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- Thread starter Have Gun - Will Travel
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If anyone questions how important financial support is in terms of wrestling, what seems to be lost in the discussion is the recent impact of the regional training centers and the impact they are having on who wins the national championship. For the past number of years Penn State has pulled in an inordinate amount of top level recruits. They could have easily finished last year with 6 national champions had the 125lber not gotten hurt.. There has also been an inordinate about of AA's and even a national champion that have transferred into programs with a large RTC. Strange that these programs seem to be able to find scholarship money or are these kids transferring knowing that they will have a bigger bill to foot once they finish in exchange for a better chance at a National title? FLO has brought up the fact that "the rumor is" that these schools are getting kids to sign for little upfront scholarship in exchange for a promise of a "job" with the RTC once they are finished with their eligibility .. a "job" that will pay enough to cover the balance of whatever school bills remain.. If this is the game that is being played, I guess if us Cowboy fans want a shot at a title we need to dig deeper into our pockets and support the RTC Stillwater..Im fine with that..
Did u know that Paladin’s actual holster with the chess piece logo is in the OKC Western Museum?
I'd say it's a little more like we brought a bag of rocks to an Iowa & Ohio St knife fight and then Penn State showed up with a machine gun. PSU received a 5 million donation from a single anonymous donor, effectively endowing their RTC.
A key for us will be placing people on World teams and taking home medals. Hopefully Alex and Daton can lead the way and that helps inspire fundraising efforts.
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I read an interesting thread on the Iowa board that might help provide a little context on the RTC $ topic. Sorry for the long post, here goes...
Their operating budget last year was $360K. That allowed them to hire Mark Perry and bring in additional post grads to train and compete. One of those post grads was Jessie Delgado, who chose their RTC over ours (although he may have since left Iowa). Anyway, that $360K funded guys like Gilman, Burak, Telford, Chris & Nick Dardanes, Novachkov and others. It effectively provided training partners for all 10 weights for their college guys. They raised $150K of that $360K from contributions made directly by their fans/posters on the wrestling board. This coming year they are targeting an operating budget of $550K (a 50% increase) with $225K of that raised by fans on the wrestling board. The higher budget will allow them to hire additional RTC coaches and athletes. One of those athletes is supposedly Imar, who could rejoin Mark Perry after he graduates. That would essentially provide an elite training partner for Kemmerer and Marinelli. Long term, their goal is an annual operating budget of $2MM.
Finally, as a reminder, PSU has $6MM stockpiled, separate from whatever they raise on a yearly basis for their budget.
Their operating budget last year was $360K. That allowed them to hire Mark Perry and bring in additional post grads to train and compete. One of those post grads was Jessie Delgado, who chose their RTC over ours (although he may have since left Iowa). Anyway, that $360K funded guys like Gilman, Burak, Telford, Chris & Nick Dardanes, Novachkov and others. It effectively provided training partners for all 10 weights for their college guys. They raised $150K of that $360K from contributions made directly by their fans/posters on the wrestling board. This coming year they are targeting an operating budget of $550K (a 50% increase) with $225K of that raised by fans on the wrestling board. The higher budget will allow them to hire additional RTC coaches and athletes. One of those athletes is supposedly Imar, who could rejoin Mark Perry after he graduates. That would essentially provide an elite training partner for Kemmerer and Marinelli. Long term, their goal is an annual operating budget of $2MM.
Finally, as a reminder, PSU has $6MM stockpiled, separate from whatever they raise on a yearly basis for their budget.
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Nobody likes to hear someone talk about a problem (challenge) without having any ideas about a solution. So how about this...the smaller budget programs are creating RTC partnerships to share resources. For example, Kendall runs a joint NY/NJ RTC. Would this work for us?
It would have to be another Titan Mercury club. It would have to be in a different conference and it should ideally be close by (unfortunately it won't be). Maybe it's not perfect, but how about a joint venture with a Missouri, Wisconsin or Campbell? Let's say it's Missouri - Alex could travel there every 5-6 weeks and train with their middleweights (Lewis) for a week and J'Den could come to Stillwater every 5-6 weeks to work out with our upperweights (Preston, Derek) for a week. This way each school only needs to fund 3-5 senior level athletes instead of a dozen. What do you think?
It would have to be another Titan Mercury club. It would have to be in a different conference and it should ideally be close by (unfortunately it won't be). Maybe it's not perfect, but how about a joint venture with a Missouri, Wisconsin or Campbell? Let's say it's Missouri - Alex could travel there every 5-6 weeks and train with their middleweights (Lewis) for a week and J'Den could come to Stillwater every 5-6 weeks to work out with our upperweights (Preston, Derek) for a week. This way each school only needs to fund 3-5 senior level athletes instead of a dozen. What do you think?
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I think we need someone involved with the RTC who excels and specializes in fund raising. With the national profile of the program, its history and the number of high profile alums you would think we could make a strong fund raising push.
Thanks for the article Pokes2010. It does mention that Derek Fix is now the coach of the Cowboy Wrestling club. This is his first year or really the first few months of being on the job. Knowing Derek I am certain that in the near future much more will be done to implement this club. He is a man of action and has great public relations skills. I look for great things in the future from the club. We are definitely behind the top schools and we have a huge gap to overcome. I believe RTC's are vital to the success of OK State wrestling in the future. The article is very informative and points out this problem.
1) I'm not Seth if anyone was wondering. But Seth, if you are reading this, nice job with the various articles. Would love it if you could join this forum and post occasionally to help stimulate discussion.
2) Warning - rant coming, stop reading here. Seriously, you should stop.
The RTC topic is a pet peeve of mine and I just don't share Obe's optimism. Unless there are 2 hour planning sessions taking place or late night phone calls happening with Boone Pickens, I don't see any signs of a RTC strategy. What I see is a RTC twitter account that is dormant since a tweet about a HS folkstyle tournament. RTCs are about freestyle and greco, not folkstyle. Where are the updates on Alex (our only senior level athlete) over the past 6 months? Maybe some HS kids interested in attending OSU are wondering about our Hodge winner. Ok, maybe we are just clueless when it comes to twitter, certainly a possibility. But I also see a Cowboy - JO - heading to Cornell to compete and to train with Vito and Yianni rather than Daton and Kaden. That matters. For their development and for future recruiting. Heck, Iowa could pass on targeting Imar and offer Alex big money to go to Iowa City next year. What would/could we do about it? That matters too.
Earlier in this thread I offered up the idea of creating a RTC partnership, which did not get any traction. I just hope our staff is working on developing some kind of long term strategy. Or that we are on the verge of a major cash donation. The college landscape has shifted. Adapt or become extinct. End rant.
2) Warning - rant coming, stop reading here. Seriously, you should stop.
The RTC topic is a pet peeve of mine and I just don't share Obe's optimism. Unless there are 2 hour planning sessions taking place or late night phone calls happening with Boone Pickens, I don't see any signs of a RTC strategy. What I see is a RTC twitter account that is dormant since a tweet about a HS folkstyle tournament. RTCs are about freestyle and greco, not folkstyle. Where are the updates on Alex (our only senior level athlete) over the past 6 months? Maybe some HS kids interested in attending OSU are wondering about our Hodge winner. Ok, maybe we are just clueless when it comes to twitter, certainly a possibility. But I also see a Cowboy - JO - heading to Cornell to compete and to train with Vito and Yianni rather than Daton and Kaden. That matters. For their development and for future recruiting. Heck, Iowa could pass on targeting Imar and offer Alex big money to go to Iowa City next year. What would/could we do about it? That matters too.
Earlier in this thread I offered up the idea of creating a RTC partnership, which did not get any traction. I just hope our staff is working on developing some kind of long term strategy. Or that we are on the verge of a major cash donation. The college landscape has shifted. Adapt or become extinct. End rant.
Coach Smith was the greatest wrestler in USA history, he is a very good coach, but it appears he is years behind Penn. St. in managing the wrestling program. I have never understood how we were number 1 for 4 years and a year or 2 later we had I believe 1 all American (Rosholt) at Nationals. I wonder if coach Smith coaching the national women's team and other decisions has hurt cowboy wrestling. I hope that we catch up but Oklahoma State University and Coach Smith will need to make big changes. We had a nice plan with loading up Stillwater high with great prospects to come wrestle with us but it may not pay off with number 35. This is not meant to be a put down for Coach Smith because I am already concerned what will happen when he leaves the Head Coaching position but we have been left behind.
My greatest fear after Coach Smith leaves is that we will become OU. Na, we can't drop that far can we. That is for Micco Macey (poor guy is an OU wrestling fan).
Thanks Harley. This post might give me nightmares now.
And yes, that's supposed to be humorous.
Micco Macy is waiting for the OU wrestling club under Coach Eric Guerrero to blossom. Wrassler 17 I appreciate the rant even if you disagree but Rome was not built in a day and I say we have to give it time under a new coach. Frankly, I believe Derek and most probably Daton Fix will be the biggest recruiters to the club as both have many years experience and numerous friendships with freestyle wrestlers all over the country. Freestyle is going to be what attracts great high school wrestlers as they want to wrestle at a program that has produced National, world and Olympic champions.
I admire your optimism Obe, I really do. And I'm not trying to place any blame with Derek or the other coaches. I'm sure they want to win more than any of us. Just watch and listen to coach Smith on the sideline during a match, the competitive spirit and passion is evident.
I'm also a NY Yankees fan. That's 27 championships there plus 34 Cowboy titles, not bad huh? The Yankees were a part of my family long before I knew what a takedown was or who John Smith was. Before the luxury tax, they could obviously spend more than other teams and buy free agents. I was never a big fan of that approach and preferred watching a home grown player develop and succeed. To me, the RTC situation is somewhat similar. While we are certainly not destitute compared to many programs, it's clear that the top ones have significantly more money. If we can't raise the funds then we need to operate like the Oakland A's in Moneyball. If you can't outspend the competition, you need to outsmart them. Just my 2 cents. I do hope I'm wrong and you are right though.
I think you have good points. The next question is what do we do to raise funds to help? How do we get more people involved? I can try to find out from Derek or John where the starting point is, and we can work from there. If we have $50 from 5000 people, that would be a start!
Fans will say we are preparing for March but I don't believe you can have these poor performances at duals that we have been having for years. These duals especially home duals are important if we are to ever build the fan base versus a dwindling fan base. To work the wrestlers where our wrestlers seem slow and lack conditioning is destructive. I love wrestling but I don't enjoy watching fair to middling wrestling. It is unbelievable the percentage we get upsets in our matches versus how often we are upset in our matches. In duals I don't remember 1 big upset for us. That is unbelievable. To change the topic 2020 is a big recruiting for us. Plott from Oklahoma, Ferarri from Texas, Vasquez from California have been mentioned in pistol Pete articles. Surber from Oklahoma and I really like Bartlett from Penn. There does not appear to be any new 2018 recruits that will be significant. We need to get a couple of blue chips from 2019 besides the HWT from Minnesota. We need to recruit better, the type of wrestlers that even casual fans will love to watch like we had in the early to mid 2000's.
That's what's the most mind blowing thing to me about it all. I think most are in agreement that this is important and something fans can easily get behind the development of, but they don't even have a website where you can go donate! I'm sure you could get some OSU students to slap something pretty simple for them together, then pump it out on social media, but you can't find anything anywhere on it.
I'm good with that. But would we really be able to get 5,000 donations? That's more than most duals and it would total $250,000. Didn't Iowa only raise $150,000 on their board with a larger fan base?
Let me start with a disclaimer here. I don't presume to know what anyone can or wants to do with their time and money. That said, I read the Iowa board and I know you do also. They've done a great job raising $ for their RTC through grassroots efforts. I think they just raised another $180,000 with their polar plunge. They have some kind of committee that generates fund raising ideas and events. One was a raffle for dinner with Tom Brands.
Thinking along those lines, how about we raffle off lunch with John, followed by a personalized tour of the HOF and signed memorabilia?
Or how about we draw on celebrity alumni power and raffle off (to all wrestling fans, even Oklahoma and Iowa) something like:
Front row tickets to a DC fight at an upcoming UFC event
A golf lesson or a round of golf with Rickie Fowler
Back stage passes to a Garth Brooks concert
Ok, maybe some of these aren't possible. The point is teams are being creative with how they raise $ and organize their RTC. I just hope we are as well. In the meantime, put me down for $50 to our RTC.
That’s a loooooooong way to drop, currently. I wouldn’t wish that on a broke dick dog.
But while I’m not pleased with where we currently are, I like our future potential.
In the last two classes, we’ve pulled in:
2017
Dom Demas -149: Two-time Ohio State Champion ... Three-time finalist at Ohio State Championships ... Four-time placer at state championships ... Cadet Greco Roman World-Team Member.
Tanner Litterell - 149: Four-time Oklahoma State Champion ... Three-time NHSCA Champion.
Kyle Lawson - 157: Three-time Ohio State Champion ... Two-time Ironman placer.
Anthony Montanano - 174: 2017 California State Champion ... Placed two other times in California State Championships, including a runner-up finish to current OU teammate Jeremy Thomas in 2016 ... Junior Greco Roman Champion ... 2016 FloNationals Champion.
Jake Boyd - -197: Two-time Missouri State Champion (2016, 2017) ... Placed third in the 2015 Missouri State Championship ... Fargo Cadet National Champion.
Jake Woodley - 197: Three-time Fargo All-American ... Two-time Pennsylvania State Champion ... Ranked No. 11 at 195 pounds by Flo ... No. 70 overall recruit in the class of 2017.
All these guys are redshirting. Our 184 (Waddell) and our HWT (Webb) are our only two that are not redshirting.
2018
Tommy Hoskins - 125: 3X Ohio state champion...Ranked No. 3 at 120 pounds by InterMat...Ranked No. 46 overall.
Anthony Madrigal - 141: 2X Illinois State Runner-up...2015 Fargo All-American...Third-place finisher at the 2016 Walsh Ironman...Ranked No. 2 at 138 pounds by InterMat...Ranked No. 30 overall in the class of 2018 by InterMat
Jaryn Curry - 165: 2X Oklahoma state champion...Ranked No. 12 at 170 pounds by InterMat...Ranked No. 91 overall.
Josiah Jones - 220: 2X PA State Runner-up...Ranked No. 5 at 220 pounds by InterMat...Ranked No. 52 overall in the class of 2018.
So I like where we're heading. It's a step up from where we were (and currently are).
Yep. They work pretty hard at it, and I kinda give them a hard time, but have to give them Kudo's too. I like the ideas you put down, as things that need to be tried. Most of them would not cost much, as I am sure DC, Rickie, Garth and John would all be amenable to making sure they were available and use their tickets/passes to get it done.
Those Bios sound similar to the HS resumes of Davion Jeffries, Mike Longo, Jake Rubio, Andrew Dixon, and Christian Moody. It's all the same. Plain and simple they aren't developing wrestlers. From what I gather on the interwebs Roselli and Dresser at ISU are great recruiters but aren't getting much respect in the room as head coaches. I do hope they can turn both programs around but I'm not holding my breath.
Just an FYI, but the RTC Twitter account has posted 3-4 times sense the article. May be pure coincidence, but it's something.
https://twitter.com/CowboyRTC
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