As I scroll through my LinkedIn and Facebook accounts I often
come across exceptional athletes who performed and excelled at the world level.
Many times these athletes are working in fields other than wrestling. As I am
one of those types of athletes (at least in Grappling/BJJ) I can understand the
desire to have a life outside of sport.
What I wonder is have these athletes ever been approached to be
coaches within the USAW system? For example, Lee Kemp, 3 time world champion (4
x medalist) 4 x World cup champion, he is still in the wrestling world but why
isn’t he coaching within the USAW system? What about 2 x world medalist Joe
Williams? Bruce Baumgartner? John Smith? I know Baumgartner and Smith are
coaching at the colleges but why not in the USAW system?
If I were someone in charge at USAW the first people I would hire
would be; 1- US Athletes who had won 2 or more medals in world or Olympic
competition 2- Foreign Athletes who had won 2 or more medals in world or
Olympic competition. Since Russia and other eastern bloc countries have several
of those in their system it couldn’t be that hard to hire some of them could
it? There’s gotta be someone out there with multiple medal wins willing to come
here and help out.
At one point Sergei Belaglozov was at the OTC in Colorado
Springs. While he was there the “establishment” really didn’t capitalize on his
knowledge or abilities. I wish I would have been more open in my own personal
approach. I should’ve begged him to train me, sadly I was a wanna-be Greco guy
looking right past a golden opportunity.
At the 2012 Olympics only those athletes that had their personal
coaches on hand at the Olympics actually won medals. Adam Wheeler had Ivan
Ivanov, Coleman Scott had John Smith, Jake Varner had Cael Sanderson, Jordan
Burroughs had Mark Manning. I’m not sure if anyone else saw this as a very
important part of the success of these athletes but I found it fascinating.
come across exceptional athletes who performed and excelled at the world level.
Many times these athletes are working in fields other than wrestling. As I am
one of those types of athletes (at least in Grappling/BJJ) I can understand the
desire to have a life outside of sport.
What I wonder is have these athletes ever been approached to be
coaches within the USAW system? For example, Lee Kemp, 3 time world champion (4
x medalist) 4 x World cup champion, he is still in the wrestling world but why
isn’t he coaching within the USAW system? What about 2 x world medalist Joe
Williams? Bruce Baumgartner? John Smith? I know Baumgartner and Smith are
coaching at the colleges but why not in the USAW system?
If I were someone in charge at USAW the first people I would hire
would be; 1- US Athletes who had won 2 or more medals in world or Olympic
competition 2- Foreign Athletes who had won 2 or more medals in world or
Olympic competition. Since Russia and other eastern bloc countries have several
of those in their system it couldn’t be that hard to hire some of them could
it? There’s gotta be someone out there with multiple medal wins willing to come
here and help out.
At one point Sergei Belaglozov was at the OTC in Colorado
Springs. While he was there the “establishment” really didn’t capitalize on his
knowledge or abilities. I wish I would have been more open in my own personal
approach. I should’ve begged him to train me, sadly I was a wanna-be Greco guy
looking right past a golden opportunity.
At the 2012 Olympics only those athletes that had their personal
coaches on hand at the Olympics actually won medals. Adam Wheeler had Ivan
Ivanov, Coleman Scott had John Smith, Jake Varner had Cael Sanderson, Jordan
Burroughs had Mark Manning. I’m not sure if anyone else saw this as a very
important part of the success of these athletes but I found it fascinating.
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