Jody Strittmatter of Young Guns Wrestling Club - OTM670

Joining the program today is Jody Strittmatter, a four-time college wrestling All-American and founder of the elite Young Guns Wrestling Club in Pennsylvania. Strittmatter was a two-time Division II national champion at Pitt-Johnstown before transferring to Iowa where he finished second and third at the Division I championships. Join Kyle Klingman and Andy Hamilton as they talk about the world of wrestling on the flagship podcast of Trackwrestling.com from FloSports.


Show Segments
0:40 - It takes two to tango with Andy Hamilton.
1:00 - Kyle wastes zero time getting back on his automatic soapbox.
2:20 - Andy sets up what Kyle means about two to tango.
8:40 - Andy looks back at comparing covering Iowa wrestling and Iowa football.
11:00 - Investing in people who invest in you when it comes to coverage.
14:30 - Who’s #1 chatter.
16:00 - National Duals potential and what’s happening in Division I.
31:10 - Cliff Keen’s Sergeant Duffel.
32:00 - Jody Strittmatter Interview
1:10:00 - Cliff Keen Athletic
1:11:00 - Wrapping up the show.

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Hi. I'm Jason Bryant from theShort Time Wrestling podcast and founder of the
Matt Talk podcast Network. Shows onthe network are individually owned and operated,
and those opinions presented and expressed maynot reflect others, the sponsors, patrons,
or the parent network. Find moreshows about the greatest sport in the
world at the Matt Talk Podcast Networkat matt Talk online dot com. Welcome

(00:29):
to on the Matt. I amKyle Klingman joined by Andy two to Tango
Hamilton. The show is sponsored byCliff Keen Athletic and the two to Tango
is going to be a theme forthis show. But before we get to
this again, housekeeping want to justmake sure that the rant comes to an
end. From the last two shows. This isn't a rant against anyone.

(00:52):
It's a rant against unrealistic expectations onwhat a person shoul accomplish accomplished, namely
the Olympic Games. It's insanely hardto win that. We've just seen so
many examples of high expectations that don'tget realized, and I think those need
to be tempered. And it's tome, it's a it's a fundamental Dan

(01:15):
Gable principle that you never think thatyou have something automatic, because there's no
such thing as an automatic. Andhe'll tell you that because people thought that
Larry Owens match was going to beautomatic, and we know how that went
in his final match as a collegeathlete. So that will conclude that rant
for now. It may come backonce the Olympic Games draws near, but

(01:40):
if you have any parting thoughts onthat before we say goodbye to the Olympic
gold medalist rant, who are youkidding? It may come back? It
will. It will come back.It's going to come back, and it
wants along with the social media rantin February. It will. It's gonna
come back. But I just thoughtmaybe me speaking it into existence would help

(02:02):
this process. But it's not goingto It's going to come back, and
I don't know when it's going tocome back. Here it will. It's
going to come back. Two totango. It's one of the best Andy
isms I've ever heard in it relatesto the interview process. You said this
a few times, and I thinkabout it often when you conduct an interview.

(02:23):
You said it takes two to tango, and I agree with that.
If you want to explain that beforeI get into what I'm talking about.
I'll let you go ahead since it'ssomething that you've talked about, But any
thoughts on the two to tango,Yeah, I mean it takes somebody that
comes in with prepared to ask goodquestions, does their research, does their

(02:46):
homework, you know, it takesthat part from an interviewer standpoint, and
you can do all the homework andyou can ask all the best questions,
but if the person you're interviewing doesn'twant any engage, then it doesn't matter,
right. And conversely, if ifyou've got somebody that is the most

(03:09):
engaging, articulate, insightful athlete orcoach, whomever, and you ask boring,
mundane, silly questions, it's probablynot going to go anywhere either.
So it takes two to tangle.It does. And when I think of
that concept, the person that comesto mind for me is when we had
the interview with Adam Kuhn, andso I felt like he was ready to

(03:32):
be asked some of those hard hitting, engaging questions about his past and some
things that had happened, and hewas willing to open up about that.
Now, it is interesting because youcan come in and we've had this through
numerous interviews. I don't know howmany interviews you anticipate you've done, has
to be in the thousands for eachof us over the course of whether it's

(03:54):
podcast, doing video interviews, doinginterviews for stories, there can be times
you do fifty and one weekend,whether it's an NCA Championships or another major
tournament. What I've found with thoseis, even if you do have great
questions, like you say, andthey don't want to reciprocate anything, it's

(04:14):
brutal process and you feel helpless,you feel like you're not good at your
job in any way. Even ifyou feel like you gave a dynamite interview
or got one prior to that,you can get humbled real quick. And
there's been a couple even on thispodcast where it took everything we had,
And there's one in particular to getto the fifteen minutes, because we are

(04:38):
a live show at the time,and there are times where I'm like,
I've got to ask this question fora minute just to fill time, and
then the answer is ten to fifteenseconds, and that is excruciating. So
to be on that side of this, however, there are people that,
and Jay Robinson was one of thosepeople. It doesn't matter what you ask.

(05:00):
He's going to go whatever direction hewants it to go. There's people
like that, so when you saytwo to tango, it doesn't matter.
You could ask Jay about the NationalDuels, and if he has a topic
on his mind and he wants toget to it, he's going to find
a way to get to that pathand he will take it in that direction.

(05:20):
So it's funny. On the oppositeway is that you could ask great
questions and if the interviewee does notwant to go there, that person will
take it whatever direction. You saidthat about Jay that he writes the story
for you. It's more like hurtingJay through an interview, isn't it.
It is? Yeah, he justtry to direct him a little bit here

(05:42):
or a little bit there, andyou're right, he's gonna go where he
wants to go. Same with Gabel, though Dan Gabel, he will go
in whatever direction because he's got thingson his mind. He could have been
talking that day about a topic andit's fresh on his mind. I've seen
him give speeches to kids and hebrings up Putin and these are six to
ten year olds. And he bringsup Vladimir Putin that he subscribes to Win

(06:05):
magazine and has all these different thoughtsin his head and he just needs to
get them out. So it isa two to tango situation. Now,
the reason I bring this up toois because I was just out at the
Olympic Training Center for Women's team campand Greco Roman team camp, and to

(06:25):
me, this is a fundamental principlethat if people would understand this is that
as journalists, if you're engaging andyou want to get your story told or
you want to build your brand,the best way to do that is to
engage the individual. And we seethis often where people will blast us or

(06:49):
meaning Flow or some of the organizationfor some reason. I'm going to tell
you right now, you blast usand say you're not doing a good job
on something that probably doesn't make uswant to tell that story or help you
out all that much. I thinkthat's probably universal that that's not a great

(07:11):
way to go about it. Andsomeone didn't do this instead of having a
dialogue and building a relationship, andthat just came up with Sam Barber,
who I want to credit him fordoing it the right way. He's the
head wrestling coach at air Force,and he reached out and said, here's
some story ideas, here's some thoughts. Would you consider a story about air

(07:34):
Force? And you know what,I followed through and did a story about
air Force because he engaged me.A great person for that too. Brandon
Slay at the Pennsylvania RTC, there'stimes where we'll have him on for an
interview. He'll shoot a text andsay, here are some thoughts or some
topics that you might be interested intalking about. So it gives an outline

(07:55):
of some things that are going onwith his program. It's a pretty easy
formula to think about when you thinkabout the two to tango. It falls
in line with that. Build arelationship, be engaging. We're going to
be more willing to want to tellyour story and talk about it. Seems
pretty simple, doesn't it. Yeah, And I'm sure you felt that with

(08:16):
covering the University of Iowa that Ithink you said that that's the reason you
went with wrestling instead of football isbecause they were accommodating. They let you
in the room. The interviews werebetter rather than closing off. I don't
know if it's closed off on thefootball team, But I get the field
that you got better energy, betterproduction out of the wrestling side than you

(08:39):
did the football side. Football wegot players and coaches on Tuesdays and Saturdays,
Tuesdays before the game, Saturday afterward. And that was it. You
know, I realized there are somemore obstacles with football when you've got such
a larger media contingent. But youknow, with with wrestling, like I

(09:03):
said, first time I went intowhen in the practice room year one day
one was you know, leading upto Midlands in twenty or in nineteen ninety
nine, and Jim Zeleski pulled DugSchwab and Eric Jurgen's out of warm ups
and had him come over and talkto me. I you know, it

(09:26):
was a rarity and it allowed meto form a you know, a just
such stronger relationships with everybody on theteam. I felt like the third fourth
teamers on the Iowa wrestling team Iknew as well as anybody on the football
team. And do you think thatwas a function of being a Big ten

(09:48):
football program? Is that why youdon't have the access? Could you walk
down on the field and watch footballpractice like you did a wrestling practice.
No, not at Iowa, practiceswere closed. There are other place this
is where they're open to the media. Iowa, that was not the case.
I think that went back to thecertainly the Hayden fry erac my years

(10:09):
in college or the end of theHayden fry ear at Iowa, and then
when I was covering the Hawkeyes outof college, it was all Kirk Ferrance's
program, and you know, Kirkcontinued to maintain that there would be you
know, a couple of practices,maybe one in the one in the fall,
usually like the second Saturday of August, and then the last practice of

(10:30):
the spring, where they would openit up and let the media come in
and watch, and that would bethe accept that those would be the exception.
Those would be the only two times, two or three times a year
where we'd have access to practice.Think through though our history and what we've
talked about since we've worked together sincetwenty nineteen with track and now Flow.
We have these memories of coaches orathletes going above and beyond, whether it's

(10:54):
Tom Ryan giving us as smoothie orbuying us as Smoothie as we're coming into
Columbus, or Pat sand Toro beinggreat or Tom Brand's all the great things
he's done for us. It goeson and on and on, but you
remember those things and it as anatural human instinct as you want to invest
in people that invest back in youand I it's authentic, it's not fake.

(11:18):
And the other thing that hit methe other day at the OTC or
Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs iswhen someone knows your name and calls you
by it, it's just a Itshows a great sign of respect that they've
learned your name, they know whoyou are. And John Smith is my

(11:39):
absolute number one wrestling hero. Ithink he knows who I am. If
they said my name Kyle, heprobably knows. I don't know that he's
ever called me by my name duringthe entire time I've known him, and
I don't know if it's deliberate andhe's got all kinds of names, he
shouldn't know who I am. That'snot what it's about at all. He
has so many people going after himand it's impossible to learn everyone's names.

(12:03):
But I just think knowing names andknowing who people are and calling them by
that that matters. It's a hugepiece I just mentioned Farence. He is.
It's uncanny how that guy can remembernames. And I had met him
one time and when I his introductorypress conference and came back like a year

(12:24):
and a half later and interviewed himafter a press conference, and he called
me by name right away. AndI've seen it over and over and over
again with you. I've heard fromvarious parents how they would bring a relative
to a game, and like twoor three years later in a player's career,
they bring that same player, thatsame relative back and Kirk would remember
their name. You know, I'vebeen around a few people that are like

(12:46):
that. It's amazing skill. Iwish I had it, you know.
I think it makes people feel importantwhen you remember their names. It's an
incredible thing that it's when you thinkabout how simple it is. We're going
to the simplicity of what it takesto make progress or to build a relationship
just knowing someone's name and calling themby it in a interaction, and just

(13:09):
right there, I hadn't even thoughtabout that. You told me about the
Kirk Ferren's name recognition that he has. I love that, and I wish
I was better at it. Ihave a few things that I try to
do. But I do everything Ican to remember names, and I hate
it when I don't remember a person'sname because a lot of times it will
happen is I'll remember that person.I can remember where I saw them,

(13:30):
the circumstances, what we talked about, but for whatever reason, I can't
remember that person's name. Hate itbecause I care about that person that they
engage me and I don't know thatperson's name. So there's just a lot
of little things. If you're tryingto make progress just building relationship, it
takes work. It's it's not likeit's easy. It's it's easier to go

(13:52):
on Twitter and blast people and thinkthat that's gonna be an effective tool.
But I love the the down homerelationship process that gets built and he just
even this show sponsored by Cliff KeenAthletic talk about great relationship building. Those
guys are phenomenal and what they doand just the way they take care of

(14:13):
us and value relationships. And that'swhy it's it's such an honor to have
this show sponsored by them. We'regonna be Who's Number One sponsored by Cliff
Keen Cliff Keen Athletic and we haveJody Strittmanner on the program, Who's going
to be there coaching a couple ofathletes. But Who's Number One is a
phenomenal event. I love the conceptof it, and one thing that I

(14:35):
think probably gets lost a little bitbecause everyone thinks that they deserve to be
on it. This is a superelite competition. It's next to impossible to
get on it Who's number one card? And I think people have this idea
that just because you win Junior Nationalsor you do something awesome, that you
deserve to be on it. Theconcept is number one versus number two,
and let's find out who the bestwrest are in that weight class is.

(14:56):
And it's exceedingly extremely hard to geton Who's Number One card, So kudos
to anyone who makes it that far. There's ten women's matches, ten guys
matches, and it's gonna be atWisconsin Parkside. Can't wait to see this
event live. Yeah, me too. I haven't been to one yet,
so this is first one over.Yeah, okay, yeah, I'm looking

(15:18):
forward to it. I went downto I've been to a couple and went
to the one in Carver Hawkeye Arenawhen we were at Track and it was
still a little contentious, and Idon't think you wanted to be seen around
there, but I went down.Christian Pile said high to me, So
I think it was a good step. Little did we know we were going
to be bought out in a fewmonths, but it worked out that way

(15:39):
and went to one down in Dallas, Texas. And one of the great
moments for me was waking up earlyin the morning because our hotel was just
a few hundred yards away from whereJFK got shot. And I went there
in the morning and just kind ofsoaked it in. It was a surreal
moment to be there. On DailyPlaza, we're gonna talk with Jody stript
matter about who's number one. Wehave to talk about an important topic and

(16:02):
that is National Duels. As youknow, the multidivisional National Duels will be
in Cedar Falls, Iowa and January. We went and scouted that out.
I'm excited about that, also excitedabout the potential of bringing back the National
Duels again. You just wrote astory on it. Fill us in on
where that's going and the likelihood ofa National Duels for Division one happening again.

(16:26):
Well, there's a lot of layersto that question, and I'll probably
jump around a little bit trying toanswer it, but I think probably the
best place to start is to explainhow we've gotten here, and that's through
the NCAA pilot legislative process, whichgives you some sport oversight committees a little
bit of flexibility to experiment with somethings on a trial basis. And one

(16:48):
of the sport that's one of thesports that's capitalizing on that right now is
tennis. In the past, they'verun their individual and team championships simultaneously over
the course of about a three weekstretch, and you know, they're making
the move to split the tournaments upand have one in the spring and one
in the fall on a two yearpilot basis to get a little bit of

(17:08):
insight into how that would work forthe sport and whether that's the best route
forward for the sport. And so, you know, I think that the
Tennis News caught the attention to someof the prominent leaders in our sport and
got them thinking about the pilot programand how that might be one avenue for
us to try a dual championship withoutreally disrupting the NCAA Championships or the current

(17:36):
framework of the college season, Soas early as twenty twenty five, there
could be an NWCA sponsored national dualtournament that I think if we get to
that point, more than likely ithappens in the weeks after the NCAA Championships.
And for the last ten years orso, there's been a lot of

(17:56):
talk about what do we have todo to get a national dual championship,
and we've we've had a lot ofguests on this show. We've talked about
it with a variety of guests anda lot of people who feel like we're
missing the mark as a sport bynot having a national dual champion And so
if you look at attendance figures andTV ratings, it's really hard to argue

(18:19):
that point. And one of thenumbers in writing this story, one of
the numbers that jumped out to meis just taking a look at the top
ten attendance figures in twenty thirteen fordual attendance and stacking them up next to
the top ten dual team attendance figuresin twenty twenty three, and we're up
about sixty two sixty three percent Duringthat timeframe. And meanwhile, you look

(18:44):
over at the individual tournament. Inthis past March, we hit a nine
year low on the attendance front atthe national tournament. So there's clearly an
appetite for dual meets, and thereare a lot of people wondering what do
we have to do to make duelsmatter more? And I think that that's
a valid question because right now thereare three prominent Division one conferences that don't

(19:07):
even list duel standings on their conferencewebsites or even recognize a conference duel champion.
And so in the past one ofthe other big challenges that we had
was just shoehorn in the dual tournamentinto the you know, the current construct
of the college season, and ifyou look at the Big ten schools in
particular, you know, with sometimessix seven of the Big ten teams in

(19:29):
the top ten, and you're hittingmost of them in January or February for
duels, And if you're a leaderof one of those programs, you know,
do you want to try squeeze andform more tough duels into the into
the season before the postseason? Youknow, I think we're already having a
hard enough time getting guys to thefinish line healthy as he is. And
so you know, on the flipside, it was so much emphasis being

(19:52):
placed on individual NCAA championships. Youknow, I think that you know the
possibility of having a dual meat championshipafter the NCAA Championships, I think maybe
you get some more coaches on boardwith that, and so, uh,
you know, now the question iscan we get everybody on board with it?

(20:14):
Can we get everybody to the tableand wanting to participate? You know,
that remains to be seen. Butyou know, it's it's hard to
find something that one hundred percent ofour our coaching community is going to agree
on. But can we get enoughof a majority there to, you know,
to push this forward and see ifwe can take a shot at it.

(20:34):
It sounds like this is then theNational Duels as it was in twenty
eleven, where it was in January, but it will be after the season,
and it will be two weekends.Is that fair to compare it that
way? Is that? I thinkthat there are I think that there's a
good chance of something along those linesthat there will be real nothing sentence stone

(20:59):
yet and and there's a lot toa lot to sort through still, but
I think that there's a strong possibilitythat they could get to multiple regionals on
college campuses one weekend to sort downto either you know what, a final
four, maybe a final six,finally eight, I don't know what that
would be, and then wrestle itout a week or two weeks later for

(21:22):
the championship. After reading your article, the one thing that struck me or
that I thought about that I wantedto ask you, is so it left
after twenty eleven. Do you thinkwe would have the format that it was
in January if they would have justleft that alone instead of going to the
Bowl championship type? Do you thinkit was possible that it would carry on

(21:45):
into twenty twenty three, twenty twentyfour had we just left it alone,
or was this destined to happen,that national duas was going to fall there?
I don't know. I think Ithink it was a challenge when you
had at the time maybe the topthree programs or Iowa, Penn State,
Oklahoma State, right, I meanI was State was in there for a

(22:07):
period of time, I think inthe two thousand and eight, two thousand
and nine, two ten, YetCornell in the mix as well. You
have some other schools in the mix, but there were years where Oklahoma State
wasn't part of the part of thefield. There were years or Penn State
was making its surge and they weren'tpart of the field. And then there
was the year in twenty eleven whereIowa wasn't a part of it, and

(22:30):
that was the last year we hadit here in Cedar Falls. And so
the challenges that some of those,like I said, some of those top
teams, the challenges that they runinto from a scheduling standpoint as is,
I think we're going to make itreally difficult to get a full buy in
year after year, and with thatprobably would have made it hard to to

(22:52):
sustain it. You know, couldit Could it have continued? You know
maybe, I don't know. It'dbe a good question for Mike Moore.
Could it have continued if you didn'thave a full buy in from all the
top teams. Now that you setall that stuff, though, my memory
starts getting triggered, and I rememberone of the complaints was it was always
at the Unidome and Cedar Falls,and that it never moved around. And

(23:14):
John was thinking, I don't wantto keep going back to Iowa. Why
did they get all the advantages.Let's bring it down to stillwater. And
I think they did after that pointfor one of those kind of series where
I think one year they tried todo it that way on different weekends.
It was twenty thirteen maybe okay,so right in there, and it was
of course it didn't end up workingout, but I think he was thinking,

(23:36):
we need this and why does Iowaget everything? And so I think
that was part of the reason hewanted out. And his thought was,
it's not a championship either. Ithink it's an NWCA it's not an NCAA
championship, And so I compare itto indoor and outdoor track. If you
have an indoor championship and an outdoorchampionship, why can't you have a dual

(23:57):
meat championship and a tournament champion.And you articulated it there in the article
that dual meets, and we've saidthis so many times, they don't build
toward anything. So you're going tohave these standalone dual meets where the result
just doesn't tabulate for anything. Itdoesn't mean anything other than the result on

(24:18):
that particular day. For seating atthe Big Tens or NCAA Championships, whatever
the conference you're in. But isn'tthat fun to build? That's why college
football is great is you have elevento thirteen dates and every single game means
something. And I think wrestling coulddo the same. Make it eleven duel

(24:40):
schedule. Everyone has eleven duels andbuild toward it and that record really means
something to how you get to getto the postseason. One of the things
I thought about through this, we'veif we get this thing going and the
season stays where it is, right, we start competition November first, make
it a long season, longer togo into mid mid April, right,

(25:03):
like is what what? That's probablywhat we're looking at here. Yeah,
So that that's one concern. Butanother one I had is probably wrestling our
last regular season duels around February twentieth, so then we go like six weeks
without any more duels, right,I mean, that's that's kind of odd.
Yeah, So I don't know.I don't know, is there is

(25:25):
there any point that we could getto something like what tennis as with a
championship in the fall and in achampionship in the spring, where where you
have an individual season that is tournaments, you have a dual season that's just
duels. I don't know. Idon't know if that if if it's possible

(25:48):
for a sport that has roots asdeep as wrestling and we're tied to the
season the way we are to,you know, to be able to pull
something like that off, which itis clunky. You're right, it's just
you got another event at the endof the year. My thought goes to
what athletes are going to get ifyou're trying to get the high level athletes

(26:08):
or they think, and I don'twant to wrestle a dual tournament for the
NWCA. I've got us open inmy mind. I want to make world
teams. I'm out, So thatmy thought goes to that. Just as
we talked through this, it justseems so perfect for a while there with
January, right at that heart ofthe season, you've got a national Duels.

(26:30):
It's in a great venue at theUnidome. I know it's selfish because
it's right here and we get itright in our backyard, but it was
so freaking awesome. It was suchan incredible event with every division there.
It was just man if you didn'texperience it, you had to. But
we've missed it for twelve years.But hopefully we can get something like that
back. But even one of thecomplaints about that was that you didn't qualify,

(26:53):
if memory serves me correct, youdidn't qualify based on your end season
results, right. It was whatyou had done the year before put you
in the mix, and so thoseduels during the regular season didn't count towards
a championship either, which I thinkthis gives us a little more juice.
Yeah, it makes winning winning thePAC twelve, the SoCon the MAC,

(27:18):
the IWA winning those duel titles itmatters because it gives you an automatic ticket
into the tournament, right, Imean, I think I think that's probably
the road that they go down.Is if you want to make regular season
duels really important, you have amaybe a sixteen team field where you have
seven conference champions and nine at large, or you have maybe a twelve team

(27:42):
field with seven and five. Yeah, whatever it is. I mean,
who knows, with conference realignment wemay have more conferences. Yeah. Is
it as simple as getting rid ofa lot of the tournaments that we love?
And I don't know how many tournaments, you need to be there,
and I love watching tournaments, butI like the idea of just simplifying it.

(28:06):
Let's have a dual season and thenthere's some sort of a tournament season.
It just seems like that would makesense somehow to split that out and
it just keeps things compartmentalized and youcan just focus on one thing at a
time. I don't know how thatworks yet. We're just talking through things,
but this has to work because we'vetalked about duels so many times.
And the one thing, and KalSanderson has a great point on this when

(28:30):
he brought this up when they triedto have that vote, is that when
he said that tournament scoring is morereflective of team balance, because hypothetically,
if Dake Russell's Taylor, whoever winsday won the college matches, but Cornell
in that situation will get three andPenn State would get nothing number one versus

(28:51):
number two, Whereas at the ncaChampionship, David Taylor scores more points because
he was more dominant throughout the entiretyof a tournament. So to me,
another reason that cumulative scoring is agood thing. I still love the ten
on ten our guys versus your guys. That just makes sense for a fan
to get on board with. Andagain we go back to it, what

(29:11):
do college fans? What do fanswant? They want to follow their team,
they want to get invested in thatteam. And for the most part,
once that team concept is over,they aren't following what Trent Hidley's doing
at the US Open. It's kindof cool if they catch it in the
newsletter, great, but they're notenamored with that. They want to see

(29:33):
their team in the NC State singletor whoever they are supporting. I think
that's a pretty fundamental universal concept thatwrestling needs to grasp. And you articulated
there, what's going up for attendance, dual meet attendance. You see those
Iowa Penn State, it's off thecharts. It's a great atmosphere. You
get behind them and it's it's anevent. Or you commit the NC Championships

(29:57):
and you got your little pockets andyou're guys up one minute and then you
got to wait another thirty and thenit's just it's a little bit clunky and
it's exhausting. I love the exhaustingpart. It's no way am I saying
get rid of the NCA Championships becauseit's a phenomenal event. You have to
keep it in perpetuity. Let's justget a dual meat event. We need

(30:17):
it, we need it. Weneed this for our sport. It's so
important and the dad is there tosupport it. You know, the best
thing about this pilot program is likeyou're you gotta free look at it.
You try it. Yeah, youknow, if it doesn't work out,
you just change. You continue whatwe've been doing. You don't you discontinue
the pilot program. Yeah, youknow, if it works, we maybe

(30:42):
we learn some things about this,about the popularity, and we make a
little bit of a shift for thebetter for the sport, learn things from
trying anything else you want to addbefore we hear from Cliff Keen Athletic and
then Jody Strip matter of young guns. I can't think of anything, Kyle.
I think we've we've covered a lotof ground here. We you know,

(31:03):
it's taken two to tango to getthis far and it does. And
let's let's hear from Cliff Keen.All right, Andrew Hamilton, thank you.
We'll hear from Cliff Kean. We'llbe right back Sir, Yes,
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(31:27):
or even a weekend get away.This is not your run of the mill
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(31:49):
Sergeant bag order. YEP coupon codeon the mat gets you twenty percent off.
Just go to www dot cliff Keendot com and click accessories. He's
under the shop Wrestling tab. OurGuest Today is a club coach in Pennsylvania
known for Young Guns Wrestling Club.He was a two time All American for

(32:10):
the University of Iowa, placing secondand third, two time D two National
champion for Pittsburgh Johnstown. It isJody strip Matter, Jodi, how you
doing? I'm doing good talking aboutyoung guys. Well, let's go back
d two brackets. I sent youscreenshots of your brackets. I love brackets.
One of my favorite things to gothrough history. Check out brackets.

(32:31):
Who who? I sent you thosebrackets, And I'm gonna read our text
exchange about another topic. It said, I need you to come out to
our facility sometime. My response,I'd love to come out, and then
you said, let me know whenmakes sense. Would love to have you
out. Here's the most important responseI had. As long as the invitation

(32:52):
is just for me, I don'twant Andy Hamilton out there with me.
He was in your wedding. Thisis my special moment with Jody strip Matter.
You said, let's go Andy doesn'tcome visit me anyway, show him
that you are a better friend.I said, great incentive. So you
gotta make sure that I get outthere before Andy does. This is I

(33:13):
think this is yeah, this isparamount that I get out there before Andy
s Hey, I gotta I gottainterject here the score scoreboard on this.
How many times have you come andstayed with me here in Suter falls strip
Oh? Yeah, I don't know, I mean, I know, I
don't know how many. It's fewerthan the times I've come to see you.

(33:37):
So but listen, I'm saying scoreboard. He moved to Iowa for you.
He came to the University of Iowawhere you were. So does that
count? Does that count? I'mgoing to count it. But I do
want to get out there. Tellus about your facility first and foremost.
Do you feel like it's where youwant it to be adequate? Do you
want to make upgrades? Is itthe facility you've always dreamed of? Yeah,

(34:00):
we're still making little adjustments right now. It's still not quite done the
way that we want it, butit's just kind of I never had a
plan to have a facility like this, and then COVID happened and things changed
a little bit with the way wedo camps and the club, and I
just decided to do it and kindof started as a small project and ended

(34:20):
up a lot, a lot biggerthan actually I thought it was gonna ever
gonna be. But yeah, it'sreally special. It's really really nice.
We use it for camps in thesummer, and we use it for our
club during the fall, where andit's spraying a lot less but in the
summer, it gets really really,really used. Do you have a cap
on how many kids you're gonna allowin the facility? You know, every

(34:43):
camps a little bit different. Someare very unique and kind of small group
oriented oriented, and other ones areyou know, pretty big where we'll have
over one hundred kids and utility.Some kids canute, some kids stay six
full match I got of no polesor anything like that in the middle of
just six matchs wide open. Whenyou have a space like that, do

(35:05):
you feel there's an obligation to utilizeevery inch of it? Is there is
there pressure that goes with that?Yeah, we took on a large uh,
you know, financial just challenge there, but I think little by little,
you know, I think that youknow, if you always do the
right thing, things will work out. So yeah, I guess long term,

(35:30):
you know, where my son isseven and my daughter's nine, so
I'm going to be in the sportfor a while out there one there one
the wrestle still and we got areally really good group of younger kids.
So no, I don't think there'smuch pressure that way. It's just kind
of enjoy coaching and kind of dothe thing that we've always done. You're
on the front end of being aclub coach. Now it is a lane

(35:52):
that others are exploring. Has theclub game change since you started until now?
Yeah? Absolutely, it's it's challenging. I mean it's every day there's
a new club popping off. Youknow, there's you know, even kids
from our own clubs. You know, they're branching out and do another thing.
So yeah, it's it's extremely extremelycompetitive. But again, I always

(36:15):
think, going back to what Isaid earlier, you treat people right and
you do the right things. Youknow. I think kids they see the
had parents see that, and overa long period of time, I think
they get really really good. Howdo you get clubs or kids into the
club? Do you have to activelyrecruit? No, we've never done that.

(36:35):
It's kind of whoever wants to cometo the club, you know,
they show up and they can bepart of the club. You know,
we don't as far as recruiting anyanything like that. Advertising we'll advertising tournaments
and do different things like that,but we don't do any recruiting. Let's
go back to the beginning of thisthing. You're you're, what a couple
of years out of school, You'reon the national team Olympic you're coming up.

(37:00):
When when you and Eric Jurgens decidedto move up to Michigan to start
young Guns up there, what wasthe long term vision for you at that
point. I don't think there wasone. You know, it was this
kind of day by day and likeyou said, club wrestling really didn't exist,
or at least if it did,I didn't know that. So whenever

(37:22):
Eric came to me and said,hey, let's do this thing and you
know, color of the club,I wasn't really sure what it was,
what we were going to do,you know, and I was struggling with
making weight, with injuries, andI was, you know, having a
little bit of success, but itwas it was wearing on me, and
I wasn't sure what to do.I did want to still go to medical
school, so my plan was totake one year off and go back to

(37:44):
school, and it just didn't workout that way. So I don't think
there was a plan ever. Itwas just, you know, hey,
it was an opportunity. Back then, athletes weren't making you know, much
money at all, barely paying rent, cell phone bills, that kind of
thing, and it was just anopportunity to use wrestling and kind of take
a little break away from Iowa Cityand then here we are twenty years later.

(38:08):
When you get into that lane,though, do you have things that
you can share with us that arekey moments that have happened along the way.
Sort if someone else wanted to dothis, they know, avoid this
pitfall. Yeah. As far asthe club, I mean, like,
you know, when we started init, you know, we didn't start

(38:29):
with many kids at all, buteven the first night I can still remember
the first night and rolling mats out. We didn't have our own wrestling space,
so we had to roll mats outand not many kids showed up for
that first night, but the kidsthat did, you know, I guarantee
they got a really good work out. And by week two, week three,
you know, and we a monthtwo and three, it was it
was rocking, you know. Andwe had a couple of different locations where

(38:53):
would run run practice, and I'dbe traveling, you know, and then
the next night, you know,he'd be running that other one and I'd
be I'd be running the one thathe did the night before. So we
learned a lot in that first year, just you know, how to run
practice and all that stuff along withthe business side, you know, and
advertising, and you know, theInternet wasn't near as big as one it
is today and social media and stufflike that, So it was it was

(39:15):
interesting, you know, and butwe relied on a lot of the kids
that we were training in their familiesand word of mouth, and like I
said, it spread really really quick, and it's just it's a it's a
totally different landscape now, you know, just everything like you said before,
with so many different opportunities of kidsgoing to different clubs, and then also
just the social media aspect of it. There wasn't anything like that back then.

(39:38):
Was Cam Simes one of your firstclub members. Yeah, so he
started probably in that first month,maybe not the first night, but he
was there right away, and Ibelieve he was in sixth grade at the
time, and he had older brothers. There was four Simons brothers that were
at practice, and you know,they were just awesome, awesome kids and

(39:59):
you know, they good family andbut yeah, he was one of that
first initial groups. It's not abad way to start when you get a
future NCAA champ in your room,right all right, Yeah, there was
there was a couple, I meanthere was a couple of really really good
kids. You know that there wasa lot of high school state titles that
end up coming out of that room, a lot of kids that wrestled and
end up wrestling in college. What'sthe difference between the wrest and culture in

(40:23):
Pennsylvania versus the rest and culture inIowa. No, I don't know.
I've never spent a whole lot oftime, you know, other than whenever
I was in Iowa City. I'venever spent a lot of time like you
know, in high schools, inhigh school practice and stuff like that.
Like I think that it's the crazything is that that Pennsylvania is really,

(40:45):
really, really good, but ourstate tournament is really like it's not attended
well at all, like fans andstuff like that. So it's it's popular,
It's like everybody loves to wrestle,but it's not popular in the sense
of like everybody wants to go andwant wrestling and you know, fans and
that stuff. You know, wheneverI watch the Ioways State tournament from afar,

(41:06):
it looks like it's h you know, the NCA tournament, it's just
rocking. So but yeah, pennsylvaniarewrestling it's extremely extremely deep. You know,
kids grandparents wrestled and there you knowtheir uncles, and you know they're
taking them to practice whenever their parentscan't come. So I meet a lot
of like the kids' families and thepast history of of you know, the

(41:28):
kids that are showing up to wrestleon. Yeah, it's really really deep,
and it's really really competitive as justas I'm sure I always why in
your opinion, isn't PA more ofa spectator tournament? And what what does
the state have to do to changethat? That's a great question, and
I think that they're making steps todo that, you know. I do

(41:49):
think whenever you have two different divisionsat you know, different times, that
takes away a lot of it,you know. And then I think that
you know, being able to sitat home and watch and on you know,
you know, on the internet isappealing to a lot of people nowadays,
especially in the middle of winner orat the end of winter. That's

(42:09):
a great question. I don't knowthe answer that I'm hoping that PA makes
a little bit of a change thisyear now that we have sanctioned girls wrestling
and it's going to all happen atthe same time. I would love to
see, you know, a finals, tripway finals and the girls finals all
kind of going together. I thinkthat place would be packed. And I
think they do it. You know, the sport in Pennsylvania wrestling, you

(42:31):
know, do them really really goodby doing that. My recollection is your
path in your head was go topitt Johnstown for two years and then eventually
end up at the University of Iowa. Why was it Iowa though, to
choose instead of penn State or maybea school in the state of Pennsylvania.
Well, I mean I was winningthe national final after national final. You

(42:53):
know, I think whenever I transferredthere, whenever that would have been my
junior year, we won the nationaltitle when that was their seventh in a
row. So they were winning,you know, whenever I was in high
school and college, they were Iguess the pen data today they were winning
national tidn't after national tidn't. WhenI got a hold of a video whenever

(43:16):
I was young, it was calledGable Competitor Supreme, and so I always
loved the Iowa program growing up asa young kid. They were winning,
and it's kind of just what stuckin my head where I wanted to go.
You were wrestling for pap Acora.Then legendary coach of Pitt John Stone.
Tell us about how he handled thatsituation, because I think a lot

(43:39):
of coaches, you know, aregonna gonna cling on to their star wrestler
and try to do everything they canto keep them. He handled things quite
a bit differently. Tell us aboutthat. Yeah, Well, when when
he recruited me, he said that, you know, he said, hey,
I know, you really want togo to Iowa. And I grew
up in a farm in the middleof nowhere, you know, and won

(44:00):
one high school state title in asmaller division double way in Pennsylvania. So
again, the internet wasn't like itwas today. You know. I did
get second and third at Fargo,but it was just a little different.
My brother was there, and sowhenever he recruited me, he was straight
up and he said, hey,you come here, you win a couple
of national titles. I hope yougo over you wont So after I won

(44:22):
my first one around Christmas time,I told him, hey, coach,
I think I really want to afterthis year. Because we had a lot
of really good kids on a team. Our team was ranked number one in
the country, you know, andhe said, hey, after let's let's
wait until after the year. Andagain he kept his word out, I'll
hope you go wherever you want,what Midlands. Then a couple of days

(44:43):
later he went up to I thinkwith coach Leski and he was like,
coach, I got someone for youto watch here. He really wants to
transfer at the end of the season. And you know, I don't know
what Coach Leski, you know,maybe thought at that time, you know,
a Division two kids was interested intransferring. And then I won Midlands
that year and I did really reallywell, and so after the tournament,

(45:04):
he came in he found coach Bcreand he said, hey, coach,
this kid's really good. I reallywant him after, you know, after
season, let's talk. And thatwas kind of the last week. Talked
about it. Throughout the rest ofthe year. We had a really good
national tournament. I won a nationaltitle again and John won national title at
one thirty three r the wight aboveme. Our team won a Division two
key national title, and you know, as soon as we got home,

(45:28):
coach was on the phone and andat that time it was you know,
Iowa State was calling on local almostdate was calling on a bunch of different
places, and I told Coach,really, the only place I want to
look at Iowa. I went.I wanted it, and I was sold.
I wanted to go there. Soas soon as school ended in May
or at late late April, Ispent a week at home, and then

(45:51):
I packed up all my bags andspent the summer out there before my junior
year. Even in hindsight, whenyou tell that story, it is pretty
amazing that it all went down thatway, isn't it. Yeah, it
really is. I mean, itwas kind of a dream and I live
my dream. Those are my heroeskind of growing up whenever I was young,
you know, and to be thencoached by them a couple of years

(46:14):
later, it's pretty awesome. Andagain just the way that kach Bocor kept
his word, and that's just thekind of person he is today. I
still I love being around him.I try to be around him as much
as I can in the program atpitt Johnstown, stopping in and helping anytime
I can. But he's just anincredible person and it all works out.
And that's what you know, youdo the right thing, and Coach book

(46:36):
he always does, you know,and then they I transferred out. It
was a kid that transferred in andhe ended up becoming a national champion at
one twenty five. And things workout if you do the right things.
And you know, Coach Bokor hasalways taught me that when you get into
club wrestling, there's certain cultural thingshappening. At the time, women's wrestling

(46:57):
hadn't exploded yet. But now youhave a great women's wrestling piece to your
club. How are you able toadd that in to young guns as you
went along? Yeah, it's beenit's been interesting. You know, the
first couple of years, we reallyhaven't had many girls at all, and
over the last probably three it's reallyreally exploded. And ironically in that time

(47:19):
frame, my daughter's nine and sheprobably started wrestling right around when we started
getting some girls. And at firstI wanted her practice just, you know,
to learn a sport a little bit. You know, she's gonna be
around her whole life with me.You know, I just wanted to know,
hey, what does it takedown?That kind of stuff, So you
know, I had her start whenevershe was young, and just kind of

(47:40):
didn't know really what she would dowith it. I didn't expect her to
compete at all. And I wentto a little kids state tournament and there
was a little girl in our clubwho want to stay title. And she
was a year or older than Journey, and Journey just really really looked up
to her from that time on andthey still are really really close friends.
And said, giotta want to staytitle. And then my daughter's like,

(48:01):
Dad, I want to wrestle.I want to start competing, you know.
And it took her a little bitat first, and now she loves
it. So he wanted to staytitle as an eight year old. She
got second this year as a nineyear old. And we have a lot
of you know, I think wehave about twenty girls in our club right
now, some girls that are doingreally really well. We had a Fargo
finalist began this year. So justsome awesome role models and just you know,

(48:27):
and that's that's extremely important. Likeas a father, obviously as a
coach, you want them to win, but again as a as a coach
and father, you want them tobe the right people. And you know,
my son and my daughter have somany good role models and young guns
that they look up to, bothon the mat and Awes on match.
Do you remember what you thought whenyou first watched Spencer League compete? Yeah,

(48:50):
he he I mean he's so special. You know again on the bat
off of that boat, he's sowhenever you talk to him, even back
then, like he's like kidneys kidcan because young, you know, he
is so mature. But then hego out and he just wrestled like a
Tasmanian devil, you know. Andhe was even in the practice room.
You know, he's he's wrestling andknees up the wall, down the wall

(49:10):
around him. He's just such aspecial talent and such a special kid.
How were you able to help himthrough that process? Because he got good
really fast. Did he have acertain level when he came into your program?
Yeah, he was really really good. You know, I think his
dad city he got second like almostevery year. So we've got he got

(49:31):
second like three years in a rowat the PJW state tournament. So he
was really really good. Obviously you'regetting second in the state finals, but
he just kind of he wasn't winningthe state tournament yet, you know,
I believe he was even winning Tulsaback then. But yeah, it was
it's always been about the long game. I guess it's not about like a

(49:51):
winning Kids States right now. Heyou know, he always talked back then
about you know, being a winthe gold medalists, you know, and
what he wanted to do in highschool and college. So I guess it
was it wasn't hard at all.He always you know, wanted to be
the best and had the big picturein his mind. It was super easy
to coach him in that way.What feelings did you have watching his semifinal

(50:15):
match where he got pinned this yearat the NCIO Championships. Yeah, I
don't know if I can really trulysay. I mean, it was just
heartbreaking. And again I can't imaginethe pressure and everything that he's went through
with his injuries. I know he'shad some some really really tough times,
and I guess the thing that sucksthe most is that. And I guess

(50:36):
anything can happen to any tournament,but in a lot of people's lives were
changed for a lot worse than that, you know, because of COVID.
But if it wasn't for COVID,you know, he would have won him.
He had probably his best season everin twenty twenty, and they canceled
the tournament, and you know oneagain in twenty one would have went through
and without red shirt or anything,and I possibly won four national titles.
But yeah, you can't change it. And all you can you now is

(51:00):
I'm sure he's doing that to takeit some take some time, but use
it for motivation the rest of hislife. So but yeah, it's extremely
extremely hard in general, when youwatch your kids, is that the same
field? Do you cringe and movewith them every time there's a young guns
kid on the map? Yeah,yeah, no doubt. It's you're I

(51:25):
guess you keep it all tight chested, you know, and what it doesn't
matter who they're wrestling for, wherethey're at in the country, but you're
always, you know, they biggestfan. I always say like you're you're
an uncle in the stands and supersuper proud of them. But at the
same time, you hurt really badwhenever you know they hurt. Yeah,
I guess it's no different now thatmy own two kids are wrestling. It's

(51:49):
it's it's tough. You know,the highs are really really high and the
lows can be really really tough inthis sport. Talked about playing the long
game and I think that's important whenyou're talking about club coaching. So you
said you had a seven year old, nine year old, Why can't we
get parents to conceptualize the long gamesSometimes? Of course everyone's on a different

(52:10):
part of the spectrum, but itseems like parents oftentimes want kids to win
early. They want them to winthose state national titles as a ten year
old, eleven year old, twelveyear old. How do we get them
to think about the long game.Yeah, that's tough. And even coaches
up, you know, you putcoaches in airing and even myself sometimes like,
yeah, yeah, you want yourkids to have success. You want

(52:34):
them to feel that success, sothey want to keep doing it, you
know, and parents want their kidsto be the next Spencer Lease of the
world. So I get it.I get that part of it. However,
probably learn a lot more through ourlosses, and you know, it
helps us a lot more so,learning how to lose is extremely, extremely
important. So it's tough. That'sa tough one to answer, because again,

(53:00):
we all want success. I don'tcare where you are, what business
you're in, what profession you're in, you know you want that success.
However, just I think what we'vedone really really well. And I think
John takes or can get so muchcredit for this is you know that it's
not you know all about today.You know today is important, but it's
really kind of who you're becoming todaythat's going to make you ultimately who you

(53:22):
are, I guess tomorrow in thefuture. When can you start telling when
this is real? So probably tenyears old if they're having success or not
having Maybe not the barometer yet,but is there a certain time or a
frame of time that you can tell, all right, this is when they're
finally going to come into their own. Yeah. I think maybe late junior

(53:44):
high in early high school. AndI think the biggest thing that we see
is like that independent so you know, can't is a kid doing things because
his mom and dad are making them, or his coaches making them, or
they doing it because they truly loveit, they truly want to get good.
And that's when we see, likeour kids, the kids that do
really well, they take off becauseit's not my dad making them go to

(54:05):
practice, they're begging their parents togo to practice, or or they're finding
ways to get their workouts in.They're they're getting up before school and you're
hearing stories about them, you know, doing the right things. So I
think that's really really important that independency. They love the sport, they love
the process. They everybody loves towin. But do you love getting up
at five thirty in the morning forthe challenge of getting up and you love

(54:28):
that challenge of you know, goingto practice and doing all the right things
in school, you know, AndI think that's when you put the whole
practice together. You know, you'rea good kid, you're getting good grades,
You're not going to parties, andthat's really really important. Do you
read body language in the room andread if a kid might need a break
or he's maybe losing a little bitof the love for the sport, Yeah,

(54:52):
for sure. And I think alot of that comes from, you
know, maybe someone making you doit again. You know, if you're
doing it because you love it,even if you're not winning. You know,
I think that if you love itand again, winning is going to
be a huge part of that.I don't know anybody that really they lose
all the time, they still loveit, So obviously winning is going to

(55:14):
be a huge part of that.But if somebody else is making you make
weight or somebody else is making yougo to practice. That's when you see
that kind of love fade and kindthat fire go out where they're not doing
it for the right reasons anymore.Whatever your athletes is Bow Bassett, who
will be on the Who's Number onecard presented by Cliff Keen Athletic. How

(55:37):
would you describe Beau Bassett and hisperception and the wrestling community? Well,
how I would describe him again,the kid absolutely loves it. So when
I was talking about someone that stuffon the mat, off Matt he's just
an amazing son, amazing brother,or amazing role model. He's you know,
he's someone who is just an incrediblerole model and a great person to

(56:01):
my son. My son looks upto him so much, and he spends
so much time with the younger kids. So he's just a kid that does
everything right. Does he win everymatch, you know, not yet.
You know, he's had some reallytough bosses in the last two years and
not many at all, but theones he has, you know, have
really really motivated him to even tryto get to another level. So he's

(56:22):
just an amazing kid on the mat. Off the mat. Again, I
know a lot of people see himwrestle on team through social media, but
the Seaman person, the way heacts every day, he's just again he's
like specially as far as that maturity, he is so mature, you know,
even when he loses, he handlesit so so well at an early

(56:44):
age, and I think that's justgoing to keep benefiting him as he gets
older. How did he get thatmaturity? Because I have seen him do
interviews and I'm blown away that atthat time a ninth grader or an eighth
grader could articulate himself that way.Where does that come from? Yeah,
I think he's practiced a lot,to be honest, I think he's he's
come up and he's won since he'sbeen young. So he's got a lot

(57:06):
of practice that that, you know, and it's something I think that's very
very important to his mom and hisdad. They come from extremely good family,
family values, So I think thathe's had a lot of practice as
a he was winning state titles inan eight year old and you know,
having a microphone shoved in his faceafter a state tournament. That's pretty impressive
for a young kid to be ableto get in there and articulate what he's

(57:30):
saying and and and be like Isaid, so mature about it. Are
you excited about Who's number one?You have a great history here and I
think Andy has the the numbers onhow many guys you've sent to Who's number
one? What does this event meando you? Yeah, it's been pretty
fun over the years. It's it'sa it's a motivator. I know every

(57:52):
kid in the country obviously wants that, you know, that status of being
the number one wrestler in their weightclass in the country. So it's been
really really fun over the years.We were in year one and we've been
in a lot of the years.We had a couple of years that we
didn't have anybody. Even the yearsthat we have, you know, like
obviously like a kid like Spencer League, he never wrestled him because he was

(58:13):
in the World Championships and doing thingslike that, So it was bad timing
for coming off the World And Ithink that there's some athletes this year that
could be in it that you optedout after the World Championships. So it's
been a lot of fun. We'vewon a lot, we've lost some tough
ones too, but it's been alot of fun. Over the years,
that's for sure. So the numberstwenty one appearances by fourteen wrestlers, that's

(58:36):
what the count will be after Jack'sForrest and Bow Bassett this weekend. Let's
go back a couple of years though, Jackson Arrington late notice to the event,
Stepsie On wrestles Hunter Garvin wins thematch. What do you recall about
him getting ready last minute to gowin a tough match. Well, as
far as getting ready, he's alland the kids always ready, He's always

(58:58):
wrestling, he's always in shape.Again, what an amazing young man.
And it gives a testament of again, yes, what young Guns preaches and
all that stuff, but it comesback to the kid and the kid has
to say, Hey, I wantto be all in, I want to
do things right. I want tobe, you know, a national champion.
I want to be the number onerand kid in the country. That

(59:19):
mentality and then and then everybody wantsto do it. What are you going
to do about it? And heis just an amazing you know, like
I talked about Spencer, like Italked about Bill Bassett, you know,
just an all in kind of kid. So he was always ready, he
was in shape, he was wrestlingevery day. So I got that call
late and I forget who it was. Someone got hurt and I called him,

(59:40):
and you know, I think Itexted him. He was in school
and he said, I gotta talkto my parents. I'll call you right
back, And within a couple ofminutes he called me as the coach I'm
in, So, yeah, youknow, he was ready. I remember
he had an underhook looked like EricJurgen's out there. He had an underhook
to anee pick right on the edgeand got takedown right to the back and
kind of open the matchup for hima little bit there, But yeah,

(01:00:02):
it was that was a great,great match. Talked a little bit about
bow but Jack's is a pretty specialprospect in his own right. Opportunity to
go rustle a lot of college opensthis past year and perform pretty well in
him. What have you appreciated aboutworking with Jack's Forrest. Yeah, he's
just again, another good kid,clean cut, awesome family. Got to

(01:00:25):
know him a little bit, obviously. He's from North Carolina and he started
coming up to camps kind of lateelementary through early junior high, so got
to know him through the summertime andthen moved out full time, and he's
just an awesome kid. A littlebit different at practice where at one time
his dad called me he was like, hey, I heard you know that

(01:00:46):
Jacks might not be working hard atpractice now Now I was like, Howard,
I don't see that at all.He just has a little bit different
way of going about it. He'sso intrinsic, you know, and intellectual
about how he processes practice. Sohe's very very different about it. But
he's such a you know, hehe processes technique so good and the kind

(01:01:07):
of transforms it into his own styleand his own body. So he's he's
just an awesome, awesome kid.And the cool thing about it again,
he doesn't need that. He remindsme of Jason Nolphan ever he was young.
He doesn't need like some kids willonly go with like a really tough
hearted partner. They have to getlike the best kid in the room every
go. Well, Jackson isn't likethat. He doesn't he doesn't care,

(01:01:29):
you know who he's going with.Younger kid, older kids. He'll go
with the girls, you know,And he just always kind of experiment with,
you know, his technique and newtechnique and you know, he's just
he's an awesome, awesome kid tohave in the room. It sounds like
he's living inside his head and creatingscenarios on his own. Is that kind
of what you're getting at there?Yeah? Yeah, And he'll he'll go

(01:01:50):
out and experiment in new positions andand kind of incorporate what he already does,
you know with we're what we're addingat practice. Sorry, he's just
a really really special talent. Doyou think that's healthy for high school kids
to dabble in college opens? Youknow, I think if you're ready,
you know, and obviously he's shownhe's ready, So I guess every kid

(01:02:14):
is different. I know he didit at such an young age. He
was only a freshman last year,and in Pennsylvania, Bishop McCourt was not
allowed the rest of the state tournament. So he used those opportunities that to
go out there and compete, andwe call it, you know, chasing
lyons. You know that he's notafraid to go after you know, some
really really good kids and not afraidto lose. So he knew he knew

(01:02:35):
it was going to make him betterand help them, you know, in
the areas that he needed to workon. Throughout the season. So yeah,
I think that every kids different andI guess if they're ready mentally physically,
Yeah, I love it. Doyou have a preparation process for Who's
number one? No, you know, and that's what me and Bill,
you know, Bo's dad and talkedabout. Kind of are we watching something

(01:03:00):
on the competitors? Sure, youknow, but really it's about being yourself,
you know, how about different positionsthat we've talked through. You know,
but we've known this for a whilenow. It's not like it,
you know, just came up thisweek. So you know, we've watched
some film and done some preparation thatway at the same time, and you've
got to be yourself out there.And kind of if both boys do that,

(01:03:22):
you know, with Bow and Jack'sI think they're gonna be do that'd
be great. Any athletes in yourprogram that we haven't heard of that we
need to keep our eye on andears out for. Yeah, I mean
there's a lot always and you knowkind of coming up through We'll see you
know, who who does what throughoutthe years. But you know, this

(01:03:44):
summer, you know, some kidshave made some big names, and Melvin
Miller has moved in he's a cousinof Bo's and he's moved into Bow's house.
You know. You know, hewon a Fargo national title this summer.
He's done a really really good joband he's really really coming into his
own. And Bo's younger brother,a Keegan Basset, is starting to really
come on the map. He's alwaysbeen a good kid. He's always been
you know, I think he's beenin the state finals seven times in a

(01:04:06):
row now, from whether he's oneor lost, you know, but he's
always been in that state finals kindof a match. He just made the
Panang team at fifteen ye and he'sreally coming in his own also Stuf.
But yeah, there's a lot ofyoung kids. We have an awesome,
awesome young group. The high schoolgroup might be not what it was,
you know, a couple of yearsago. It might be down just a

(01:04:28):
little bit and maybe attributes a littlebit to like we talked about earlier on
it is like there's so many clubsthat maybe take a little bit less time
or maybe a little less more convenientor whatever the reason is. But maybe
not quite as many numbers in thehigh school right now. But the junior
high and elementary just loaded with somereally really good kids and hard workers and

(01:04:49):
very talented kids. Do you havecollege coaches pop into practice. Yeah,
yeah, occasionally we'll have some coachesthat'll stop in, you know, more
in the summer. You know,there are a lot more free in the
summer, so they come in thesummer and you know, whether they run
a practice or just come in towatch. Do you get to feel that

(01:05:11):
most of the kids and young gunshave the ambition to wrestle beyond high school
whatever level that is, Yeah,I think so, I would think so.
You know, again, I don'tthink that can be the soul motivator,
you know, you know, Ithink it's again if if you're looking
at the big picture and just tryingto get as good as you can that

(01:05:33):
day and work as hard as youcan. And again when some kids maybe
work really really really hard, butyou know, maybe the technique lacking or
the you know, there's something therethat's more missing, and we try to
kind of feel in that hole,you know, everything that kind of to
make that you know full for thekid where they have an opportunity if they

(01:05:55):
would like to reffles D one,D two, D three or else where.
Are you getting to know the women'scollege space a little bit. I'm
just starting to I'm just starting to, you know, we will start to
have our first kind of I guesscollege grew up or high school girls starting
to get recruited here in the nextyear or so. But just trying to

(01:06:16):
take it all in and I'll seeand you know how that goes. We
had Clarissa chan in last summer.That was awesome to meet her, and
she did an incredible job with thegirls and they all loved her. So
just trying to, you know,step back and see all that's all going
to work out process that whole thingtoo. Have you found that with women's

(01:06:40):
wrestling right now at the high schoollevel that Iowa adding women's wrestling is caused
quite a buzz. Yeah. Imean I thought it was gonna be crazy,
the ripple effect behind it, youknow, and I thought there was
gonna be a lot more programs,and you hear different things that maybe it
was supposed to and the nil stuffcome in and I'm not sure what you
know, really is going on,but I'm hoping within the next couple of

(01:07:04):
years. And I know it's thesame with Pennsylvania. You know, we
kept saying that for years. Wehope, we're hoping in the next couple
of years that Pennsylvania sanctions girls wrestling, and now they have finally. Obviously,
I think that's gonna be huge forPennsylvania girls that wrestle here. Jody.
Back nineteen ninety six, you talkedabout Fargo finishing second third, the

(01:07:24):
year he finished third. Nineteen ninetysix, you beat Jared Lawrence for third,
he finishes fourth. You guys areon opposite sides of that epic I
one Minnesota rivalry for years there,two thousand, two thousand and one.
Now you're at the head of prominentand successful clubs. How much do you

(01:07:44):
pick his brain? How much doyou guys trade ideas and things of that
nature. Yeah, you know,it's crazy as all those times wrestling,
And I think that's important because Ithink that's kind of how wrestling is.
It's the relationships that you make throughoutthe years that it's the most important thing.
And you know, we're extremely,extremely close friends now today even in

(01:08:06):
Fargo was funny. This year wewent and uh we went We had about
four or five hours in between oneof the sessions and we went golfing for
a couple hours. So we justhad a blast. And and actually I
didn't even know I wrested my fargo. He was the one that told me.
The crazy thing about Jared is Ithink he said uptil like ninth grade,

(01:08:26):
he lost like two times in hisentire career. I was like,
jeez, Louise, I lost twotimes every weekend. But but I forget
what the question was. But yeah, we're we're really really close friends,
you know, and even in college, you know, it was crazy because
the fans kind of hated each otherat Iowa Minnesota, and when we go
to Las Vegas and and things likethat and we'd hang out. I know,

(01:08:48):
a couple of times me and Ericwent up and we hung out with
Brandon Egam and you know, Jaredand and Becker and all those guys him
hard tongue. We went out,we went fishing with them and kind of
went camping for a weekend. Sowe've always been, you know, I
guess, respectful of each other andstuff like that, but they are kind

(01:09:09):
of especially me and Jared, ourfriendships really growing and over especially over this
last year when we started on Pand L. You can't know what worse
can end up, Like Andy said, but it is crazy how these relationships
or these rivalries can turn into relationships. Think of Leroy Vega at Purdue.

(01:09:30):
He's probably recruiting athletes there and youprobably see him on the trails and you
wrestle them all those times in thoseMinnesota versus Iiowa duels. It's kind of
crazy how it works out, isn'tit. Yeah? Absolutely, Again,
we were in Vegas this year forthe Open and you know a kid that
I coach and I'm still really reallyclose with his aj Shop, you know,
so you know, he coaches withLeroy at Purdue, and you know,

(01:09:53):
he tells me all the time aboutyou know, he'll tease Leroy about
calling me or something like that.And so. But it's funny, is
yeah. And there's so many greatpeople in this sport that it's it's been
far over the years, that's forsure. Jody, you're one of those
great people. We appreciate you comingon the program. Just make sure that
the standing offer to visit your facilityonly is standing for me, And yeah,

(01:10:15):
I have to I have to oneup Andy, he was in your
wedding. I have to just gomaybe a little bit higher than that,
do something that's current, So it'smy mission. But thanks, We'll see
you at Who's Number One in Wisconsin. All right, sounds good. I'll
see you guys in a couple ofdays. Thanks Jody. Let's hear from
Cliff Keen Athletic and we will beback to wrap up the show after this.

(01:10:38):
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(01:11:00):
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original wrestling outfitter. Always fun tohave Jody Strip matter the matter. I

(01:11:20):
think we had him on once duringthe Track Wrestling Days, had him on
before Who's Number One. Incredible amountof Who's Number One participants It's fun to
think about that and read through thelist. Such an elite competition to have
that many athletes compete. But whatI was hoping for was that you would
just kind of unleash some of theJody strip Matter stories of the Iowa City

(01:11:44):
days. This is a podcast.You can do that here. Huh.
We don't need to go into someof those. Well, it'd be fun
though, it'd be fun. Ithink our listeners want to hear. It's
been fun to have Jody on theshow. Be sure to watch Who's Number
One on Full Wrestling sponsored by CliffKeen Athletic also sponsored this show, So
thank you to Cliff Keen Athletic forAndy Hamilton and Jody stripp Matter. I'm

(01:12:06):
Kyle Kleinman. You've been listening onthe mat