them.
I mean, I heard a story that I allude to
in the book, but I don't really tell about the
story because I wasn't able to confirm some of the details.

(25:48):
But there was a story about a kid coming to
the state tournament with his Iditarod team or with his dogs,
you know, dogs led and he comes in and he
he gets there a day early before the way and
so he camps out there. I mean, that's something that's
not normal for all of us, right, but pretty cool,
and you know, and it's kind of specific to the state,

(26:11):
Like I don't think there's any even in Maine. I
coached in Maine at one point. I don't. I don't
think that you're taking dogs teams to the state tournament,
which which, by the way, isn't that interesting because Maddie
Ripley also she's now she's a two time state champion
against boys for Maine. So it's ironic that I bring
that up. But yeah, so it's also interesting is you.

Speaker 1 (26:32):
Bring up the idea rod stuff. Dallas Sevi was was
a Greco Roman codect Greco Roman champer finals if icker remember,
I think it was a Greco cadet, Greco champ out there.
And he's he's a multi time I did a Rod champion.
Him and his family's just synonymous with sled dogs. So
you know that's not you know, again, if you've you've
you've been around the sport. You, Oh, you can tie
those together. But again, you're tying it together for the

(26:53):
first time. You're like really sled dogs, Like you're gonna
send somebody down the rabbit hole. They're gonna find the
sled dog story and then they're gonna find Dallas Cevi eventually,
So you're going to tie it together. I love that
second state, my home state of Virginia. What do you
got there?

Speaker 2 (27:08):
Okay, So I mean I just got to tell you
he's got to start with Grammary School wrestling, right, So
I mean that, I mean, those guys are are pretty legendary.
Whether you want to say they're they're well, they're at
least one of the first clubs I guess you would
say in starting it, and just their family history. I
think that for me that that's really important to know.

(27:30):
So the stories is, as you know in the book,
they're they're they're either under chapters of attributes from of
wrestling itself or they're under chapters of age groups. But
for me, I also tried to mix it up in
terms of you know, newer, older, more historic, or something
maybe unknown. But I think it's you know, I mentioned,

(27:53):
you know, knowing about a strong wrestling community. For me,
I think it's it's also knowing like someone from Virginia
picks that up and says, Wow, not only is there
a strong wrestling community, I mean there's a strong history
and legacy here in the state, and so I thought
that that was important as well.

Speaker 1 (28:10):
And I think our new kid on the block you
mentioned this later in the book too, And this is
something I covered in Fargo this year, was the rise
of Mississippi, the last state to apparently I learned they
did have wrestling sanctioned all these years, they just didn't
have any teams. You mentioned Brian Fox in the book,
and then there's been It was a pretty cool story
to see that single represented for the first time in

(28:33):
Fargo this year. So Mississippi, they are way behind the
eight ball. Arkansas has got about a fifteen year jump
on them. What did you learn about Mississippi that you're
relaying here in matt return So.

Speaker 2 (28:43):
You know, I mean, I'll bring it out in the book.
But for the longest time, we also we used to
always say everybody but Mississippi has wrestling, right, And it's
like now we can say that they all every state
has wrestling. And on top of that this state championship
actually went to their state championships. So yeah, because a
lot of this was travel, I wanted to see and

(29:06):
do it with my own eyes. Unfortunately, you didn't bring
up a state Hawaii. I wasn't. I didn't get the
invitation out there, so Kitty.

Speaker 1 (29:16):
Well, I get to go there on vacation the day
after the NCAA Championships. I'm leaving Philly that morning to
go connect with my wife and kids in Minneapolis. Were
doing spring break and Hawaii be our fifteen universary. Maybe
I can do some recon for you so you can,
like do do Matt return too and be out there.
I'd love I'd know, I'd love to see wrestling tournament
in Hawaii. So you and I both are we haven't

(29:36):
checked that box off yet, not you know, but I've
done features. I've seen Travis Lee out there, I've seen
I've seen those things. You know, they've they've got some guys.

Speaker 2 (29:44):
Oh yeah, they do. And once again another I think, uh,
you know another state that that started you know, women
pretty early, and so that was that's cool. But to
get back to Mississippi because I think it's really important.
Brian Fox has done a lot of great work. So
he was my initial contact in the state of Mississippi,
and I just think it's fantastic what they've been doing.

(30:07):
One thing that's interesting to know is that they had wrestling.
It was always on their books and their by laws,
and I never knew that. That's one thing that I learned, right.
I just thought maybe if they had it, it was
small and then went away, but it had always stuck
in their bylaws. And then he found that and ran

(30:27):
with it and started getting more and more clubs and
teams and then schools involved, and then having a state championship.
I just think it's fantastic. And then the girls are
growing just as rapidly as the boys in Mississippi. So
the work that he's doing and his team were doing.
And you mentioned Arkansas, My understanding is they did model

(30:49):
a lot of their efforts after what Arkansas did and
Greg Hatcher. So I just think it's fantastic that those
states are going so strong and Mississippi's really ramping up.
I mean, even after I had gone to their first
state championships, I had people saying, yeah, but not every
state has in Mississippi, don't, I said, you know, I
don't mean to argue with you, but I witnessed it, right, So.

Speaker 1 (31:11):
We've got it now. I mean, you go to Fargo,
You've got kids from Guam coming, You've got kids from
Puerto Rico coming. You've got kids that are depending at
the Dodds schools in Europe coming. So the wrestling, the
American wrestling is global as well as within our territories too.
So that's that's a cool thing. We got all fifty
I have. I'm trying to the last time I went

(31:32):
to Mississippi, I was about twelve, so I've got no
wrestling history down there, but I did know that when
the I think it was the Mississippi School for the
Deaf has had a program for a very very long time,
or had a program for a very very long time.
When Jesuit coach Sam Harnsngraham retired from Jesuit in New Orleans,
it was a powerhouse down there, still is he. I
think he retired, and I think he started a program

(31:52):
at Jackson High School in Mississippi for for a bit.
And then, of course Ocean Springs has been kind of
the beacon for the new revolution of Mississippi wrestling. So uh,
there it's been there, which has been cool. And again
I like how you uncork that story in Matt Return
because even like even the old timers, you're gonna like
you just talked about it. They'll be like, oh, Mississippi,
guess what you're going to learn something. So other things

(32:15):
about the book that has strike me as somebody who
I've not yet written a book. It's something that's bill,
why don't you write a book? I've got all these stories,
got all these stories. I'm in the middle of a
Gray Simon's project for at the Etchtinstone podcast series, and
I get just stuck with this idea of it's got
to be perfect, you know, paralysis by analysis, Like it

(32:36):
takes me so long to get something that I've got
such a vested interest in to get out. How do
you fight through that to be able to say this
is the finished product? I know there's probably a few
things you go back and read through you're like, ah,
I probably could have changed that. I probably can change that.
Where do you get to a point and be like this,
this is the best finished product I'm going to get
If I if I nitpick it, it'll never get out.

(32:56):
How do you fight through that?

Speaker 2 (32:59):
It's difficult. That's the short answer is change your focus
to something else that needs your attention and come back
to it. Right. So for me, it was some of
the things that that I had difficulty with were, Okay,
how many how many stories per state are going to
be in there? You want it to be somewhat equitable
as much as you can. You want them to be

(33:23):
under I mean, obviously when you look at good wrestling
stories and people and clubs and things like that, So
where do you place that story in terms of in
the book? So the chapters that are about attribute to
the sport of wrestling, well, as you can imagine, many
of these stories have multiple attributes. It could be in

(33:44):
multiple chapters. So where am I placing it? So maybe
I don't have two stories from the same state in
the same chapter. Well, for me, I'm a perfectionist. So
it's really hard in terms of writing and then reading
back through it and saying why did I type that?
Or why is this punctuation here? And that's a silly thing,

(34:08):
but it drives me crazy and I just had to
rely on my editor to do it, you know, to
get different eyes on it. Is the best idea. You
should never try to edit your own book, because you
will never see the mistakes. Even my sec book, I
read back third a few years later and I said,
how did I miss that? But reading your own words,

(34:30):
it's hard to see your mistakes. So not trying to
be perfect, but trying to do the best that I
can with it. Placing the chapters, verifying the stories with people,
so when you write their story, I would send it
back to them, one for accuracy and two you know,
you want it to be a good representation of them.

(34:53):
And so that was difficult. When you start talking about
one hundred, one hundred and fifty different stories, it's really
closer to one hundred and fift to get in touch
with all those people and then get them verified on
top of it. So there are some technical things there.
You don't want to go too far into the weeds
with the technical stuff and wrestling, because, like we talked

(35:15):
about the new people coming to the sport, Yeah, you
want to give them a base of knowledge, but you
don't want to give too much information right away and
overwhelm them. So you know, I just want to make
sure that everything was technically sound. Of course, some things
change once the book's published, right more sports are. That's

(35:36):
one thing. At the very end of it, there were
three states that sanction the sport of women's wrestling after
I had already completed and had edited, had to go
back through and redo that. So there's a lot of challenges.
I think the way to overcome that is, like I
mentioned earlier, is things that need your attention. Now, if
you're really frustrated or hit a writer's block type of thing,

(36:01):
change that over and give something else your attention. And
as you mentioned, the book is not chronological, so it
was easier for me to do that, so I could
skip from chapter eight to chapter seventeen without a problem,
and I can just take my mind off of what
was frustrating or the roadblocks that I was having and

(36:21):
work on that other thing.

Speaker 1 (36:25):
Of the stories you said that you know, of the
one hundred and fifty, is there one that probably fascinated
you the most that's like, Wow, this is the one
that goes like, this is the story why I am
writing this book?

Speaker 2 (36:41):
You know, I oftentimes think about this because I mean,
I think there are a lot of good stories about
men in this book. So I have a standalone chapter
about female wrestling, but there are stories of females sprinkled
throughout the book. But I bring that up because I
think that, I mean, my favorite stories. I keep going

(37:02):
back to the girls. I mean, Lily Left has a
great story, right, I mean, you know, Page Mobley out
of Ohio. There's there's all these great stories, in my opinion,
in it, and they they don't all just fall on
the women, but it seems like a lot of them.
There's just wonderful stories about these female wrestlers. But the

(37:23):
one that stands out to me the most is Madison
Newburn from Tennessee. The girl finds out that she has
a brain tumor. They take her in, they have to
do surgery. Obviously, it's serious surgery, and the only thing
she can think about is getting back on the mat.
The girl gets back on the mat with with a

(37:45):
headgear that gives her more protection, right a shell. I mean,
what are you doing getting back on the mat so soon? Why?
Because she has a passion for the sport and loves
the sport. The pain that she went through and sacrifices
she made to get back for the state tournament. I mean,
and the wrestle, I mean any of us and her parents, right,

(38:12):
how strong are they right, any of us would just
be happy that we're alive. Her parents are grateful she's alive.
And what do they do when she, you know, says
she has a passion to get on the mat. They
do everything in their power to help her get back
on the mat. I can't say that I would be
that strong. I would probably be fearing for my child's

(38:32):
safety and for them to be that strong and for
her to get back on the mat. Man, And she
just lives with joy. I talked to her about her
story and what she's happy. She loves wrestling. That's that's
all she wanted. It wouldn't There was no pity party
for having brain surgery and a brain term. It was

(38:54):
I want to get back on the mat and I
enjoy wrestling. And so not only is it a great story,
but I'm I mean, I think we can all just
learn from her attitude as well.

Speaker 1 (39:04):
Yeah, as as a parent of a daughter who's had
multiple brain surgeries. That that's that's the type of story
that just like catches you, hits you, and it's like,
you know, even though you know, like my twelve year
old daughter's been through a lot already, I'm like, there's
there's learning, you know, through the sport of that that
desire to get back in wrestling, being the catalyst for it,
of the vehicle for it. So that that that story

(39:26):
just that that that blows you away in terms of
some of the funnier things. We just were coming off
an emotional high with with with Madison Newborn. But uh,
there's there's a lot of goofy, goofy neess throughout here.
You sprinkle that in wrestling. Is is a sport that's
it's inherently tough, it's grizzled. We like to have this like, ah,
you know, it's you ain't tough enough to wrestle, you

(39:47):
don't need to be out there, blah blah blah. You know,
you get a lot of that that old old funny
duddy kind ofness with it. But we we like to
have fun too. There's there's goofiness that goes about. What
was some of the one of the funner stories that
you came across, you like, this has to go in.

Speaker 2 (40:02):
So I was at a club in West Virginia and
I never really told parents, you know, who I was,
unless we maybe a coach said this is a good story,
or you should talk with them, just because you know
how parents are, right, some parents are, They're gonna they're
gonna be like, well, well you you should write about this,
and you should write or or even embellish. So I

(40:25):
just never told people that. So a lady came up
to me one point at one point, hadn't seen me
at the club before, just asked, Hey, who's your son
out there? That you know? I'm just here observing thinking
about getting into coaching, So what about you? Who do
you have out there? So her son at the time
was a five year old boy. It was he was

(40:46):
about a month and a half into to it. What
happened was when they first went, he saw the older
boys doing pull ups after practice, so he wanted to
do that, so he asked the coach, Hey, can you
help me do these pull ups? Come give me you know,
let's I want to do that. So he couldn't do
one on his own. The coaches assisted him, but every
day after practice, the little boy kept going to the coaches, Hey,

(41:08):
it's time for me to do it too. Well, eventually
he did one on his own, and at the time
I was there, I think he was up to three,
but he did one on his own. His mom said
the very night that he did the one on his own,
he went home when he's flexing all around the house
and he's doing it, and he said, she said, as
a matter of fact, every time he meets someone new,

(41:29):
he flexes. It's just it's funny. Well, i'd forgotten she
told me that. But I asked her if she would
introduce me, if I could ask him some questions. She
said sure. So when practice ended, he comes running up.
She introduces me, and at first I put my hand
out to shake his hand. No, he wasn't shaking my hand.
He flexed on me. So, five year old boy flexing

(41:53):
on me after wrestling practice. I thought that was pretty funny.

Speaker 1 (41:59):
I got nothing for that one, because you know, kids
are good kids, you know, like you said back with
your initial book, kids say the darness things. Kids you know. Yeah, see,
now you're writing it down, so you remember kids doing
the crazy things on the FlexIt. Now I'm going to
cut over to this. So to get the let's make
sure my screen is up so you're not seeing it. Okay,
there we go. We got that up. So to get
the book again, the best way, as you said on Amazon,

(42:22):
right here, so you can get it on Amazon. Your
other books are out there too, if you search Matt
return and Ron Lang. So the resurgence of amateur wrestling
in the United States, we see it there. Now, that's
one thing you also talk about early, is the resurgence,
and twenty thirteen is for wrestling people. I mean, we're
talking February twenty thirteen. I remember waking up. We had

(42:45):
just moved back to Minnesota from Colorado. I had previously
worked at USA Wrestling, and I've got I don't even remember.
It was miss calls, missed text messages everywhere about the
sport being dropped from the Olympic Games. Fast forward to September,
we get it back. The sport is and change. We
got out of the dark ages of international wrestling. But
that is a prevailing theme in setting the stage for

(43:07):
this book. So what do you remember about twenty thirteen
and why does that play such a prominent role in
kind of the undercurrent the telling of the Matt Returns
story here?

Speaker 2 (43:17):
You know, I mean it it wasn't as severe as
say nine to eleven, but you for me, it was
one of those things that you remember where you were.
You were stunned, you were dumbfounded. Like to me, it
just did not make common sense, right, I mean, this

(43:37):
is the grandfather of Olympic sports. I mean, what's happening here?
You know, That's what I mean. I still in my
mind today what happened there? Now as you and I know,
as adults, probably like with so many other things in sports,
I mean like NIO and college sports and all that

(43:58):
now where you follow the money, right, but it just
it was dumbfounding. My my brother who was big into
wrestling went to Purdue. We talked about I had friends
called it. I mean it was everybody was. It was
like a support group, to be honest with you.

Speaker 1 (44:15):
Like, well definitely, you know, at first it.

Speaker 2 (44:19):
Was like what's happening, Why isn't happening? And what do
we need to do? But it was it was like,
you know, and I hate to bring up a tragedy,
you know, like a nine to eleven or something, but
it really was like you've got bashed over the head
and you're just not thinking clearly what is going on here?
And we had to really straighten out our minds through

(44:40):
talking with each other and figure out, Okay, well how
do we combat this because this doesn't make sense to us, right,
it just doesn't make sense. So, I mean, it's like
if you were to buy a new car and then
all of a sudden it won't go into gear. Wait a,
I don't understand here. And so we were a support
group for each other and it it just don't forget

(45:01):
where I was at the time.

Speaker 1 (45:04):
I just I think it was ate something in the morning.
I remember, like cause my my again now twelve year
old daughter was was still I mean she was I'm
trying to think eight months old. I'm doing math on
my fingers here For those wondering what that was. I'm
not flexing on anybody, but yeah, I just remember it.
And then you know, there's a couple of moments like that.
I remember I was in the middle of a show,

(45:25):
The Rudest Podcast with Matt Dernalin when I got a
text on the screen here doing a show like we
are now recording the video, and I got a text
that you know, Old Minion was dropping its wrestling program
in the middle of the show. Like I remember exactly
where I was when it happened and its impact on me.
And again, like a support group, we had a smaller
support group kind of thing going on there, but this
was like the global wrestling community. So again, so that's

(45:47):
where the you've got the term resurgence, you know, the
title of the Resurgence. Why did you use the word
resurgence here?

Speaker 2 (45:57):
Because I think that that wrestling was stronger at some point,
and I think that we had a dip in the
popularity of it, maybe even in talent. A lot of
people take it as talent, right, but I feel like
when I think back about Gable, there was kind of

(46:18):
a how would you say it? I mean, obviously he
wasn't as popular as the Beatles or Elvis or someone
like that, but he was very well known and he
brought a lot of attention to the sport. I think
that it waned a little bit, I think, and I
even allude to it in the book. I mean, you
start losing programs as well college programs. I think that

(46:42):
there is a resurgence. I think that people are starting
to say, yes, wrestling is strong. It's not an afterthought
that we're just going to cut to get our quotas
to take follow through with title nine. I think that
everybody is starting to see the strength of the sport
it can do. But that's another thing. I say resurgence

(47:02):
because I think I think our communities that are involved
in wrestling, people that get involved in wrestling, understand the
strength of the sport, what it can do for you personally,
and so I think there's a resurgence in that as well.
But to start seeing women's sports or women's wrestling, excuse me,

(47:23):
become so popular, strengthening the sport, to see college programs,
you know, even if they're smaller divisions, I you know,
I don't think that that's an issue. Yes, do we
want the bigger schools to have it, obviously, yes, But
I mean I think it's nice to have stronger numbers.
We're having more and more people coming back to the sport,

(47:47):
Like for me, for instance, I mean, I'm nothing great.
I don't mean it like that. I'm just saying, you know,
people that were involved with wrestling, and I've talked with
a lot of them over the years, and especially the
last few years that we're wrestlers, maybe were coaches things
like that are coming back to helping clubs, coming back
starting teams and at the high school level, similar to

(48:08):
what I've done. And it's like I just see that
to me was the perfect word because I feel like
it there was always a strength there, there was always something,
you know, simmering under the surface. But I think that
we're uncovering that now and getting stronger, and I think
we're going to surpass any levels that we had ever

(48:29):
been before. But it's just something that also kind of
ties into my whole purpose of the book, and that
is to let people know that there is strong wrestling
all over the country. There's opportunities and if you get
in this sport, it'll change your life. So it's so
that's it's it's resurging and and I just you know,

(48:51):
for me, it was a strong word that hopefully people
see it and say that's something good that I at
least need to check out.

Speaker 1 (49:01):
You alluded to it here at the very end in
terms about how your your return from wrestling. We didn't
lead with this, but we're going to come back to
it because it's it's part of the book. Is your
own I guess rerigin your own resurgence into wrestling is
let's let's explain the gap from wrestling growing up to
coming back into it and how you had to wrestle
a gargantuan individual in the process to rediscover that love

(49:23):
for the sport.

Speaker 2 (49:25):
Oh yeah. So the funniest part about this, it seems
like when I look back at my life, I'm kind
of always coming back to wrestling, right. So just quickly,
I wrestled junior high high school, went to the University
of Kentucky. Then I wrestled in the Bluegrass State Game.
So a few years into college, so I'm coming back

(49:45):
to wrestling. There, go off and coach college high school football,
come back to wrestling, starting a couple of programs right now,
doing some some some private business. Then I come back
to wrestling now, writ in a book. So it seems
like that that's that's kind of been my pattern. Excuse me,

(50:06):
I'm so involved with with football and college football and
recruiting and things like that, but that's been my pattern.
But to what you mentioned, So I'm at the University
of Kentucky and the State of Kentucky has Bluegrass Game.
So it's the quote unquote State Olympics for Kentucky. And
so I said, you know what, I want to enter

(50:28):
this this wrestling tournament. And I said I'm not. I mean,
I'm going to work out and make sure try to
make sure I have my wind and all that, but
I'm not cutting. I'm like, whatever I step on the scale,
I'm wrestling. So I could be wrong on the numbers,
but I'm pretty sure I think it was. The weight
classes were two twenty and then unlimited. So I stepped

(50:49):
on a.

Speaker 1 (50:49):
Scale throw back to the Chris Taylor tab thacker era
for sure.

Speaker 2 (50:54):
Well, and that's that that is I mean, so I
stepped on the scale at two twenty six and uh,
you know, one of my proudest achievements in wrestling was
the semi finals match. I wrestled a former Marine and
it was we'd battled, but it was probably one of
the most fun times I had too, Right, you know,
you getting those scraps and you know, win or lose,

(51:14):
you're like beating on each other and each person's having
success and you have some challenges that you have to
overcome in a match that was probably one of my
favorite matches that I've ever wrestled. I was fortunate enough
to come out on top. So in the finals, I
get this guy and I can't remember his name off
the top of my head, but.

Speaker 1 (51:31):
It didn't He was though, but no, but he was
so my understanding.

Speaker 2 (51:37):
He was the Kentucky State University wrestling coach. But the
guy was four hundred pounds, I mean, and I was
told by many people that that was underestimating it, so
I doubt he weighed in right. So but here here's
how dumb and each Here's how dumb and naive I was.

(51:59):
I'm thinking, this big old boy can't move. I can
come in. I can get in and get a leg
and get out before he can. He can sprawl. So
you know, I'm trying. I'm trying to sweep the ankle.

Speaker 1 (52:10):
And how old are you at this point? How old
are you?

Speaker 2 (52:14):
Probably twenty one or twenty two? Okay, yeah, so.

Speaker 1 (52:18):
It'd been it just only been a couple of years.
You were still in relatively close to fighting shape.

Speaker 2 (52:23):
Oh yeah, so actually it's probably closer to twenty because
I graduated high school at age seventeen, so I was
only a couple of years into college when I did this,
you know, plus the ego, and I'm thinking, hey, this guy,
I can I can, I can sweep around pick this
guy's ankle up. Well, he laid on top of me,
and honestly, I just couldn't move. I mean, I wasn't hurting,

(52:46):
I wasn't out of breath. But once he flipped me
over and he laid on me, I was out of breath,
like he basically choked me out. And fuck. But you
know the funniest part of this, and I think a
lot of people can relate to it, is so a
couple of my roommates from Kentucky. So one that actually
wrestled at Indiana and then transferred to be a kicker

(53:08):
at Kentucky was one of my roommates, and and and
him and my one of my other roommates show up
to watch me. Of course, they're having a good time
and having some beverages and they're just rasing the heck
out of me. And it's like, so, not only did
I get whooped to make a dumb mistake, and now
these guys are rast but it's a good memory.

Speaker 1 (53:32):
And then when it when you when the guy picked
you up after you got beat he flexed on you. Right?
Is that what? Ron Lang with Matt Return once again,
we'll cut over to the screen one more time. You
got it there? Amazon dot com is where you can
find a Matt Return. Ron Lang his socials are right
there up on the screen for you for those watching,

(53:53):
for those listing it's Instagram at the Dot coach lang
or on x formerly known as Twitter at the coach
laying And as in the time we got left just
a little bit like what is your day to day
like you're into this scouting, this college football world, which
is crazy right now. I'm keeping an eye on it.
I follow you know, the IHU Sports forty, Ross Dellinger

(54:13):
and all those guys. And then of course there's now
all this litigation out there. A guy up at professor
at Boise State has started the college Sports Litigation Tracker.
I had a COVID tracker of loss programs back then.
I've got one that's going to be potentially coming with
the drop programs during the house in il era, So
this era, let's take this away from wrestling. Just talk about,
you know, the busyness of your day to day life

(54:36):
and how all this stuff is impacting the football recruiting side,
because that's where a lot of the IYRE is coming from.
Olympic sports is this is football and basketball base. What
does this impact for you trying to help kids get
placed in college and things like that.

Speaker 2 (54:48):
Oh, it's a huge impact. And just to be honest
with you, just the last couple of months have flipped
on its head. It seems like recruiting has flipped on
its head, then flipped on its head again, and then
flipped on its head again. I mean, we have that
that the JUCO ruling, right, So the quarterback from from Vanderbilt,
he was granted an extra.

Speaker 1 (55:09):
Years, by the way, a wrestler by the way, New
Mexico State champion day.

Speaker 2 (55:15):
When they when they upset Alabama. You know who was
it was? It RB Y that was right.

Speaker 1 (55:21):
There, Real Woods was down there.

Speaker 2 (55:24):
There you go. I don't know why I was thinking
r B Y, but yeah, so, uh yeah, he's on
the field with him, and I'm like, okay, representing wrestling.
I like that. But uh so, what that's done though,
is is so now the n C dou w A
as we know, knee jerk reaction following day or two
days later they said, uh oh all the JUCO eligibility.

(55:45):
You go to JUCO and that's not going to count
against your eligibility. Well of course that, yeah, that gets
walked back. The truth of the matter is it's only
those right now that are in JUCO that that's not so.
Things are ever, and I think the problem for me
is or for a lot of people. Well, number one,

(56:06):
the NCAA doesn't really think things through and put proper
guardrails up, right, I mean, some.

Speaker 1 (56:12):
Areos been asking for guardrails. Plus, not to mention, if
you listen to the show we're recording on February seventh,
if you listen to the show February tenth, this answer
might be completely different because the question's probably been changed
and will be.

Speaker 2 (56:26):
What concerns me the most about it, and I hope
this doesn't get to to wrestling, but what concerns me
the most about when you start talking about nil, transfer portal, JUCO, ruling,
house settlement, all these things. What it's doing is it's
suppressing the high school student athletes. They're not getting recruited
as much or properly. And I just you know, they're

(56:50):
transfer portals, all good and all that. But the funny
thing is when you look at it, how many guys
flame out, how many transfer portal guys don't work. Oh, well,
he went to Georgia, he's transferring. You know, he's got
to be good. Well, the truth of the matter is
there's always a reason that somebody's in the transfer portal,
and sometimes it might be because the coaches figured out

(57:12):
they couldn't play it like they thought they could. And
I'm not trying to run anybody down, but there's there's
always a reason for the transfer portal.

Speaker 1 (57:21):
Well, and you being in the recruiting and scouting game,
you've you've alluded to it as going back through with
these stories, you've got to fact check, You've got to verify.
You know, you're not just going to take a coach's where, yeah,
he ran for X amount of yards, this many things,
you know, I mean, even if the internet padding stats
and embellishing is a thing, so I can only imagine
the type of stuff that comes across your desk on

(57:42):
the football side of things, Like you know, there's you know,
we got our wrestling recruiting experts out there that see
a lot of stuff and pay a lot of attention.
But but football, just this your volume. That's going to be
a time in itself on how to just like, all right,
we gotta vet this kid, they gotta vet this coach.
You got to say, are they are they bound for
last chance you or are they bound for or you
know they bound for Bama?

Speaker 2 (58:00):
And you know, I think this this relates to wrestler
one thing I do want to pass on for any
young people that are watching this or even parents when
you send. Now, football is different, right, football what it
starts and probably ends with the film. Like they want
to see you on film. You can say your size,
you can say all your achievements, but they need to

(58:23):
see your film. One thing I'm always advising people, and
I think that that wrestlers and parents can ulicens to
is you can say whatever you want and you can
put a film together of you getting your hand raised,
or you scoring a touchdown, you hitting a splayedo or
you know, getting an interception. But really what coaches want

(58:46):
to see are your skills. So you mentioned like stats, right,
don't don't make your film or don't make your athletic
resume so much about stats. Make it more about your skills, right.
And now the stats that are imperative are especially in football,
are GPA, heightweight, maybe forty times. There's some things there,

(59:10):
But honestly, I can get a sack as a defensive
end and it doesn't show any skill, right, the tackle
blocked the wrong way, I went free and I tackled
the quarterback. That doesn't show a whole lot of skill, right.
But if I fight through a double team, I chase
the quarterback out of the pocket. I eventually catch him
and time that shows some skills. So just what I

(59:33):
wanted to do is just pass on. When you're in
the recruiting game, it's more imperative to show your skills
than stats. So just show coaches your skills and then
develop relationships with them.

Speaker 1 (59:46):
And one thing on the wrestling side that I think
I can't remember who told me this about This is
about film too, is don't send me your highlights. I
want to see some of your losses. I want to
see how you respond to it. Because wrestling, you're gonna lose.
Except for Kale, you're gonna lose. It's gonna happen. Like
you're not gonna go through your if you're trying to
wrestle in college, you're not going to go through your

(01:00:07):
career in the modern era without a loss. I mean,
it's just the statistical possibilities are very, very miniscool. So
how do you respond to a loss? That's the one
thing I think I heard a coach tell me years ago.
Well I know I heard a coach, I just can't
remember who it was. It's like, Okay, you've got your
here's your inside trip, here's your flash. Show me your
gritty to one tiebreaker win, or show me your gritty

(01:00:29):
to one tiebreaker loss, and how you responded afterwards. Those
are the you know, I don't have a whole lot
to do with recruiting and helping coaches and kids get
to colleges these days as much as I used to.
But that was also one bit of information that I
always found very helpful when talking to a new parent.
So we're getting off on the recruiting side a little bit.
That's another conversation we could have another hour on, but
right now again Ron Lang at the dot coach Lang

(01:00:51):
on Instagram, at the coach Lang on x Amazon dot Com,
search Matt Return, Ron Lang, any final words that we've
got for you about the book? Ron Again, I enjoyed it,
and my last pitch for the listeners is again, don't
think you know more than this book. I get a
ton of content. I know a lot about a lot
of levels of wrestling. I learn something from this. This

(01:01:12):
is a book that's not just going to go on
my shelf. I'm not going to reference anymore. This is
one that's the coffee table book. This is one that
sits on the bar that sits, you know, next to
the dumper in a bathroom. You know, you can sit
there and pick something up from it every time you
read it. So that's my pitch, ron, what's your last
pitch for it?

Speaker 2 (01:01:27):
Well, I think it's very similar similar, right, I mean,
so it's not technique, it's not motivation, it's not a journal.
It's entertainment and it's wrestling centric, right, And not only that,
I do think that you can learn from it. I
think you could be motivated from it. There are so
many good stories and my favorite part of the book,

(01:01:50):
and you know, I guess that's probably the best pitch
anybody can give, Right, what do you personally feel passionate about?
And what I personally feel passionate about are the people.
I mean, that's that's what makes really anything in this
world special, are the people and their stories. To have
one hundred and fifty stories about different people. So I mean,

(01:02:10):
like like the back of the jacket says what you read,
you're gonna get a little inside peek into from Olympic
champions all the way down, right, I mean you see
Burrows picture there. I want to name drop someone else
though that I was really excited to have and that's
Lee Kemp, so I was able to speak with Lee
Camp and have him part of the book too. I mean,

(01:02:32):
there's so many great people and stories and they're not
all celebrities or known people in the game, but I
mean there's great programs out there to you know, to
read about how they how they start a program. How
about a great name like Grit and Gratitude Wrestling Club.
I mean, you know, there's there's a lot of lot

(01:02:53):
of good stuff out there. You know, we talk about research,
what about Georgia? What about what George is doing on
the high school wrestling scene. I mean people are going
to find out a lot. There's a lot of information,
like you said that you're probably not going to know
maybe you have an idea of, but you're going to
get some specifics in some stories. You're going to learn
about Maddie Newbern, Right, You're going to learn literally left

(01:03:15):
story if you don't know it, I mean, I encourage
you to read that. That's one of the longer ones.
It's really kind of three stories in one. But the
other thing about it is like I mean, it's just
you can pick it up and put it down without
missing a beat. You can be at a wrestling tournament.
I mean these are short stories, a couple of paragraphs
at a time, in between matches. Pick one up in

(01:03:37):
the chapter that you find what you're needing an attribute
of wrestling. So is it courage? Okay, let me read
a story out of that chapter and I'll be ready
for my next match. But at the end of the day,
it is about it's hard to encompass everything that wrestling
does for people, but there's a lot of great stories

(01:03:57):
and they're all true stories of real people, and that's
what makes things beautiful. They are people's true stories.

Speaker 1 (01:04:07):
Ron Lane, appreciate the time. Man, Sorry, it took me
so long to finish this thing, but I tell you
it was well worth it. Appreciate it.

Speaker 2 (01:04:13):
Yeah, I appreciate all that you do and thank you
for having me on here. You know, this is about
promoting the sport, and so all you club coaches out
there and you high school coaches, you have people that
are interested in the sport, or you've had difficulty talking
with their parents. Honestly, you can give them this book
and say, read any chapter out of this book and
tell me why you would not try wrestling. I mean,

(01:04:36):
once you read it yourself, I think that all you
coaches you'll understand what I'm saying. There's no answer to this.
Like we were talking earlier, how it doesn't make sense
we wouldn't have wrestling in the Olympics. Well, read this
book and tell me how it makes sense that you
wouldn't try wrestling. So that's what I encourage people to do,
is pick up a copy or even read some of

(01:04:59):
it online, see what you think. But I believe that
you'll be You'll be intrigued by it. There's also some
works that I've done. I guess you'd call them poems,
you know, just out of my passion for wrestling. There's
one about about female wrestling, and there's a few different ones,
but the one at the very end of the book
is called Essence of Wrestling. And you know, I've been

(01:05:21):
working with some people on this. I think it would
be great for us at the NCAA Championships to have
a one one shining moment like we do in basketball.
I think. So I've been working on putting some music
to this and hopefully maybe it can be one shining
moment for wrestling.

Speaker 1 (01:05:39):
One shining moment if during championship season. I see it
from all the sids everywhere, all over the days, so well, yeah,
I like the essence of wrestling. Let's see if we
can make that happen. Ron appreciate the time. Thanks again, Man,
thank you, Jase.

Speaker 2 (01:05:53):
Take care.

Speaker 1 (01:05:53):
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