Teague Moore: Overcoming Challenges, Winning a National Title, and Honoring His Father’s Legacy

Teague Moore, a three-time All-American and national champion at Oklahoma State, discussed his wrestling journey. He recalled losing to Jeremy Hunter in high school and finally winning a high school state championship. Moore highlighted his pivotal meeting with John Smith at Fargo, which led to his commitment to Oklahoma State. He detailed his national championship win in 1998 over David Morgan and the emotional impact of his father's passing. Moore also reflected on his international career, including his silver at the World Cup and the influence of Coach Smith and other mentors. He emphasized the importance of embracing challenges and the potential for rule changes to enhance dual meets.
 
Check out Shane Sparks’ interview with Teague Moore on Episode 35 of the Go Earn It Podcast.


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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to the Go earn It Podcast, where we bring
you stories each week of people who have battled through adversity,
overcame the obstacles, and earned their dream. You were born
for greatness and our mission is to bring you the
stories that will inspire you to dream big and go
earn it.

Speaker 2 (00:29):
And welcome to the Go arn It Podcast. It is
episode thirty five. I'm Shane Sparks, joined today by tigu More,
three time All American at Oklahoma States, won the national
title as well back in the days of the one
hundred and eighteen pound waight class. Longtime coaches, Well, Tig
looking forward to this one. Are you ready to scrap? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (00:50):
Absolutely, I appreciate you having me on. Shane.

Speaker 2 (00:53):
Let's start in high school. You went to North Alleghany
High School. Two time state finalists, one time I'm state champion.
I love doing the research and learning different things about
you guys in the process of these podcasts. My question
is who beat Tige Moore in high school? Because you
are a world beater.

Speaker 3 (01:11):
Well you know him. He was a national champion of
Penn State Jeremy Hunter And interesting thing about that, we
wrestled the two weeks prior leading up to the state championships,
and I had beaten them both of those previous weekends,
but then when we got to the state finals, he
got the better of me in an overtime, and so

(01:32):
that was my loss my sophomore year, his freshman year.

Speaker 2 (01:38):
Pennsylvania high school wrestling is amazing because yeah, high school
state championship matches were ultimately you got a par and
national champions It's incredible.

Speaker 3 (01:49):
Yeah, I think looking back through the history. I just
purchased a really good book from Tom Elling, who did
the history of Pennsylvania wrestling, and I was paging through
and it's absolute lutely incredible. Over the years, in the decades,
how many times you see names from the Pennsylvania states
that in a few years you see at the NCAA

(02:09):
Championships and sometimes World Championships and Olympics. Pretty good stuff.

Speaker 2 (02:14):
What do you remember from winning your state title?

Speaker 3 (02:18):
I remember a big sigh of relief, A little bit
of context to that. So I'm the youngest of seven kids.
My brother just above me, Tie was a four time
Pennsylvania state champion, only lost once in high school, and
so I had big shoes to fill and I was

(02:39):
just I kind of look back on. I was a
late bloomer, right. I didn't even qualify to the state
championships my freshman year, so myself and I think a
lot of people around me were wondering what was wrong
comparatively to my brother. And then my sophomore year made
it to the state finals. That's where I lost to
Jeremy junior year just had a slip up in the

(03:04):
first or second round and lost and then came back
for third. And then my senior year, I finally punched
through and won it, And honestly, it was like it
was a big sigh of relief because I knew I
was capable. I had already won multiple junior national championships,
so I had national championships behind my name, but I
didn't have a Pennsylvania state championship, So that was that

(03:26):
was a big one to overcome.

Speaker 2 (03:28):
How did you deal with the pressures of being Tay's
younger brother and not he on the door and falling short?
What do you recall from from dealing with that?

Speaker 3 (03:37):
It was I didn't I didn't deal with it very well.
It took into my sophomore year of high school. My
dad was the one that actually sat me down because
I was struggling, and he just basically said, look, you're
not going to be your brother. You need to come
up with your own goals, in your own expectations. You
keep trying to do everything based off what he did,

(03:58):
and he said, you're going to be your own person.
You're going to be your own wrestler. And so at
that time, I reassessed what every where my goals were
and I really started focusing on freestyle at that time,
and shortly thereafter, I won the Junior Nationals my sophomore year,
repeated my junior year and really started excelling on the

(04:20):
freestyle circuit. And as we all know now, the state
of Pennsylvania is tough in high school wrestling, and so
I was still battling just to get that state title,
but I was starting to find success on the freestyle circuit.
And that's where Coach Smith at Oklahoma State, that's where

(04:40):
he recognized me, and I gravitated towards him at that
time because he was just finishing his nineteen ninety two
Olympic run and so he was kind of the big
name of the time and had just taken over at
Oklahoma State, and so I pursued that option.

Speaker 2 (04:56):
What do you remember about your first meeting with John Smith?

Speaker 3 (05:03):
It was surreal. Of course, everybody knew who he was,
right and he approached me on the floor at Fargo,
and I can't remember Correig. It was something to the
effect that like I had just finished a match, I
was coming off of the mat, and he said, Tiger,
Tiger Moore, can I talk to you for a minute,

(05:23):
and introduced himself, as you know he always does. He's
so incredibly humble. You know, John Smith, I'm the coach
at Oklahoma State, And I remember just being awestruck, right,
So a very very cool experience. And at that like
at that time, my brother Ty was getting coached by
Kendall Cross at North Carolina. He was wrestling at UNC

(05:47):
and so I had a little bit of an Oklahoma
State connection at that time. And so when Coach Smith
started talking about what the opportunities may be at Oklahoma State,
I was I was sold pretty quickly. I still took
of his to Penn State. I was planning on take
a visit to Cornell, but ultimately once I made my
official to Oklahoma State, I made that commitment.

Speaker 2 (06:10):
What do you recall from walking in the room those
first couple of weeks, first couple of months. I mean
at that time, I mean that program was the program.

Speaker 3 (06:20):
Yeah, we were rocking. We had just come off the
national championship in ninety four. You know, Mark Branch was
on the team and was a national champion. Pat Smith
had just finished his run. I got there in the
fall of ninety five and there were big expectations of

(06:41):
everyone in the program. And what do I recall about it.
I just remember feeling like this is where I needed
to be, right because so much of the success in
that room was celebrated, not only with their NCAA championships,
the most NCAA team type of any program in the NCAA,

(07:02):
not just wrestling, any sport, all of the individual national
champions that had been through the Oklahoma State program. And
then when I looked at the world champions and Olympic
champions that's where I was aspiring to go. So I
just felt like I needed to be there. And Eric
Urero and I were roommates at that time at the
beginning of our freshman year, So I had a roommate

(07:25):
and a teammate that he just he clobbered me every day.
I mean, he really when I needed tested, Eric did
that for me every single day. He always was able
to show me where the bar needed to be set
and really helped drive me to that national championship. In
my All American titles.

Speaker 2 (07:45):
As a true freshman at Oklahoma State, who was one
veteran that made the biggest impact on you in the
way that he went about his business day in day out.

Speaker 3 (07:58):
The first I would say is Mark just because he
stood out to me the most because he had the
title and he was on the team right so that
he in his work ethic was there. I mean, all
of the guys in the program at that time, their
work ethic was absolutely phenomenal. Steven Schmidt, who was a

(08:19):
multiple time All American for US and his senior year
ranked number one in the country, but unfortunate an injury
prior to the national Championships really took that opportunity away
from him. That senior year. He was there and he
was highly ranked. Scotty Renee hartel Moore, Mark Smith, a

(08:39):
lot of these guys that were of course Eric, A
lot of those guys had the expectation of national championship
and it was a matt for me. It was easy
to look across the room, because if I looked across
the room, I knew what I needed to do to
win a national championship, and I was just trying to
keep up with those guys. My freshman year, it was

(09:00):
about surviving, like surviving practice every day, surviving the workouts,
the runs, the lifts, all of those sort of things.
My freshman year, it was just about surviving and learning
what the process was. And then as time wore on
and I found success, I started realizing that leadership role

(09:21):
that I had to play.

Speaker 2 (09:23):
What was your takeaway from being a true freshman nineteen
ninety six NCAA Tournament. I believe Teagi went one and two.
What do you remember from that? What was most valuable
in that experience?

Speaker 3 (09:37):
I remember leaving that was Minneapolis. I remember leaving the
arena after my second loss, and I just remember thinking
this is never going to happen again, Like I'm never
going to leave this building without a title in my hand.
And so it was. It was tough. It was a
tough tournament to watch because my teammates were doing extremely well.

(10:01):
Mark Branch made the finals that year, and he tore
his aco in the finals match against Daryl Weber from Iowa.
Eric made the All Americans stand that Eric's placement really
proved to me that I'm capable of doing that. I
always had this weird history in my career. In high school,

(10:21):
Mark Engel was a training partners of mine and a
good friend. He found success at the Junior Nationals and
that kind of showed me I could succeed at that level.
Right in college, it was Eric, because he was my
training partner. He found success, and it was kind of
like it reassured me that I was capable of doing
that as well. And so walking away from that ninety

(10:42):
six Nationals with a bitter taste in my mouth, I
truly lived wrestling that whole summer. I lived in Stillwater,
I trained every single day, spent two years, two weeks
over in South Korea training with their national team. Made
a huge jump from that freshman year to my sophomore year.

Speaker 2 (11:04):
You've been around this sport for so long, Teague, I
mean you were it was basically you were born with
it in your blood. High school, college, international coaching. You've
been around some of the great wrestling minds in the world.
What separates or what did you learn separated good from great.

Speaker 3 (11:29):
That's a great question. I think I learned early on
my dad, who never wrestled and was really you know,
he drove my brother and I to the success that
we had. He always he always sought out the best
that he could find for us. So whether it was
the high school coach at North Allegheny, a Hall of

(11:51):
Fame coach, Gusty Augustino, he actually moved our family so
that we could be around Gus. And Gus had that
different mentality, right. He was a nineteen fifty two Olympic
alternate himself, pursuing college following John Smith and learning under
John Smith even during camps and clinics growing up. I
went to the Jay Robinson twenty eight day camps growing up,

(12:13):
so I was around Jay who had that mindset. Really,
I think what separates those guys from the average or
even the good is that those guys are willing to
go above and beyond in all aspects to achieve success.
They will train harder, they will study more, they will

(12:35):
do the little things that the average wrestler or the
average coach is not willing to do. And so over
the years, I think that was one thing that I
took on just from my upbringing, I saw people that
had that success. Obviously having a brother in the house
that had the high school success that he did, I
saw what it took to do that. And then as

(12:57):
I moved on into the international career, when John Smith
is telling you you need to clean up your technique
and you need to manage this part of your life
a little bit better, you listen, you learn, and then
you do it right. And I think that was what
made the difference for me in my wrestling career, is
that I was willing to listen to the tough critiques

(13:19):
from those type of people and then willing to implement
the changes into my life. And when I did, I
normally found success.

Speaker 2 (13:27):
What's the toughest critique John Smith ever gave you a
heart to heart, impactful, direct critique.

Speaker 3 (13:38):
So there was there was the time in college where
this was during my freshman year, I was not having
the success that he felt I was capable of, right,
And I think that was the key. His expectation of
where he believed I should be wrestling and where I
thought I should be wrestling they were at two different places,

(14:01):
and so he gave me a very tough, but a
very sincere and a very honest talk about what I
needed to do to change my wrestling right, and it
was more about the effort. Like he would always say
to me, you know the takedowns, you know the setups,

(14:23):
you know how to ride on top, You can get
out from bottom from anybody. So you have all the
tools that you need, So why don't you just go
out and use those and make them work for you.
Stop trying to do things that you know they're not
your style of wrestling, or they're not what you're best at.

(14:44):
Just stick with what you do extremely well and find
a way to make it work right. The words and
the energy that he passed that along to me with
was a lot more intense than what I just gave,
and it was a lot more direct. It would probably
make a lot of parents cringe. It would probably make

(15:05):
a lot of wrestlers crumble. But he was very honest,
and that was something I got from my family growing up.
Being the youngest of seven, we had to be tough.
We battled each other in the house for the little
things that you needed to do, and we were all
very competitive. So the home that I was brought up

(15:28):
in wasn't much different from the Oklahoma State way in
the Oklahoma state mentality, and Coach Smith being from a
large Catholic family himself. He was one of ten, I
was one of seven, and our families are both devout
Catholic families that I think allowed him to speak to
me and bring me up in a way that he

(15:51):
could be a little bit more harsh with me. But
I knew he was doing it for my own good.
I knew he was doing it to bring the best
out of me, and I trusted that right. So over
time I learned to realize that speech that he gave
me that freshman year is also what helped catapult me
into that sophomore year.

Speaker 2 (16:08):
You have a favorite John Smith corner story.

Speaker 3 (16:17):
Man, it's been a while. They were they were always
I can't think of anything specific, but you know, whether
it was my college career or it was my international career,
because he cornered me up through my completion through two
thousand and four when I was wrestling for Gator Club.

(16:40):
You know some things I probably you know I can't
repeat on a podcast, but he always had a way
of of, uh waking me up and getting me to
see the reality in the moment, right Like if I
was in a tight bout and I needed to put
a ride on for the next thirty seconds. He made
it very very clear and very direct that this is

(17:02):
what had to happen, and this is what I was
going to succeed in in that next thirty seconds, So
go get it done right. And I can't recall anything
too crazy at this point. I'm sure if I really
dove back into it. There were a lot of times
that he would say things you would expect, right like

(17:23):
he's going to give this very elaborate because of his success.
He's going to give this explanation of what needs to happen,
and it's going to be very colorful. But he was
never like that. Everything was extremely direct as to what
needed to happen. If you needed to go score a takedown,
he was telling you in the next thirty seconds, you

(17:45):
need to score the next takedown. Stop standing around and
expecting this guy to just give you a takedown. You
have to go out and take it right. This was
probably not a corner story, but as I was going
out from my national championship in nineteen ninety eight, it
was basically like one sentence he came up to me,

(18:09):
smacked me, as he would normally do before I went
out onto the mat, and he said, this is your time,
this is your national championship, so go get it. And
that was all I needed.

Speaker 2 (18:22):
Let's talk about that final in ninety eight. First we'll
go to ninety seven. I mean, you four time qualifier,
three time All American in ninety seventy take fourth. You
know what do remember from that journey and what was
it like being on the stand.

Speaker 3 (18:36):
Ninety seven was it is a tournament that I have
forgotten and I like to blackout. I made it to
the semi finals and I was wrestling an opponent from
Iowa who I had just beaten at the National Duels
just a few weeks and that was Jesse Whitmer, correct, Yeah,
Jesse Whitmer who he ended up winning the tournament that year,

(18:59):
and he had an incredible run at that Nationals and
I had beat him fairly convincingly at the National Duels Takedowns,
riding like I held all the positions really well. But
at that Nationals in the semi finals, if you remember
that was gables last run, it was like it was
everything was falling right where I would needed it to.

(19:22):
And even though Oklahoma State we had the better duel season,
and we were the better team. I believe going into
that National Championships, I didn't perform. I went out into
that semi finals match I expected things to happen for
me that weren't happening, and took some bad shots. He
did some easy go behinds to get some takedowns, and

(19:45):
I found myself in a losing position. I battled back
for third place and ended up wrestling a guy that
I looked up to for many years, Sheldon Thomas, who
was a national champion in ninety six, and I wrestled
him for third place, and I ended up losing, And
I remember just having such a bad taste in my
mouth after that tournament that I had done all this work.

(20:07):
My dad had actually passed away right at the beginning
of that season, so it was a really kind of
bumpy ride for me throughout that sophomore campaign. But I
remember leaving that tournament thinking I lost to a guy
in the semis that I absolutely should have beat. I
know I could have won the finals match had I
gotten there. And then in my third and fourth place match,

(20:29):
Sheldon is very good and was very good, but I
didn't feel like I gave my best effort on that
Matt match. We ended up wrestling into two thousand Olympic Trials,
and I beat Sheldon at those two thousand trials. And
I just remember when I left that sophomore year, leaving
you and I where the nationals were. I just knew

(20:50):
that there was the next year. I was not walking
away without a national championship, and fortunately that happened.

Speaker 2 (20:57):
What were the biggest differences in being tapped the podium
and being on another step.

Speaker 3 (21:04):
I think it really came down to lifestyle changes. My
junior year, I was living with a cross country runner
All American, a guy named Chuck Sloan who ran at
Oklahoma State, and we just had a really good environment.
He and I were both up early. We were either

(21:27):
going to workouts or we also went regularly to weekday
masses in Stillwater, and so I just think there was
a good We just had a good vibe going together.
I knew what his goals were on the cross country
course and on the track, and he knew what my
goals were on the wrestling Matt. We both we both

(21:51):
admired what each other did in our sports, and we
respected each other. So things in the house. We took
care of one another so that we could both be
at our best, and I think that really was the
big difference for me that junior year. It was just
a lifestyle change, and it wasn't that I did things
much different than my sophomore year my senior year, but

(22:12):
it was just that piece of the living day to
day that helped me succeed on the mat.

Speaker 2 (22:18):
How did you end up having him as a roommate.

Speaker 3 (22:22):
We became friends in the dorms our freshman year, and
then you know, we did a lot of stuff outside
of the dorms together, and so we just developed a
good relationship. And when the opportunity came up and we
were looking for places to live my end of my
freshman year. In my sophomore year, I ended up living

(22:44):
with our one hundred and ninety pounder, a guy named
Aaron Strobel, and Chuck would come over to our house
pretty frequently. Aaron graduated and moved on, so I needed
a new roommate. Chuck and I found the house right
by Gallagher IBA. I was like two blocks from Gallagher Iva,
so it made my commute to practice is really easy.

(23:04):
I could literally just walk to practice each day so
it was good for both of us in that sense.

Speaker 2 (23:11):
Getting a pin in the national finals. He pinned David
Morgan in nineteen ninety eight. I mean that that doesn't
happen often falls in the finals. What do you remember
from here in that slap of the rest light, knowing
you finally would stand at top of the podium as
a national champ at Oklahoma State.

Speaker 3 (23:31):
Again, kind of a surreal feeling. David and I had
gone back and forth a number of times. We wrestled.
My freshman year. He beat me all three times we wrestled.
We wrestled three times. My sophomore year. I beat him
all three times we wrestled our sophomore year. My sophomore year.
That junior year, we met in a dual meet and

(23:54):
he beat me up pretty good. I think he beat
me eight to four, or maybe ten to four. It
was like on the verge of a major. He wrote,
if you remember correctly, David Morgan was just an absolute
beast on top. He rode me and turned me really well.
So I knew going into the to the finals match,
I wanted to set the pace early, set the tempo,

(24:16):
and set the pace, and you know, God willing when
the match started, I was able to get right to
a comfortable tie up position and I got to an
inside trip that led to near fall. So I was
up five zero within the first like thirty seconds, and

(24:36):
then the match kind of got into a wrestling match.
He started battling his way back. If anybody watches that
match on YouTube, there's a weird exchange. He ends up
getting a reversal and then he pulls me to my
back and gets near fall. But he also they also
stop it and they penalize on one point because it

(24:58):
slips into a figure four and he figured forward my waist,
and I always thought, even in the moment, I remember
questioning the ref and saying, how is he getting near
fall if it's an illegal figure four? And he said, well,
he slipped into the figure four, so he got near
fall and then he fell into that position. So before

(25:20):
you know it, I'm in like a one point match.
And fortunately for me, my mentality at that moment was like,
I don't care what the scoreboard says. I need one
more point than him. And I think that ultimately really
helped me in that match, because if I had looked
at it and said, okay, I'm up by five, and

(25:41):
then the next thing, I know it's a sick or
it's a five to four match. I might have let
that start to wrestle in my head, but I didn't.
My whole thing was like, whenever this match ends, I'm
gonna be one point ahead of him, and that's all
that matters. And then late in the second period, I
end up getting to a low single, a position that

(26:02):
Coach Smith worked on us the finish. He worked on
us all the time, and it was it's it's an
unorthodox position. You get to a low single. You bring
the guy upside down what like mma people would now
call north south. So he's upside down in the air.
He locks my free arm to my body, so he

(26:25):
kind of he's upside down, and he locks a body
lock as he did that. Coach Smith would teach us
when they lock you in that position, your hand, your
arms in the lock, but then trap that to your
own body, so lock their lock to you. Take them backwards.
Now he's on his back, and the one thing Coach
would always say in that position is you have to

(26:47):
be patient when you put an opponent on your back,
but you haven't been awarded points yet, be patient and
be confident in the position, and so we worked a
lot of hip heist turnout positions from there. So when
I got David Morgan there, I remember thinking like, I
can make him panic and he's going to release, and
I'm going to get the takedown right. But in that position,

(27:10):
we were there long enough and I was able to
keep him in that position long enough that the referee
went down and looked, and sure enough he was flat
and he made the call, and I just remember in
the moment, I remember looking at the official and saying,
was that a fall? And he either nodded yes or
said yes, and then everything was kind of a blur

(27:30):
after that.

Speaker 2 (27:32):
Did did you take the mat to music? I don't
remember that far back. We're getting old. I mean, did
you pick like your walkout song and all thee No.

Speaker 3 (27:40):
They didn't. They didn't have any of that sort of
stuff at that time. The only thing I remember about
that was the NCAA when they briefed us on this
is what's going to happen pre finals. So we would
do the walkout, if you remember, they would do the
parade like they still do now. I'll take all the
guys up on the mat. They also brought out all

(28:04):
the old NCAA champions, so they would do a parade
of those older guys. This whole thing took like forty
five minutes, and you're getting ready for a national championship
standing for forty five minutes. David Morgan opted to not
take part in it, so he didn't do the parade
of all Americans prior to he wasn't standing there while

(28:26):
all of the old NCAA champions were introduced, And so
I took that at that moment in time when he
wasn't going through all of that, I felt like that
was an advantage to me because I said, if he's
not wanting to go through this and absorb this experience
for what it is, we're only going to do it
maybe one time in our life. Right. I remember thinking,

(28:50):
he's thinking about our match. He's nervous about how this
match is going to go, and so I tried to
use it as a positive. And I don't know what
he was thinking. He might have just been thinking I
don't want to stand on my feet for forty five minutes.
But I tried to get myself to believe he's nervous
about this match. So that's an advantage to me.

Speaker 2 (29:09):
Was it Sandy Stevens that announced you as the national champ?

Speaker 3 (29:13):
Sandy and and ed Ala Berry. Yeah, they were on
the call there at those nationals. So and that's kind
of for me. You know, I'm forty eight now when
I look back on those two voices of wrestling through
the eighties and nineties, not only for the NCAAs but

(29:37):
also for international wrestling. So I heard them make calls
at international events. I heard them make calls at previous
nca championships. So when I heard them making announcements with
my name, that was that was pretty special for me.

Speaker 2 (29:52):
That is fantastic tigue. I say this all the time,
and you once again, as I'm as I'm looking at
your career, I'm like, what a shocker. I love the
national championship stories, they're they're great, but the stories that
hit me harder are the reigning national champ, the devastating

(30:18):
loss the next year in the semi finals, and that's
where we find out we're made of and you take third.
I mean, it's though, that's a me tigue more impressive
than the championship run based on the circumstances of that time,

(30:38):
coming back and taking third walk us through that. What
did you learn about yourself that day?

Speaker 3 (30:47):
It's it's interesting here we are what is it nine,
twenty twenty four, so that's like twenty five years ago,
or second weekend this past weekend. My girlfriend who has
a at Penn State. Her youngest is a sophomore at
Penn State. We're going up there to celebrate her daughter's birthday.
And as we're driving up, the signs start popping up

(31:10):
Rice Jordan Center, and I said to my girlfriend, I
can't believe it's been a quarter of a century since
I ended my college career here at Penn State. Right, So,
even twenty five years later, anytime I'm going to state
college and I see the Bryce Jordan Center, I get
this not in my stomach.

Speaker 4 (31:29):
Right.

Speaker 3 (31:31):
So to your question, that match is a really tough
one to swallow. I have Steven Abbis, who Steven and
I had battled at the Junior Nationals. We had battled
through college, both of us earning wins at different times.
But that semi finals match is an odd one. You

(31:52):
can find it on YouTube every now and then. I'll
watch it, but it's a tough one to watch. I
lost three to three, and so for wrestling, fans back
in those days, when you finished regulation, you went for
I believe it was a two minute overtime. If nobody scored,

(32:15):
the referee flipped the disc. Whoever won the toss picked
top or bottom, and it was a thirty second go
at the end of thirty seconds, If you were on
bottom and you got away or you scored, you won.
If you were on top and you rode them out,
you won. And so it's three to three, and Steven
and I we knew each other pretty well, but we

(32:38):
also wrestled extremely hard against each other anytime we competed.
So we get to that thirty second ride out, flip
at the disc, I win the toss, I choose down
and he dropped to my ankle. The first time they
called stalemate, the second time they called stalling, and then

(33:01):
in the last reigning seconds he dropped to the ankle.
I was trying to kick free, couldn't get out, and
he ended up winning the match there, So that was
that was a tough one, right. It was in my
home state of Pennsylvania, so lots of friends and family there.
Really where I felt like I wanted to end my

(33:23):
college career was a national championship at Penn State, but
it didn't happen, and so the only thing I can positive,
you know, look at it from a positive standpoint. It
really fueled me to go into the international circuit because
I felt like at that time, guys like Sammy Henson

(33:43):
were winning world championships. So at our weight class, at
one point in time, Sammy had won a senior world championship,
Steven had won a junior world championship. In two thousand,
I won what was called the University world Shipchampionships. It
was twenty four and under, and so from our eight

(34:03):
in our weight class, in our country, we had three
world champions that were all trying to make the two
thousand Olympic team. So we were really good. And I
think that loss at Penn State it helped me in
a positive way, catapult me to where I wanted to
go on the world scene. And I didn't have the

(34:24):
world success that I wanted because I wanted to be
an Olympic champion. I wanted to be a multiple time
world champion. I'm very fortunate and blessed that I won
that University World Championships when I was twenty four, but
I feel like the loss at Penn State my senior
year is what really allowed me to go on to
the international circuit because I was still hungry, right, I

(34:47):
hadn't got the results that I wanted in high school,
so I felt like I needed to prove myself internationally
and it probably drove me. You know, I want a
silver at the World Cup. I won a lot of
big international c competitions like Yazerdogu, which is one of
the biggest international tournaments in the world. Beat the eventual

(35:09):
Olympic silver medalist or maybe gold medalist.

Speaker 2 (35:14):
When Sahudo Japan.

Speaker 3 (35:16):
Yeah, the guy from Japan that Suhudo beat, I beat
him at Yazerdogu. And so I really felt like that
end of my college career because it ended like it did,
it did help positively affect me in my international career.

Speaker 2 (35:31):
So at that time in that tournament at Penn State
ninety nine, when you suffer that tough defeat to Abbas,
what do you remember thinking, I mean, you're the reigning
national champion. What do you remember thinking what was the
difference in your mindsets and ultimately performance saying hey, we're
getting third place, We're getting the next best thing. Because
tigue as we all know that would have been an
easy time to say, like, this is not what I

(35:53):
came here for, and I'm going to let that get
inside my head and steer me in a certain direction.

Speaker 3 (35:58):
Yeah, Coach Smith had a really nice thing to say
at that National Championships afterwards, because we once again were
number one ranked team all year long, and we fell
short there at Penn State, and we ended up actually,
we ended up third. We almost fell out of metal
contention because we had a couple of guys like myself

(36:20):
and Mark Smith. We fell short and didn't get the
points that were needed. So to your question, what was
I saying to myself? I, in my head, I was
always saying I hate folk style. I have a personal
dislike of folk style wrestling. I don't like the rules.

(36:43):
I don't like the way that officials involve themselves in
so many collegiate matches. Right, I prefer freestyle. Right. So,
at the time at Penn State, I remember just thinking
I'm so glad I'm done with this crap. I don't
ever have to wrestle folk style again. Right, And Coach Smith,

(37:03):
I was not a good loser, like I almost got
kicked out of the National Championships. The junior year of
the year that I wanted. I had won a match
early on, I got in some trouble because I kicked
the table and broke some stuff. I wasn't happy with
the win the way that I got to win early
in that tournament.

Speaker 2 (37:22):
And so.

Speaker 3 (37:25):
After my senior year at Penn State, Coach Smith said,
you know, if Teague had not battled back and gotten
third for us, we might not be taking this trophy home.
And yes, there's nine other guys that were winning points
for us at this tournament, but there was a critical
turning point when when I lost that Semisa came back

(37:46):
Saturday morning, and let me tell you, Shane, if there
was a time in my life I didn't want to
make weight and put my wrestling shoes on again, it
was that senior year at Penn State when you knew
you weren't going to repeat as an nca A champion.
So it took a lot of humility to make weight

(38:08):
and then go out and compete in the first match
that I'm wrestling that morning. I go out. I believe
his name was Moses Delphine from Bakersfield. He got out
on an early lead, like he was beating me either
four to zero or five to zero pretty quickly, and
I can remember it was one of those moments where

(38:28):
I coach gave me a wake up call during that match, like, Hey,
this is real. You're actually doing this. If you're going
to give this match away, it not only has implications
for you, but the team race is on the line.
And so he brought me back to reality with whatever
words he used at that time. And Mark Perry, our assistant,

(38:48):
was also good at doing to that for me in
the corner, and so I was able to pull that
match back in and I got the victory, and then
Ford and fourth, if I remember correctly, I wrestled Shane
Valdez from the University of Oklahoma, who we had wrestled
thirteen previous times. That was our fourteenth match in college

(39:11):
that we were going to be wrestling for that third place,
and so I went out, got the job done, and
ended up third. And so that whole experience there at
Penn State, the only way I can describe it is
it just left a really bad taste in my mouth.
And all I wanted to do was start to get
ready for two thousand in the Olympics.

Speaker 2 (39:34):
Give us that story again about you with the table.
I remember, I believe it was Andy Hamilton, Kyle Klinton,
I was sitting there. It was at the national tournament
years back. But you told that story. Give me that
one again.

Speaker 3 (39:47):
So in my opening round in ninety eight, I'm wrestling
Steve Garland, the now head coach in Virginia, and we
knew as a team Oklahoma State, every bout and bonus
point mattered. So when you step out there when the
whistle blows, like, our goal is to get the eight
point lead and then build on that and we either

(40:10):
get the fall or we get the pin. Right, So
in my mind, like I need eight points on Steve
Garland the moment that whistle blows. Well, the way that
the match played out, I kept building a lead, but
then he would sneak his way back into the mount match.
He would find a reversal, he would find a takedown

(40:31):
on the edge, and so my lead kept going as
like a five point lead, then a three point lead,
then a six point lead, then a four point lead. Right,
and when the match ended, I had only won by decision.
And this is no secret. I had a temper, and

(40:51):
so I was so infuriated that he was able to
keep that match close to me and Steve. Steve jokingly
told me this later on. He said, I don't know
if you remember this, but during that match, he said,
you put a power half on me. And he said,
I don't think you were trying to turn me. I
think you were trying to tear my arm off. And

(41:12):
he said. I yelled and the referee called injury time
and he said, you got down really close to my
ear by my head gear, and you said, I'm taking
your arm home with me. Right. And so when the
match ended and I didn't have the bonus points that
I knew our team needed for us to win that title,
I came off the mat. It was super tight in Cleveland,

(41:36):
like there was no room from where the mat ended
and where the tables for press row started, there was
no space. And I just remember kicking the first thing
that was in sight, which was a table. And in
nineteen ninety eight, when I kicked that table, there was
a laptop on it. Laptops were not like readily available, right,

(41:58):
And this laptop went up off the table and then
boom down onto the ground. And so I I finished
my match, finished my cool down. They take me back.
Pat Smith takes me back to the hotel. So now
I've got an evening session I got to get ready for.
So I'm sleeping or doing whatever, and the phone rings
and Pat says, Tiger, I got to come pick you up.

(42:22):
You have to get in front of a committee. They're
deciding if they're going to kick you out of the tournament.
And anybody that knows Pat, Pat was a practical joke,
and so I just said, Pat, like, let me rest.
Ten minutes later, there's a knock at the door. It's Pat.
He's like, let's go. I got to get you back
over like, He's like, you're in. This was not good.

(42:44):
What you did. You're in for it. So now I'm like,
oh crap. Right, I feel like, remember when you were
a little kid and you know you got in trouble
and now you're just waiting for your parents, waiting for
dad to come home. So we drive over to the arena.
They take me down into the belly of the arena

(43:05):
and they said the tournament committee's here and they're going
to vote to eliminate you from the tournament or allow
you to stay in. You're going to get to go
in and say what happened. And I remember coach, just
being like, you really, you really put yourself in a
tough one year. He's like, I don't know what's going
to happen here. I don't know that I can help

(43:26):
you in this situation, but you need to just go
in and tell them what happened. So I went in
and if I remember, there was like fifteen or twenty
people in this committee meeting, and so I ran through
this scenario. Look, here's what happened. I was frustrated. I
came off the mat. I kicked the first thing that
was around me. I didn't realize there was a laptop

(43:48):
on the table. I didn't do it on purpose, but
if I have to replace that, then I'll do that.
And you know, I just don't want to lose this opportunity.
And Bruce, who my family had known. I had an
older sister that went to school at Edinburgh. So when
I was a little kid and we would go to
see Colleen at Edinburgh, I would run around the gymnasium

(44:11):
right or the youth tournaments there, and Bruce Bumgardner was
there and so we he knew our family and he
had known me as a little kid growing up. And
Bruce said to the committee, Like, you know, we've heard
his point of view on this. We understand what you know,
the tournament, how the tournament needs to happen, and that
this is unacceptable. But I've known him and I know

(44:32):
this isn't his nature, and I think if we give
him this opportunity to come back into the tournament, we're
not going to have an issue with that. And of
course I said, absolutely not. You won't have to worry
about anything the rest of the tournament for me. And
so they sent me out of the room and they
took a vote, and I was told by one vote
I stayed in the tournament. And so that was the

(44:57):
national tournament that I almost didn't get the earn. Wow.

Speaker 2 (45:02):
Wow, that's a great that's a great story. That's a
great story. Tig. If you had to talk to yourself
as an eighteen year old heading to Oklahoma States right
now as a forty eight year old, what would you
tell that eighteen year old tigue more about what was
coming and how to handle it.

Speaker 3 (45:24):
That's a great question. I would probably say, embrace what
you're about to do, because the environment that you're going
to is extremely special and extremely unique. If you truly
want to be the best of the best. This is
the environment you need to be in. What you are

(45:44):
going to have to do to become the best of
the best is going to be very difficult, but you
will survive it and you will overcome it. There's not
going to be a lot of easy days. There's going
to be a challenge every single day, and you need
to embrace that. The other thing I would tell myself
is don't worry about the other things. And the other

(46:10):
things are like I was always kind of consumed with
like it was a different world at different time. I
was always concerned about, like having finances. I never wanted
to ask my mom and dad for anything, so I
always had an expectation of, like, I need to figure
out how I'm going to make money to pay rent.
I'm going to need to figure out how I need

(46:31):
to do these things so I can go and do
what I need to do right And looking back on it,
I wish I didn't have to. I worried so much
about going and doing clinics to make extra money so
that I had money in my account so that I
could do things I wanted to do or needed to do.

(46:54):
I would have probably just said trust the environment in
what's going on there. If you need money to train,
Oklahoma State will figure that out. I didn't have that
mentality at that time. I was still try to like
trying to figure out my own way that and just
enjoy the ride. Like it's going to be very difficult,

(47:16):
but try to enjoy it because it only happens once.
You're only going to get to go through this one time.
There's some of the most memorable moments in my entire
life were those years at Oklahoma State. I trained and
competed there in four years, and then I left and
I was an assistant at PITT. I was an assistant

(47:37):
at Oklahoma and then I went back to Oklahoma State
for two thousand and four. So that was really good
for me because I did it as a college student.
Then I got away from it, got to come back
to it and realize how special it was, how different
it was from other collegiate programs, and you know, I
would most likely just tell myself, don't sweat the small stuff,

(48:00):
going to work itself out.

Speaker 2 (48:02):
Excuse me, uh tig. Most memorable moments in Gallagher, Iva.

Speaker 3 (48:14):
Oh man, there were so many. Uh that's really tough.
The Bedlam Duels were always really fun to be a
part of fun fun for us. I was on the

(48:34):
Oklahoma State side at that time. I think we won
seven of the eight duels in those four years because
you wrestled them. You wrestle Oklahoma twice every year, so
the Bedlom duels were really good. Good memories there. Maybe
maybe the match against David Morgan, who who I beat
for the nationals. When my father passed in ninety six,

(48:59):
I went home for the funeral, went through that whole process,
came back to Oklahoma State. It was ten days after
my dad had passed, and I had David Morgan, who
was ranked number two in the country. I was ranked fifteenth,
and I not only won that match and that duel meet,
but we ended up blanking Michigan State in that duel,

(49:22):
and I feel like a lot of that energy. I
was the first one out there and I get this
really big win after my team knew what an emotional
two weeks I had had. So that may be the
most memorable for me, was that moment of getting that win.
It really that was my sophomore year, and getting that
win over on number two proved to me like I'm here,

(49:43):
I'm ready to do this.

Speaker 2 (49:44):
So you lost your father in college. I was fortunate
my dad passed away six years ago, but I was,
you know, forty two years old. Got some good time. Obviously,
it's very well documented, Tigue, the story of your brother Tom.
If you could talk to Tie, and I'll throw this
at Tie and your dad, if you had an hour

(50:07):
to spend with those guys, what would you want to
talk about?

Speaker 3 (50:14):
That's interesting you say that because I talked to him
pretty frequently. I think if they were here physically and
I could sit down and have a conversation with him,
I would probably talk to my dad about just raising kids.
He raised seven kids. He worked for the post Office,
retired from the post Office. My mom stayed at home

(50:38):
to raise the kids. They went through some really, really
difficult and tough times. I think that would be helpful
for me. I know I've shared with you and some
people know this, but I went through a very difficult
divorce in twenty twenty one. So I would love to
hear my dad's wisdom on that situation. King to Tie,

(51:03):
I don't know, I don't I don't know what I
would ask him. I would probably ask him why he,
you know, made the decisions that he made at the end.
But on a lighthearted note, I would probably I don't know.
We ribbed each other quite a bit, so i'd probably
tell him he's missed out on quite a few things
since his passing. So I don't know. Ty and I

(51:27):
used to have a lot of fun together, just because obviously,
you know, the wrestling history was really good. All of
the kids that he got to help, the Coleman Scott's,
the Jake Herberts, the Phil Davis' like they all went
on to have incredible He coached. I think in his
little his club, he and Ray Bringe are at a

(51:47):
club I think it was for six years and out
of those six years they had five NCAA champions and
thirty five NCAA All Americans come out of that six
years that they had Angry Fit up and running. It
was very very successful little club, and I think a
lot of clubs kind of emulated them moving forward. So

(52:08):
i'd probably, you know, talk to him about that. Yeah,
I don't know, I don't know.

Speaker 2 (52:15):
We call this the go arn It Podcast. In your
career to get any level, what was your and maybe
you've discussed it already, but what was your go earn
it moments? How would you describe your go earn it moments?
As a wrestler backs against the wall and you had
to learn something about yourself and just go earn it
in a different capacity it maybe had in the past a.

Speaker 3 (52:41):
Go earn it moment. I like that. It would probably
be the very first time I got to win what
was considered a national championship. My sophomore year season finished,
my dad drove me out to Iowa. There was an
AAU Nationals out in Iowa, and I remember I made

(53:06):
the finals. None of my Normally growing up, I always
had this like we had a little group. There was
like ten or twelve of us buddies. Almost everybody became
NCAA all Americans in college at different universities, but we
usually traveled as a group. I went out to this
tournament by myself. It was just my dad and I

(53:27):
and I remember going out onto the mat and I
remember thinking, Okay, I've wanted a national championship. This is
something my brother never did, and so this is my
opportunity to win a national championship. And I remember thinking
I'm going to do whatever it takes in this six
minutes to make sure that I bring home a title,
and so things worked out well. I ended up getting

(53:50):
my hand raised at the end of that. That was
my first national championship. And then that summer I won
the Junior Nationals, and then you know, won the Junior
Nationals summer after that, and then high school Nationals and
U twenties and all of the s plan Nationals as
they called it back then. The national titles started to
come year after year after that, but that very first

(54:13):
one was that do or die moment. I got to
get this done. In all of my years of making
national championship finals, I think I'm right on this. I
only lost one national championship and that was to Cody
Sanderson at the University Nationals after my senior year of college.

(54:38):
I bumped up a weight, made it to the finals
and was wrestling Cody and ended up losing a tight
match to him. But the other nine national championships at
different age groups or variations, I was able to win those.
So fortunate. But I think the attitude and mentality that
I went into a lot of those finals matches with

(54:58):
was because it was kind of a due or die, like,
I've got the opportunity to put another title on my
resume or behind my name. This dude's not taking it
from me, like I'm ready to give. My brother used
to beat me up quite a bit when I was
growing up. Younger brothers can probably relate to this, especially
wrestling families. He would we would get into fights, and

(55:21):
he was older than me. He would always beat me up,
but he would front headlock me and he would choke
me until like I pass out, right, And when I
would come to, he would always say something like what
you're crying? Like You're gonna be fine. They do this
in judo all the time, right, And so when I
would go out to matches, it was like, I'm going
to do whatever it takes to win this match. It's

(55:41):
like tie's choking me, and I'm going to do whatever
I can to get out of this because this guy's
not as big and as strong as my brother is. Right. So,
I don't know how that just came off over the podcast.
Some parents may listen to that and think that's appalling,
but like, this was my this was my upbringing, right,
So it was as I had said earlier, it was

(56:03):
a rough upbringing, Like you had to be very tough
in our house. My sisters used to beat the crap
out of me all the time, so you had to
be very tough, and so that was just part of
my makeup.

Speaker 2 (56:14):
Are you up against a teag or you get a
few more minutes.

Speaker 3 (56:17):
I got a few more minutes.

Speaker 2 (56:19):
What match in your career not necessarily the most disappointing,
and maybe it was even a win. What match taught
you the most?

Speaker 3 (56:42):
It was probably I can't remember what year this was.
I think it was my sophomore year and I had
this huge contusion on my leg. We had gone to
the National duels. We had a good national duel run
my sophomore year, and I had this bone contusion on

(57:05):
my shin and it was like it was about the
size of a quarter and if you if I pushed
my thumb in on it, like a portion of the
bone would it would just go in right. And it
was so incredibly painful, I mean just brutally painful. And
my trainer at Oklahoma State at the time, he took

(57:29):
a piece of plastic. They heated a piece of plastic,
formed it to my shin, and then he put a
padding a foam around that with the center cutout, so
that way when he put it on the injury. It
was kind of like a doughnut around that injury, and
then they would tape that up and it was on
my shin, so they had to tape it pretty tight

(57:51):
so that it didn't slide during the match. Well, we
had gone to the National Duels, I wrestled with it.
It was kind of frustrating because I couldn't I didn't
have like full explosive power in my in my calf
because of it, because this thing was taped on so tight.
But the week after, we go to Iowa State and
I'm wrestling Cody Sanderson in the duel, and I just

(58:13):
remember the pain of my shin and I believe my
shoulder was also wrecked at that time, not not to
the point where it needed surgery, but it was like
one of those injuries where you're like, I got to
really buck up when I step out on this match,
Like I got I gotta be ready to fight through
this pain. And during that match, I can remember I

(58:35):
was in tears because my shin was hurting, my shoulder
was hurting. You're wrestling Cody Sanderson right like, you got
to be on your game, and I remember just thinking
when the match ended I won the won the match.
I just remember thinking, I think I can do anything
I need to do when I go out to compete,
like I can overcome it mentally in terms of physical

(58:58):
pain or what I have to do to be able
to win a match. I believe I can do that
because I'm sure most people would probably not have decided
to go out and wrestled with the type of contusion
that I had on my shin the pain that I
had in my shoulder. I don't think most people would say, Yeah,

(59:19):
I'm now gonna step out on a mat against one
of the top ranked one hundred and eighteen pounders who
also wants to beat the crap out of me. Right,
I'll probably just sit this week out and see how
I feel next week. But that wasn't the That wasn't
the mentality at Oklahoma State, and that definitely wasn't the
upbringing that I was brought with. I always felt like

(59:41):
I had four really good backups behind me at Oklahoma State.
Three of them became all Americans the next three years
after I'd finished. I always felt like they were out
for my job, right, so if I wasn't wrestling, they
got an opportunity to start. If they get an opportunity
to start and they get a good run going, is
coach going to see them as a probable starter? Is
he potentially going to switch me out of that position? So, I,

(01:00:05):
like I said earlier in the podcast, I felt like
me holding that position was like my job and anybody
that wanted to take it from me was going to
have to pry it from my dead cold hands.

Speaker 2 (01:00:17):
So you talked about it before a little bit with
the folk style freestyle. You know, what's what's something within
the sport of wrestling? And this could be anything tigue,
But because you've been around this for so long and
in so many different capacities, what's something within the sport
that will fire you up immediately, like a certain topic,

(01:00:40):
a debate like what what's something that you will that
gets you from zero to sixty? Like that.

Speaker 3 (01:00:50):
Writing time. I despise it. I like, I don't know
what we're thinking or how we're thinking. It promotes the sport.
It literally, by its definition, is causing wrestlers to not
try and score more points. They're trying to build their

(01:01:12):
riding time, right, And so I just feel like, as
I said earlier, I think I just I'm just not
a huge fan of folk style, right. I don't think
we need three periods. I think we could wrestle folk
style in one period, in one five minute match. I
feel like we've created a rules structure that in the

(01:01:38):
big situations, it really forces guys to be conservative as
opposed to going out and wrestling wide open, which is
where I think freestyle there's more of a wide open
like I'm going to get rewarded for the opportunities that
I take well in folk style. Like, don't get me wrong,

(01:01:59):
We've made some good changes. The change to the three
point takedown I think was needed because I can't tell
you how many times it was like going back to
my Steve Garland story with the old rules. If I
go out, get a takedown, cut him. He gives no
energy to get cut, but he gets a point. He
gets half of what I earned in a takedown. I
take him down again, it's four. I cut him. He's

(01:02:19):
now got two points. I've got four points, and I
worked for two takedowns. He did nothing to get two escapes.
If I make a mistake and he finds himself on top,
the match is now four to four. Yet I worked
for two takedowns. He maybe worked for one, or maybe
he slipped into it, right, and now it's an even score.

(01:02:41):
I'm like, that doesn't that doesn't equate, right. I like
freestyle where you can go out and score the points
and if the referee feels the need that action's got
to come back up to your feet, they don't get
awarded for that, right, And so for me it's right now,
it's the riding time. There's a litany of other things

(01:03:03):
for some wrestling fans. About a decade ago, when we
got booted out of the Olympics, a very good friend
of mine, business partner of mine, we put an event
on in Pittsburgh. It was called first to ten, right,
and the premise of it was, let's take wrestling matches,
take away the clock. So now there is no clock,

(01:03:23):
there are no periods. The matches started and finished based
on the points of points scored. First one to ten wins, right.
And so there were so many people I would debate
this with. I'm like, what if we didn't have periods
and we didn't have a clock, And everybody's like, what
are you talking about, Like, nobody's ever seen wrestling without

(01:03:44):
a clock. Well, we tried it and it was a success,
right it was. It was one of those business ventures
that I've tried that I really feel like, had different
things happened in a different timeframe, I may have just
continued to pursue that, but I did. Like we did
the first one, it was a test run. We had
two more planned. We had another one planned for Washington,

(01:04:06):
d c. And Pittsburgh, and my brother Ty passed away
at that time, and I just never really regain the
energy to try and get it going again. But that's
something about wrestling that bothers me. I don't like wrestling
too very athletic, very you know, opportunistic wrestlers take to

(01:04:27):
the mat and then go out there and stand there
for seven minutes. In college wrestling, it just drives me
absolutely nuts.

Speaker 2 (01:04:34):
Would you a great siege? That's if the scoring at
duel meets was difference, all of that would be solved
for I've always thought that maybe the craziest thing in
wrestling is I beat you seven nothing and the guy
after me loses one nothing and it's three three on

(01:04:58):
the team scoreboard. Like I've always thought it'd be cool
to do, Like I'm gonna take us back to nineteen
ninety eight, and at that time you always went first.
But let's say on this particular night in nineteen ninety
eight you were going last. And let's say we're on
a TV broadcast. I would love to say one match
to go Teague more in the Cowboys down by seventeen,

(01:05:21):
Like can you imagine how different you would wrestle like?
And I think that would solve because you don't me, tig.
I love folks without wrestling. I mean I love it.
I like the I like the riding time on a
little bit of a grinder. Even though I understand and
respect your thoughts, but I've always thought if you change
that rule set on team scoring, it sols for itself.

(01:05:42):
Like you want to ride for thirty five seconds or
do whatever and not scor any points or build towards
one point. That's fine, but that's not gonna help your
team when you're down by thirty two, which also would
be attainable. I mean, when you got some of the
superstars like you did on your team, you know you
might beat down by I mean probably you guys were
too good for this, but you get the point, like,

(01:06:04):
now you guys, you better find another gear and take
some more risks. What are your thoughts from that?

Speaker 3 (01:06:10):
I totally agree. I think there's a lot of different
ways that we could format the dual portion of our
sport and make it more exciting. And I know there's
a lot of people out there that would argue with
both of us right now and say, hey, what we got.
We're packing eighteen thousand seed arenas for these duels right

(01:06:32):
in the big programs, and it's pretty exciting. Okay, that
may be true if we looked at the collective of
the sport. Yes, there is a small fraction that are
really exciting, and they come down to the last matches.
It's a barn burner, right. But if we change, just
like you had mentioned, if we changed the scoring format

(01:06:54):
because there is disparity right now, it doesn't make sense
to me why somebody who wins a seven zero match
is equally on the scoreboard the same as a one
zero match, right. So I think there are some things
that could change that could make the duels more exciting.
I think they could engage the fans a lot more

(01:07:17):
than what we do right now. Look, I'm just a
wrestling fan right now, go to I live in Washington
or just outside of Washington d C. So I've got Navy,
I've got Morgan State, I've got George Mason, I've got American.
I've got these Division ones all within driving distance, University

(01:07:38):
of Maryland, so I can go see five teams compete
Division one. I'll be the first one to tell you, like,
I show up at some of these duels and in
three or four matches, I'm a die hard wrestling fan
and I'm like, I'm ready to check out, Right. I
definitely think there's ways that we could tweak it, tweak
the sport and make the duels a little bit more exciting,

(01:08:01):
because right now, a lot of times they're duds. You know,
you go to see two college teams compete, and for
whatever reason, sometimes it's just not exciting from the fan
perspective of do we have a chance to win? Can
we win? And the fact that you have you know,
one guy go out there. So here's another thing that

(01:08:21):
bothers me. You have somebody on your team that has
a big match and we know the importance of it.
They go out, it's a barn burn or something crazy
happens and they pin them boom, he gets a fall, Right,
that is huge. The very next match, for some reason,

(01:08:42):
somebody on your team didn't weigh in. Their guy walks out,
it's equal at six to six. We just totally lost. Like,
I feel like there should be a penalty for forfeiting.
If you've got an opening in your lineup, I think
you should be penalized for it, whether it's you know,
a pin plus two points. However, we work it out.

(01:09:06):
But I think there's different way. There's some anti climactic
situations in wrestling duels right now. I think team duels,
if it's tied at the end of regulation, I think
all ten wrestlers should have to come back out and
you either wrestle one minute, right, so overtime is basically
ten minutes of wrestling each way, class gets one minute
of overtime cumulative scoring at the team. It makes no

(01:09:29):
sense that we just wrestle a duel meet that every
match supposedly counted right, every match, and then the referee
goes over to the loud speaker and says, in criterion
number four, such and such team wins because of near fall,
and all the fans kind of look at each other,
who watch football, who watch basketball, who watch all these

(01:09:51):
other sports, even you know, hockey, like they figured out
a way to make the overtime exciting. But in wrestling
it is a dud. Right, It's a tied team score,
and then we go to a rule book and say yep,
you won, and that's it. Everyone packs up and goes home.

Speaker 2 (01:10:07):
Okay, good thoughts, Tea, good thoughts. Final question for you.
If Tig Moore is going from DC out to California
in a car, it's you and three people that you've
never met. Get her alive? What three people? Is Tige

(01:10:27):
Moore taken cross country? I got you in that front
headlock right now like your.

Speaker 3 (01:10:38):
Brother used to put you. Wait, wait did I hear
that they got to be wrestling people?

Speaker 2 (01:10:43):
No, anybody anybody get or alive that you've never met.
If you've got to take three people, who?

Speaker 3 (01:10:51):
Okay, I got some other questions. Is there going to
be a communication barrier?

Speaker 2 (01:10:59):
Let's say no, so we can make the rules.

Speaker 3 (01:11:02):
Okay, so we can communicate. Okay, So these are really
good ones. I think I'm gonna go with, like Alexander
the Great, I'm gonna go with I get three of them, Yes,
Alexander the Great, probably Abraham Lincoln. I think so many

(01:11:32):
people say this one, but I think it would be
very interesting. Like Jesus Christ, right, if I get to
do four, then I'm gonna put Donald Trump in there
as well. So it's if we're going two thousand miles,
it's got to be lively, right. But I think those

(01:11:53):
would be some really good conversations. Might be able to
figure out some things on that two thousand mile journey,
that is we're staying at hotels or are we camping
along the way, because I'd probably I would probably rather say, Okay,
we're just gonna camp on the way out.

Speaker 2 (01:12:08):
Yeah, you make the rules, you make, you give me
some camping. I lied one more quick question. Because you've
been around so many great wrestling people, I'm gonna put
you on the spot. And maybe this is in my mind,
I think I know where you're gonna go with this.
The person that's had the biggest impact on your wrestling journey.

Speaker 3 (01:12:38):
Man, that's that is really tough.

Speaker 1 (01:12:40):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (01:12:42):
Like my brother Ty had a major impact on me
just because that was who I spent the most time with,
like early in my career, so all the way up
till like seventeen years old. He had a major influence
on me. John Smith had a major influence on me.
Time with him. As I mentioned, the summer times at

(01:13:03):
the Jay Robinson Camps were hugely influential into the way
that I think about doing things. Jay Robinson didn't just
teach wrestling at those twenty eight day intensive camps. He
taught you to think about life and like succeeding and failing,
and that was hugely influential. I got to be around

(01:13:25):
Bob bub my five years at Clarion. I got to
learn a lot from Coach bub He was influential in
my coaching career. Jack Davis, who was the assistant at Clarion,
was hugely influential in my experience there. Yeesh, there's a lot.
I even got to spend time with like Bella glaus

(01:13:46):
Off when he was coaching Team USA during that like
two thousand and three era. Man most influential, I'm gonna
have to say Coach Smith because that was my college time.
He influenced me with my international time, he influenced me
my twenty years of coaching college wrestling. He had influence

(01:14:08):
on me there, So I'd probably have to say in
the end, it was probably coach who is.

Speaker 2 (01:14:15):
Your Mount Rushmore of wrestling? With all the people you've
been around competed against. I mean, you've been around this
sport for almost five decades. Who's your Mount Rushmore?

Speaker 3 (01:14:25):
Are they Mount Rushmore of like only American wrestlers.

Speaker 2 (01:14:30):
Tigue Moore's Mount Rushmore. It's your mount for.

Speaker 3 (01:14:36):
If we're doing the same Mount Rushmore. So if it's for,
it's gonna be Bella Glazov, Setiev.

Speaker 4 (01:14:51):
John and Man, there's so many good ones.

Speaker 3 (01:15:05):
I always want to put Bumgardner in that list because
I feel like Bruce does not get the kudos that
he should. I when I was at Harvard for two years,
there was an old Soviet coach. It was actually Bella
Glausov's youth coach, and he had said to me at

(01:15:25):
one point we were having this discussion and he said
to me, Gig, everybody skips Bumgardner. Why why does America not?
He is great? Right? His run on the international scene
is absolutely incredible. Olympic Championships, World championships, and just the

(01:15:50):
span that he did it. So that would probably be
my list, Tig.

Speaker 2 (01:15:55):
This was fantastic. This was great to catch up with
you go over your career and I just really appreciate
the time this was really enjoyed this.

Speaker 3 (01:16:04):
It was great, awesome. Thank you, Shane. I appreciate what
you're doing for the sport, not just with this podcast,
but like I love your announcing, I love your energy.
I really feel like you are one of those people
that have helped put wrestling into the new era, and
I feel like we are at a peak right now
for our sport. We still got a ways to go

(01:16:25):
and we can still do some great things, but kudos
to you for all you've done to help the sport.
So thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:16:31):
Well.

Speaker 2 (01:16:31):
I appreciate the kind words. Let's do this again, sounds good.

Speaker 3 (01:16:35):
Take care. Thanks. Yeah.