October 28, 2009

We’re now halfway into week three for the 2009-10 season.

Last week was good in terms of the work that took place and the accompanying growth from our team. Guys grew and developed in many areas such as better finishes to leg attacks, stronger conditioning, finding they have another gear or more, etc. So a lot of positive growth is taking place with our student-athletes as a whole.

Last Friday night we all stayed after practice to eat some pizza as a team and watch the documentary on Central Michigan Wrestling called “It’s not Wrestling Season, It’s a Lifestyle." It was a fun way to keep the guys together, eat a team meal and see what other programs are doing. CMU is a Division I program, but we saw many parallels between what they are doing and what we’re going to do. Coach Tom Borelli has worked hard to “change the culture” at CMU over the past decade and built the program from a conference basement dweller into a regular among the NCAA Top 10. He and his staff have had to push their student-athletes to change their mind set and expect more from themselves, their teammates and their program. As they have done that, raised their commitment level and work habits, great things have happened. We are doing much of the same here at UW-Oshkosh, the team is responding well to it, and I am excited to say that great things are on the horizon with this current group.

Saturday morning we had a very short, yet intense hour long practice. There was great effort from our entire team. The mats were literally soaked and slippery from the amount of sweat the guys poured out. It got so hot and humid in our wrestling room that the posters, goal sheets, etc. that were taped to the wall fell off and wouldn’t re-stick due to the moisture. When the walls are wet from all the sweat in the air, you know the team is “getting after it.” I was really proud of them that day.

This week we are working on fundamental bottom technique such as stand-ups, knee slide, base maintenance, base recovery, etc. In college wrestling, it’s critical to our success that we are able to take down anybody and escape from everybody. I can think of two matches from the NCAA finals last season that came down to guys being ridden out. Although that is a credit to the two guys who rode their way to NCAA titles, it certainly let’s you know how important getting off the bottom can be. You can NEVER work enough stand ups, leg counters, etc. in college wrestling.

Unfortunately we have had a little bit of a flu bug working through our team so some guys have been out sick and just when they get back, a couple more start feeling run down and need to step away to get better. We’re hoping that since it’s happening in the early part of our season, the team will have strengthened their immune system and we won’t have too much of that stuff going on during the heart of our season. Guess I’ll wait and see what the plan is for us as the season goes on.

Thanks for taking the time to read this. Next week we have some preliminary wrestle-offs and the Black and Gold meet on November 7. I’ll post the match-ups and results so please stay tuned!

October 19, 2009

From Kyle Kleuskens (Jr. • Freedom)

We just completed our first week of the 2009-2010 wrestling season and everything is going great so far. Our program is continually evolving and improving each and every year and the environment we are surrounded in is incredibly different from just 3 years ago when I was a freshman.

Coach DeRoehn has done an outstanding job recruiting and filling up our wrestling room with talented and hard working individuals. It is wonderful to walk into the room each day and be able to workout with 10 or more guys around my weight class instead of just being able to workout with 2 or 3 guys.

Our team has almost all of the guys who were not seniors last year returning to the team, and we have added many talented individuals who were recruited or transferred. Many of the weight classes on our team will be very competitive as many weights have 4 or more individuals competing.

As for our workouts last week we have gotten off to a great start. We are lifting at 6:15 a.m. on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. At this point in the season we are not lifting just to maintain strength, but we are working hard to build strength. In the wrestling room we have been starting with perfecting the basics instead of flying into more advanced things. Coach is doing a great job by making us focus on the most important areas of wrestling such as always staying in a low stance, keeping constant pressure on our opponents with a arsenal of different set-ups, and by getting our body in deep on shots. Coach’s strategy starting with the basics and slowly building up makes perfect sense, because we need to perfect the basics before we start working on more advanced techniques.

We also have bonded together as a team this week. On Friday and Saturday we were privileged to workout at Ben Peterson's facility in Juneau known as the Camp of Champs. This experience was not only a great training opportunity to learn from an Olympic Champion but it was also a great chance for our team to bond. At camp our teammates got to know each other better. As a team, we worked through a lot of cooperative activities in which we needed to rely on our teammates to reach the goal of the activity. After a tough morning workout on Saturday our team sat down to set our major goals for the season as well as what steps we are going to take to reach those goals. Many of the team members chimed in to give “their two cents” which was great to see that we were all in this together instead of a few guys setting the goals

I think things are only looking up for the UW Oshkosh Wrestling program. We have a large team that is willing to work together to reach both our team goals and individual goals this year. I am excited to train hard and start competing and so are the rest of the guys!

October 14, 2009

We’re half-way through our first week of practice and SO FAR SO GOOD! Lots of fun having so many guys in the wrestling room. The talent level from top to bottom is noticeably increased from last year. It’s certainly nice to have a room full of talented student-athletes. What’s even better is these guys combine great attitude, effort and work ethic with their talent. It’s more fun from a coaching standpoint to be able to teach technique and the student-athletes are able to “just do it” right away. That could be a sign of great things to come this season. As I’ve said before, it’s easier to go higher when you start higher. Hopefully these early season practices are indication of where we are headed. Only time will tell.

Right now we’re focusing on controlling our own bodies through the 7 basic skills and working on fundamental leg attacks. This weekend we’ll head off to the Camp of Champs Facility to learn from Olympic Champion Ben Peterson. Obviously we have great respect for Ben and seek to “immerse ourselves in wrestling” this weekend to soak up as much as we can from one of the true legends in our sport. This will serve as our second annual “team retreat” where we can get away from campus, get to know each other on another level, build team relationships while training with an Olympic Champion. I’ve learned over time how much more important it is to focus on motivation and inspiration instead of solely perspiration this early in the season. Taking advantage of opportunities like this will allow that to happen.

We’ll see about posting a few pictures after we get back. Thanks for reading.

October 4, 2009

Welcome to the New Season!

Wow...it's hard to believe that we're already back here ready to start the new season. The beginning of the school year is always a lot of fun. The freshman are wide-eyed and anxious while the sophomores have gained a sense of confidence in just a year. The juniors and seniors really know what to expect and take on the leadership role. We have assembled a great mix of all of these various classes with the intention of becoming one strong FIST.

There are four stages to team-building. Forming, Storming, Norming, and Performing. Obviously we have just started our new school year a few weeks ago and our team is in the Forming stage. Over the course of the pre-season the team does voluntary conditioning workouts as a group. This is a chance to get to know each other a little bit while getting physically ready for the season. We've also had a team cookout and will soon take our second annual Team Retreat. This is all part of the strong team bond we try to create here. We want all of our guys to feel welcome, whether they are a new freshman, a transfer and even guys who've been around for 3 years already. WE are a team. Plain and simple. We win and lose together. Therefore it's important that we FORM a family type atmosphere and make sure each member of our team knows that the coaching staff and their teammates are there to support and encourage each other.

We've had everybody go through their hydration testing already and our numbers are really strong. We brought in another solid recruiting class with a total of 16 newcomers. One of our biggest additions is that of transfer Sam Laes. Sam was an NCAA Qualifier who was only one win away from earning NCAA All-American honors last season. Unfortunately Lawrence University dropped their program leaving him without a team heading into his senior year. He will fit right in and wrestle off for a spot at 184 this season. Our goal is to help Sam earn a degree he can use after graduation and do our very best in helping him reach his potential as a wrestler. He is very gifted and we feel that we can provide him with a positive training environment (training partners, coaching, strength/conditioning, mental prep, etc.) that will make that goal a reality. Training with our other NCAA Qualifier Sam Engelland at 174 will also be a big boost to both young men.

I will soon post a pre-season roster with all of the new guys and all of our returners. The biggest thing I'm excited about is the fact that we return so many guys from last year. One of the areas of weakness we've had here is being able to "just know" that certain guys would be returning. I think this is a key aspect in building a top-flight program. If you take a look at teams like UW-La Crosse and UW-Stevens Point, they have many guys who enter the line-up and then stay there for 3-4 years. As they grow and develop into champions, so does the team. Since we are shooting to eventually become WIAC and NCAA Champions, this is a must! We return 9 of 10 wrestlers from our WIAC tournament team last year so this is a big step in the right direction. The lone weight class that was left open is 184, which could be filled by Laes or one of our other tough young guys like Matt Halpert.

Too early to make any line-up predictions but that stuff will always shake itself out. We're just under two weeks away from starting official practices and I already can't sleep at night. Too excited!!

I'll see about having one of our team leaders post an update on pre-season conditioning for next week's update.

Can't wait to get started. Thanks for reading!