One more day to go

We’re in the arena and ready to begin our final day of competition.  We won one medal last night (Elena – bronze) and find ourselves in the top 3 as a team.  Japan has already secured another team title.  A solid finish today can leave us satisfied, however, as a program our expectations are high and we’ll be a little unsettled no matter what.

Sports teach us a lot about life and reveal a lot about ourselves.  Judging athletes on their performances alone often dehumanizes the effort and process that takes place to get to where they are.   Many things take place behind the scenes and these athletes cannot afford to take anything for granted.  Everyone dreams of enjoying a well-deserved and earned medal, however, few are willing to endure the adversity required to get to this place.  As always, there were plenty of bumps in the road for each athlete and watching them handle setbacks and learn from each experience is the most valuable piece of my involvement on the team.  Ironically, there are athletes who do everything absolutely right leading into this opportunity, yet fall short of their goals while some exceed expectations despite letting a few things slide along the way.   Either way, evaluating the outcome in relation to the process is where learning takes place.

The outcome of the event was less than desirable for Helen and Alli and they both felt the sting of defeat deep in their hearts.  There was a pile of setbacks for each of them that could have been used as an “out” several times during training camps and the tournament.  They likely would have been legitimate, too.  Neither of them did, though.  They fought to stay positive and sometimes became emotional, but they never shifted their focus and controlled what they could control.  They didn’t give themselves an out.  Both competed hard.

While debriefing with Helen, she shared her insights and what she learned from the week.  She impresses me in a brand new way each tournament no matter if it’s good or bad.  Her perspective on wrestling and life makes it easy to cheer for her and her ability to adapt, grow and learn is an inspiration to me.

Highs and Lows: Day 3 at the Worlds

Last night was one of those evenings that everyone experiences in high level competitive arenas.  The highs were high and the lows were low.  Dealing with the roller coaster of emotions is something you must learn to take in stride otherwise sports will eat you alive.

Team USA had an overall impressive performance on day 3 of the tournament finally winning some medals.  Jordan Burroughs won his third consecutive gold medal and improved his undefeated winning streak to 65 international matches.  Alyssa earned her second straight bronze medal and Vicki finished 5^th (in her first senior world championships up a weight class).  The results on paper don’t tell the entire story.

The 3^rd consecutive gold medal by Burroughs is one of the greatest feats in American wrestling history.  Knowing he did it on a broken ankle makes it legendary.  Rumors were flying over the past few weeks that he hurt his ankle during training, but no one knew how badly.  We did a short morning workout outside of the hotel and Burroughs’s fiancé hung around and watched.  She shared with us that Jordan had broken his ankle, had surgery on it and now has five screws and a plate.  She said it was a “God healing.”  Knowing this bit of information, it was plain for me to see that he adjusted his entire style throughout the day and turned out one of the guttiest performances I have ever seen.  The highs were really high.

And for the lows…Vicki finishing 5^th in the world is no small feat.  It’s a great accomplishment added to a lengthy resume.  With that said, it doesn’t feel right at the moment.  She was ahead 6-0 in the semi-finals and working towards securing a place in the championship finals, which would have guaranteed her no less than a silver medal, when one miniscule mental break turned into a catastrophe.  She was caught and pinned by her Mongolian opponent and knocked back into a 3^rd place bout and was defeated by a tough North Korean wrestler.  It was crushing and a $25,000 error (the Living the Dream medal fund awards $10,000 to US athletes who earn a bronze medal, $25,000 for silver and $50,000 for gold in non-Olympic years).  Ouch!

Today is a new day, though.  I’m sure there will be highs and lows; there always is.  It’s wrestling.  We have a great line-up competing on this, the fourth day of the event.  Helen Maroulis, Alli Ragan and Elena Pirozkova.  We’re “expecting great success” today – that’s how the Eastern Europeans say it in English.  Helen won a silver medal last year and Elena won a gold medal, so we have our strongest group on the mat.  Tomorrow we finish as a team with Veronica Carlson and Adeline Gray.

If you’ve read previous posts of mine, especially those from wrestling events, you know that Helen is near and dear to us.  She’s that once-in-a-lifetime athlete coaches talk about.  It happens to be her birthday, too.  Fittingly, she shares her special day with Isaiah, who turns 5 today.   What makes it great, though, is she knows it’s not her day.  It belongs to God.  ALL this for a KING! 

Women set to compete

It’s just after midnight on our third night in Budapest.  I just had some needed FaceTime with Liz and the boys and I’m retiring in my room with big hopes for tomorrow. 

Alyssa Lampe and Victoria Anthony compete tomorrow along with Jordan Burroughs.  There’s a realistic possibility for three gold medals.  Wouldn’t that be sweet?  Alyssa is currently ranked #1 in the world at 48 kg and Vicki is poised the shock the world at 51 kg.  Of course, Burroughs is on an undefeated international streak that has earned him a world gold medal and Olympic gold medal.  He’s the face of wrestling both in the US and globally.

My working relationship with Alyssa goes all the way back to my very first experience coaching female athletes.  She was a sophomore in high school when she ventured to River Falls for the first time.  It was the first girl’s team for both of us.   Two years later, she was the first athlete (male or female) to take advantage of opportunities offered at Victory School of Wrestling.  Immediately after graduating from high school, she occupied a spare bedroom in our house as we transformed the basement into a wrestling school.  She was there when we put the mats down.  She’s come a long ways since then and traveled hundreds of thousands of miles chasing her dream of becoming a world champion.  She won a bronze medal last year and has been on a mission this year, dominating opponents all over the world.  Tomorrow is her time.

Vicki is under the radar at 51 kg.  She won junior world titles at 44 kg and 48 kg.  She’s never weighed 51 kg before and was under weight all week while eating more than the rest of the team combined.  She’s a real wild card because the new rules play into her style perfectly.  She’s also short and extremely explosive, fast and powerful.  She has a wonderful draw on the top side of the bracket.  When she’s relaxed and having fun, she might be the best wrestler in the world at any weight class.  That’s no joke.  I love her potential as an athlete and wrestler, but I love her for who she’s become over the past few years while working alongside her.  I stumbled across Vicki when she was a junior in high school at a development camp in Chula Vista, CA.  She had all kinds of talent and separated herself from the rest with an intense focus and attention to detail.  She also challenged me to a little “dance-off.”  I recall it ended in a draw.  She joined NYAC and I became her personal coach.  She spent many nights in my basement over three years in between California, the OTC and Simon Fraser.  She even rented a house in River Falls one summer.  She’s been extraordinarily close to making the world team each of the past three years and now she’s here.  And she’s ready for this opportunity.

I’m going to bed tonight as eager as I’ve ever been as a member of Team USA.  We have a real chance to do something great as a team.  Alyssa and Vicki can set the tone for a week of success that we’ve been patiently waiting for and developing.  This team (and coaching staff) has been together at every age level and now it’s our time to shine on the international stage.  You reap what you sow.

#Budapest2013

Au revoir Paris!

Au revoir Paris!

We’re on to the next stage of our journey: Budapest.  We spent a few quality days in Paris at INSEP, France’s version of the Olympic Training Center.  It was an incredible complex with state-of-the-art facilities.  The wrestling room boasts six full-sized mats.  The wrestling area was close to 120’x80’ with a 3-tiered cement bleacher that was the length of the room.  Along one side of the room, on the second floor, was a glass wall.  Behind the windows housed the national team coaching staff.  The locker rooms were each fully equipped with a 12-man hot tub Jacuzzi and a sauna.  The same building had equally impressive accommodations for gymnastics, rhythmic gymnastics and weight lifting.  In an adjacent building, eight judo mats filled the largest judo room I’ve ever seen.  They also had a table tennis hall, indoor track, velodrome and much, much more.  They house full-time resident-athletes and have a university on location as well as a minor’s hall for teenagers.  We stayed in visiting dorms. 

The workouts were very light as we are now in a tapper mode of our final training cycle.  Attention to detail and timing is still important, however, the workout load is light and intensity remains high.  We’ll knock down the intensity now going into Budapest and the athletes will begin focusing on their mission to perform the best they can at the 2013 Senior World Championships.  #Budapest2013

With down time in our training at INSEP, we took the opportunity to go into the city for a little site seeing and power shopping.  Most of the athletes hit the main attractions – Eiffel Tour, l’Arc de Triomphe, Champs Elysee, Louvre, Notre Dame and Sacre de Coeur.  I ate at a quaint little fondue restaurant in the Latin Quarter the night before we left.  

Most of the athletes have been in Paris for a very short and concentrated duration without time for site seeing.  Leaving the City of Light (La Ville Lumière), many of them are eager to return to spend more time exploring their favorite spots.  After a few days in a city like Paris, you get to know the city and feel a connection to the culture.  There are endless exploration opportunities in one of the world's best cities.  By the time you leave, you finally understand the subway (Metro) and the layout of the city and cannot wait to go again.  I had been to Paris before, so I was able to quickly navigate our group around the city.  Moments like these I'm fortunate to have a history degree.

On the Budapest.  Go USA!

 

The end goal gets in the way of how we get there

Does it make me un-American to possess a strong distaste for the Little League World Series being on television?  It has dominated the airwaves over the last week.  Throughout each day over the past six days, the LLWS has controlled ESPN.  Today, it's live on ABC.

The LLWS moving to network television over the weekend opened the slot for high school football to take prime sports real estate on ESPN.  Switching over to ESPN 2, I found highlights from a high school quarterback camp followed by more high school football.

Frustration turned into anger.  What are we doing?

With a professional sports culture that is riddled with performance enhancing drug scandals and a college sports culture that is chockfull of violations, it's no surprise that the high school and youth sports machines are marketable on a national scale.  Viewers are fed up with the grown-ups.  It all makes sense from a business standpoint, however, they're not selling us the same thing.  The difference is now it's children and teenagers.

The pressure to perform at an elite level is greater than ever at every age.  Professionals are cheating.  It's fairly clear that a majority of big time college programs are cheating.  It's only a matter of time when performance will out-weigh the competitive experience at younger levels, too.  That culture will soon be poisoned as well.  There's always been pressure for youth and high school athletes, however, championing the performance levels on ABC and ESPN makes that pressure even higher.

The Little League World Series does great things for kids and provides unique opportunities that change lives.  There is an important element of sportsmanship and handling adversity that doesn't go unnoticed (especially the Matheny Manifesto), however, the focus on television is winning.  Make no mistake, though, these kids aren't the future of baseball.  The LLWS is the crowning achievement of nearly every one of their sports experiences, which is alright if that's what's being sold.  According to the Baseball Almanac, there are only 11 athletes that have played in the Little League World Series and the Major League Baseball World Series.  The LLWS started in 1947.  There is no one in the Hall of Fame who played in the LLWS and one MVP and one Cy Young award winner are LLWS alums.  These statistics prove there is little focus on the long-term development of these athletes.

I'm very cynical of youth sports and often share my thoughts on it.  What I fear most is how a team jersey can transforms adults (not kids) and cause them to treat children in a horrible fashion.  It's on full display when I see high school football on television.  The more we see high school and youth sports on television, the more we've lost our way.  The end goal gets in the way of how we get there.  Encourage kids, obviously, but let them be kids.

Weighing in on Ryan Braun

The biggest story in sports this week is the admission and suspension of Milwaukee Brewers superstar Ryan Braun.  He's the face of the franchise and they have built an entire team around his abilities.  They also rewarded him and his stellar numbers with a very lucrative contract.  Last year, he was involved in a performance enhancing drug scandal and he pleated innocence.  I didn't believe his story one iota last year, but now the entire state of Wisconsin is let down by a baseball hero that they stood behind.  Everything came crashing down this week when Braun admitted his guilt.

From time to time I weigh-in on heavy issues in the sports world.  I'm not a journalist and don't claim to understand how to spin controversial topics.  I do, however, often write about character in competition and occasionally feel a responsibility to chime in with my thoughts on certain relevant topics.  In addition, Braun is an extremely important sports personality in my community and the state that I live in.  Many of my athletes wear the number 8 jersey to practice.

I don't know Ryan Braun and chances are high that you don't either.  As a result, I'm not in a position to comment on his character.  Neither are you.  Professional athletes are public figures and we like to meddle in their lives, but we're not entitled to opinions on their personal lives, Ryan Braun included.  I do believe he has a responsibility as a professional athlete to be a positive role model, however, we have a responsibility as citizens and fans to not put him on a pedestal.  He's merely a man, like you and me.  That we feel privileged to call him inappropriate names in a Facebook status says more about us than it does about him. 

Public figures (professional athletes) are human beings and make mistakes and poor decisions, just like everyone else.  To expect anything else is folly on our part.  Of course, disappointment is a natural response for many reasons, but we can't afford to make these people more than what they are.  Everyone is capable of falling.  If we don't remember that, we will be humbled.  For example, I bet Ryan Braun doesn't feel like a very big deal right now.  #humbled  More than ever, public figures are under a microscope and all of their transgressions are on display.  Twenty years ago important people in my life told me to take these athletes with a grain of salt.  That's exponentially more true today.

In his statement, Braun said that he has made some mistakes.  I agree; we all have.  I want to clarify what I see as being the difference between a mistake and a choice, though.  A mistake is a one-time decision that happens suddenly without taking into account the next steps (like making a wrong turn on the Interstate and getting lost).  In this case, Braun didn't make a mistake.  He made a series of poor choices.  He clearly understood what the risks were and unwaveringly moved forward.  I'm not event talking about taking PED's.  When confronted (last year), he made the choice to deny any wrongdoings and in the process, affected the lives of many people.  There's a difference between a mistake and a choice and that's one of the teachable moments here.  At one time, Ryan Braun controlled his own destiny, now it's in the hands of others - right or wrong.

Brewers fans will forgive Ryan Braun.  I'm certain of it.  Wisconsin is full of passionate fans who have demonstrated that they give athletes a second chance.  They've also endured their fair share of professional sports teams with losing records, so they're quick to rally behind a winner.  Even though this is a terrible set of circumstances created by an individual who made a series of poor choices, Ryan Braun is a fierce competitor and a "winner" (in the competition sense of the word).  I think Brewers fans will lick their wounds for a while, but when Braun hits his first 420' home run next year, it will be water under the bridge...which is a scary reality in professional sports...

Trust your 9-iron

As a freshman in college, I sat in my dorm room glued to the television during the 1999 Players Championship at TPC Sawgrass.  I watched in anticipation as the leaders approached the signature par-3 17th hole that included the famous island green.  The layout requires individuals to "drive the green."  As a result, there's a treasure trove of lost golf balls at the bottom of the bright blue lake.

That day, the hole played a little longer than 130-yards and the pin placement was near the front of the green.  There wasn't much room to play with.  Fred Couples was one of golf's premier players and he approached the hole with a 9-iron.  He hit the ball "fat" and ended up in the drink.  Without hesitation, he grabbed another ball, but kept his 9-iron.  The announcer said something along the lines of how Couples was a professional and knew his 130-yard club was indeed the 9-iron.  There was no second guessing his club selection despite hitting one into the water only moments before he teed up again.  In fact, in 1997 Couples was one of only six players in history to earn a hole-in-one on the 17th.  His confidence wasn't rattled because he knew exactly who he was and what he had.

What happened next?  Perfect swing with the 9-iron and a Bridgestone balata slam dunk.  No bounce, no spin, no roll; nothing but the bottom of the cup.  A penalty stroke for going in the water resulted in a par for Couples.  He went on to win the tournament.

This was a valuable lesson for me as an athlete and coach.  Often times, when faced with adversity like Couples on the 17th, we go to the bag and consider another club.  We doubt the game plan.  We question our strengths in moments when they don't seem so strong.  We wonder who we are and it forces us to reconsider what we're doing.  Real champions take ownership for mistakes, but they don't question who they are.  Couples didn't go to the bag or ask his caddy if he should grab another club.  He knew exactly who he was and what his strengths were.  Couples knew he needed his 9-iron at 130.  There was never a doubt.  When you know who you are, you know what to do.