#101 Ron Lang's Evolution in Sport and Storytelling

What happens when a basketball cut turns into an opportunity to explore the world of wrestling? Meet Ron Lang, a passionate coach and author, whose journey from the courts of Louisville, Kentucky, to the wrestling mats of Indiana shaped his unique perspective on sports. Join us as Ron recounts the twists and turns that led him to a fulfilling career in coaching and writing. Discover how his experiences at the University of Kentucky, along with various coaching roles, taught him the invaluable lessons of dedication, perseverance, and adaptability. His stories serve as a testament to the growth of sports and the profound impact coaches can have on future leaders.

Ron Lang's journey is not only about coaching but also about capturing the essence of success and humanity in wrestling. Inspired by the 2022 US Open, Ron embarked on a writing adventure, weaving together more than 150 compelling stories that highlight personal growth and resilience. We explore the creative process behind organizing these narratives into a powerful book, emphasizing the universal themes that resonate with both athletes and non-athletes alike. Through Ron's anecdotes, such as those from his brother-in-law's Air Force experiences, listeners are invited to connect with the shared values of grit and perseverance, whether on the wrestling mat or in everyday life.

In our conversation, we delve into the community-building efforts within the wrestling world, from the challenges of marketing Ron's book to the powerful impact of giveaways. Ron shares his passion for promoting wrestling, particularly through innovative strategies that engage and inspire new generations. We celebrate the growing presence of women in the sport and reflect on the broader mission of fostering unity and appreciation for wrestling. Listen in as we discuss the importance of authenticity, the potential for future books, and the ongoing journey of supporting the wrestling community through storytelling and engagement.

Chapters

• 2:27 Coach and Author Ron Lang Interview
• 10:24 Impactful Coaching Stories and Lessons
• 21:55 Capturing Stories of Success and Humanity
• 32:48 Coaching Stories and Book Sequel
• 44:36 Inspiring Wrestling Stories and Values
• 52:33 Promoting Wrestling and Unity Within
• 1:01:42 High School Wrestling and Female Athletes
• 1:11:43 Wrestling Book Marketing and Giveaways
• 1:16:02 Wrestling Book Drawing and Impact
• 1:19:49 Passion for Wrestling and Growth
• 1:32:45 Promoting Wrestling Book and Community
• 1:40:10 Promoting Wrestling Book and Thanks

Transcript

Speaker 1: 2:28

Thank you, thank you.

Speaker 2: 3:17

All right, we are live for yet another episode of the Vision Quest podcast. It's been a couple weeks, I think we got pretty busy, but we have a great guest on tonight. We are joined by none other than coach and also author, ron Lang. I appreciate you joining us. How are you doing, sir?

Speaker 3: 3:38

Doing great. I'm glad to be here.

Speaker 2: 3:39

That's awesome. That's awesome. We talked a little bit beforehand and, kind of talking to you, it sounds like you and I are kind of the same wavelength about a lot of things, especially when it comes to the growth of the sport. Right, ultimately, you wrote this book obviously to help kind of grow things as far as that goes. But we're going to touch on that, we're going to get on to the the growth thing. But we got to talk about you first. Not everybody knows you. Not everybody knows what you got going on. So where did you get your startings in sports? Where are you from first?

Speaker 3: 4:10

so I'm. I was born and raised in louisville, kentucky, and then, but I didn't get my wrestling start until I lived in Indiana.

Speaker 2: 4:20

Eighth grade year. I think it was right.

Speaker 3: 4:21

Yeah. So my sixth grade year we moved across the river from Louisville to southern Indiana and, as a lot of people right, I got my start by being cut from the basketball team or another sports team. Right, that's actually a funny story. We're practicing and somebody came in and talked to the coach. We're scrimmaging, and I picked up my dribble and I had one foot behind the three-point line or on the three-point line and I look over and I see him and it looked like he wasn't paying attention. So I step back, I travel and I take. Like he wasn't paying attention. So I stepped back, I travel and I, I take the shot. So not only did I miss the shot, I traveled, he saw the whole thing and I got cut.

Speaker 3: 5:06

But we actually had a good team. Our eighth grade team won the state tournament that year. So nice, yeah. So they were good. But I ended up going to wrestling, had a friend of mine talk me into it and then, before I ever even got to be on the mat, I ended up breaking my ankle. So my freshman year was really my first year of wrestling.

Speaker 2: 5:26

Right on. Okay, so let's talk. How big were you your eighth grade year?

Speaker 1: 5:32

You're a pretty tall guy.

Speaker 3: 5:34

Yeah, so I'm about six foot. Okay, my freshman year I wrestled 171 pounds.

Speaker 2: 5:43

Okay, okay, man's weight, I'm sorry, man's weight right away.

Speaker 3: 5:46

Oh yeah, I was, I was, uh, I was pretty hefty. I was a husky kid, right. But I'll tell you, the funniest thing about that was I go to my first. It was a five-way, we called it, you know, five duels. And so we're in the weigh-in lines and I see this guy. He's all yoked up, he's got a mustache, and I'm thinking, okay, I wonder what weight he is.

Speaker 3: 6:08

But like you said it was a man's weight, he was my weight. So not only is he in my weight class, he's the first guy I have to wrestle when I'm not. So I go out there, I'm like just do what you can do. And the guy's a fish, right he. He shoots in on me, I turn him over, I pin him. He wasn't very good. I get four fits the rest away and I'm thinking I'm, I'm the man I've got, yeah. So I probably won about six matches the rest of the year the story of my life too, with wrestling.

Speaker 2: 6:40

I mean, I was. I quit my junior year but I couldn't. I couldn't string wins together once I got into high school. Man, youth wrestling was a blast. I got up in high school god forget about it. I was not. I was not good at all. So I can equate to how the, how many wins you had. I think after I got to my junior year I maybe accumulated 12 wins. That's three years of high school wrestling. It was not. That was not impressive at all. So your, your upbringings were obviously athletics. That were your parents in athletics no, not really.

Speaker 3: 7:09

Uh, now, they weren't opposed to to me being in athletics, but uh, like, for instance, I always wanted to play football and we didn't have a team. When I lived in Louisville before we moved, we didn't have a team. Uh, and the year I begged and begged, I went to our principal, asked, you know, I kind of campaigned to have a football team. I moved to southern Indiana, they had one. Yeah, so I was able to play. But but back where I moved from, they started that that year I left. I'm like great, I'll never get there.

Speaker 3: 7:38

So and we actually played with these guys too.

Speaker 2: 7:42

Oh really, no kidding. Yeah, so kind of going through high school. Obviously you like sports, you're athletic, and what did that lead to you? Was this something like I want to go to college and I want to do this sport?

Speaker 3: 8:05

Or were you kind of weaning off of sports and just wanted to go to school? No, I was a football guy, thankfully, I always wanted to coach as well, and so I went to University of Kentucky, worked with the football team, continued to be involved with the coaching aspect and then when I got out of school so that's kind of a funny story People like well, why weren't you a GA? At the time, the division one coaches were not coming from graduate assistant positions, they were coming from the lower ranks. You coached and recruited your own position. So I mean, I coached in Maine, coached in Northern Indiana, coached different colleges, and the funny story a lot of people don't know about, even my family don't know a whole lot about. But I had the opportunity to coach, to be a GA with Nick Saban at Michigan State.

Speaker 3: 8:49

Ooh, nice, so you know you say you don't have regrets in life, but I had some conversations with some people there and some other folks and I took I made the decision to go coach my own position, stay coaching my own position and not be a graduate assistant. And next thing you know, he goes to lsu. Um, there's a, there's a lot. I mean, people have different thoughts about this, but a lot of his coaching staff were GAs from different places that he was given a chance to and it was like man, but you know it is what it is and still enjoyed it. Now I'm in Texas, so I ended up moving from the college ranks to the high school ranks. What better place right Then Texas high school?

Speaker 1: 9:37

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 9:37

And my wife's from this area. So okay, I did some high school coaching as well in the state of texas so what with your coaching?

Speaker 2: 9:45

um your coaching background? What did? What sport did you find more fulfilling to coach? Was it just football you coached, or were you coaching other sports?

Speaker 3: 9:54

so you know it's hard to say right. It's almost like when you say what's your favorite kid? Sure, I mean, there's a lot of great things with it. At the end of the day, coaching the best part about coaching is seeing that development with the players, not just on the field or on the mat but within themselves.

Speaker 2: 10:14

A hundred percent.

Speaker 3: 10:15

And so you know, really, the sports almost, almost inconsequential, right, because you're, you want to. My goal was always to for my athletes to either fulfill or exceed their potential, whether it be athletically or personally, whatever it may be, even like we were talking about, about, uh, colleges earlier. So you have the potential to be a division two guy and all of a sudden you become a division one wrestler because of your effort and everything else that you've put into it. I mean, those are the things that I enjoy and, and I'll tell, one of the biggest joys in life as a whole for me is so. I used to coach a high school outside of Austin, texas, and I was driving through and I stop at a gas station and one of my old players comes coach and just them calling me coach and then telling me and they weren't even my position, but telling me the impact I had on them and this is 10 years after the fact and then introducing me to their kids. I was like that that was really cool.

Speaker 2: 11:23

I can agree with that. So I remember when Liam first started, I was helping coach a youth program and I tried not to focus on him because he's my kid. He can go over there and do something with the other coaches, right? But I still took. I still took the. It wasn't a position, but I still took the job seriously. I still went in trying to encourage and enlighten kids as much as possible. And just, you know, hard work it'll get you places you wouldn't even believe, right?

Speaker 2: 11:49

And I remember there was this mama came up to me and I wore sweatshirts. Right, I wore a hooded sweatshirt all the time of practice. I made it look like I was this guy trying to sweat off pounds, like I'm the high school guy in the room kind of helping out. You know, when I'm just a 32-year-old, 34-year-old fat guy that's just walking around in the restroom helping kids. And by the end of the season I think it was the end of that season that kid would work out at home and when he worked out at home he wore a sweatshirt all the time, always would have wore a hooded sweatshirt. The mom came up to me. She goes he has never worn a hooded sweatshirt like this until he came in the room and met you and he's been wearing hooded sweatshirts all the time. It works out. I loved that so much. I was like this is I. I took a lot from that. And then soccer I had another great story that came with it.

Speaker 2: 12:36

So it's always the impact that you have in these kids being able to not and not I don't like the word influence, because I think influence gets thrown around a little bit too much but encourage them. You encourage them to do things that are that might be a little more difficult than what they would actually try to do, and you plant that seed in their head to make them successful. To me, I think is the best thing that I could probably feel out of coaching kids, no matter what. I don't. I just got done telling our kids the other night it was three, nothing, it's halftime.

Speaker 2: 13:04

Let's go and look at the scoreboard. I don't care about the scoreboard. I care about how you guys are progressing. I care about how you guys look right now because they're all down like, oh, we're losing how kids are, so let's ignore it. You know, as much as I want the w, I want to see you guys doing the things that we've been talking about, so I can totally agree with that. And taking not doesn't matter what sport you're in, as long as you know that you're in, you're encouraging these kids to do better, not only in sports but in life. That's the biggest portion, so that's awesome. Again, I think you and I have the same kind of thought process when it comes to this, so now go ahead.

Speaker 3: 13:43

The score is three nothing, right? That's what's so wonderful about sports, is there's life lessons, right? Whether they're up three nothing or down three nothing. I mean it sounds very cliche-ish, but there'll be times in your life you're up three nothing and you think things are great and they can turn on a dime or the or the opposite. Right, you just got to keep pushing, you got to keep grinding, you know that's right. So so.

Speaker 2: 14:00

So coaching has taken you some places. I mean, were you, um, were you ever in a position where you were just like, nope, I'm good, I don't want to coach anymore? And I kind of ask athletes this a lot too where you think you wanted to hang your coaching hat up and kind of be done with it? Did you ever have a moment, while that things got kind of rough, in any coaching position, where you're just like no, after this year I'm good, but then you decide not to?

Speaker 3: 14:27

Well, and I'll tell you you were talking earlier One of the things that popped into my head was I take the word coach very seriously. I take that title very seriously. I hate when don't get me wrong you get volunteer guys called coach. I think they've earned that because they're putting in the time trying to help. But when you get we talked about that I'm doing some recruiting stuff A lot of people call themselves a coach, right, and they don't even know the daggone game. I mean just from a fan perspective, and that drives me crazy. But I take, I take the title coach very seriously.

Speaker 3: 15:02

Um, and I gotta tell you I did get out of it for a little while, um, completely, and that was because of the politics involved in it. You know, and you're, you're getting, I mean there's some stories I don't even want to get into but you get people hired as as certain positions based off of some very seedy things. Yeah, and it really soured me because you know, you're like this person's supposed to be a leader of young men, because at the time I was coaching football, I was like this is not a leader of young men. The time I was coaching football, I was like this is not a leader of young men. So you know, like I said, there's things that you could look back and say you regret or don't regret. I mean, I may not have done the same thing if I go back and did it again, but I don't regret it, I just so. So I did get out of it for a while. Actually, wrestling was what brought me back into coaching. Okay, nice.

Speaker 3: 15:58

So that's another beautiful thing that wrestling has given to me has brought me back into it. I get a guy that I coach at the high school level. I started a couple of programs here in Texas, a couple of high school wrestling programs and one was at a military academy, nice, and the kid's out of Oklahoma. So actually check this out. So actually that's that's check this out. So we got kids from all over the world and we I struggled for a while to try to get. I was coaching football there. It's here where I live now, but my, my wife's from this area. So I said I want to get back into coaching. So I coached football over there. Man, I struggled and struggled and struggled, trying to get them to start a wrestling program and all of a sudden somebody knew a guy named Jesus Wilson. He's a Cuban refugee and actually there's a match with him against Brands at one of the oh really.

Speaker 3: 16:52

I think it might have been Pan Ams or something. It might even have been the trials here, because he, he, he came to the us. So somebody found out about him that hey, and this guy, you know he's, he's training for the olympics and everything else. So they said we're gonna start a wrestling program because we've got this guy. I'm like, hey, man, we've had a guy right, so jesus does his thing for a year, kind of get some kids together. And then I take it.

Speaker 3: 17:17

And it was so cool because we had kids from Oklahoma, ohio, we had one kid Pennsylvania who didn't stay long, we had a kid from Alaska and we put this team together. We put a home duel together, we dragged the mats into the gym and it was really neat, right. And we ended up beating a team. Uh, that was, I wouldn't say they were a powerhouse or that great, but they were in our area, they were considered one of the better teams. So we beat them in this duel and I'm like, hey, we're just getting started, yeah. So then christmas break happens, the kid from alaska, one of the kids from ohio, like three other kids, they don don't come back to this military school it's like wow, but we had two kids. We ended up going to state. We placed eighth in state that first year. We had two kids finish runner up and both of those kids I ended up taking to senior nationals.

Speaker 2: 18:14

Oh nice, Very cool it was when it was in Pittsburgh. Yeah, yeah, very cool to senior nationals. Oh, nice, very cool. It was when it was in pittsburgh, so, yeah, yeah, very cool. So so you found a moment and then obviously, some redemption wrestling brought you back in. So when you're on this path, how long had you been thinking about doing a book like where, where did this start to enter?

Speaker 3: 18:32

so, uh, the book, the book stuff, this is you'll find this funny. The book stuff, you'll find this funny. The book stuff started probably about 10 years ago.

Speaker 3: 18:42

I used to tell my mother these stories about kids say the darndest things, right, yeah. About adults saying dumb things, like an ovulating fan instead of an oscillating fan, right. And I would catch these things. So I would tell my mom, so she'd get a real kick out of this, yeah, so she ended up getting sick and I went and stayed with her in the hospital and we were just talking. One day she said you know so, by the way, so I would write these things down because I would forget half of them, yep, and I'd be like mom, I had something funny to tell you, I forgot. So I just started writing them down, yeah, and so we just started going through them one night just to laugh. You know some some levity in the whole situation. And, um, she said, you know you should put that in book form and publish it. And so when she passed away, I said you know what I'm going to do that for my mom. And so that was my first book.

Speaker 3: 19:37

It's called Relative Genius, so it's kind of twofold meaning right, because a lot of it's my or my wife's family. They're our relatives, right? But you know, people think they're so intelligent, use big words and then they use them incorrectly. Right, there's, there's over. I think there's 120 of them in this book. It's it's just a real silly book. But that's when I did that. Um, I was gonna. I did a book on the southeastern conference football.

Speaker 3: 20:08

Okay, yeah and as I'm preparing for that, I'm working out one night and I'm on. I'm on the elliptical, it's it's dark all around and it was late. I just kept thinking about people in my life that are successful To me. They're successful because they make an impact for the people around them. They're happy with what they're doing. If they wanted to go on a small vacation, they had money to do it. They I mean, they weren't super wealthy, but they were doing well.

Speaker 3: 20:39

And so I wrote a book called unveiling success, because to me, success isn't about money and fame and power. Success is about being content with who you are and what you do Correct. And so I wrote about 10 people that I knew that kept popping in my mind. So in the, you know, in the in the in-between time of writing that next book, I wrote a book on on unveiling success.

Speaker 3: 21:03

Um, and to get to your point about wrestling, I always knew, I know how great wrestling is. I think anybody that gets into it knows that it's one of the best pursuits that you can be involved in as far as personal development, and so I always knew that I wanted to shout from the rooftops. You know what good wrestling can do for people, and so I just wasn't sure when that would be. I was actually going to write a book on adaptive athletics, but we went out to the US Open in 2022 and helped coach some guys out there and I just said you know what, Now's the time to do it. I started talking to more and more people that I was going to do this book and I just said now's the time to do it. And so that's where the whole wrestling book came in and I knew I was going to do one Eventually.

Speaker 2: 21:56

I just wasn't sure and, yeah, you know, I I think probably the us open 2022 is what spurred it to be as soon as it is so folks, by the way, go check out the other books as well, not not only talking about matt return, but go check out the other books too, because those actually sound pretty good. I'm gonna go look at those so I had no idea.

Speaker 3: 22:14

I mean, um, you know, just a shameless plug here. You can just go to Amazon, type in Ron Lang, and it'll bring up the books.

Speaker 2: 22:21

All the stuff that you got. Awesome, yeah, I mean literally. That's a. So, like I told you, because I have the book book, but I can't sit down and do that, so I'm at a computer screen all day, so I always have the book pulled up on my computer screen going through and reading. So you've done a couple of books. So before this book, you've got experience. Now, like you're the writing person because I was going to ask you a little bit like, what is your when you decide to write a book, what is your method of how do you write? Like, what is your method of putting things down that are up here, down to there? Obviously, I know you guys have editors and they have people that help you know, with the book itself, but your idea of putting it down on paper is it you? Because you just said that you know you wrote this stuff down because you forget. But when you're in the act of actually writing the book, how are you writing that book? What is your process?

Speaker 3: 23:12

So I really love that you asked that question, so I have my process has. So the success book was really let me talk to the people that I continue to think about and let me get their story and I learned a lot about them and some of their things. Like, my brother-in-law was one of them. He retired as a chief master sergeant out of the Air Force, but I learned that he was at mount penitubo when it exploded last, before the base was closed down, so they had a typhoon come in and right after that the volcano erupts and so there's blankets of ash just falling and they're like crushing cars. I mean, some people even died everything oh my god his family was there.

Speaker 3: 23:57

They evacuate. He stayed behind as part of the the I guess you'd call it the cleanup crew.

Speaker 1: 24:03

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 24:03

Secure the area, and that was something I knew. You know the way he lives his life and the things that he's done in his life. He was successful, but I didn't. I had no idea that he was there at that time, right. That was a cool story that unveiled itself, you know.

Speaker 1: 24:19

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3: 24:20

So keep going, keep going I'm just going to say I think I have a unique process because I really just have a concept of what I want to do and I let the story write itself. Okay, of what I want to do and I let the story write itself. Um, so, like when I was at the Southeastern conference campuses.

Speaker 3: 24:42

I mean, I knew that I wanted to get around and see the campus, talk about the culture, the traditions and things like that, but but things present itself, right. So, um, an older couple that's been to you know 200 straight games or something, or you know one time. This is before I wrote the book. My first game I took my wife to was a Texas A&M football game and there was an older couple and this lady was rubbing her her rabbit's foot before, right. So the story writes itself. And I knew here, because all 50 states in the United States are represented in this book, I knew that I had to keep an open mind, because you can't search for certain stories.

Speaker 3: 25:28

You have to let it come to you, and then, as you talk to people and I use it, like the story writes I and I, I joke around with words, like I romanticize it a little bit. Right, but you know, and we talked about you and I talked about this, the beauty of people's stories is the humanity and the personalization of it. And so why mess with that? Right, I mean, just just be real and true that the story presents itself, and and so I, you know, I kind of reorder it. Right, and this book, I mean there's different categories, different chapters, things like that. But but the stories themselves, they really kind of write, write themselves. Right, I mean, let people know about others and I mean I'm not the one, I didn't come up with those people's story, they're just telling me their story and I'm able to transition it into a part of the book that makes sense.

Speaker 2: 26:31

So I think, with the humanity portion because we talk, obviously it's about wrestling and I think and maybe you agree, but I think wrestling presents the most high of highs and the most low of lows because, as you explain in your book, this is an individual sport as much as it can be a team sport. At the same time, you know there's different angles to everything when it comes to that, but ultimately it is one person against one person. Sometimes you got to be 10 points ahead of the, but ultimately it is one person against one person. Sometimes you got to be 10 points ahead of the ref, but it's one person versus one person and that's all you have. That's all you had to go by are the skills that you were taught and because you had to think in fast pace, you had to you know. So, humanity I think the humanity level of it is just knowing that these people went through these struggles and they survived and they made it through and it's not like they were down in the dumps and just all I wish back in 88 in high school I would have won that state championship. I'd have a better job. No, these people are persevering through things that, and sometimes it's not even the sport that brought them down. It was a personal experience that happened while they're in that sport that brought them down a little bit. But then, because they were surrounded by good teammates humanity they're surrounded by good coaches humanity everything around them had to be human, produced in order to bring things either back to life or at least back to level Right, and I think that is the biggest. Like I said, that's the biggest thing I take away from all of it is that every single person in here has a struggle or an accomplishment, a high that you know they won this big tournament and they worked so hard to get there and they sacrificed time and hours to get there. There's a human level to every single thing that goes on through this book. That is, I think, like we said, is like the biggest portion of this book.

Speaker 2: 28:15

The stories are great is like the biggest portion of this book. The stories are great. I mean the people you talk about, from John Smith to Pestrickoff. You know there's all these different guys that you talk about with coaches. There's all these different athletes that are in there and I mean I think we've had a couple of them on the show that you talked about. You know certain things like that. So when you're going through that process, especially with this book, were you traveling? I mean so you're going through that process, especially with this book, were you traveling? I mean so you, you spoken to certain people like I don't think I can sense through each story that you were there with that person. How much were you traveling to get this?

Speaker 3: 28:47

a good amount. Um, okay, I took a lot, of, a lot of time from work. It took me about a year and a half to research and write the book, um, and I it's so closer to two years, but a year and a half strictly focusing on that uh, and it was with travel. Um, I would try to, you know, obviously, put cities together, yeah, in terms of, or events, right. So there, at one point I went down, um, I went to university, georgia's wrestling club. Uh, they had a tournament going on, um, while I was there. So, you know, I I hit ironclad in alabama. Uh, I'm at ut chattanooga um I'm there.

Speaker 3: 29:31

From there I worked my way up. I went to university of michigan, I was at ohio state, Went over and saw Rob Waller in Pennsylvania, and so I'm trying to tie all those together and be efficient with it. Right, Because it was on my own time and my own dime, but I felt that it was important to be as many places as I could. You mentioned John Smith. John Smith was. He was phenomenal. Like I went down and he made time for us. I think John Smith's one of the coolest. I'd never met him before and he's one of the coolest guys. I mean, he's like, hey, you want to set up a camera? I'm like, no, we just talk right.

Speaker 3: 30:13

So we just walk around the facility, uh, we go into a room, sit on some couches and talk and um, so, and I'm glad I brought him up because to me he's just real right, I mean he's a real guy and that's where these stories, for me, you, just you, it, the humanity, comes out, because it is. I mean, these are real people, real stories. I'm not fabricating and and you know, to be honest with you, I don't think you could fabricate store Like I mean, yeah, I could probably make up a story, but I mean what's the point? I mean there's, there's so many people that are being by wrestling and are doing good things and and and improving themselves from the sport. You don't have to make things up right. So so there was.

Speaker 3: 31:01

Unfortunately, I didn't get to go out to hawaii. You know the people there, you know the people that are represented from hawaii. Well, you mentioned peshikoff. Alaska would have also been good, but you know a lot of these people you meet up with, like at the us open or some of these national tournaments. You know, and, yeah, lot of these people you meet up with, like at the US Open or some of these national tournaments, you know. And so I didn't visit all 50 states. But but I mean, I truly did talk with people, multiple people, from all 50 states, and it was. It was really cool.

Speaker 2: 31:29

So with your, with your travels and things like that, like, what did you find to be your most challenging and not even just on a like because they were hard to interview what was the most challenging, uh, interview that you had as far as getting to them, to finally getting to be able to either sit down or video or whatever. Who?

Speaker 3: 31:49

who's the most kind of like, I guess, busy, for lack of a better term type person interview man, um I don't know, probably I hate to say this, I don't want it to sound like a bad lie but Chase, chase, pammy, out in Vegas, okay, gold Rush Okay, but Chase is an awesome dude, I mean, and the funniest thing is, you know, I had a hard time pinning him down. I'm even out there for 2023 US Open in Vegas. I went to his place. I mean, he's running, he's so busy, he's working with so many kids, you know, and they were looking for a different place at the time and I saw him quickly at the event. Right, he had some kids at the US Open, so I saw him quickly.

Speaker 3: 32:32

And then the funniest thing about it is, when it was all said and done, I published it. I'm at tulsa nationals. In january it might have been there, but I'm at tulsa nationals and he's there with a bunch of kids and we see each other about 18 times. Like that would have been nice. When I was trying to pin you down for an interview, right, but so probably, chase, but, but it wasn't.

Speaker 2: 32:55

You know he wasn't trying to, but he's just so busy and speaking of that, I thought you were going to say it was Mike Krause, because that dude was everywhere, the late, great. That guy was everywhere. So I started a tournament in the Valley here called Sawdust Nationals and the first year that we had it we had it at UWO and I think I posted something about it and he's like hey, man, you need a clinician for before the tournament. I was like I don't even know this guy is, but I see him a little bit on instagram. I was like all right, let's, let's see what's going on, you know, and uh, pulled it up and he was just watching videos of the guy is everywhere and you have it. You know.

Speaker 2: 33:32

Obviously you talk about him in the book and to me that just to. That's why I was kind of curious, because some of these guys are just so busy. But they're not just busy, they're active, like they're, they like doing what they're doing, like in that capacity yeah, so so Krause was, I mean, as you know he, he's energy right like oh man.

Speaker 3: 33:53

I mean just he never stops and it I mean what a shock. I mean, so I've. I don't know if you've seen this lately. I don't know what this whole new trend is about posting that people passed away celebrities. I've seen this a lot this past week and it's just a hoax, right, but this was before. That is when Krause passed and honestly, I mean it took me by surprise. I'm like is this a hoax?

Speaker 3: 34:22

I agree, yeah, I mean I was like it just didn't make sense. No, but one thing I wanted to say about that so when he passed, obviously it was a sad moment, it wasn't good, but I was honored to have him in the book, he was honored to be in the book. I was really pleased like he made time because he thought it was an honor and he knew that this was about growing the sport of wrestling and he was really dedicated to doing that himself wholeheartedly yeah wholeheartedly if that guy, if that guy was given a cape, then we told him, hey, go spread the good word.

Speaker 2: 34:58

He would have been all over the world if he had the option to do it. I mean that guy was crazy energy, but yeah.

Speaker 3: 35:06

And I loved it. And so for me, what I always every one of these stories I would send to people Now, that was a hard part too I would send them to get verified. Really, I didn't send it for people to rewrite it the way they wanted. I sent it like this is what I'm writing. Are the facts correct? Yes, I misinterpret anything. I need to make sure we're legit here, Right.

Speaker 2: 35:31

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 35:32

People would want to do a little rewrite, so Krauss is one of them, but he didn't want to rewrite like make me that superhero you're talking about his rewrite was hey, at the end can you put that mike kraus brings the heat all the time and I'm like of course I can you know, because that was kind of one of his things. So yeah, so I think about it. Not only was I proud to have him in it when he passed and I was like, I was like coach.

Speaker 3: 35:59

I was thinking to myself. I was like coach, you're bringing the heat. Man, you're always going to bring the heat in the book everywhere, everywhere.

Speaker 2: 36:05

It's hot in heaven right now because that guy's running practice.

Speaker 1: 36:10

Yeah but you know uh.

Speaker 3: 36:11

So it's kind of a legacy, for you know that his story is in here and he, mike kraus, brings the heat. So, like it's, I'm so glad that he wanted to do that little reroute, rewrite, you know, because we've got this. Hey, you're always bringing the heat, mike Kraus. There you go.

Speaker 2: 36:30

Always, always, and that was the best thing about him. He did the same thing at the tournament, man and I. So I funny story about him because the university was closed at the time. It was, it was a off school hour or off school time and they had dorms open that we offered up to some of the families, like if you didn't want to pay for a hotel room, there are some of these dorm rooms that you could do there that you can have.

Speaker 2: 36:52

And I told Mike I was like hey, we got these dorm rooms that are in the university. I was like do you guys want to stay there? He's like absolutely not. He's like I'm bringing my wife. There's no way she's going to be staying in those dorm rooms at all. He goes. She would have my head on a platter if I put her in a dorm room. He's like I already got a hotel, I'm sat. And I was like all right, man just trying to help out a little bit, make sure you're all set. But man, he didn't even care. As soon as I walked in, he goes hey, man, thanks for offering up that room. He goes. My wife still would have chopped my head off. She was right back there handing out pamphlets and stuff. She was right there with him. I mean, talk about a dynamic duo. I mean those guys were traveling, spreading everything they could about getting these kids into wrestling, and the energy that they can bring is like holy cow.

Speaker 3: 37:38

You, you know, at the end of the day, like you said, you put a cape on him because all all of his effort. But at the end of the day, the thing that I appreciated the most about him, and I appreciate probably the most about anybody, is when you're just real and true and there was no more, no person more real than him.

Speaker 2: 37:54

He just gave you who he was he didn't hide it, because what you saw in the videos, he you saw the same thing. If you're in front of him, it didn't matter, it was the same thing. So that was awesome. When I read, when I, when I first started reading, I saw he was and I was like man, this guy. This guy is going to be remembered forever, as he should be, because man talk about an icon of the sport. So, as you're kind of going through and and you're writing the book and you're getting stories together, were you ever kind of stuck where you're like man, I don't feel like I have enough, I got to go get more. When did you find that? You're like I'm good, this is enough for a book. Like, cause, there's so many more people you can reach out to. I mean, you have all these connections too. So where, where was your mind? Where a stopping point would be?

Speaker 3: 38:37

So I initially was only going to do one representation from every state, and then I quickly realized that I mean, that's just if I did 10 representations in some states or 10 examples, 10 stories out of. I mean, just throw Pennsylvania out there, right, yeah, you're just scratching the the surface, but I couldn't have 10 in pennsylvania and then one in nevada, um, and so I started saying okay, because then people started bringing stories to me and people to me and I said, well, you know, I have to have multiple um, so there's at least two from from every state. Yeah and um, but you're so right, I continue to think, and I'm introduced to more and more people and more and more stories here lately, so I'm like um, you know, maybe there's a sequel in the mix.

Speaker 2: 39:32

I was just going to ask that Is there a volume two coming? You know like.

Speaker 3: 39:37

I think there's almost going to have to be right, but, uh, my, my, my initial plan. So, as you know, there's a standalone chapter for women's and girls wrestling in the book yes, correct, and there's representation throughout the book. So it's not just that one chapter. I mean the, the attributes that wrestling provides isn't just for men or males, it's for females. So there's female representation throughout the book and there's a standalone chapter. And I say that because I envisioned the next book to be strictly on female wrestling, so I don't know if that's the way it's going to be or if it'll just be, you know, a sequel that has maybe some more female, although there's a lot of female representation.

Speaker 2: 40:28

Oh for sure, but now I mean having written the book. What year did you actually start writing the book? It was 10 years ago you started.

Speaker 3: 40:36

Well, no, 10 years when I started the writing process, the concept Telling my mother, all those things. Yeah, yeah, 10 years when I started the writing process, the concept. Telling my mother all those things. Yeah yeah, yeah, but it's really been longer than that right, in terms of even writing this book or the SEC book, like it's been a lifetime, or since I started, for me, the Southeastern Conference. I was a Southeastern Conference fan at four or five years old.

Speaker 3: 41:01

Okay, I remember 1980 watching Herschel Walker play. So I mean it's kind of a lifetime of memories, traditions, things, wrestling. Obviously I didn't start for another 10 years after that compilation of the people I've met through the sport, my own experiences, the kids I've coached, seeing different things, families, how they are going to tournaments and seeing people from around the country. So in a sense I mean it has been since I started the sport. Right, and knowing what that does for me and the teammates I had in high school Just throughout the, the, the, the life lessons that it teaches, and seeing that over and over and over again puts my mind in a friend and a mindset right.

Speaker 3: 41:55

So, where I know that this is and that that was the purpose of the book, right, like, yeah, I could write about wrestling stories, but the purpose is people need to know how great the sport is. If you stay in this sport for, say, it's one season as long as you don't quit during the middle of the season, if you give it a try, I promise you at some point in your life you're going to overcome something. Life you're going to overcome something or you're going to accomplish something and you're going to say at least part of that was from things that I learned in during wrestling so I just brought that up to an athlete on our soccer team the other night.

Speaker 2: 42:32

Not an awesome soccer player, but the kid goes out and gives it his all right when you put him out and I tell him what position. He may not even know how to play it properly, but I know he'll go out and he'll play hard right. So we're talking a little bit after the game. Our jv tied and I was happy with that because I think we've been getting beaten by like five, nothing, six, nothing, eight to one, you know things like that. But talking to him out to the side a little bit and he was bringing up that he was going to be joining the air force and I was like, interesting, you're not in the greatest shape on the planet and you're gonna have to go through some basic training when you get there, no matter what it's like. Hey, have you thought about, uh, joining wrestling at all? It's like it would help you on your journey if that's what you because I think he's a, you know he's a senior this year I said it would, I would help you on your journey, kind of prepping for that. I said don't even worry about the wins, go there for the conditioning, go there for the getting into shape and build some character. You know you might find a little bit about yourself when you're wrestling. He goes no, I think I might do that. I might join some do wrestling this year. His grandmother coaches or taught Muay Thai. I was like what you shouldn't even be worried about it, you know. So he's like I might look into that. I might join some wrestling.

Speaker 2: 43:46

And so, in contrast of what you were kind of talking about, the timeline is especially with the female wrestlers, that it's grown. You know we talk about growing the sport and honestly, and I'll say until I'm blue in the face, until I go in my grave, that if it was not for girls wrestling and women's wrestling, men's wrestling could possibly be in the tank right now, you know. So with that, with that thought is just how much more, now that women's wrestling has grown, and the stories that have now built because of that timeframe and all of the accolades that a lot of these women athletes Kylie Welkers, helen Morales and all those guys that have now come up, adeline Gray those stories that are out there, that that can help, like you said, grow the sport even more, because every one of these guys that has a story. I mean, you, you talk to people that that wrestled and they don't do anything in wrestling anymore. You know that that. But it was a part of their life that got them through.

Speaker 2: 44:36

You know, again, the humanity part of uh, I struggled at work but I knew that if I did my, if I just got down and ground through it, I would be successful. And they were. They wound up being some of the top people in the company that they're at, or they wound up being uh, uh, uh successful at the business that they decided to run. Because of that grit and that's also part of something in the book is grit. You know that's to me.

Speaker 2: 45:03

It takes a lot of time and effort, and not only just grit, but it takes a lot of personal perseverance to be able to get through writing a book. Because I mean, I'll tell you what, just trying to write a paper as a high school kid and even writing something now, it's not easy. So what were, I guess what was the biggest challenge of the book itself and pushing through some of the of the writing of the book? Did you, did you think that uh, where everybody worries about someone's gonna like it, but were you kind of like I don't know if people are gonna really buy this and buy into it, which I everybody I've talked to so far I know has it and they think it's, it's a, it's a great, great read. So where, where were some of the challenges you found?

Speaker 3: 45:40

so the the biggest challenge for me was, with over 150 stories, getting them out, getting those, those folks to read it and to quote unquote, verify it. So I had, okay, you know, I kind of had my schedule and then I would have, I would have all this listed out, yeah, and then I I knew that I would have all this listed out.

Speaker 3: 46:01

Um, and then I I knew that I had to start breaking it down in chapters, cause I mean just like wrestling itself, right. So I mean, as you see in the book, there I mean really there could be thousands of attributes from wrestling virtues, values that you draw from wrestling. So I break that down and then each chapter talks about three of them, or it talks about an age group, and so the two biggest challenges for me were to where do I put these stories? Is it an age group category or is it in a virtues of values category? Some of them they have multiple ones, but then I also didn't want to have, say, two from the state of Iowa together in the same chapter. So I was going to break that up.

Speaker 3: 46:48

The other thing, but the verifying the stories, getting people to understand that I'm on a timeline and I'm sorry but it's not your timeline I need you to read this, these three paragraphs, and tell me if it's factual, the way I think it is. And so you know when people are busy don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that they're out watching TV and ignoring it, but to get all of those back and say, hey, you're good here, or like there was one, for instance. They felt like I kind of missed the point. Uh, it was a, it was a family and some coaches and a parent. Sure, I said, okay, it was about a kid. And the kid was like I don't know if that's really what I meant. Okay, no problem, let's do it again. And because I wanted it to be real and I wanted them to be happy with it and and and, when I say real, I mean at this point, real is big for me, like it has to be real and true.

Speaker 2: 47:46

I agree.

Speaker 3: 47:46

But at the same time, like my hand could be real and you could say, oh well, your thumbs bent or whatever, but in my mind I might be thinking something else. So for this kid, especially being a high school age kid, yeah, I might be thinking something else. So for this kid, especially being a high school age kid, I want her, I want it to represent the way that she wanted it to be represented. So I wanted it to be real in that manner too.

Speaker 2: 48:09

Understood, understood and we talk about growing the sport. I mean, if you gave this book and I'm going to attest to it this way if you gave this book to a kid who knows nothing about wrestling right, because it's not like you're, you're not. The book isn't going through terminology and talking about you know that kind of thing. It's it's the stories that involve the sport itself. If you gave this, this uh book, to a fifth grade kid and you said, hey, read this, this story right here, that kid could possibly I don't care what sport he joined, he could use that story right there and be like I can do this, that I, I am capable of doing this and so growing and said that and they could jump into wrestling because of it.

Speaker 2: 48:50

So it's growing the sport that way but at the same time it's also growing kids confidence in themselves within the sport and life, just like we keep talking about. So it was where were you kind of in seeing that vision as you're putting these stories together like man, if I was a kid right now and I read this, this would, I would definitely I'd go through a brick wall for someone right now.

Speaker 3: 49:10

You know definitely and and to be honest with you, I'm so glad you brought that up because I guess you'd call it my elevator speech or my tagline. When, yeah, when I approach people, talk to them about being in the book and all that, what they were like. Well, some people I mean, of course you're going to get mixed reviews, right some people like I'm not sure, well, you know what, what do you mean and how are you going to grow wrestling and other people would be all for it. But this was my vision.

Speaker 3: 49:36

My vision was this at the end of the day, I said, if nothing else comes of this, this will make this book a success, and that is if a club coach or a high school coach could take my book and say hey, susie, johnny, mom, dad, you all read any chapter out of this book and tell me why you wouldn't try wrestling. Then we're good, I'm a success'm happy, then it's, it's done its job, and so, at the end of the day, that's that's my thing. I think you could choose any chapter. Now, the secret to that is uh, I'm I'm johnny and I'm going to look at the table of contents and I want to see something that sticks out to me. So it is going to be prevalent, whatever chapter they read.

Speaker 2: 50:21

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 50:21

But I challenge anybody, anybody at all. You may never heard of wrestling and you may not, or you may dislike wrestling. I challenge anybody to read this book or a portion of it. And number one say it's not entertaining. Number two say it's not inspirational, I mean. Number three say it's not motivational.

Speaker 2: 50:42

I mean it's because it's real people doing great things in a difficult sport, so yeah, yeah, no, and I wholeheartedly agree, and I think that we kind of talk about the fact that this isn't a book that's written in succession like you put it together. You know you still have to. You, you had a rhyme and a reason of how you wanted things to be in here. But you don't have to read story one, story two, story three, story four. You can read story one, then you go to story 20, you come back, go to story 12. So this book is a book to be able to go and and literally inspire yourself. Like you said, you could go to a tag, you could go to a um, a chapter within here. If that chat, if you like what that chapter says, just the title said you could go to a tag. You could go to a um, a chapter within here, if that chat, if you like what that chapter says, just the title of it, you could go right to it and start reading it. You know. So this that's what makes to me that, because of the attention span that I have and the things that I have to do, that's also what makes this book so much easier than uh, you know, going reading a Stephen King book that you have to keep track of what's going on throughout. If you can't read four paragraphs in a row, you have a problem, because this is exactly what this is for To read the story. Take something from a story, whether you can apply it to yourself or you start applying it to yourself, you could go to another story and do the same thing. You don't have to go in succession so that I, as a reader, can appreciate that in the way that it takes you through. So with the, with putting the book together, you have to sell a book, right, you have to. You have to be able to market and you have to be able to not just have it on Amazon, but you got to put it out there. But you've partnered up with some really great people out there. We're talking about Rudis and there's a couple other ones. Who are your shirts made by? Again, blue Chip, cliff Keen, cliff Keen, that's right. You partnered up with some really good people to get this put together.

Speaker 2: 52:33

Talk about the aspect of getting the book out there. Now. You got it all together. You got your stories together. What was that like? Trying to get this market? You've done other books before, so you kind of knew. But we're talking about the wrestling community. This is a little different so that's the hardest thing.

Speaker 3: 52:48

I mean. Some people probably think that in high school I like writing term papers and all that. You know I was the type of kid that, oh, it's due tomorrow at 8 am. Okay, it's midnight, I better start writing this thing and that's how it was but. But the hardest part of this whole thing is the marketing and getting the word out there and you can say what you want and people always say, well, it's up to you. No, it almost. In any endeavor other than wrestling, you rely on others.

Speaker 3: 53:15

You have yes you got, and so that's been some of the frustrating parts for me is that, oh, this one says we'll do this and we'll do that and we have all these numbers and don't you worry, we've got you in this state and that hadn't been the case. But I mean not here to be negative throw stones, but we have to get the word out. I think part of it is I. I had a a very prominent club coach, um, if I told you his name, you know. But he says people, I saw him at ncaa's this past year. He says, uh, people don't, people don't want you to bank money.

Speaker 3: 53:51

So you know, I'm here to say this. I'm not, I'm not on the positive side whatsoever, I'm. I mean, I'd love to break even eventually, but that's not even the point. I'm just telling you because that's I just. I just tell you what's up. Um, yep, yep. What's what this is about is getting the word out to help grow the sport, because, like I said, in the end of the day you can give this to to somebody that's just thinking about wrestling, correct, and or even if they knew nothing about it, and say, like you're talking about this kid that's going into military. You know, there's a story in here and I'm glad I kind of got back to this and I thought and I actually talked to the high school coach today right, there's a story in here about a navy seal. I don't know if you've gotten to it yet I'm gonna let you tell it either way

Speaker 3: 54:37

so this high school coach that I talked to today was a GA for Gable in the late 70s, and so I talked to him and he tells me about this kid. He said he wasn't very talented but he was the hardest working kid I've ever had Bar none, bar none. Turns out that this kid becomes a SEAL and he didn't become a SEAL right away, he struggled. Turns out that this kid becomes a seal, and he didn't become a seal right away. He struggled. He went through some struggles not getting through the first buds test and all that you know. So his name's not revealed in the book because he's still active. Uh-huh, yep, yep. But here here's one thing I want to say what was really cool.

Speaker 3: 55:13

This high school coach I talked to today, which was his high school coach, he told me this story and so it wasn't this past year, um, 2023, um, at virginia beach. He takes some kids there and here they are uh, advertising you want to be a seal, you know, want to be a marine, because they know wrestling. Will I mean what great recruits for that right. So he goes up to the navy guys and they're talking about being a seal and everything else and he says, hey, do you know so and so, and they both stopped and looked at each other like how did you know him? They were in awe of this guy because he's like one of in in the seal community.

Speaker 3: 55:57

Apparently he's. He's pretty well thought of and, like I said, I can't say his name because he's still active for his own safety.

Speaker 3: 56:06

But yeah, he's, he's the stud Like he. He runs those ultra marathons and all those things, but but, um, and he wasn't even a good wrestler. I mean and I think that that's also important to say it's like you do not have to. I mean, obviously there's nothing wrong with wanting to achieve success and be at the top of the mountain, but you do not. I mean you and I just talked about it earlier, right about our own high school careers you don't have to be Jordan Burroughs to draw from this sport, not at all you will benefit you.

Speaker 3: 56:41

As a matter of fact, the average wrestlers probably benefit from the sport more than the better wrestlers. Yes, I was too nice, so, um, and I'm sorry, I'm kind of I kind of went away from your question there. I mean I it's all good but it's uh, I think I was talking about you forget the money part. I want this book to be something You're talking about marketing, right.

Speaker 2: 57:07

Marketing yep.

Speaker 3: 57:08

The word needs to get out. This is not about money. This is about shouting from the rooftops how great the sport is. We all know it. But we want to change it to be MMA. Let's get Ferrari and Staracci to get. Forget all that. Forget all that, yeah that's for them.

Speaker 3: 57:28

It's never going to be as popular as football. Forget all that, I don't care, let it. I mean, and you brought up women, so here's my deal man, honestly, check this out. Just be who we are, right. I used to tell my kids I was coaching or in recruiting, helping them out with coaches. They're like coach. What do I say to this coach? What do I do? Just be yourself, be who you are.

Speaker 3: 57:53

If you want to find a girlfriend or a boyfriend, my advice to them would be be who you are. If they don't like you, for that it's not going to work out anyway. Correct. Just be who you are, and then you'll be happy too. So, like us as wrestlers, let's be who we are. Man, we have the most transformative sport in the world and it has ever been and has ever will be. So let's stop trying to change it to be something else. We don't have to be the most popular. We're never going to be MMA, we're never going to be NFL, and that's okay. That's okay. Let's be who we are. And I think the best example of that is this when we started opening the doors to have women wrestle in their own divisions. Into doors to have women wrestle in their own divisions. Guess what happened? We were all, I think we. We were all surprised by a lot of things. Number one, that so many girls wanted to try it. But number two, they just fell in love with the sport almost instantly, yeah, almost instantly.

Speaker 2: 58:57

Look at the numbers. The numbers don't lie. You know, we didn't have to change it to do anything, just let them have an opportunity.

Speaker 3: 59:04

And and the, the girls fell in love with it. And what more could you ask for? That's what we. That's why we wanted to open it up to you guys, to give you an opportunity to compete against other females. Yes, and try it. And you tried it and you liked it. We do these, these girls it's not the fastest growing sport because we're forcing them to be at it correct, falling in love with it. And and as a parent, as a coach, what more could you want than your, your kid or your athlete to just love the sport?

Speaker 2: 59:34

how great is that right? Right, and it's the. The simplicity of the sport is what really brings out. I mean, you're talking about one-on-one, like we said's. The simplicity of the sport is what really brings out. I mean, you're talking about one-on-one. Like we said before, the simplicity of the sport will bring out who you are. So if you're someone that's trying to hide it on the outside, once you get on that mat you show out exactly who you are. You know you're either. You either got it or you don't. And then if you come back the next round, you show how much hard work you're putting into it and you show exactly everybody that you're made for it. Because there's no hiding anymore, you have to put that work. How about the?

Speaker 3: 1:00:08

women's rest. And this is I think this is the craziest thing, like where we come from, right, we, we still. We see it all the time and it's still hard for us to fathom. But girls will go out there and fight tooth and nail with each other, yes, and then, as soon as the whistle blow, they're not even off the mat, they're hugging each other darn near, asking for the phone number. They're best of friends, that's right. That's right. That's crazy, but it's cool, right right, that's right and it's.

Speaker 2: 1:00:34

It's done that since the at the dawn of time, I think. With the sport, if you look at the international style, same thing. You know these guys going over to foreign countries, these guys have we're bringing those, some of those guys, back here. You know they're coming here and they're creating us relationships. Our guys are going over there and creating foreign relationships and it's honestly, I mean other than soccer. I can't think of a more worldwide sport.

Speaker 3: 1:00:58

So I was actually going to bring that up. Right, I'm going to turn the tables on you and ask you a question. So I think, like growing the sport, there's so many things that we, you know we can do to grow the sport. I talk about the book, like, let's just get the book out there so people know exactly what this sport's all about. But as far as growing or improving the sport, however you want to look at it, I mean and and I so I bring that up when you say soccer and your experience in soccer, yeah, don't, don't. We need to go back to having what I call friendlies. Right, let's have some duels, some home and away duels with that don't matter.

Speaker 2: 1:01:34

Yeah, there's, there's, no, there's nothing tied to it, it's just going out and having and enjoying the sport. Because I remember as a kid tied to it, it's just going out and having and enjoying the sport. Because I remember as a kid. Now we can talk about the high school level here because if I ask a varsity player to jump down and play to jv, oh no, no, no, I wouldn't, no way, I can't play jv. My, these chicks are not going to be impressed with me if I go down to jv. I had to explain to kids this recently. I said look, this is a team sport. We're here to get better. You coming down, I'll tell you this much, you probably sit half the game anyways on varsity. Why don't you come down to JV with? Some of these guys are going to be coming up to varsity with you next year. Get better and we'll play a friendly little scrimmage. We'll all play together. Like you said, we'll get Kakana down the road and we do it. I think we do it every year. We scrimmage with those guys just to just to play.

Speaker 2: 1:02:21

When I was a kid, I didn't care where I played, I just wanted to play. I just wanted to play and I think, like you said, with your book and people just reading into a couple chapters, if you're not like, hey, I want to turn on flow wrestling or go check out this flow wrestling stuff or I want to go check out rock fin or something like that if you're not, if you're reading this and not being at least inspired to go check it out, I that there's something empty inside your head because these stories, like I said, there's perseverance, there's loss, there's wins, there's championships, there's all kinds of stuff that happen that you can't experience unless you. You either see it, read it or go through it, and that's what I think is the magnificent thing about it. That helps grow the sport is because you're getting an angle of athletics in life that you can't get anywhere else. You can't. You can't duplicate wrestling, you can't duplicate what you get out of it, because it's just that unique and the fact that the girls gravitated towards it.

Speaker 2: 1:03:16

I'm talking about girls sports in general. I love watching girls soccer. They are, they are tough and it's not the oh, you bumped my shoelace and now I'm rolling on the ground. Stuff it is. They're playing hard and they're playing physical and they're playing to win. I don't care what anybody's opinion is about the olympic women's olympic soccer team. First of all ask me how many championships they've won, then ask me how many championships the men have won. That's the kind of the grit and things like that that women's sports has brought all the way through and a lot of sports.

Speaker 2: 1:03:46

Now I don't think that your book necessarily is is like you said. You didn't just have like one whole big chapter on women's. You spread it out. You put a. You know one story was here once because it correlated, you know, correlated or something with the, with the message that was being put through. But then you did dedicate one specific area to it, I think with marketing, like we were kind of touching on with the marketing portion.

Speaker 2: 1:04:11

Once someone sees in, like I guess, the adversity that one girl goes through versus what one guy goes through, they could be like whoa man, I want to jump on board with this girl's version because this is going to be, this could be even better than the, the, the normal version. So the talk about a volume two is that something? You know, is that something that not just a girl's, the girl's side of it? But would you also want to be putting together something that's like a, but would you also want to be putting together something that's like maybe a freestyle kind of side of it, or like a Greco-Roman stories, or you know things like that, where you're kind of breaking it up a little bit? Just an idea that literally just popped into my head.

Speaker 3: 1:04:50

I was actually thinking the other day of how much I didn't have as much Greco as I wish I had in there. Yeah, I mean which, by the way, I do want to say this I think we need to stop undercutting each other in this sport.

Speaker 2: 1:05:08

Agreed.

Speaker 3: 1:05:09

We need to get on the same page and stop talking about style and why that's hurting us. I mean, I think it's ignorant to say, and there are a lot of prominent people who would disagree with me. I think it's ignorant to say, oh, are a lot of prominent people who would disagree with me. I think it's ignorant to say, oh, we got to have the girls wrestle freestyle in college or they will never have a shot on the Olympic level. Like that's a joke. Up until the Olympics this year, the men were outperforming the women. Now we have folk style in high school, I mean in college. Excuse me what I don't like. I'll just say this I see a lot of people, based off of their own agenda, have their opinions. My opinion is based off the agenda for girls. I talked to a lot of girls and these women once again prominent names will tell you that oh no, I never, never hear people. The girls want folk style. I talked to a lot of girls that want to like why can't I wrestle folk style in college?

Speaker 3: 1:06:06

I mean I have to, I have to switch over to this other style predominantly, you know, and there are some folk style opportunities in college. But I guess my, my feeling is, I mean, yes, we all want to do well in the olympics, but so are we going to sacrifice everybody but those six women? I mean, come on man. Yeah, I guess we can all live together. Right, and greco too. We, we can all live together and improve the sport, but we have to stop worrying strictly about ourselves yeah we can't start clubs just so we can make money or we can pump our name out there.

Speaker 3: 1:06:47

Someone told me obviously you can tell I'm passionate about these things.

Speaker 2: 1:06:50

Yeah, it's all right, it's good.

Speaker 3: 1:06:52

So someone told me one time and I thought it was pretty funny. Now I don't think that this is a hard and fast 100% rule right, which not much is in this world other than what they say death and taxes.

Speaker 2: 1:07:03

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 1:07:05

They said if you want to know about a club, just tell them. Just look at their name. If it's a person's name, it's about the person. If it's something else, it's about the kids.

Speaker 1: 1:07:15

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 1:07:16

Like I said, I don't. I don't think that that's 100%, because I see people's names on it that really do care about the kids For sure. But I mean, it's kind of a starting point and you can look at that and go, okay, well, this guy's got like his whole you know his whole name there, even.

Speaker 2: 1:07:36

Right on it.

Speaker 2: 1:07:37

Yeah, mike Krause is a prime example of not putting your name on it and being about the kids. I mean, I think everybody kind of knew that, but just personified that he loved the sport and that he loved making kids better. And actually not even making kids better, making kids enjoy wrestling not if they got better. They should, you know, because they're enjoying it and that's usually how it goes right. You don't think about the oh, it sucks so much, or you just think about how much fun you're having and you're getting better at it. And I think I think you, I think you make a good point.

Speaker 2: 1:08:06

I, I think it's pretty valid to say that you know you're pinning your name on something you're you're not. I mean, it's a marketing ploy, you know. I mean, if you're a big enough name, you put your name on something, it's gonna sell something. Now, to a certain extent, I could argue that a little bit in our state with Askren a little bit, because not everybody that's coaching at Askren has their name as Askren. But in the same point of you know, there are quite a few clubs across the country where you can tell it's really just about them. It's about them because then what happens once they're gone. They may be kids that gravitated towards them and thought they were great, but I can totally agree with that. I was going to tell you, askren?

Speaker 3: 1:08:50

he was one of the first guys I invited to talk about this book with. I saw him at it was Folk Style Nationals. I think it was 2022. It was the year that they had the Bill Farrell there too. Okay yep, remember that. Yep Cedar Rapids.

Speaker 3: 1:09:05

They had the Farrell, so I had a guy at the Bill Farrell and so I mean I love wrestling, so I'm watching the high school stuff too and I just observe guys, right, yep, and I knew who he was. But I mean, right, yep, and I and I knew who he was. But I mean I'm observing guys and I'm watching him interact with other. So he tells me, I mean long story short just to give you the end game. But he tells me, hey, I'm, you know, I'm busy, but he was super nice about it, oh sure, professional about it, and I've respected him for just being honest and upfront with me. Um, he's like, I just don't have time right now, but, uh, but I, the reason I did is because I watched how he was with the kids, like not just the, the technical instruction, but just as, as you were saying earlier, right, you have an influence, whether you want to or not, these kids are watching you, right. And so I observed him and and you know he didn't know me, he didn't know I was observing him and others, right, but so that's another thing I do with the book, right, like I, I can be fooled, people can be fooled, but I try not to just put somebody in there that's not worthy of their own salt, worth their weight in salt. I mean, metals are all great and grand, but you know you can have and I mean I don't want to be calling out people, but you can have some top names that really don't care. But then again, but I will call out somebody on a positive side and that's Jordan Burroughs. Jordan Burroughs every dealing that I've ever had with this guy he's been been a just a good human being.

Speaker 3: 1:10:50

Now I know people give him grief over the whole thing at penn state. I think that there's probably wrong on both sides, but but he doesn't. For me he doesn't get a pass because he's an olympic champion, he's a great wrestler. I think that's. I think that's a foolish take if you say, oh, it's okay to screw up because you were a great athlete. No, but he gets a pass from me because I've seen him do so much for the sport and so much for other people, even when he didn't have to. I've seen the type of person that he is and that's why he would get a pass, not because you have a gold medal. That really, in my mind, does not make you any better than anyone else as far as a person goes.

Speaker 1: 1:11:34

Now wrestling.

Speaker 3: 1:11:35

Yeah, you crushed me in wrestling, but you know you're a good person because you're a good person, correct?

Speaker 2: 1:11:42

Correct. So a little bit of the marketing. What drove like what were your ideas? Because you did some giveaways, right? Is that? Because you did some giveaways right? I was a. You're literally the first person I've ever won a giveaway with on anything, ever in my 45 years on this planet, and I get this. I get this pattern. I'm like what? I message you. I'm like, hey, dude, like what I know? You message me. You're like, hey, you won. I'm like I won what man? You're like well, you, you won. Uh, you won a shirt, stuff like that. I was like, dude, all I was doing is just trying to share. I was just trying to help out, put it out there. And you're like, no, you won.

Speaker 3: 1:12:14

I was like oh, all right, so that's my thing. Man, I, I, I people were injured by buying. If they bought the book and showed me proof that they bought the book, I was like, okay, well, you're entered, entered. If you did a review, if you did a post, I had a flyer that I so you know I had a lot of things backfire, but I did a flyer for this.

Speaker 2: 1:12:42

It's frustrating, I know, yeah.

Speaker 3: 1:12:45

I get on USA. There's not really a lot of people right. That's like, hey, here's a list of all the coaches, you can just send this out to every coach. I didn't really have support like that and um. But you know, you can get on usa wrestling and membership and I you can find every club. So, one, one by one, I sent out a message to every single club. It, it took me, it takes about a total of three days, wow, constantly, because there's like 7,000.

Speaker 1: 1:13:18

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 1:13:18

And so I sent out a message saying this is my book. This is what I'm doing for the book. I'm having this contest. You know I'm working on the flyer. Guys, please get back to me individually and we'll work together and I'll get you entered. If you post a fly on the flyer, guys, please get back to me individually and we'll work together and I'll get you entered. If you post a flyer in the room or you send it out by email to your wrestling community, um, then I did it again. I got the flyer. I attached the flyer. Another three days, constant, just email, email, email. I ended up getting about 20 responses out of 7,000.

Speaker 3: 1:13:54

Yeah, 7,000. Twice Right, this is about 70.

Speaker 2: 1:13:57

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 1:13:58

Um, and so someone tells me hey, a lot of us don't look at our emails once the season's over with until we come back. And I'm like man, I just spent basically a week sending emails constantly, almost for nothing. Um, yeah, but long story short, what I, what I, so, what I did is, um, I had these prizes. I did 50 prizes to represent the 50 states that are in the book. Yeah, um, and so it was people leave a review. Um, like you did. You know you posting good stuff.

Speaker 3: 1:14:39

I mean, it was really easy to get an entry uh it started out quick, like a lot of people did it, and then it really slowed down like people weren't entering. But long story short, so I had 50 prizes, and they were from some of the companies that I have here in the book, right, that are called dedicated partners. But Cliff Keen, who's been around wrestling forever and supported wrestling, rudis Resolite Resolite's actually on the cover, so this is supposed to represent like a wrestling mat, right? Yep, and so Resolite did this mock-up for me, and then they I said I want your name on it too, just like it's a wrestling mat, right? Yeah, I was actually gonna have these pictures surrounded almost like at a duel, like a high school duel, where kids oh yeah, like a team on one side, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3: 1:15:30

It would have been cool, but the shape of the book right. It didn't really work that way, that's right.

Speaker 2: 1:15:35

That's right.

Speaker 3: 1:15:37

So, long story short, I have all these prizes Dopaminil, so Footwork Trainer, yeah. So there were all these cool prizes. Resolite did some award mats, so those are still in the works. We're trying to get those out to people, but they were wrestling shoes, there were backpacks, headgear, uh, t-shirts. There's a lot of cool stuff, right? So we do this drawing the day that the olympics, the wrestling in the olympics finished up and uh, you know, you were one of. I'm like, I mean, I mean it was just, it was random. I did it on Instagram live and it wasn't, you know, it was just everybody that got an entry or two or three. I just threw it all in a box and I was. The only thing I was kind of hoping was maybe we don't have the same person, like, if they have multiple entries, I mean I'm putting them in there.

Speaker 3: 1:16:28

So I'm like maybe we can not get one person, but unfortunately we didn't. But 27 states were represented with the winners. And then the cool part about that is I made it. I knew so all those companies. What I did is they gave me some discounts. I bought all the stuff myself, of course. Then I had to pay for all the shipping and everything, which is another thing. So I had some extra stuff and I said, well, I want to do a bonus drawing for the states, the three states with the most entries per capita.

Speaker 2: 1:17:12

So it's fair yeah.

Speaker 3: 1:17:13

Yep, that's right. So California had the most entries per capita, so that's right. Yeah, yep, that's right, so it's per capita. So, like california had the most entries, right, but they also had the most people, yeah, so I just looked up. What I did was it might not have been the most um recent numbers for the states, but I kept, I kept the source the same. So, yeah, I mean I kept the source the same. So I mean I kept the source the same. So I did all the states, their population, everything, and I did my little formula. And then so those three states and I can't remember I think Montana was one of them, alaska was one of them and maybe it was North Dakota, I can't remember. But so those three states, the cool thing was nobody in the first 50 prizes won from those states. So when I did the bonus drawing, I put those entries back in for those states and it happened to be one from each state, which was awesome, so nice.

Speaker 2: 1:18:08

So there was actually 30 states that had prizes sent out to, that's cool that's cool and so to me, like that's that's also a part of the growing sport. Like as much that I don't do, like I don't get paid doing this, so literally I have, I'm looking at thousands of dollars of equipment down here, right, like I spent my money on that, because I feel like this is like doing this is my version of giving back to the sport. That's's not only giving back to me, but giving back to my son and my family and both my sons. So that that's I. I completely empathize with the spending money on something to make sure that, because you want to do it right and you want to represent correctly, just like everybody else when they're going on the mat, they're trying to represent correctly. So I think you're growing the sport just fine with what you're doing, because it's you're giving back. You're showing that the sport does matter and that people in it matter, and at the same time, though, too, that the stories matter.

Speaker 2: 1:19:02

You know everybody's been through something, everybody's been awarded something, whatever it is, but doing those prizes and kind of keeping people engaged, you might've engaged probably some new athletes, some new kids of the sport, and then now you just heightened it even more for those guys that they want to continue. Hey, man, I got to check out my root of socks, you know, look at these. I just got these men. You know, like my parents are going to keep buying me, so if we go to the next tournament they're going to give me another pair, so maybe that keeps them going and that keeps them driving through. So, with with the end goal of growing the sport, how, in your opinion, how, how do you feel? Like what? What's some feedback that you've gotten on the book?

Speaker 3: 1:19:42

Uh, it's. It's all been very positive. Like people, I've been pleased, so I did get. A few weeks back, somebody gave me a four star on Amazon and it's really not a big deal, right, but it's like dang it. I had all five star reviews but they did not leave a review, it was just a rating.

Speaker 2: 1:20:03

That's it, yeah.

Speaker 3: 1:20:04

Yeah. So I was like I didn't know who it was or even why you would say only four star.

Speaker 1: 1:20:09

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 1:20:09

I mean there's no reason for me to worry about. I mean it's not that big of a deal, but um, yeah, it's like. Hey, I wanted to keep my streak intact, right yeah, that's the people I talked to and they love the book and they're like really shocked and surprised by what it really was yeah uh, like I told you, there were some people that were like what do you mean?

Speaker 3: 1:20:32

you're writing a book on wrestling. What is that about? What would that do? What is it about? They read it and they're like, oh my gosh, that's what I mean. That's really cool and that's awesome.

Speaker 2: 1:20:41

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 1:20:42

It has been really fun to get the positive feedback, but we just need to do more of it right, like people, go on Amazon, they'll see, hey, it's a 4.9 star now instead of five. But uh, I mean, I don't listen, loser. Oh, exactly, yeah, but uh, you know no reason to complain, but the 22 reviews and we get more reviews. People like that. Matter of fact, my wife was at a, at a. Uh, what do you call like a convention for a work?

Speaker 2: 1:21:17

yeah.

Speaker 3: 1:21:17

Peyton Manning spoke and she's standing next to at this. They were actually front row. She's standing next to Tennessee fans from it was a bank. She works at a bank, okay, and so she tells them about my book. Yeah, my husband wrote a book about the sec. Not to sell it, just to tell it I'm in conversation, yeah. So first thing they do is they get on their phone and they look it up and they're like, oh man, those are good reviews. So I mean people see a lot of reviews or they see you know a good rating. It draws them to it. So I mean we could help with that.

Speaker 3: 1:21:52

But one thing that I struggle with and I don't know why this is so hard for people but man, just email you, send it out to your email list of your wrestling community, like just if anybody wants any information. So I'm at thecoachlang on instagram, just dm me, I'll send you pictures of the book. I'll send you flyers. I'll send you different. I'll send you pictures of the book. I'll send you flyers. I'll send you even a QR code if you want it, so people can scan it and go to the book.

Speaker 3: 1:22:22

Once again, it's not about money, just like I say. I mean I'd be a hypocrite to say don't start a club only for money. And then I'd say I'm writing a book just for money. What a hypocrite. But it's not about my, it's about growing the sport, and so if I can do anything for anybody to get information about this because, like you said, there are stories that somebody will relate to in here, I promise you, there's 150 different stories. People from olympic champions down to five-year-old kids, boys, girls, men, women, um, people will relate to these stories and they'll and and they'll see something in wrestling that I I believe that will prompt most people to at least give it a try. So that's where when I think about growing a sport, that's what. Not everybody's going to stay in it, but there will be some that do that stay with it. That's correct.

Speaker 3: 1:23:16

You know, and then think about this Like what if we have somebody that joins the sport for two years and they get out of it, whether it be their last two years in high school or they go to another sport or whatever it is? But when they're older, right, I mean, I've really only wrestled four years and look at the things that I'm doing for wrestling and I probably do less than a lot of people in rest, but somebody joined wrestling and they see, oh my, that was 20 years ago, but my son's at a high school and they have a wrestling team. Hey, johnny, you should try this. It's man, it's hard, but I mean, I, I loved it, you know. And of course, their history is probably going to be altered and they'll be like I was the county champion, right, right. But I mean, people will go back to it. And you mentioned the women. How cool is it going to be when we get to a point where now we have more women coaches? Obviously, we're having more women wrestlers, but what about more women officials, which is growing now?

Speaker 3: 1:24:18

But, what about when we start having more women CEOs, more women business owners and people that can give back to the sport that way, because they were given an opportunity to participate? Yep, how cool is that going to be right? Yeah, it's all going to pay.

Speaker 2: 1:24:33

How cool is that going to be? Right? Yeah, it's all. It's all going to pay off, it's going to pay dividends and I think, uh, honestly, with, with the way that the sport is going, I think anything and every little thing that in a positive nature that can help the sport is all it's all worthwhile. Um, I think we do. I think we do.

Speaker 2: 1:24:49

I think you brought up a good point. We do get lost in the you know, oh, I got to make money in doing this. I mean, don't get me wrong, would a guy like to break even, like you said? Hell yeah, why wouldn't you want to? But when you are dedicated to something like this and it's something that it's a passion, the money doesn't matter. Again, this is the side that I like doing.

Speaker 2: 1:25:10

I like bringing these stories out to people, whether it's a wrestler story I mean, nick Siriano hadn't talked to anybody in how long and I was lucky enough to get him on to be able to tell his entire story about going all the way from little kid to the Penn State issue, all that stuff I didn't know half of that stuff. And I think that having these stories out here like this as well, and the even the stories that are nameless. Like you said, you, the person's still active. You don't want to, you don't want to, um, put that in jeopardy. It's still a story worthwhile, regardless when it comes to this sport.

Speaker 2: 1:25:41

So I commend you for what you're doing, and I know that things that we do in the future will definitely involve still putting that book out there. Talking to kids. Be like, hey, go grab this book. You don't even have to have the hard copy, have it on your, your Kindle or on your tablet. You can read it right there, and so you can have it right there. So, with with that being said, I know we are going to be putting out a website pretty soon. Um, we'd like to obviously incorporate that book onto there so people that are going can get more exposure to it. Um, because we you know I have vision quest apparel company and stuff like that, but we're going to be putting some new stuff out there. So I'm definitely going to still be helping you put that out there, because I think this book is extremely important. So here's the thing we've been going hey, yeah, go ahead go for it on the money part of it.

Speaker 3: 1:26:29

One thing I'll say is profit's not a dirty word. I'm not against people making money. Making profit, I mean if I did more than break even, I'd be happy about that too. But so I mean I don't want to make it sound like I don't want to make money, don't want to sell books. I guess my thing is it's the motivation behind it, right? Like my motivation to write this book was not to get rich quick scheme or nothing like that. It was all about growing the sport and you know, I assumed that I would probably make my money back on it.

Speaker 3: 1:27:05

I mean, that may or may not happen and that's inconsequential. So I'm not trying to throw people under the bus for making money. There's nothing wrong with that. It's reallyonsequential. So I'm not trying to throw people under the bus for making money, there's nothing wrong with that. It's really about the motivation. Like especially when you know you, you take money from someone to teach their kid and you do a phenomenal job of that and your mentor them. Good for you, man. You deserve what you, what you did, right? I mean, like I'm already at the point where I've put all this money and stuff into it. So it's not like it is what it is. But once again I'm sorry I've got to stop talking about the money, because it doesn't matter.

Speaker 2: 1:27:40

It doesn't. It doesn't.

Speaker 3: 1:27:42

But I was going to say you're talking about these stories. Lily left at Iowa. Man, her story is the longest one in the book. It's probably three stories worth of stories. I mean it's as long as three of them. But once you read it it really is three stories and it's, it's uh, man. I encourage people to go look at her story. It's uh, it's phenomenal and man, they're, they're just they're. There's some terrific peopleific people. So you know I follow her on her stuff and I like a lot of her stuff because she's a good person.

Speaker 3: 1:28:19

I mean just awesome. And you know she wasn't even going to wrestle, she had already hung it up for wrestling and we laughed about that, right? She told me. I will say this, so I'm kind of giving a little bit away, but I'll tell you. So her brother passed right but he had three goals it was to win state, it was to uh wrestle at Iowa and uh three, to to be in Olympics. So the day that I do the interview with her and her mom, we're talking about that. Well, when she started back in wrestling, iowa didn't have a women's team. Nope, right, yep. When she started back in wrestling, the girls' state championship wasn't sanctioned, it wasn't recognized and it just happened to be that it becomes recognized. She wins the state championship, iowa starts a women's wrestling team, she's wrestling at Iowa. And the day that I did the interview with her and her mom, they were on their way back from the Olympic Training Center.

Speaker 2: 1:29:33

And I was just I mean, it was, it was something else yeah, and so now I kind of knew her story a little bit just from social media and following her and things like that. She's the. I think that's one thing that I find fascinating about the wrestling community is the ability to wear your, your heart on your sleeve and not not where, and some people aren't able to, but a lot of these guys, especially these high level people, are able to do that and not even worry about it, and I think that's another tale for people to take away from a lot of these athletes and some of these stories that they're putting it all out there. You know they're, they're literally putting themselves and their life story out there for people to learn not to listen to it and be like, oh, that was a really good story. It's to learn from and to take pieces of the information that they're giving you and be like, hey, things are going to be rough.

Speaker 2: 1:30:24

Things do happen for a reason and you can persevere through them, and Lily Luft is pretty much the epitome of what that is, you know. So we've been following her for a long time too, and it was nice to see her in the book. I wasn't expecting it either. Until I started reading, I'm like is this Lily?

Speaker 3: 1:30:43

Awesome. Well, I didn't even. I don't know. I guess I don't know if you call this humbleness or just dumb ass surgery. Right, I mean I was just thinking like I'm not gonna. I mean obviously it doesn't make sense. I approached john smith why would I approach her? But I'm just gonna let it go like I'm like it kind of felt like, hey, people knew it, but they really didn't know it. I they went in depth with me and gave me some information and it was because someone in the Iowa wrestling community said, hey, we talked with her and I said, well, no, no, they said, well, you should. And so.

Speaker 3: 1:31:21

I did, and the depth that they gave me the story. I mean, we started bonding which, by the way, like, so you know, they donated her brother's organs when he passed. Well, I'm originally from Louisville, Kentucky, Guess, where the donor recipient of his heart was from.

Speaker 2: 1:31:39

Louisville.

Speaker 3: 1:31:40

Kentucky. Yeah, my brother passed away. Myself, my youngest brother passed away in a car accident and we donated his organs.

Speaker 3: 1:31:49

So there was some natural um, there was some natural bonding there already yeah, and it was uh, you know, and I I might be getting teary-eyed now and think about my brother, think about their situation, but but we bonded a little bit through that and they're just wonderful people that are. I mean it's, it's the epit like we talk about, like what a good person is is do the best you can do without being self-centered. And that that's the left family. There they are. They, they are going to do the best that they can do and then, at the same time, help others and it's just they're.

Speaker 2: 1:32:31

They're great man, they're awesome same time, help others and it's just they're. They're great man, they're awesome, they are they definitely are and a great story and I encourage every single person that has listened to this show has seen the show go out and get the book matt return again. You can get it physically in your hands, you can do it digitally, it doesn't matter where you get it. Get out and get it. Um, we're at about an hour and a half. I want to give you the opportunity to kind of do some shout outs at the end here, because I you know you've been working with people. If there's someone that you haven't mentioned, you want to bring up who you got for shout outs oh man.

Speaker 3: 1:33:06

So I mean there's. There's so many people, right, I don't want to leave people that just know I. I mean people know that there's some great coaches that you may not have heard of at the college level. Right, there's also great coaches at the club level that you may have heard too. But there's a lot of good people in this sport and you know there's a lot of people that care about growing the sport, care about helping people individually. It's just like with anything else. You know, do your homework, vet people Just because you don't know their name. I mean, I talked to one of our winners of our match. He was telling me the other day I got in touch with him he won one of the award match from Resolite and all of a sudden we start talking about Fox catcher and Dave Schultz. Yeah, because he was there. He was there.

Speaker 3: 1:33:58

And and I was like man, just he was, he was telling me about this. He said just real quick, I think you'll enjoy the story he tells me he rose up the first day to go practice. There he's with Mark Schultz.

Speaker 2: 1:34:12

Oh boy.

Speaker 3: 1:34:13

He rolls up to the gate. Yeah, he rolls up to the gate and he punches the code in, mark does, and the gate's starting to open and this guy's like, hey, mark, there's a tank, there's a tank. Mark's like, yeah, he's like that's DuPont. He's like, no, no, there's a tank. So dupont rolls up on him with a tank and opens the hatch and comes out and he's he's like he wants this guy's wrestling resume right now, before you come on the property. And that was like his first experience with on, I mean interest, I mean obviously it's a tragedy, what happened? Right, but interesting story, interesting story so mark schultz has been on the show.

Speaker 2: 1:34:56

That guy has definitely got some interesting stories and man, he could. I, I could have done a four-hour episode with that guy. I tell you what. But yeah, definitely. I mean, and that's the thing is like the there are, so there's so much more. I'm expecting you to do a volume two. I'm expecting it. I'm gonna hold you and I'm. If I, by next year I don't hear something about a volume two, I'm gonna start bugging you about a volume two so let's make a deal, like everybody, seriously, I mean, I'm pretty sure you're gonna like the book, but get it.

Speaker 3: 1:35:31

Like, like you said, you can get the electronic version, you can get the paperback. This is the first book that I've ever done a hardcover for and I'm so pleased with it. It's really cool, the hardcover, yeah. And so what I just want to say is, if you want to grow the sport and not just because it's my book, but if you want to grow the sport, just let people know about it. I'm not saying that you have to go buy everybody a book or talk them into it. Just tell them about it and if you read it, then you'll really know what it's about and you'll be like oh okay, this is what they were talking about.

Speaker 3: 1:36:10

Right, like I say a lot about being real and true, because that's who I am At the end of the day. I'm real and true about this book and you know. So I'm not just saying that this stuff's in there. I mean it talks about in the beginning, like you said, it talked about some rules, regulations, but it's elementary, it's for those people that are learning the sport. At the back of the book there's a resource guide right that has every stage you can look at. I mean you can find a lot of good stuff. So after every fourth chapter there is I guess you'd call it a poem that I've written. The one for the girls is pretty cool At the very end. My favorite is called the Essence of Wrestling. That's something that we've talked about maybe putting music to and it being the one shining moment for the NCAA tournament.

Speaker 2: 1:37:00

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 1:37:01

Help grow the sport that way.

Speaker 3: 1:37:03

But, if you would just send this out to your wrestling community through email. Just let them know it's there. Just let them know it's there. Just let them know it's there. And if anybody needs any of that information, you let me know. I mean, the book is available on Amazon, but I can shoot any of that information. The other thing that I like to say is we work with some clubs and some individuals for fundraising efforts. I can do some drop shipping and some individuals for fundraising efforts. I can do some drop shipping, like, for instance I'll just tell you even the numbers because I won't hide it, right but there was a girl, she actually won Fargo, but it was so cool to work with her, what she did, so I drop shipped some books to her and I paid it. It cost me about $8 to pay for the book and the shipping. She gave me $10. So I got a couple of dollars for each book.

Speaker 1: 1:37:59

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 1:38:00

She sold it for 20 and she was able to have 10 go into her Fargo fund, Nice. So she's getting the word out. So she was in the book too, which so she was telling people, hey, I'm in this book.

Speaker 2: 1:38:12

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 1:38:13

Oh yeah, but you know just, I want to help teams and wrestlers too, right, Yep? So if there's anything like that I mean, I've sent books off to people that are doing like golf outings for their clubs and things Sure, Just reach out to me. If I can help you, we'll work something out.

Speaker 2: 1:38:31

Yep, and when, out to me. If I can help you, uh, we'll work something out. Yep, and well, when we get this out, uh, after either tomorrow, I guess, soccer tournament tomorrow. But I will have information in the youtube um description that'll have a link to the book, uh, and any other information that you want to send me that you want in there. I could put all that right in the description of that and then it'll also be included into the podcast description as well. So so when it's out on Spotify, all that stuff will be out there. So, folks, seriously, get out, just if, if anything, just get the snippet of the book that you can get when you're looking at it on Amazon and it gives you a taste of what's in there, so that way you can really understand that it's not again, it's not a succession book. These are stories. These are all individual stories of people who have gone through adversity winning, losing. It's all the story of wrestling and really I think it encompasses wrestling as a whole.

Speaker 3: 1:39:21

And it's not technique. I'll leave that to the experts. I think I'm more of an expert on people and their stories.

Speaker 3: 1:39:32

I'll leave the technique, so you know you mentioned the short stories. I actually envision kids having this book at a tournament and in between matches, because the stories are a page, page and a half at longest. Except for Lily's First it's about two and a half pages. But I mean you could read this, you could read a story in between matches and it won't disrupt your time at all. I mean what you got? An hour or more.

Speaker 2: 1:39:58

you can read a story in 10 minutes it may not disrupt your time, but it could also affect him, maybe even better, the outcome of your next match.

Speaker 2: 1:40:06

You never know, yep, exactly, exactly so, coach lang. Man, it has been a pleasure talking to you. I tell you that much. Um, I'm going to talk to you still for a minute once we're done here. But, um, uh, folks, stay tuned, uh, go get the book. Stay tuned for our website. Uh, thanks to our sponsors. Uh, appleton tattoo, anabolic army. Uh. And then we got nine to oh hats, uh hat company. But uh, go out and get the uh matt return uh honestly, you're not going to be disappointed.

Speaker 3: 1:40:36

Before I go, I do want to say this I really appreciate you having me and I've I've invited some people to come watch us tonight, right, and yeah it's really because I want them to see you and the things that you're doing. I appreciate that what you do to grow the sport. So, so, so, your sponsors and the people that follow you, thank you for what you guys do. Follow them because that I mean you do a great job helping sports, so thank you I appreciate.

Speaker 2: 1:41:00

I appreciate it everybody. This has been another episode of the vision quest podcast. Go check out the matt return. We're going to be talking after we're done here. Everybody else peace.