May 8, 2024 • 48 mins
Episode 58 of the Five Point Move Podcast welcomes back Ellis Coleman, who after a two-year hiatus from competition returned to action this past winter and just two weeks ago won the Olympic Trials. Coleman, 32, now has his sights set on placing in the top-3 at the World Olympic Games Qualifier in Istanbul, Turkey. Coleman had appeared on three previous episodes of the program but it has been a while. One thing that has not changed is his forthrightness. As always, the multiple-time World Team member takes a candid approach to a variety of topics, including the implications of the aforementioned World Olympic Qualifier, the impact of his coaches from Illinois, acclimating overseas, and what his plans will look like if his spot at the Paris Olympics is secured.
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(00:00):
I'll look for Amat, stop worryingabout stupid procedures and do full up this
morning the balls making self gift createwhy we had a good podcast, the
one to call the Five Point Move. I'm frustrated with the word our Greco
guys for you United States are truebecause we are good athletes are good humidus
(00:21):
that Rona went. We gotta helpwe get that what I want. People
know me from all of our resultswhere everything comes from Five point Move.
Hello and welcome to episode fifty eightof the Five Point Move Podcast. I'm
Sam Hans, founder and senior editorfor five point move dot Com and E
(00:42):
fifty eight fifty eight. That isCarl Banks, Carl Banks, New York
Giants, two times Super Bowl championCarl Banks. Anyway, we're not going
to have a long preamble leading upto our featured guest, who is up
hearing for a fourth time on theprogram, and that of course is Ellis
(01:07):
Coleman, who on April twentieth insidethe Bryce Jordan Center on the campus of
Penn State University one the twenty twentyfour US Olympic team trials. It's an
incredible story, obviously incredible story.Ellis two years away forced hiatus due to
(01:34):
ridiculous circumstances which we're not going tounpack now today, tonight, whatever,
We're not going to go through itnow, but either way, two years
away, Ellis comes back in Februarywrestles two matches at Armed Forces, one
of whom against Jamel Johnson. Soright off the bat, Ellis comes back
(01:56):
as to wrestle Jammel. That's atough assignment. And then Ellis goes to
Croatia to kind of camp it outtrain get some feelback. A few weeks
later than the Olympic Trials, hasn'tcompeted in a tournament and since the last
Olympic Trials in April twenty one,and every opponent he competed against was stellar,
(02:23):
and there he was surviving to SaturdayNight, where he went against none
other then twenty twenty Tokyo Olympian,multi time World team member and teammate slash
chief rival of Ellis's, and thatof course is Alex Sancho. So anyway,
(02:45):
here's the deal. Ellis is gettingready to compete at the World Olympic
Games qualifier on May nine, andinsta old Turkey that's coming right up a
couple of days and got to placetop three in order to secure Paras Olympic
berths. Ellis will be competing alongsidefellow Olympic Trials champs and Army teammates Dalton
(03:08):
Robert sixty kilograms and the one andonly camal Bay at seventy seven. So
let's kick it right to the segmentand then we'll pop back on for a
short little outro and yeah, that'show we're gonna do it. I can't
remember, and I was thinking aboutthis today. Actually, have you been
(03:28):
to Turkey before? Yeah? Whenwas the last time you were there?
Two eleven? All right, soit's been a while. All right,
Well let me ask you this.Then, let me ask you this.
You go to a place like Turkeywhere it's obviously it's like you know,
(03:49):
it's different culture and different foods andthings like that, like how do you
do your diet stuff? I wascouldn't wead or anything there, So I
was enjoying it, man, that'slike that was the first time I had
this streak. Cob ops. Itwas freaking delicious. Man. Every single
(04:10):
day I would eat, they hadthose stamps everywhere. I had a good
time to Turkey. I was hangingout with Beasic and Vets. I think
they were in my roommates. Itwas awesome because I was a young guy.
It was like my you know,first few trips overseas and those guys
are the older guys. You know, they were younger at the time but
older than me, and you know, I was hanging out with them and
it was cool. Yeah. Lamband chicken. I like the chicken ones
(04:34):
too. Did you ever have legof lamb? Yeah? No, Yeah,
Guildre makes a lot of lamb too, like he would make a placer
and he makes it. He makessome good food, really good food.
Yeah. He was telling me prettyrecently. Oldar was about yeah, we
(04:57):
yeah, we had a whole conversationabout making lamb and he was saying that
Buyers wanted him to try Buyer's versionof lamb and then Ildar tried it and
it had a bunch of spices andall this weird stuff on it or whatever,
(05:19):
and ild was like, it hasred forty in it and yellow five,
like the food coloring that I guessthey think they say like has like
I don't know, I can answer, Yeah, yeah, good word properties.
Yeah, I'm all about that stuff, flaming hots. Growing up,
(05:42):
I grew up on red forty.Yeah, we have like a fifty gallon
drum of it in my house.I just throw it at the kids because
like, all that stuff matter insight to people, you know, like
(06:03):
like you can manipulate your life wants, you know, controling the things that
you can't control and what you deeplybelieve in. But like, ultimately,
man, I know people who've eatenred for it and lived to be seventy
eighty years old. I know peoplewho've eating it have cancer, not particularly
because of that, but you knowwhat I'm saying, Life happens, right,
(06:24):
But I think even with all ofthat stuff, you know, like
we work out so much that Idon't think that stuff matters as much,
you know, because we work outso much and we're constantly you know,
taking care of bodies. But Ithink that more so than anything, the
way that your body reacts to allof those cancer properties and all those things
like red forwardy and pesticide and allthe stuff that people make a big ill
(06:47):
about, all of that is mostlygenetics. Be honest with shoot, It's
mostly genetics because every single case isdifferent. Yeah. Good genetics. You
work out you can manipulate it rightby having a good diet, and now
might decrease your chances of getting whatever. But it's mostly genetics. That's what
it comes down to. I'd haveto think that there's an offset for these
(07:12):
sorts of things too, Just likeyou're saying, like, you go and
put something in your body that sakeof argument might not be fantastic, Okay,
but you could also put something elsein your body that nullifies that other
thing that is supposedly harmful. NowI'm gonna go ahead, and yes there's
(07:34):
something to the food coloring thing.I don't know. My wife pays a
lot more attention to it than Ido. We all got here. These
things have been around for a longtime. I'm not saying they're not harmful,
but like same time, it's like, you know what used common sense?
Yeah, you should probably put lesschemicals and processed foods in your body.
(07:58):
It's not completely complicated. Fuck,like that shouldn't be the main thing
that you're eating or the only thingthat you're eating, or that you're eating
most of course one hundred percent right, If you smoke cigarette every single day,
expect something to happen. Right,Yeah, that's what we're likening.
(08:22):
I mean, yeah, well youguys are going out, what is it
for you? I think it's tenhour time difference? Right, yeah,
I don't even know. I haven'teven looked at that. Whatever it is
to do, it's two hours morefor me, so it's seventy nine from
you. Okay, nine hour differencethen? Yeah, how long does it
(08:48):
take to for acclimate time difference?Whatever I'll struggle with acclamationis not gonna lie
because I barely sleep as it is, so we don't see. Normally takes
me about as I do do wellbetween two and three days. Some people
(09:11):
have a system like either try tostay up the day before you leave,
so if you have a morning flight, stay up that way you might have
a better stut of sleeping on theflights. No, yeah, we all
always try to have a system.We use to like a sleep act.
(09:33):
These vitamins that I just got frommy nutritionists. We all do different things.
But like sometimes that stuff's uncontrollable.Man, Like you be so tired,
you try to stay up and youjust like you end up passing out.
Least it's so hard. The onlyway typically the best way I can
(09:54):
keep myself like with the system andif I bring my game system with me.
Okay, well that makes sense becauseit's pattern. It's the replication of
your at home lifestyle. Yeah.Yeah, so I'll bring my exbox.
I can stay up, keep myselfup. I have to go to skate.
(10:18):
Are you bringing it to Turkey?Yeah? Probably will bring hopefully.
Like the last time I was aTurkey, they didn't have TVs in our
where we were saying, but Iimagine they just sent some stuff out that
we're standing in a preview hotel.So I'm gonna bring it. Do you
know that Turkey now is spelled tu r k I y e. Yeah
(10:39):
I saw that. I thought thatthat was just their version of spelling it.
Yeah, I haven't, like forfive point I still spell it the
old way. I haven't updated overlike they have like a spagnya right m
(11:01):
hmm sometimes on their stuff, youknow. Yeah, no, I Italy
have like Italy Italy has Italian.Well, I don't understand phonetically the spelling
because it's like t U r kI y e does not to me read
(11:22):
Turkey. It reads like turkayi orsomething like that. Yes, yeah,
I I I don't know they thisis new too. It's only like a
couple of years or something. Itmakes more sense though that way because my
(11:45):
wife is like, are you goingto Turkey? And she speaks mostly spinised,
you know, and she says okiyat you r k i y aokiya
that's how they say Turkey and Spanish. So it's closer. Everything is closer
to each other. The US isdifferent than everything else, right, everything
is closer to each other with allthe other countries, we're the ones just
different for everything. So we usedogs, miles and kilometers bounces, and they
(12:16):
used leaders right yeah, Miller leadersnew Gallon ounce them. Yeah, everything's
different for us, just always yeah, well shocking, Well, I mean,
look, you live your life basedon kilograms pretty much. Yeah,
I have. Turkey adopted its officialname there's no shot, no shot.
(12:43):
Turkey kum Hurieti or Hurrieti, knownin English as the Republic of Turkey or
more commonly known as Turkey, uponthe declaration of the Republic on twenty nine
October twenty twenty three. In twentytwenty one, however, via the UN
(13:03):
Turkey changed its spelling to U rkI y E. How do you say
Istanbul in Spanish? I'm not sure. I think it's the same Istanbul.
Yeah, I remember in two thousandand seventeen. I was actually talking to
(13:26):
a Dulton Roberts about this last weektwo thousand and seventeen. No, sixteen,
twenty and sixteen, the University Worldwas supposed to be in Turkey somewhere.
It wasn't supposed to be Istanbul,but it was Turkey somewhere and cat
all. Well, no, youknow why you wouldn't because that was around
(13:52):
the same timeframe as Military worlds Ohgod, you said sixteen. Oh no,
it could have been no, right, because that Military World was seventeen,
right, all right, So Iwas hurt at fifteen or sixteen.
I didn't come back to Olympic trials. No, I'm talking yeah, but
(14:13):
I'm talking yeah, right, youdidn't come back to the Olympic Trials in
sixteen. I'm talking about summer atsixteen. But no, oh, okay,
you never You never wrestled University World. Huh No, I've never went.
So you went like so you basicallywent from two junior medals to just
(14:35):
senior and that, Yeah, becauseI made after the junior medals the next
year I went to the Olympics.Yeah, and then I went to thirteen.
You had Worlds. Yeah yeah,well nobody bypasses about it enough,
fortunate enough. Wait a minute,though, if you twenty three were around,
(15:01):
you probably would have hopped in atleast one of those. I would
think, oh yeah, oh yeah, because it's crazy because I went to
university nationals and I wanted team trials. Yeah right, and then I never
went again after that. I wantedin Correco. And then I think I
(15:22):
took third in freestyle. I lostalbut White and then he lost to David
Taylor in the finals or something likethat. I kind of miss I missed
that scene, like a little bitlike I missed universities now that we don't
have it anymore. I don't knowwhy. I mean, it was just
(15:46):
a Northern Michigan stomping ground, butyeah, that's what it was. It
was spun for us, though,But I mean U twenty three is essentially
universities now, right, No,No, they still have universities. It's
still around. We just don't participatein it. We don't do a trials
(16:07):
for it or anything like that.Because of you twenty three. We focused
all of our attention on you twentythree basically. But the thing is is
that universities doesn't have like a Ithink what is their age limit. I
want to say age twenty seven.I could be wrong. I think it's
something like that. It's something upthere. No, it is, it's
(16:29):
something up there. Yeah, becauseI've been I kept up with it for
a little bit. I happened asa really but I've seen like typically not
typically more than most of it.Like I think all the time, most
of the guys who wins you twentythree end up getting senior medals like the
next year of the year or withina couple of years. Let me ask
(16:49):
you a question. We're we're almostlike two weeks out from you having won
the Olympic trials. Yep, whathas been the what has the come doown
been? Like? Like, well, how long did it take for you
(17:10):
to like kind of reset the mechanismand focus on next week right away?
There was no comdown. It waslike immediately I didn't do anything after trials.
I was so tired of exhausted.I had six matches so and I
(17:30):
was losing weight the night before,so I passed out that night, came
back home, hug out with thekids to the relax that Sunday, and
then was it Monday. Monday wentin played a game, and then Tuesday
was up and running herb came over. All the old TC guys were running
practice already, and then that wholeweek I was training with Barrero, and
(17:52):
yeah, I started. I startedtoning down a little bit more now because
my back messed up is the messedup all and I was supposed to get
an injection for the past like threemonths before croatia. I was trying to
get an injection and somehow somebody Armydoctors dropped the ball. Not our doctors
at w KT, but the Armydoctors that they communicated with dropped the ball.
(18:12):
And so I'm not going to getit into after the OTC is going
to help me out now because Igot to lead Athlete Health Insurance. I'm
gonna get it after the qualifier ifI could. But I turned toning down
a little bit now to just makesure. I want to make sure I
feel good going out there, youknow, to Turkey. I don't want
to be dealing with these back problemsbefore competition and not being able to be
(18:37):
on the mat. So I justbeen I was on the mat all last
week. This week I was onthe mat a little bit, and then
yesterday and today I got off themat and I did a lot a lot
more cardio and I've been feeling better. So but as far as tuned downing
in and the competition, it's beenimmediately like you can wait on the injection,
(18:57):
like it's not absolute mission critical.So it was absolutely mission critical.
But I mean they're used to me, now, you know what I mean,
Like you you're not gonna get whatit gives you, and I'm not.
I'm not the type of person thatcomplains or anything like that. So
I'm always like, Okay, thatdoesn't work, then we'll just go with
(19:19):
the fluff. You know. Iwant to add no more stress to nobody.
So I was just like whatever,and I already want I want trials.
I want trials like that. SoI got toward all shots, trials,
multiple toward all shots. So I'mgonna do this. My good thing
is my trainers coming, exs coming, So I'm gonna get toward all shots
and just use that for a qualifier. Your body responds okay to tournal,
(19:45):
I guess yeah, it does.M So We're just gonna try to bank
on that. And I've been Imean, wait, is not a problem.
I wait, like every day afterpractice, I've been like sixty seven
point seven. So yeah, soI can afford to to you know what
I mean to like not be wrestlingout of times. And so I I
(20:07):
remember, like just recently too,they're talking about trips and stuff after qualifier
and they're like, well, youwant to go to Croatia. I'm like,
I'm down to go to Crazel.I'm like, I'm not going to
wrestle. I was like, I'llgo, I'll do a camp, like
I'm not wrestling in any competitions afterthis qualifier, like I'm gonna let my
body hill up. And I waslike, uh, They're like and Herb
was like, oh what plus twoKo's at Hungary, you can wrestle sixty
(20:30):
five. And I was like ooh. I was like I would do that,
but wow, there's no purpose ofme doing that if I'm if I'm
I'm on an Olympic team at sixtyseven, you know, I was like,
I'm on the lift and try toget bigger if that's the case.
No, But if I'm on anOlympic team. I'm not gonna I'm not
gonna do that. I'm gonna getbigger, right, No, I'm saying
no, I don't know if theWell, no, it would make sense
(20:52):
because if I wouldn't on the team, it would make sense because I would
wrestle that and then go down foruh to sixty three for the Olympic,
not the working trial. Yeah yeah, right, Oh, I see what
you're saying now, Yeah, okay, but we're not looking at it that
way. No, I'm not.I've been I'm looking straight strictly at the
(21:12):
Olympics. And yeah, so Iwas like, nah, you know,
like we're talking about that when weget there, but as of now,
no, I don't care about anyof that stuff right now. Wait,
so you wouldn't want to wrestle theHungarian Grand Prix at sixty seven with you?
You're going, okay, so you'regoing to Paris a month later or
(21:34):
whatever it is. Yeah, afterthe qualifier, I'm not going to wrestle
on anything. Exactly what my planis after the qualifiers, I might go
to a couple of camps and ifthat I kind of don't want to do
that. I kind of want toI want to come back and just lift,
lift, lift, list lift.All I've been doing is wrestling and
get big, get up to likeseventy two kilos, and then prep for
(21:57):
the Games and going to the Games. You know, I think that no
matter what, you win the lastchance qualifier, you're going into the Games
with a chip on your shoulder,you know. And that was always my
attention. Anyways, I know,I win the last qualifier, I'm gonna
go to the Olympics and win.You know, the last guy that won
the last chance qualifier, he tooksilver at the Olympics, you know.
So that's the best tournament, that'sthe best confidence spoo. So you could
(22:18):
have went into the Olympics outside ofwinning the World Championships or medalin at the
World Championships. So all right,well let me all right, let me
ask you this though. Is now, I'm gonna go ahead and I'm gonna
superimpose the fact that your lengthy resumeof experience plays a vital role in your
(22:45):
thought process. But it's like,okay, you came you came back for
Armed Forces, and it's not adiss or something to Air Force, but
but you know, you're right offjump I mean, you got Jammel,
who's solid opponent, but it's stillonly two matches you had at Armed Forces.
(23:10):
Now, granted you go to Croatia, and Croatia was I think super
important reset for you get a semblanceof feelback. Then you go to Trials
and you have six matches, right, Okay, Now next week, let's
say you're gonna need probably I wouldsay a minimum of four right, looking
(23:37):
at the format of the tournament andthe size of the bracket. Okay,
so that's twelve matches, right,we're talking about that you have under your
belt prior to Paris. So questionI posit to you is you're comfortable with
(24:00):
just look, thus far, eightof your matches have been domestic. Okay,
next week in Turkey, we're lookingat a minimum of four. And
(24:21):
so that's what I'm asking is like, Okay, like you're cool with only
having four matches against foreigners? Yeah, I think that for me? For
me, uh, the I thinkthe camps are bigger than the than the
actual competition, I think, anduh for me, wrestling with those guys
(24:48):
in the camps because you get waymore out of it, and then too,
you wrestle with those guys, theyget a feel for you, You
get a feel for them, andyou feel you know what you need.
And those guys are pretty heavy duringcamps, you know, so you don't
like if you get to wrestle withthem in camps, you know, I
think it's better than wrestling with themin competition, because once competition comes,
they're not the same. They're notthe same people. Man. They they're
(25:08):
smaller, they get tired quicker,you know. Yeah, and that's why
I think way more Yeah, thecamps are way more important. Yeah,
somebody, I think it might havebeen Robbie. I think it might have
been Robbie. Let's go ahead andsay it was Robbie. I don't remember
who it was. But last weeksomebody said to me that one thing you've
(25:29):
got, like, that's a realpotentially good arrow in your quiver. There
is that? Not these foreigners haven'tseen you in a while, right,
Yeah, And it's like you andyou and Alex are there. Those are
two very different looks, you know. Yeah. Yeah, and that's what
(25:52):
I kind of was baking on too. I know they haven't seen me in
a while, and those dudes don'tlike wrestling me. I know that for
sure. They don't like getting pummeledfrom fourteen different directions. They don't follow
your footwork all right. So Iwas saying no to the Olympic team training
(26:12):
plan. Yeah, I just it'sjust so much. It's so it's so
much more different for me the competitions. In the camps, my body gets
so even though camps something more expensive, you can control a little bit more
of what you do. But aftercompetition, my body's so beat up.
(26:33):
Man. And I want to beas fresh as possible for the games because
I don't know why. I feellike you can control yet there's more control
in camps and competition. I don'thave control over anything. I just go
hard, you know what I mean, And whatever happens happens. If I
split my eye, if I splitmy lip, if I've hurt something,
I heard it, you know,And I don't deal with that pain until
(26:56):
after the competition. And I'm like, damn, I feel like I got
hit by a truck, you know. Like in camps you can control that
a little bit. You know,you can reel yourself in if you need
to. Yeah, And I don'twant to be like I want to.
I want to try to have asmuch time as possible to between now and
then to get to get big andtry to put as much strength on as
(27:17):
possible if I could between uh nowin Tokyo, and I know that if
I'm going to these tournaments and I'mjust making scratchway, you know, all
the time, then I'm not gettingbigger. I'm staying the same size.
Hmmm. Yeah. Plus with yourmetabolism, if you were to super fall,
so even if you got off let'ssay you got up with a solid
(27:42):
few kilos, yeah, it's stillyeah, once it's time for you to
get you know, all thermal andwatch what you're doing, like it's just
gonna fly off you anyway. Yeah. And that's the thing too, I
don't know, I mean, lookat every body, like human body is
(28:03):
different. Everyone's different. And whathas guys get older, They'll a lot
of times go up, you know, they'll go up and wait, let's
say, but I'm also someone wholeans pretty heavily towards It actually becomes easier
for people, like weight management becomeseasier for people as they get older too,
(28:26):
because you're no longer fighting your body. Yeah, you're no longer fighting
growing, You're no longer Plus youalready have it clocked. You know exactly
what you're gonna do, you knowexactly how much you're gonna float, or
at least you have a pretty darngood idea. That doesn't mean every cut
is wonderful, but at the sametime, like there's at least an expectation
(28:48):
you can kind of you know,Whereas I think when you're late teens,
early twenties, it's, you know, can be terrible. I think when
you get a little older, it'syeah, you know, plus or mature.
Anyway, you're making better decisions withdieting and all that stuff too.
I mean, guys, I thinka lot of times go up just because
they're done dealing with it. Moreso than it's like a physical thing where
(29:14):
it's like, oh I can't doit anymore. No, it's more like
you don't feel like doing it anymore. It seems like anyway, that's ill
least that's how I've got odors.Okay, So here I know it.
We'll close with We'll close with Illinois. You want to talk Illinois? Yeah,
(29:36):
you talk anything, you know that? All right? So I found
it interesting Kamal didn't mention Powell byname, but both of you's in your
post Olympic trials, victories, interviews, slash press con conference or whatever you
(30:00):
want to call him. You obviously, I mean like you and Powell.
I think a lot of people,certainly all the people who you and I
have in common anyway, like weall likened you to Powell, like we
associate yous together. Anyhow, Sowhen you went and talked at length about
(30:22):
Powell, which was like I madesure I put that. I made sure
I put that in the you know, the article where I include everybody's you
know, whatever best quotes or whatever. It was like I thought it was
awesome. I thought it was like, I mean, I always love hearing
you talk about Powell and like hisimpact on your life and all that stuff.
And then I hadn't I was therewhen Kamal was doing his press scrum,
(30:48):
and I guess I didn't catch thispart, but then he talked about
oak Park and wrestling for oak Parkand all that, and it's like,
you know, if you think aboutit, it's like, Okay, you
got Joe, you and Camal comeout of this tournament. You had last
(31:15):
year, Zach Brounegele, you hadDanny Brounegle have himself like a couple of
really good tournaments, you know,December Nationals and obviously Olympic trialsy wrestled really
well and in the pantheon of theUnited States Greco Roman wrestling over the past.
(31:40):
Will say, I don't know,dude, whatever, past couple of
quads. I guess it's like allof these athletes, you're you're the leader
of the pack, but like allyou have, all these athletes have come
from, like the Powell Medlin connection. It's really astounding. Like we look
at Minnesota and Wisconsin as like ourbreeding ground, and you know, I
(32:07):
get why we do, I meanrightfully. So it's like I don't think
Medlin and Pawell get talked about enough. I mean, everybody respects both immensely,
for sure, but like, lookat this. It's crazy, man,
It's like Joe Row's not Joe Rowwithout those two, you know.
(32:32):
Coach Medland, Man, yes,I've missed. I wish I could be.
I could have been coached you know, uh longer by most guys,
you know, like coming up.I think I was grateful to have,
you know, Dennis Yvonne, youknow, the coaches that I have,
but I definitely wouldn't have mine havebeen coached Medland, you know longer,
(32:52):
because he definitely was in the stylelike they made me, you know,
they made me, and they nevertaken away from, you know, my
talent or or maybe fear, youknow, anything that I was good at,
you know, like maybe fear utilizingit or using it just because somebody
(33:14):
else is good at it, youknow what I mean, use what I
had and try to and only tryto get it make it better. Yeah,
you know, And that's a criticismof like our program in general and
has been we have to develop athleteslater here and we had you know,
and so that means you have tokind of start them from square one and
(33:36):
stuff. But you can't legislate theiruniqueness out of their styles either. Yeah.
I agree. They know how touse your strengths to like not just
wrestling strengths, but your strengths asan individual as a person. Like they
they're really good at understanding who youare, you know, as a person
as well as an athlete. Everypeople. I believe that every single athlete
(33:59):
that they coach, I guarantee youevery single at one of us, like
all these guys we talked about thatare on their teams and that were dominant.
Illinois got every single one of usthat you coach, they have a
story that they can tell you aboutus, like a person, every single
one of us, multiple stories.See, that's a really important thing to
say about somebody who's a coach becauseit shows how much care and attention and
stuff they invested in you. Yeah, I don't know when you get when
(34:22):
you get so high up, youknow everything you know a lot of things
like become business. You know,a lot of things will come business because
I mean this is our jobs aresome other people's jobs, you know,
rely on results. You know ofUS USA Wrestling, some jobs they're rely
on results of the athletes, youknow what I mean. Like so everything
is results oriented, you know,but something from where they're coming from.
(34:43):
We're still young men and we're goingyou know, and they grow a bond
with us, and they care aboutthe athletes as people. You know.
I think that's kind of difficult whenyou get to the senior level because a
lot of it is a lot ofjobs do rely on what you're producing.
I mean, that's how we whenit gets to that level professional Olympic level,
(35:04):
a lot of that stuff relies ongiving results and what are you bringing
back? You know, that's howcoaches and NFL, NBA ke did jobs.
You know, how are you producing? What are you producing? You
know what I mean? So itshut that it works like that, but
what he dies through? Yeah,but that's what also makes it great too,
because it's survival of fitness. Thisis this is it's a results oriented
business, That's what it is.But at the same juncture, it's within
(35:30):
that that pressure kicker where you findthe most meaningful relationships a lot of times
too, What is it like beingcoached by Spencer? Like? How was
Spencer to you as a coach,especially given the fact that you know,
(35:50):
you and him were athletes together andyou know, world teammates and Olympic teammates
and stuff together. Like, what'sit like being coached by someone who you
knew super super super well as ateammate. Uh, it's different because because
(36:14):
I saw a child like as acoach, and I saw him as like
kind of like a spot figure,right and Medlin's you know, same thing.
You know, I had crazy relationshipwith them. I was friends with
Spencer first, you know, andwe competed together. We were teammates first,
you know. So and now I'mI'm an adult, you know,
and and Spencer was my coach.But the thing about answered that helps me
(36:38):
out a lot with my with mycompeting, and my competition is entered.
I know Spencer didn't count on melike, he doesn't treat like essentially,
he doesn't treat me like an athletelike, oh, I need to tell
him to do this and do that, Like he gives me full range and
control of my he knows I knowwhat I'm doing, you know what I
(37:00):
mean? And he there's no effbecause you can't have a coach. You
can't be have somebody in your cornerwho has doubts right, or you can't
have somebody in your corner who hasyou know, who's project projecting that feelings
or their emotions on you as anathlete, like if it's terrible, you
know it will hurt, hinder you, and hurt you as an athlete.
And it makes me so even moreconfident that I know Spencer. He knows
(37:22):
he can kind the in he canallow me to take care of what I
need to take care of and toreally like outside of him helping me out
with techniques and give me advice,you know, on certain things that I
need to work on that I'm goodat, or maybe weaknesses that I can
fix a little bit. The confidencethat he has in me gives me more
confidence in myself so much more.And it's like even when we're talking about
(37:45):
stuff, you know, and he'slike, no, I already know I
can. I already know you're gonnaget this done or you're gonna do this
and do that, And that justgives me more like let me know,
you know, like keep stay shrun, keep utilizing what you're good at,
keep utilizing your strength. Your coachknow the tree, get at these things,
and there's no doubt in his mindthat you're gonna get things done.
Then, like I know who Iam. I'm more confident who I am
(38:07):
as an athlete, who I amas a Greco Roman wrestler. He trusts
you, yes, exactly, hetrusts me, and I trust Spencer because
I mean, obviously, I thinkSpencer has much more knowledge than me when
it comes to techniques and you know, uh, game planning and stuff like
(38:27):
that, because I'm I'm a hardnosed guy, like I'm all physical to
flow, like find a way tomake it work type of guy, you
know, and Spencer I know thatI can rely on him to the outside
of me going as hard as Icame to me trying to break this guy,
or me trying to fight to thevery end. If there's an adjustment
that needs to be made, Spencer, he'll be able to see that.
You know, I'm gonna do mypart in in going out there and competing
(38:51):
to the best of my ability whateveradjustments there, I can count on him.
I trust him with that because Iknow that he's good at that right
and he knows that I'm gonna takecare of my part. Not to sound
cliche about but like he knows howyour mind works, Yeah, Like he
probably knows exactly how you're thinking,Like he probably has like a sense of
(39:13):
how you're seeing something. And healso knows that you know how to deal
with your body, push the paceand be intense and practice and kill it
and when to be like, Okay, we need to kind of come down
a little bit here. Yeah,And I know it's like that for we
kind of come from the same editor. Yeah, me and Spencer kind of
(39:34):
come from the same era though too, Like we wrestled with Pray under Fraser
and under the grind matches went underthe Like I'm not saying that the new
the new era kids are stopping anythinglike that, but like it was a
little bit more hard nose for us, you know, like things are different.
You know, like there's no inmy mindset, I've watched a lot
of videos and seen a lot ofstuff on social media, uh these past
(39:59):
few years for kids to like manlike breath cost me this match or this
could have been done and this calldidn't get called, you know, but
like in my mind like that thosethings happen, right, you know,
there's certain obvious reasons where people getcheated and obvious like blatant you know,
arbitration with the rest, like themmessing up matches and stuff like that.
(40:20):
But you always have an opportunity towin, you know, like if you
really doing everything in and you're findinga way to win and they cheat you,
then that's one thing. But likea couple of points or a point
there, or a caution here,a caution error, you go down if
they call you down when you thoughtyou were lest on as hard as you
can and you still defend, right, you still have an opportunity to defend
even though they called you down andthey didn't get you that call. Even
(40:43):
though they didn't call that guy down, and you think you deserve that,
you still have an opportunity to pushthem out of bounds to score, you
know. And we kind of hadthat mindset, man stuncer. That's how
it was when we were coming up, all right, And that was,
of course, the one and onlyEllis Coleman, who on May nine will
(41:09):
compete at the World Olympic Games qualifierin Istanbul, Turkey, alongside Army team
mate Dalton Roberts and Kamal Bay.And you know what, just take a
little sidebar here, sidebar editorial,verbal editorial. And there are some who
(41:30):
are going to hear this and they'regoing to laugh because this conversation has had
the Olympic Trials. But let's getclear, Okay, let's get clear,
meaning, let's be clear about something. If you win the United States Olympic
Trials, you have made the UnitedStates Olympic team. I'll repeat, if
(41:54):
you have won the United States OlympicTrials, you have made the United States
Olympic team. And why do Isay this? Why do I say this?
Because you'd think it's just self evident, but long time ago, well
relatively a long time ago, yearsago, early days of five point Move,
(42:19):
I had put a blurb blurb aboutan athlete for an upcoming piece and
mentioned that he was an Olympic teammember or a previous Olympic team member,
and another athlete who had recently steppedaway from competition terrific athlete direct messaged.
(42:44):
I was about to say private message, but direct messaged me that technically you're
non Olympic team member unless you wrestlein the Olympics, which is well,
just blatantly incorrect. You want togo ahead and say that you are not
an Olympian unless you wrestle in theOlympics, You're not going to get an
(43:05):
argument out of me. But ifyou've won the Olympic trials, you've made
the Olympic team, just like ifyou've won the World team trials, you've
made the world team. It's notdifficult to understand here, and I don't,
for the life of me, Idon't get why anyone would want to
take that away from an athlete,especially another athlete with whom you were contemporaries.
(43:35):
I don't get. And then youknow what, the gentleman in question,
he's not the only one who's everquibbled about this, which is just
I don't know, it's ridiculous.But either way, if you've won the
Olympic Trials, you've made the Olympicteam. Now, sometimes we massage that
language in literature. I'm five pointanyway, Sometimes we'll write Olympic Trials champion
(43:57):
or something just for specificic But eitherway, you've won the Olympic Trials,
you've made the Olympic team. Doesit mean you get to wrestling the Olympics,
Well, we're gonna find out,Okay, I mean, well,
this system has been in place fora long time. But regarding the three
(44:19):
gentlemen in question, that is Dalton, Roberts, Alis Coleman and camal Bay,
we're gonna find out this week,and very strong cases could be made
for all three. And yeah,okay, there's a tinge of American bias
perhaps, but not really. Imean, one of the top guys in
Dalton Roberts weight classes, Ramzan,are not from Romania and Dalton already beat
him. And when Dalton beat him, which was January of twenty twenty three
(44:42):
in Zagreb, Dalt had popped ariver too in the first period of that
match. Still finished the match,and in the next round would have had
Edmunds and Nazarian. Nazarian from Bulgaria, son of in my opinion, the
best Grec of Roman Fleet ever,which is Armani Isarian. I was really
looking forward to that match. Didn'thappen, and that's how it went.
(45:07):
I remember Spencer Thomas Mango texted methat Dalton was not going to be able
to wrestle in his Aarian because hewas defaulting out of the tournament because they're
ribs, and Dalton has compete againstthe fair number of these top guys who
were in his bracket, at leastseveral of them, and none of these
guys are going to want to wrestleDalton Roberts, and they're certainly not going
(45:30):
to want to have to deal withhim in the second period. So Kamal
is actually more academic than either Ellisor Dalton, if only because Kamal has
recently wrestled a lot of the topguys in his own brackets, either beating
him or been pretty darn close tohim. Ellis I think this was mentioned
in this segment, but Robbie Smithhad made the point to me shortly after
(45:52):
the Olympic Trials that Ellis has somethingworking in his favor, and that is
Yeah, these guys haven't seen himin a while. Prior to the twenty
twenty four Olympic Trials. The lastbig tournament Ellis was in was the two
thousand and twenty Olympic Trials, whichwas April of twenty twenty one. Ellis
hadn't competed overseas since I think thetwenty nineteen Military Worlds, which came about
(46:16):
a month and change or so aftermaybe even less a month or so after
the twenty nineteen Senior Worlds in Kazakhstan, so they haven't seen him in a
while. And Ellis and Sancho aretwo different looks, very different looks.
There's some similarities, but they're differentlooks. And yeah, Ellis was world
(46:43):
caliber before his two year forced hiatus, so that hasn't changed. Clearly hasn't
changed. I mean, guy hadn'twrestled in a major tournament. Came back
in February for crying out loud,wrestled two matches at Armed Forces, one
of which came again against Jammel Johnsonright off the bat actually, which is
not an easy assignment. And thatwas a tough match for Ellis, and
(47:07):
then he went to Croatia a fewweeks later to kind of get reset and
get some feel back, and thena few weeks after that he goes to
the Olympic Trials and every opponent hehad in that tournament was absolutely stellar.
So that's what we're looking at.Okay, I'm not adding a bunch,
(47:29):
you know what. I'm not addinga bunch. I want to get this
out if I can. So let'sjust move on and the next episode will
try to play some ketchup and withit being an Olympic season, we're going
to start pumping out some more ofthese social media concerns. Social media concerns.
To follow Ellis Coleman, you cando so on Instagram at the Flying
(47:54):
Squirrel. Okay, so that's creativespelling. Here a f L Y I
N s q U I r rE L the Fly and Squirrel Ellis Coleman,
and follow Denisall. You can doso on Twitter, insert lame joke
(48:19):
at Dennisall w g W or Instagramat World Gold Wrestling. And for USA
Greco Roman news and athlete perspectives,please go to five point dot com and
as always, follow along on Twitterat five the number five e T.
That's it for episode fifty A.Everybody, thanks for listening and we'll see
you soon.
I'll look for Amat, stop worryingabout stupid procedures and do full up this
morning the balls making self gift createwhy we had a good podcast, the
one to call the Five Point Move. I'm frustrated with the word our Greco
guys for you United States are truebecause we are good athletes are good humidus
(00:21):
that Rona went. We gotta helpwe get that what I want. People
know me from all of our resultswhere everything comes from Five point Move.
Hello and welcome to episode fifty eightof the Five Point Move Podcast. I'm
Sam Hans, founder and senior editorfor five point move dot Com and E
(00:42):
fifty eight fifty eight. That isCarl Banks, Carl Banks, New York
Giants, two times Super Bowl championCarl Banks. Anyway, we're not going
to have a long preamble leading upto our featured guest, who is up
hearing for a fourth time on theprogram, and that of course is Ellis
(01:07):
Coleman, who on April twentieth insidethe Bryce Jordan Center on the campus of
Penn State University one the twenty twentyfour US Olympic team trials. It's an
incredible story, obviously incredible story.Ellis two years away forced hiatus due to
(01:34):
ridiculous circumstances which we're not going tounpack now today, tonight, whatever,
We're not going to go through itnow, but either way, two years
away, Ellis comes back in Februarywrestles two matches at Armed Forces, one
of whom against Jamel Johnson. Soright off the bat, Ellis comes back
(01:56):
as to wrestle Jammel. That's atough assignment. And then Ellis goes to
Croatia to kind of camp it outtrain get some feelback. A few weeks
later than the Olympic Trials, hasn'tcompeted in a tournament and since the last
Olympic Trials in April twenty one,and every opponent he competed against was stellar,
(02:23):
and there he was surviving to SaturdayNight, where he went against none
other then twenty twenty Tokyo Olympian,multi time World team member and teammate slash
chief rival of Ellis's, and thatof course is Alex Sancho. So anyway,
(02:45):
here's the deal. Ellis is gettingready to compete at the World Olympic
Games qualifier on May nine, andinsta old Turkey that's coming right up a
couple of days and got to placetop three in order to secure Paras Olympic
berths. Ellis will be competing alongsidefellow Olympic Trials champs and Army teammates Dalton
(03:08):
Robert sixty kilograms and the one andonly camal Bay at seventy seven. So
let's kick it right to the segmentand then we'll pop back on for a
short little outro and yeah, that'show we're gonna do it. I can't
remember, and I was thinking aboutthis today. Actually, have you been
(03:28):
to Turkey before? Yeah? Whenwas the last time you were there?
Two eleven? All right, soit's been a while. All right,
Well let me ask you this.Then, let me ask you this.
You go to a place like Turkeywhere it's obviously it's like you know,
(03:49):
it's different culture and different foods andthings like that, like how do you
do your diet stuff? I wascouldn't wead or anything there, So I
was enjoying it, man, that'slike that was the first time I had
this streak. Cob ops. Itwas freaking delicious. Man. Every single
(04:10):
day I would eat, they hadthose stamps everywhere. I had a good
time to Turkey. I was hangingout with Beasic and Vets. I think
they were in my roommates. Itwas awesome because I was a young guy.
It was like my you know,first few trips overseas and those guys
are the older guys. You know, they were younger at the time but
older than me, and you know, I was hanging out with them and
it was cool. Yeah. Lamband chicken. I like the chicken ones
(04:34):
too. Did you ever have legof lamb? Yeah? No, Yeah,
Guildre makes a lot of lamb too, like he would make a placer
and he makes it. He makessome good food, really good food.
Yeah. He was telling me prettyrecently. Oldar was about yeah, we
(04:57):
yeah, we had a whole conversationabout making lamb and he was saying that
Buyers wanted him to try Buyer's versionof lamb and then Ildar tried it and
it had a bunch of spices andall this weird stuff on it or whatever,
(05:19):
and ild was like, it hasred forty in it and yellow five,
like the food coloring that I guessthey think they say like has like
I don't know, I can answer, Yeah, yeah, good word properties.
Yeah, I'm all about that stuff, flaming hots. Growing up,
(05:42):
I grew up on red forty.Yeah, we have like a fifty gallon
drum of it in my house.I just throw it at the kids because
like, all that stuff matter insight to people, you know, like
(06:03):
like you can manipulate your life wants, you know, controling the things that
you can't control and what you deeplybelieve in. But like, ultimately,
man, I know people who've eatenred for it and lived to be seventy
eighty years old. I know peoplewho've eating it have cancer, not particularly
because of that, but you knowwhat I'm saying, Life happens, right,
(06:24):
But I think even with all ofthat stuff, you know, like
we work out so much that Idon't think that stuff matters as much,
you know, because we work outso much and we're constantly you know,
taking care of bodies. But Ithink that more so than anything, the
way that your body reacts to allof those cancer properties and all those things
like red forwardy and pesticide and allthe stuff that people make a big ill
(06:47):
about, all of that is mostlygenetics. Be honest with shoot, It's
mostly genetics because every single case isdifferent. Yeah. Good genetics. You
work out you can manipulate it rightby having a good diet, and now
might decrease your chances of getting whatever. But it's mostly genetics. That's what
it comes down to. I'd haveto think that there's an offset for these
(07:12):
sorts of things too, Just likeyou're saying, like, you go and
put something in your body that sakeof argument might not be fantastic, Okay,
but you could also put something elsein your body that nullifies that other
thing that is supposedly harmful. NowI'm gonna go ahead, and yes there's
(07:34):
something to the food coloring thing.I don't know. My wife pays a
lot more attention to it than Ido. We all got here. These
things have been around for a longtime. I'm not saying they're not harmful,
but like same time, it's like, you know what used common sense?
Yeah, you should probably put lesschemicals and processed foods in your body.
(07:58):
It's not completely complicated. Fuck,like that shouldn't be the main thing
that you're eating or the only thingthat you're eating, or that you're eating
most of course one hundred percent right, If you smoke cigarette every single day,
expect something to happen. Right,Yeah, that's what we're likening.
(08:22):
I mean, yeah, well youguys are going out, what is it
for you? I think it's tenhour time difference? Right, yeah,
I don't even know. I haven'teven looked at that. Whatever it is
to do, it's two hours morefor me, so it's seventy nine from
you. Okay, nine hour differencethen? Yeah, how long does it
(08:48):
take to for acclimate time difference?Whatever I'll struggle with acclamationis not gonna lie
because I barely sleep as it is, so we don't see. Normally takes
me about as I do do wellbetween two and three days. Some people
(09:11):
have a system like either try tostay up the day before you leave,
so if you have a morning flight, stay up that way you might have
a better stut of sleeping on theflights. No, yeah, we all
always try to have a system.We use to like a sleep act.
(09:33):
These vitamins that I just got frommy nutritionists. We all do different things.
But like sometimes that stuff's uncontrollable.Man, Like you be so tired,
you try to stay up and youjust like you end up passing out.
Least it's so hard. The onlyway typically the best way I can
(09:54):
keep myself like with the system andif I bring my game system with me.
Okay, well that makes sense becauseit's pattern. It's the replication of
your at home lifestyle. Yeah.Yeah, so I'll bring my exbox.
I can stay up, keep myselfup. I have to go to skate.
(10:18):
Are you bringing it to Turkey?Yeah? Probably will bring hopefully.
Like the last time I was aTurkey, they didn't have TVs in our
where we were saying, but Iimagine they just sent some stuff out that
we're standing in a preview hotel.So I'm gonna bring it. Do you
know that Turkey now is spelled tu r k I y e. Yeah
(10:39):
I saw that. I thought thatthat was just their version of spelling it.
Yeah, I haven't, like forfive point I still spell it the
old way. I haven't updated overlike they have like a spagnya right m
(11:01):
hmm sometimes on their stuff, youknow. Yeah, no, I Italy
have like Italy Italy has Italian.Well, I don't understand phonetically the spelling
because it's like t U r kI y e does not to me read
(11:22):
Turkey. It reads like turkayi orsomething like that. Yes, yeah,
I I I don't know they thisis new too. It's only like a
couple of years or something. Itmakes more sense though that way because my
(11:45):
wife is like, are you goingto Turkey? And she speaks mostly spinised,
you know, and she says okiyat you r k i y aokiya
that's how they say Turkey and Spanish. So it's closer. Everything is closer
to each other. The US isdifferent than everything else, right, everything
is closer to each other with allthe other countries, we're the ones just
different for everything. So we usedogs, miles and kilometers bounces, and they
(12:16):
used leaders right yeah, Miller leadersnew Gallon ounce them. Yeah, everything's
different for us, just always yeah, well shocking, Well, I mean,
look, you live your life basedon kilograms pretty much. Yeah,
I have. Turkey adopted its officialname there's no shot, no shot.
(12:43):
Turkey kum Hurieti or Hurrieti, knownin English as the Republic of Turkey or
more commonly known as Turkey, uponthe declaration of the Republic on twenty nine
October twenty twenty three. In twentytwenty one, however, via the UN
(13:03):
Turkey changed its spelling to U rkI y E. How do you say
Istanbul in Spanish? I'm not sure. I think it's the same Istanbul.
Yeah, I remember in two thousandand seventeen. I was actually talking to
(13:26):
a Dulton Roberts about this last weektwo thousand and seventeen. No, sixteen,
twenty and sixteen, the University Worldwas supposed to be in Turkey somewhere.
It wasn't supposed to be Istanbul,but it was Turkey somewhere and cat
all. Well, no, youknow why you wouldn't because that was around
(13:52):
the same timeframe as Military worlds Ohgod, you said sixteen. Oh no,
it could have been no, right, because that Military World was seventeen,
right, all right, So Iwas hurt at fifteen or sixteen.
I didn't come back to Olympic trials. No, I'm talking yeah, but
(14:13):
I'm talking yeah, right, youdidn't come back to the Olympic Trials in
sixteen. I'm talking about summer atsixteen. But no, oh, okay,
you never You never wrestled University World. Huh No, I've never went.
So you went like so you basicallywent from two junior medals to just
(14:35):
senior and that, Yeah, becauseI made after the junior medals the next
year I went to the Olympics.Yeah, and then I went to thirteen.
You had Worlds. Yeah yeah,well nobody bypasses about it enough,
fortunate enough. Wait a minute,though, if you twenty three were around,
(15:01):
you probably would have hopped in atleast one of those. I would
think, oh yeah, oh yeah, because it's crazy because I went to
university nationals and I wanted team trials. Yeah right, and then I never
went again after that. I wantedin Correco. And then I think I
(15:22):
took third in freestyle. I lostalbut White and then he lost to David
Taylor in the finals or something likethat. I kind of miss I missed
that scene, like a little bitlike I missed universities now that we don't
have it anymore. I don't knowwhy. I mean, it was just
(15:46):
a Northern Michigan stomping ground, butyeah, that's what it was. It
was spun for us, though,But I mean U twenty three is essentially
universities now, right, No,No, they still have universities. It's
still around. We just don't participatein it. We don't do a trials
(16:07):
for it or anything like that.Because of you twenty three. We focused
all of our attention on you twentythree basically. But the thing is is
that universities doesn't have like a Ithink what is their age limit. I
want to say age twenty seven.I could be wrong. I think it's
something like that. It's something upthere. No, it is, it's
(16:29):
something up there. Yeah, becauseI've been I kept up with it for
a little bit. I happened asa really but I've seen like typically not
typically more than most of it.Like I think all the time, most
of the guys who wins you twentythree end up getting senior medals like the
next year of the year or withina couple of years. Let me ask
(16:49):
you a question. We're we're almostlike two weeks out from you having won
the Olympic trials. Yep, whathas been the what has the come doown
been? Like? Like, well, how long did it take for you
(17:10):
to like kind of reset the mechanismand focus on next week right away?
There was no comdown. It waslike immediately I didn't do anything after trials.
I was so tired of exhausted.I had six matches so and I
(17:30):
was losing weight the night before,so I passed out that night, came
back home, hug out with thekids to the relax that Sunday, and
then was it Monday. Monday wentin played a game, and then Tuesday
was up and running herb came over. All the old TC guys were running
practice already, and then that wholeweek I was training with Barrero, and
(17:52):
yeah, I started. I startedtoning down a little bit more now because
my back messed up is the messedup all and I was supposed to get
an injection for the past like threemonths before croatia. I was trying to
get an injection and somehow somebody Armydoctors dropped the ball. Not our doctors
at w KT, but the Armydoctors that they communicated with dropped the ball.
(18:12):
And so I'm not going to getit into after the OTC is going
to help me out now because Igot to lead Athlete Health Insurance. I'm
gonna get it after the qualifier ifI could. But I turned toning down
a little bit now to just makesure. I want to make sure I
feel good going out there, youknow, to Turkey. I don't want
to be dealing with these back problemsbefore competition and not being able to be
(18:37):
on the mat. So I justbeen I was on the mat all last
week. This week I was onthe mat a little bit, and then
yesterday and today I got off themat and I did a lot a lot
more cardio and I've been feeling better. So but as far as tuned downing
in and the competition, it's beenimmediately like you can wait on the injection,
(18:57):
like it's not absolute mission critical.So it was absolutely mission critical.
But I mean they're used to me, now, you know what I mean,
Like you you're not gonna get whatit gives you, and I'm not.
I'm not the type of person thatcomplains or anything like that. So
I'm always like, Okay, thatdoesn't work, then we'll just go with
(19:19):
the fluff. You know. Iwant to add no more stress to nobody.
So I was just like whatever,and I already want I want trials.
I want trials like that. SoI got toward all shots, trials,
multiple toward all shots. So I'mgonna do this. My good thing
is my trainers coming, exs coming, So I'm gonna get toward all shots
and just use that for a qualifier. Your body responds okay to tournal,
(19:45):
I guess yeah, it does.M So We're just gonna try to bank
on that. And I've been Imean, wait, is not a problem.
I wait, like every day afterpractice, I've been like sixty seven
point seven. So yeah, soI can afford to to you know what
I mean to like not be wrestlingout of times. And so I I
(20:07):
remember, like just recently too,they're talking about trips and stuff after qualifier
and they're like, well, youwant to go to Croatia. I'm like,
I'm down to go to Crazel.I'm like, I'm not going to
wrestle. I was like, I'llgo, I'll do a camp, like
I'm not wrestling in any competitions afterthis qualifier, like I'm gonna let my
body hill up. And I waslike, uh, They're like and Herb
was like, oh what plus twoKo's at Hungary, you can wrestle sixty
(20:30):
five. And I was like ooh. I was like I would do that,
but wow, there's no purpose ofme doing that if I'm if I'm
I'm on an Olympic team at sixtyseven, you know, I was like,
I'm on the lift and try toget bigger if that's the case.
No, But if I'm on anOlympic team. I'm not gonna I'm not
gonna do that. I'm gonna getbigger, right, No, I'm saying
no, I don't know if theWell, no, it would make sense
(20:52):
because if I wouldn't on the team, it would make sense because I would
wrestle that and then go down foruh to sixty three for the Olympic,
not the working trial. Yeah yeah, right, Oh, I see what
you're saying now, Yeah, okay, but we're not looking at it that
way. No, I'm not.I've been I'm looking straight strictly at the
(21:12):
Olympics. And yeah, so Iwas like, nah, you know,
like we're talking about that when weget there, but as of now,
no, I don't care about anyof that stuff right now. Wait,
so you wouldn't want to wrestle theHungarian Grand Prix at sixty seven with you?
You're going, okay, so you'regoing to Paris a month later or
(21:34):
whatever it is. Yeah, afterthe qualifier, I'm not going to wrestle
on anything. Exactly what my planis after the qualifiers, I might go
to a couple of camps and ifthat I kind of don't want to do
that. I kind of want toI want to come back and just lift,
lift, lift, list lift.All I've been doing is wrestling and
get big, get up to likeseventy two kilos, and then prep for
(21:57):
the Games and going to the Games. You know, I think that no
matter what, you win the lastchance qualifier, you're going into the Games
with a chip on your shoulder,you know. And that was always my
attention. Anyways, I know,I win the last qualifier, I'm gonna
go to the Olympics and win.You know, the last guy that won
the last chance qualifier, he tooksilver at the Olympics, you know.
So that's the best tournament, that'sthe best confidence spoo. So you could
(22:18):
have went into the Olympics outside ofwinning the World Championships or medalin at the
World Championships. So all right,well let me all right, let me
ask you this though. Is now, I'm gonna go ahead and I'm gonna
superimpose the fact that your lengthy resumeof experience plays a vital role in your
(22:45):
thought process. But it's like,okay, you came you came back for
Armed Forces, and it's not adiss or something to Air Force, but
but you know, you're right offjump I mean, you got Jammel,
who's solid opponent, but it's stillonly two matches you had at Armed Forces.
(23:10):
Now, granted you go to Croatia, and Croatia was I think super
important reset for you get a semblanceof feelback. Then you go to Trials
and you have six matches, right, Okay, Now next week, let's
say you're gonna need probably I wouldsay a minimum of four right, looking
(23:37):
at the format of the tournament andthe size of the bracket. Okay,
so that's twelve matches, right,we're talking about that you have under your
belt prior to Paris. So questionI posit to you is you're comfortable with
(24:00):
just look, thus far, eightof your matches have been domestic. Okay,
next week in Turkey, we're lookingat a minimum of four. And
(24:21):
so that's what I'm asking is like, Okay, like you're cool with only
having four matches against foreigners? Yeah, I think that for me? For
me, uh, the I thinkthe camps are bigger than the than the
actual competition, I think, anduh for me, wrestling with those guys
(24:48):
in the camps because you get waymore out of it, and then too,
you wrestle with those guys, theyget a feel for you, You
get a feel for them, andyou feel you know what you need.
And those guys are pretty heavy duringcamps, you know, so you don't
like if you get to wrestle withthem in camps, you know, I
think it's better than wrestling with themin competition, because once competition comes,
they're not the same. They're notthe same people. Man. They they're
(25:08):
smaller, they get tired quicker,you know. Yeah, and that's why
I think way more Yeah, thecamps are way more important. Yeah,
somebody, I think it might havebeen Robbie. I think it might have
been Robbie. Let's go ahead andsay it was Robbie. I don't remember
who it was. But last weeksomebody said to me that one thing you've
(25:29):
got, like, that's a realpotentially good arrow in your quiver. There
is that? Not these foreigners haven'tseen you in a while, right,
Yeah, And it's like you andyou and Alex are there. Those are
two very different looks, you know. Yeah. Yeah, and that's what
(25:52):
I kind of was baking on too. I know they haven't seen me in
a while, and those dudes don'tlike wrestling me. I know that for
sure. They don't like getting pummeledfrom fourteen different directions. They don't follow
your footwork all right. So Iwas saying no to the Olympic team training
(26:12):
plan. Yeah, I just it'sjust so much. It's so it's so
much more different for me the competitions. In the camps, my body gets
so even though camps something more expensive, you can control a little bit more
of what you do. But aftercompetition, my body's so beat up.
(26:33):
Man. And I want to beas fresh as possible for the games because
I don't know why. I feellike you can control yet there's more control
in camps and competition. I don'thave control over anything. I just go
hard, you know what I mean, And whatever happens happens. If I
split my eye, if I splitmy lip, if I've hurt something,
I heard it, you know,And I don't deal with that pain until
(26:56):
after the competition. And I'm like, damn, I feel like I got
hit by a truck, you know. Like in camps you can control that
a little bit. You know,you can reel yourself in if you need
to. Yeah, And I don'twant to be like I want to.
I want to try to have asmuch time as possible to between now and
then to get to get big andtry to put as much strength on as
(27:17):
possible if I could between uh nowin Tokyo, and I know that if
I'm going to these tournaments and I'mjust making scratchway, you know, all
the time, then I'm not gettingbigger. I'm staying the same size.
Hmmm. Yeah. Plus with yourmetabolism, if you were to super fall,
so even if you got off let'ssay you got up with a solid
(27:42):
few kilos, yeah, it's stillyeah, once it's time for you to
get you know, all thermal andwatch what you're doing, like it's just
gonna fly off you anyway. Yeah. And that's the thing too, I
don't know, I mean, lookat every body, like human body is
(28:03):
different. Everyone's different. And whathas guys get older, They'll a lot
of times go up, you know, they'll go up and wait, let's
say, but I'm also someone wholeans pretty heavily towards It actually becomes easier
for people, like weight management becomeseasier for people as they get older too,
(28:26):
because you're no longer fighting your body. Yeah, you're no longer fighting
growing, You're no longer Plus youalready have it clocked. You know exactly
what you're gonna do, you knowexactly how much you're gonna float, or
at least you have a pretty darngood idea. That doesn't mean every cut
is wonderful, but at the sametime, like there's at least an expectation
(28:48):
you can kind of you know,Whereas I think when you're late teens,
early twenties, it's, you know, can be terrible. I think when
you get a little older, it'syeah, you know, plus or mature.
Anyway, you're making better decisions withdieting and all that stuff too.
I mean, guys, I thinka lot of times go up just because
they're done dealing with it. Moreso than it's like a physical thing where
(29:14):
it's like, oh I can't doit anymore. No, it's more like
you don't feel like doing it anymore. It seems like anyway, that's ill
least that's how I've got odors.Okay, So here I know it.
We'll close with We'll close with Illinois. You want to talk Illinois? Yeah,
(29:36):
you talk anything, you know that? All right? So I found
it interesting Kamal didn't mention Powell byname, but both of you's in your
post Olympic trials, victories, interviews, slash press con conference or whatever you
(30:00):
want to call him. You obviously, I mean like you and Powell.
I think a lot of people,certainly all the people who you and I
have in common anyway, like weall likened you to Powell, like we
associate yous together. Anyhow, Sowhen you went and talked at length about
(30:22):
Powell, which was like I madesure I put that. I made sure
I put that in the you know, the article where I include everybody's you
know, whatever best quotes or whatever. It was like I thought it was
awesome. I thought it was like, I mean, I always love hearing
you talk about Powell and like hisimpact on your life and all that stuff.
And then I hadn't I was therewhen Kamal was doing his press scrum,
(30:48):
and I guess I didn't catch thispart, but then he talked about
oak Park and wrestling for oak Parkand all that, and it's like,
you know, if you think aboutit, it's like, Okay, you
got Joe, you and Camal comeout of this tournament. You had last
(31:15):
year, Zach Brounegele, you hadDanny Brounegle have himself like a couple of
really good tournaments, you know,December Nationals and obviously Olympic trialsy wrestled really
well and in the pantheon of theUnited States Greco Roman wrestling over the past.
(31:40):
Will say, I don't know,dude, whatever, past couple of
quads. I guess it's like allof these athletes, you're you're the leader
of the pack, but like allyou have, all these athletes have come
from, like the Powell Medlin connection. It's really astounding. Like we look
at Minnesota and Wisconsin as like ourbreeding ground, and you know, I
(32:07):
get why we do, I meanrightfully. So it's like I don't think
Medlin and Pawell get talked about enough. I mean, everybody respects both immensely,
for sure, but like, lookat this. It's crazy, man,
It's like Joe Row's not Joe Rowwithout those two, you know.
(32:32):
Coach Medland, Man, yes,I've missed. I wish I could be.
I could have been coached you know, uh longer by most guys,
you know, like coming up.I think I was grateful to have,
you know, Dennis Yvonne, youknow, the coaches that I have,
but I definitely wouldn't have mine havebeen coached Medland, you know longer,
(32:52):
because he definitely was in the stylelike they made me, you know,
they made me, and they nevertaken away from, you know, my
talent or or maybe fear, youknow, anything that I was good at,
you know, like maybe fear utilizingit or using it just because somebody
(33:14):
else is good at it, youknow what I mean, use what I
had and try to and only tryto get it make it better. Yeah,
you know, And that's a criticismof like our program in general and
has been we have to develop athleteslater here and we had you know,
and so that means you have tokind of start them from square one and
(33:36):
stuff. But you can't legislate theiruniqueness out of their styles either. Yeah.
I agree. They know how touse your strengths to like not just
wrestling strengths, but your strengths asan individual as a person. Like they
they're really good at understanding who youare, you know, as a person
as well as an athlete. Everypeople. I believe that every single athlete
(33:59):
that they coach, I guarantee youevery single at one of us, like
all these guys we talked about thatare on their teams and that were dominant.
Illinois got every single one of usthat you coach, they have a
story that they can tell you aboutus, like a person, every single
one of us, multiple stories.See, that's a really important thing to
say about somebody who's a coach becauseit shows how much care and attention and
stuff they invested in you. Yeah, I don't know when you get when
(34:22):
you get so high up, youknow everything you know a lot of things
like become business. You know,a lot of things will come business because
I mean this is our jobs aresome other people's jobs, you know,
rely on results. You know ofUS USA Wrestling, some jobs they're rely
on results of the athletes, youknow what I mean. Like so everything
is results oriented, you know,but something from where they're coming from.
(34:43):
We're still young men and we're goingyou know, and they grow a bond
with us, and they care aboutthe athletes as people. You know.
I think that's kind of difficult whenyou get to the senior level because a
lot of it is a lot ofjobs do rely on what you're producing.
I mean, that's how we whenit gets to that level professional Olympic level,
(35:04):
a lot of that stuff relies ongiving results and what are you bringing
back? You know, that's howcoaches and NFL, NBA ke did jobs.
You know, how are you producing? What are you producing? You
know what I mean? So itshut that it works like that, but
what he dies through? Yeah,but that's what also makes it great too,
because it's survival of fitness. Thisis this is it's a results oriented
business, That's what it is.But at the same juncture, it's within
(35:30):
that that pressure kicker where you findthe most meaningful relationships a lot of times
too, What is it like beingcoached by Spencer? Like? How was
Spencer to you as a coach,especially given the fact that you know,
(35:50):
you and him were athletes together andyou know, world teammates and Olympic teammates
and stuff together. Like, what'sit like being coached by someone who you
knew super super super well as ateammate. Uh, it's different because because
(36:14):
I saw a child like as acoach, and I saw him as like
kind of like a spot figure,right and Medlin's you know, same thing.
You know, I had crazy relationshipwith them. I was friends with
Spencer first, you know, andwe competed together. We were teammates first,
you know. So and now I'mI'm an adult, you know,
and and Spencer was my coach.But the thing about answered that helps me
(36:38):
out a lot with my with mycompeting, and my competition is entered.
I know Spencer didn't count on melike, he doesn't treat like essentially,
he doesn't treat me like an athletelike, oh, I need to tell
him to do this and do that, Like he gives me full range and
control of my he knows I knowwhat I'm doing, you know what I
(37:00):
mean? And he there's no effbecause you can't have a coach. You
can't be have somebody in your cornerwho has doubts right, or you can't
have somebody in your corner who hasyou know, who's project projecting that feelings
or their emotions on you as anathlete, like if it's terrible, you
know it will hurt, hinder you, and hurt you as an athlete.
And it makes me so even moreconfident that I know Spencer. He knows
(37:22):
he can kind the in he canallow me to take care of what I
need to take care of and toreally like outside of him helping me out
with techniques and give me advice,you know, on certain things that I
need to work on that I'm goodat, or maybe weaknesses that I can
fix a little bit. The confidencethat he has in me gives me more
confidence in myself so much more.And it's like even when we're talking about
(37:45):
stuff, you know, and he'slike, no, I already know I
can. I already know you're gonnaget this done or you're gonna do this
and do that, And that justgives me more like let me know,
you know, like keep stay shrun, keep utilizing what you're good at,
keep utilizing your strength. Your coachknow the tree, get at these things,
and there's no doubt in his mindthat you're gonna get things done.
Then, like I know who Iam. I'm more confident who I am
(38:07):
as an athlete, who I amas a Greco Roman wrestler. He trusts
you, yes, exactly, hetrusts me, and I trust Spencer because
I mean, obviously, I thinkSpencer has much more knowledge than me when
it comes to techniques and you know, uh, game planning and stuff like
(38:27):
that, because I'm I'm a hardnosed guy, like I'm all physical to
flow, like find a way tomake it work type of guy, you
know, and Spencer I know thatI can rely on him to the outside
of me going as hard as Icame to me trying to break this guy,
or me trying to fight to thevery end. If there's an adjustment
that needs to be made, Spencer, he'll be able to see that.
You know, I'm gonna do mypart in in going out there and competing
(38:51):
to the best of my ability whateveradjustments there, I can count on him.
I trust him with that because Iknow that he's good at that right
and he knows that I'm gonna takecare of my part. Not to sound
cliche about but like he knows howyour mind works, Yeah, Like he
probably knows exactly how you're thinking,Like he probably has like a sense of
(39:13):
how you're seeing something. And healso knows that you know how to deal
with your body, push the paceand be intense and practice and kill it
and when to be like, Okay, we need to kind of come down
a little bit here. Yeah,And I know it's like that for we
kind of come from the same editor. Yeah, me and Spencer kind of
(39:34):
come from the same era though too, Like we wrestled with Pray under Fraser
and under the grind matches went underthe Like I'm not saying that the new
the new era kids are stopping anythinglike that, but like it was a
little bit more hard nose for us, you know, like things are different.
You know, like there's no inmy mindset, I've watched a lot
of videos and seen a lot ofstuff on social media, uh these past
(39:59):
few years for kids to like manlike breath cost me this match or this
could have been done and this calldidn't get called, you know, but
like in my mind like that thosethings happen, right, you know,
there's certain obvious reasons where people getcheated and obvious like blatant you know,
arbitration with the rest, like themmessing up matches and stuff like that.
(40:20):
But you always have an opportunity towin, you know, like if you
really doing everything in and you're findinga way to win and they cheat you,
then that's one thing. But likea couple of points or a point
there, or a caution here,a caution error, you go down if
they call you down when you thoughtyou were lest on as hard as you
can and you still defend, right, you still have an opportunity to defend
even though they called you down andthey didn't get you that call. Even
(40:43):
though they didn't call that guy down, and you think you deserve that,
you still have an opportunity to pushthem out of bounds to score, you
know. And we kind of hadthat mindset, man stuncer. That's how
it was when we were coming up, all right, And that was,
of course, the one and onlyEllis Coleman, who on May nine will
(41:09):
compete at the World Olympic Games qualifierin Istanbul, Turkey, alongside Army team
mate Dalton Roberts and Kamal Bay.And you know what, just take a
little sidebar here, sidebar editorial,verbal editorial. And there are some who
(41:30):
are going to hear this and they'regoing to laugh because this conversation has had
the Olympic Trials. But let's getclear, Okay, let's get clear,
meaning, let's be clear about something. If you win the United States Olympic
Trials, you have made the UnitedStates Olympic team. I'll repeat, if
(41:54):
you have won the United States OlympicTrials, you have made the United States
Olympic team. And why do Isay this? Why do I say this?
Because you'd think it's just self evident, but long time ago, well
relatively a long time ago, yearsago, early days of five point Move,
(42:19):
I had put a blurb blurb aboutan athlete for an upcoming piece and
mentioned that he was an Olympic teammember or a previous Olympic team member,
and another athlete who had recently steppedaway from competition terrific athlete direct messaged.
(42:44):
I was about to say private message, but direct messaged me that technically you're
non Olympic team member unless you wrestlein the Olympics, which is well,
just blatantly incorrect. You want togo ahead and say that you are not
an Olympian unless you wrestle in theOlympics, You're not going to get an
(43:05):
argument out of me. But ifyou've won the Olympic trials, you've made
the Olympic team, just like ifyou've won the World team trials, you've
made the world team. It's notdifficult to understand here, and I don't,
for the life of me, Idon't get why anyone would want to
take that away from an athlete,especially another athlete with whom you were contemporaries.
(43:35):
I don't get. And then youknow what, the gentleman in question,
he's not the only one who's everquibbled about this, which is just
I don't know, it's ridiculous.But either way, if you've won the
Olympic Trials, you've made the Olympicteam. Now, sometimes we massage that
language in literature. I'm five pointanyway, Sometimes we'll write Olympic Trials champion
(43:57):
or something just for specificic But eitherway, you've won the Olympic Trials,
you've made the Olympic team. Doesit mean you get to wrestling the Olympics,
Well, we're gonna find out,Okay, I mean, well,
this system has been in place fora long time. But regarding the three
(44:19):
gentlemen in question, that is Dalton, Roberts, Alis Coleman and camal Bay,
we're gonna find out this week,and very strong cases could be made
for all three. And yeah,okay, there's a tinge of American bias
perhaps, but not really. Imean, one of the top guys in
Dalton Roberts weight classes, Ramzan,are not from Romania and Dalton already beat
him. And when Dalton beat him, which was January of twenty twenty three
(44:42):
in Zagreb, Dalt had popped ariver too in the first period of that
match. Still finished the match,and in the next round would have had
Edmunds and Nazarian. Nazarian from Bulgaria, son of in my opinion, the
best Grec of Roman Fleet ever,which is Armani Isarian. I was really
looking forward to that match. Didn'thappen, and that's how it went.
(45:07):
I remember Spencer Thomas Mango texted methat Dalton was not going to be able
to wrestle in his Aarian because hewas defaulting out of the tournament because they're
ribs, and Dalton has compete againstthe fair number of these top guys who
were in his bracket, at leastseveral of them, and none of these
guys are going to want to wrestleDalton Roberts, and they're certainly not going
(45:30):
to want to have to deal withhim in the second period. So Kamal
is actually more academic than either Ellisor Dalton, if only because Kamal has
recently wrestled a lot of the topguys in his own brackets, either beating
him or been pretty darn close tohim. Ellis I think this was mentioned
in this segment, but Robbie Smithhad made the point to me shortly after
(45:52):
the Olympic Trials that Ellis has somethingworking in his favor, and that is
Yeah, these guys haven't seen himin a while. Prior to the twenty
twenty four Olympic Trials. The lastbig tournament Ellis was in was the two
thousand and twenty Olympic Trials, whichwas April of twenty twenty one. Ellis
hadn't competed overseas since I think thetwenty nineteen Military Worlds, which came about
(46:16):
a month and change or so aftermaybe even less a month or so after
the twenty nineteen Senior Worlds in Kazakhstan, so they haven't seen him in a
while. And Ellis and Sancho aretwo different looks, very different looks.
There's some similarities, but they're differentlooks. And yeah, Ellis was world
(46:43):
caliber before his two year forced hiatus, so that hasn't changed. Clearly hasn't
changed. I mean, guy hadn'twrestled in a major tournament. Came back
in February for crying out loud,wrestled two matches at Armed Forces, one
of which came again against Jammel Johnsonright off the bat actually, which is
not an easy assignment. And thatwas a tough match for Ellis, and
(47:07):
then he went to Croatia a fewweeks later to kind of get reset and
get some feel back, and thena few weeks after that he goes to
the Olympic Trials and every opponent hehad in that tournament was absolutely stellar.
So that's what we're looking at.Okay, I'm not adding a bunch,
(47:29):
you know what. I'm not addinga bunch. I want to get this
out if I can. So let'sjust move on and the next episode will
try to play some ketchup and withit being an Olympic season, we're going
to start pumping out some more ofthese social media concerns. Social media concerns.
To follow Ellis Coleman, you cando so on Instagram at the Flying
(47:54):
Squirrel. Okay, so that's creativespelling. Here a f L Y I
N s q U I r rE L the Fly and Squirrel Ellis Coleman,
and follow Denisall. You can doso on Twitter, insert lame joke
(48:19):
at Dennisall w g W or Instagramat World Gold Wrestling. And for USA
Greco Roman news and athlete perspectives,please go to five point dot com and
as always, follow along on Twitterat five the number five e T.
That's it for episode fifty A.Everybody, thanks for listening and we'll see
you soon.
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