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The Vision Quest Podcast
A podcast about life, sports, and life in sports! Enjoy!
The Vision Quest Podcast
#106 Inside the Cheesehead Wrestling Tournament Evolution
This podcast episode discusses the upcoming Cheesehead Wrestling Tournament, highlighting its significance for athletes, teams, and the wrestling community. The hosts share insights about tournament preparations, the exciting roster of participating teams, and their commitment to enhancing the spectator experience.
• Emphasis on the extensive preparations for the tournament
• Introduction of new teams and participants, increasing competition
• Insights on the new USA Bracket system improving user experience
• The community-building aspect of the tournament
• Highlighting the importance of supporting in-person attendance at wrestling events
Cheesehead X Link: https://x.com/Cheesehead_HS
Cheesehead Website Link: http://www.cheeseheadwrestling.com/
Illinois Matmen Rokfin Link: https://www.rokfin.com/ILMatmen
Appleton Tattoo Links
https://www.facebook.com/appletontattoo
https://www.instagram.com/mark_appletontattoo/
920 Hat Co. Links
https://920hatco.com/
https://www.instagram.com/920hatco/
https://www.facebook.com/920HatCo
Thank you, and we're live.
Speaker 2:So we are here for another version of the Vision Quest podcast. Not the first time to have one of these guys on here. We have a very big week coming up here in Kekona, it's otherwise known as the Cheesehead. We are joined here today by none other than we're not just going to announce this guy like he's just some regular dude.
Speaker 2:He's not a regular dude. This guy wins. He's won awards this year, I mean. So we're pretty sure that we have probably one of the best guys in Wisconsin wrestling, putting things together brain-wise in the house. Coach, scott Cleaver, how are you doing? Thank you, I'm doing great. I'm excited. I'm pumped Like this year. I'm excited because you guys added teams right Like this is pretty sweet so we won't be remiss.
Speaker 1:So well, we won't be remiss. We also have Glenn Meyerhofer in the house.
Speaker 2:Glenn, thanks for joining us, man, Thanks for having me. Glenn's on the end. If you can't see we have everybody. We're kind of we'll take this off the stage so you can kind of see everybody here. So Glenn's on the end. We're also joined by Mr Austin Hanson. Thank you, austin. Thank you for having me Appreciate it. You are also kind of the guy behind cheesehead with some of the stats, facts, social media things like that right yeah, I've been.
Speaker 3:uh, so I'm glenn's, one of glenn's best friends of knowing glenn and scott for I don't know 10, 15 years or so I think I've gone to every wisconsin state wrestling high school state wrestling tournament since I've been I don't know, sophomore in high school. So, uh, going on, just turned 29 this year so been around the, been around the sport for quite some time and been really really good friends with Scott and obviously Glenn and been helping Scott with the Cheesehead and kind of promoting it on social media mainly Twitter for I don't know, last six to eight years or so eight years or so, I would say somewhere in that ballpark and really just driving up the publicity and just the overall edge around the tournament in general, just to get more eyes on the sport of wrestling and the amazing tournament that Scott himself has kind of born.
Speaker 2:Is it 20, 26, how many? 25. 25 last year was pretty big so we talked about a lot of history last year so that was fun. I didn't know half the stories that you told me, so it was good to hear those. I've always liked Austin. I've always liked kind of checking out the stuff, because I know you put a lot of it together just watching Twitter, things like that. The little facts that you're putting together smart, and then plus, like what these guys are ranked in their states and how many ranked guys they have. So, in the grand scheme of things, how many hours would you say in a season? Because each year, each year, how much time do you think you spend on this?
Speaker 3:well, I'm uh, fortunate enough to to work from home and in my uh, full-time role and glenn helps me behind the scenes as well. I don't want to throw him under the bus or anything like that, but I I love numbers, I love spreadsheets and things like that, so I created it all in Excel and I don't know. I mean most work goes in ahead of the tournament, right, like I alluded to, kind of marketing for the tournament. When the tournament comes, it's kind of not sit back and enjoy it because there's a lot of work that goes on there, but it's more so just, hey, enjoy the wrestling, the good matches and obviously still posting live tweets and things like that and different video clips and stuff like that.
Speaker 3:But I would say I mean I can't even put a number, to be honest, on the time spent. Scott knows that obviously behind the screen, him and I text back and forth and send them this to get the programs and stuff, text back and forth and send them this to get the programs and stuff. It's a well-oiled machine behind everything that goes into this tournament that a lot of people kind of don't even realize what's going on behind the scenes to make something like this happen when you have teams. I think there's eight states represented this year somewhere in that ballpark and a couple of new ones that we'll get into. But yeah, it's a lot, lot, it's a lot of fun, for sure yeah, and that's.
Speaker 2:I think that's the biggest thing that I think about. It, too is it's fun to look at, it's obvious. I love looking at the numbers. I love looking at the guys that could possibly go against each other. I know, steve and t, you're gonna be in town. We might do an impromptu. You never know, sit down and start doing some pics, have a couple couple drinks, never know what's going to happen. You know, have fun with it. But that's the best part of it. At least have this information out for people to actually be able to look at, and everybody will be able to see it in a minute. But, just like I said, the teams, the color code, I mean you put a lot of time into it. I mean, in all, glenn, where do you? Hey, there's this team, let's reach out to these guys. How do you kind of put all this stuff together for yourself?
Speaker 4:I'd rather you guys just do whatever Austin needs me to do or Scott needs me to do. Is it Wherever I can help Right on Give assistance? Yeah, never. Wherever you need me to help, I'll just fill in and do a task.
Speaker 2:Right on, right on. So, scott, what is? Are there any new things coming up this year that are, obviously we have more teams, but are there anything new? Is there anything new you're doing? Yeah, we're switching from track wrestling and we're going to USA Bracket. Nice, okay, and that's kind of been the theme of the Chiefs head as as things evolve.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I'm always looking for the the best out there and I've had a chance to sit down with the guys that developed usa bracketing okay and watched as they've developed and actually got to see it months ago before it was ever really out to the public, and it's like track on steroids. It's really. That's cool. It's going to be so user-friendly because you know, you think about how many tournaments you go to and your kid just gets done and you have no idea when they're going to be up again. Well, with this bracketing system, you click on the next bout sheet yeah, about number on the on the bracket, yeah, and it'll give you an estimated time of when your athlete will be up. Wow, so it is really helpful for the athletes, parents, coaches, fans yeah, because just think about this, you have an athlete that just got done. You click on this next bell yeah, he's got an hour. So now, parents, you know you can go into the concession stand or do something. That's crucial. This is what you can put into your body as an athlete. Yep, I have this much time, this recovery time. You're going to know your warm-up time better. So that's life-changing for athletes and the fans.
Speaker 2:What drove? Obviously we knew things were changing the landscape as far as who was doing what and who gained. What bought. What kind of thing? Was that the answer? I guess for the integration, because obviously it's Flow bought track right and so they're all one, and I think everybody on the outside was kind of like, ooh, perfect, now they'll integrate whatever they're doing and try to tie it together and hopefully make it a little more user-friendly, because everybody had something wrong with track that they complained about and now everybody likes flow because they can't find it right. So is this kind of a brain child to be able to hopefully facilitate those complaints and be able to heal the, the, the wounds of parents going through gyms and watching ball boards and things like that? I think I think it will. I think this would you know. And the other thing is our tournament's different than other tournaments. We go from a round of 64 to a round of 32. Then we get into 16 where it's round robins.
Speaker 2:They built the bracket specifically for our event. By doing that, last year, if you remember, when we used track, we had to have two separate tournaments and that was confusing for the people that were trying to watch. Well, this year it's a beautiful flow just one tournament, one event all bled right into each other.
Speaker 2:That's fantastic because you guys have that I mean the bracketing system, where just because you lose one or two doesn't mean you're necessarily done. You lose one, you go to the backside. You still get four more matches. So I mean there's a lot of bracketing that's involved in just getting guys in the consolation or backside. Yeah, so this year what we're doing is we have a round, like on Friday night, we're wrestling the round of 64, the round of 32, and then we'll do two rounds of the round robins on the front side Okay, those top 16. Yep, the next day, the first matches after weigh-ins will be the people that lost in the round of 64 and lost in the round of 32. They go in a straight 32 manman bracket to the champion, just on winner's side. Yeah, yeah. And so that gets every athlete to weigh in twice. And that's one thing I heard from coaches is they want to make sure you know these are better teams that are going to be in, you know, at their state duels doing at least two days of their tournament in Iowa.
Speaker 1:It's four days.
Speaker 2:Yep, yep. So they want their kids to do back-to-back weigh-ins. Okay, so do you? Now the other thing, too, is this going to hopefully cut down time in the tournament a little bit. I know it's not going to cut hours off, right, but at least it keeps things flowing enough. It'll cut down a little time on friday night. Saturday, we'll be about the same we're. We're actually gave ourselves a little leeway in the finals to start at five. Okay, just because, being the first year running 44 teams, we want to make sure we have everything on point and aren't stressing about hey, we got to rush through this. I agree, yeah, for sure, you know, and you, you've sat in the stands One of the things for people that haven't actually been in our gym during the tournament. I think it's important With technology, it's everything as far as making sure fans have a great experience.
Speaker 1:Correct.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and ballports hanging.
Speaker 2:so if you're sitting on the big bleacher side or or on the little bleacher side, you don't even need to move out of your seat because the ball board's running right in front of your face, right, right so you know the other thing obviously this is a bandwidth thing really, but I mean, do you think it'll make it easier now that when you have a thousand people in a gym trying to search the one thing, does it still keep it smooth and run smooth even with a, with an overload of people in a gym, kind of thing? I know the bandwidth thing Right, that'll come down to. That's the public part of Kekona High School.
Speaker 1:Never saw problems there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we haven't had problems. We run the tournament and the streaming end of it on another side, okay, and that's strictly because of bandwidth that we need, yep, and you know, that's really important, as we all found out the last couple weekends trying to watch events, and there's a little bit of a glitch in it, a little bit, yeah, and hey, I get it, it could happen to us, yep. So, believe me, I was on the phone with people already on Saturday. We don't need this happening, right.
Speaker 2:Just making sure what we needed, Because those guys are good people and do great things. But everybody has to be on the same page and that's the most important thing yeah yeah, you saw the one you learned about and they're the ones ones that stream it.
Speaker 2:They've always done an excellent job. Every year. I mean, oh it's. I never remember like streams going down ever with those guys running, and I don't ever remember having an issue cheesehead, and it's always been, you know, as far as the video feed, commentators, things like that. So those guys do a really good job. Um, is he?
Speaker 2:does he come up all the time yeah doesn't he have some high school kids that go up here too? Yeah, well, he doesn't coach at montana anymore, but yeah, there's some kids from his club, so he's his eyes up here and we have a great group of people that come with him yeah that help do all the streaming and that it's worked really well.
Speaker 2:So we'll pull up the teams here because I know we want to talk about that. There is a large, obviously, contingency from Wisconsin. Talk about those guys Rapids, making their way back up Hartford always been fairly good. Arrowhead, another good top team, hudson Fenimore they just bumped up. They're now in Division II. They were in III, freedom, evansville, mineral Point and that's about it for Wisconsin. I know I'm excited to watch some of the Fenimore guys up here. It's always fun to watch those guys wrestle. Mineral Point's going would be interesting. But the one that I really am paying attention to is Hartford, hartford.
Speaker 2:I think is stepping up a little bit this year. They have, and that's why they're back in the tournament. Right, I was kind of interested to see, especially the new names, because what was it last year? Was it 35 teams, 38, last year, 38. So you added four or five new teams, six, six, holy cow. Okay, all right.
Speaker 1:So we'll look at some of the other ones. I don't remember.
Speaker 2:Oklahoma being here last year they were Coweta's returning for their second year.
Speaker 1:They were here last year. Yeah, okay.
Speaker 2:They actually had a champion last year the coach's son as a freshman. Wow, that won it. One of them 126. Nice, Jesuit, they are brand new. I was going to say that one looked fairly new and they just knocked off. They dueled the number two team in Louisiana the other day and they almost doubled them up. They're legit, Okay. Okay Then, Millard Salt, those guys are always here. They've been here for the past four or five years.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, they've been pretty solid with us, always, yeah, always a decent team. I mean, we've watched them wrestle in the past couple years from Minnesota Christmas tournament to here, so those guys are decent. Lowell, michigan, that's a little bit. They weren't here last year, were they? No, michigan had a travel restriction, that's right. So now Is it because of COVID? Still, they could only go to neighboring states, and then the teams that were coming in. There's a bunch of different rules for each.
Speaker 2:Let's say, we're a neighbor, yeah, but if you have teams from outside those neighboring states, oh, even if they're there, they gave one of those things. Yeah, there was stuff like that going on.
Speaker 2:So, they, just they're able to travel and you know I got a chance to talk to Sikorsky's dad, yeah, yeah, and you know we've known each other for a while now and he talked to their coach and it finally worked out in their schedule. It was like this weekend's a good weekend for them. Yeah, it finally worked out in their schedule this weekend's a good weekend for them. Yeah, and we're excited to have them because they're really, really tough we're excited too because I think Owen's 165.
Speaker 2:I believe so, not bad. Well, we've known Sikorskis for a while. Good people, they actually were up in the UP for a while. They moved down the Lowell for better wrestling opportunities, but it'll be good to see those guys again for sure. New one that you just added Cleveland, tennessee. Yeah, they got some talent. Really, they're going to be bringing in a couple guys that just placed out at Pennsylvania At Powerade, powerade, really, yeah, interesting, okay. So they're a really good program Okay.
Speaker 2:It would be nice if, like I think I mentioned I posted something about this if, like, our guys would be able to go to like Powerades and things like that.
Speaker 1:Believe me Well.
Speaker 2:Glenn got to wrestle in Ironman, did you? Yep, you were just. You called it, didn't you? You were the one that cut all that off, so I couldn't tell, but you got to go. Huh you, you're the first and only team. Really. Yeah, that year, kekona and Luxembourg, no kid and no kid go. It's because it's all, because it's the private school we had, like people don't realize, but Wyoming Seminary and Blair were both here. They've been here. They want to be here. I was out at Ironman and the Blair coach is like when your rule changes, we will be at your tournament. You know how hard it is to turn away the top teams in the country.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I can only imagine.
Speaker 2:I can only imagine, because you have a waiting list, we do. You have a waiting list, you have a waiting list. We have to tell these people no, can't have you. Yeah, it's frustrating, I won't get into that. Jefferson, georgia those guys have been here before. Yeah, southeast, always here. Yorkville, st Charles, east we all lose there. Lockport's a good one, everybody, basically all these Illinois teams are great.
Speaker 2:Yeah they are, but Providence is new this year, are they? Yeah, they're popping in. Where are they by? Where's Providence? By Chicagoland, is it? Okay, okay, nice. And then your typical Cass and Mantrigal assembly in Hickman I think Hickman was here last year.
Speaker 1:No, this is an interesting story.
Speaker 2:So man their head coach is Dan Pieper. Okay, so Dan's dad, Vern, was the legendary coach at Stoke. And the outstanding wrestler of the tournament is named after his name. Aha Nice. So this is their first time that they're able to come up here and you know they've been. Obviously, dan's a Stoughton guy. They've been going to Badger State and he decided that he wanted to come up here and see this tournament with his team, so it's pretty cool.
Speaker 2:I'll get to see his mom, who I haven't been able to see in a while. Yeah, I have the utmost respect for the people. Yeah Well, legends of their own are doing right, especially within the wrestling community. Glenn, what are you most excited about with some of these teams here? I know you've been in wrestling for a while. What type of team are you most excited about with some of these teams here? I know you've been in wrestling for a while. What type of uh, what type of team are you? Are you picking up?
Speaker 4:Well, I'd like to see there's a. There's a lot of parody throughout this tournament this year from, you know, the teams in Wisconsin and the Illinois teams, and then you've got Southeast Polk and Lowell and Cleveland being the two new teams this year. It's just going to be really interesting to see who can fight for those trophies on Saturday. There's a handful of teams that have the talent and the ability to compete for the second, third, fourth place team trophy. Southeast Pole kind of stands out as the front runner. They're really solid top to bottom, but there's a lot of parity in that, you know, at two through six, and it's going to be interesting if they all get worked out, that's right, that's right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm excited because, knowing that Kekona is the outside looking in, it would be interesting to see what happens this week in team life. So I was telling Liam, I was like we pin, we need a lot right away, we need points right away because and this is nothing against Kekona. Obviously I love all the guys, but it seems like quarterfinals that's when things, dominoes, start to kind of fall a little bit for some of us. As far as competition wise and was able to get.
Speaker 2:I mean, obviously it gets tougher as you get further in the bracket, so it's not even saying that they they're wrestling well, but it always just seems like that quarterfinal areas where we're really going to start figuring out what we're going to do for more points on the backside, as long as guys can keep going. But I'm excited to see what we're able to do.
Speaker 2:I'm actually more excited to see what, um, uh, fenimore is going to be able to do. Um, I know those guys have been wanting to come back quite a while. Their number, their state rank, is number one. Yeah, yeah, really yeah, holy cow, okay, okay, I didn't. I had no idea that they're number one division too. That just changed.
Speaker 1:I thought I checked Zach's rankings or WI wrestles rankings.
Speaker 2:They had like three years. These are, these are Zach's. These are Zach. Well done, zach. Okay.
Speaker 1:So then it makes more sense.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it means more Wisconsin grappler. You know, coleman just had a really good Oshkosh on the water. Yeah, you know, they moved up to 2-2. So it'll be interesting, and the team that you haven't mentioned but I'm really excited about is Evansville.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:They had a really good bi-state tournament.
Speaker 1:I saw a couple of them did really well.
Speaker 2:I didn't see how many all of them, but I saw a couple of them did really well. Obviously, Heiser does well.
Speaker 4:Was it their 106? Yeah, three champs.
Speaker 3:Collin Fray yeah.
Speaker 2:Wow, and Collin was on our Fargo team.
Speaker 1:He's top Good, awesome.
Speaker 2:That kind of suck is like we're off right, Like we're waiting for cheese head to start and all these guys are good Like that. The Leonard Denny match. Yeah, Like watch that.
Speaker 1:I was like Holy cow Where's wrestling yet, but I just watching all these matches I felt like we were missing it.
Speaker 2:But yeah, I mean a lot of these guys. That's something else I actually want to ask. What do you, because of the teams that are in here we all know that these are fairly solid teams, right what is your criteria for getting in as a team? Well, I don't know if I actually have a criteria as much as some teams.
Speaker 2:I don't normally kick teams up Okay, have you, you don't have to name them, but have you? I've said maybe you should come back when you rebuild your program. Okay, sure, I get it. And so I let the coaches kind of figure out when they're you know when they need to do that. And so I kind of look at it state by state, because I only want so many teams. Like you look at it, it's very Wisconsin Illinois.
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah, and that's where the waiting list because, like in Illinois schools, they want to get in. Somebody from Illinois has to leave, right, right, because otherwise we might as well have the illinois state tournament in kakon, like it doesn't make sense, correct? And it's the same for wisconsin and that. And I saw I only want so many of those. Yeah, and that's really. I look at that. And then obviously we look for nationally ranked teams. Yeah, and I'm lucky enough that I've had some relationships with other coaches that are really good and they're usually either they're you know, this is a big weekend nationwide for big time tournaments, because it's us doc v clash, like there. So you, you, you want to get in those coaches, rotation for sure. So Mainly Wisconsin schools. If you leave, you're going to go to the bottom of the list. Okay, if you choose to leave, you're right back down, right, but let's say they're like, hey, we just don't have the guys to field the team this year. Are they down at the bottom of the list because they can't? It's dependent, sure, I'll just tell you right now Brightstown and Stoughton. They've been coming forever, their team there.
Speaker 2:If they said, hey, we don't want to, we can't come this next year, we've got something else. I'd let them back in their coaches. Our relationships, that matters to me. That matters to me, right Right. That loyalty matters to me. Understood when it's like. You know, montini, back in the day they were hunting the national title and they wanted to go to Doc B, that one year, okay. And I said, go for it, yeah, you should experience that. And then they came back the next year, okay. So it's not like you have a form. Then they fill something out and you look at it.
Speaker 1:You're checking boxes like, oh yep, these guys are in, but I mean, obviously it's not like you don't pay attention to wrestling. You're kind of buried in it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm looking at hey, what does this team look like? How many returning state qualifiers, place winners, champs do they have? Okay, they're legit. We need to look at this team as a real possibility and some teams they want in, but they just don't have enough horsepower. And that's just me being honest. It's kind of my judgment.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, why do you think all the way changes? But I mean, obviously some teams aren't going to go to the Minnesota Christmas Tournament either just because they may not have the guys. And take a whole team there and just get smashed makes no sense, right, demoralizing your team more or less, and you're kind of setting yourself up for failure for the rest of the year. So that's good to know. You know that's, that's crazy. Yeah, it gets, it's, it gets pretty big. There's times where it'll be 50 60 teams just waiting for a spot. So are you getting emails like as soon as this tournament's over, hey can we jump in. Hey, can we jump in like as soon as.
Speaker 1:You probably get them all year.
Speaker 2:We do get them because of our social media, doing podcasts with you and other people. People know about the tournament and when it comes up as soon as it's done, if they're watching it or they talk to another coach and say, hey, this is the place you want to be, I get a lot of be. Yeah, yeah, for sure. I get a lot of emails. Nice Well, if they haven't heard of the Cheez-It, I know they need to crawl up from one of the rockies, I mean honestly, besides the other like you're talking Powerade Super 32, this is the other
Speaker 2:tournament that's mentioned around all. So you know what I mean. Look who's come through. We've talked about that before. Gable Steveson, mark Hall's been to this tournament, probably a NOLF or something like that. Bo Nichols Bo Nichols has been to this tournament. All those guys have been through this. And if you haven't heard of the cheese set, I mean someone mentions it somewhere somehow. So yeah, it's a fairly popular term. I've heard of it down in New Mexico. So you haven't heard of it. Wake up for that. But so, with the teams that are coming, how many places? Some of these people may not know how many places are there for teams. Is it first through eighth? Oh, we give trophies to the top six. Top six, okay. Top six teams, okay. And then we place to the top eight individuals.
Speaker 1:Nice.
Speaker 2:Or we give awards. We place deeper than that. Yeah, because you guys have that other backside or whatever.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the top 16.
Speaker 2:The top 16. That's your top half of our bracket. And then we have the backside, where the guys in the experience. But the funny thing is, I say the guys in the experience, but I think it was last year. We had a couple state champions that were in that back bracket, yeah, and we had multiple state place winners and qualifiers. Right, it was great.
Speaker 1:You still got to wrestle.
Speaker 2:It doesn't matter which side or wherever you're on, you still have to show up and wrestle. They're not slouches that are winding up on the backside. Especially looking at the way wrestling is going this year, it's almost like the game's changed and now everybody's almost up on the same playing field now.
Speaker 2:So it's not everybody that shows up to a tournament. It's a bit oh, that guy, no way. Because now this year it's like, oh, that guy, maybe he might be able to, because everybody's getting better. You know, resources are becoming better and coaching is becoming better and a lot of college guys are coming back to coach in high schools and things like that. So it's just because you're on that backside doesn't mean you're just going to automatically plow through, you know so. You know the front side too. But yeah, no, I, I'm interested come wednesday night when we do our seating meeting, because there's times where we'll have, you know, almost 90 of the bracket has guys with really nice records, and and what I mean by really nice is it's it's.
Speaker 2:There's different definitions, like I'm not talking 20 and all. Yeah, I'm talking 16 and 4, but they took two losses at iron man, they took a loss at devore, you know, and they took a loss in a duel. They're taking real losses, and that's again, that's totally what I mean by the whole. You don't know where some of these guys have been. Even the loss they took, you don't know who it was, what it was. It could have been a guy that wasn't even on the radar then too. So it's games kind of change. So I pulled up some of the weights and we'll scroll over Divisions and weights. So right now we're looking at Arrowhead D1. I'm going to know a lot of these guys. I know you know a lot of them too. Most of these Wisconsin guys we all know. But like Zon Beal, it's been fun watching him since he was little. Number three. Those are All Wisconsin grandpa rankings. So Zon Beals number three at 120, 132 wide side of the ball we're not going to go through every single way.
Speaker 2:We're just going to go through some of the notes here. Colin McDowell, luke Dreidrich known him for quite a while and obviously we look over at Kekona. Andy DiPiazza.
Speaker 1:What's, I guess what?
Speaker 2:is some of the takeaways from just, I guess. What is some of the? What are some of the takeaways from just, I guess individual standouts and things like that that you guys have seen coming into this tournament. Are there notables that you're watching same thing with you? Are there notables you're watching Austin? Dude, you gotta speak up, man. We haven't heard you at all.
Speaker 3:I was waiting for the cue, but. But no, it's good. It's a little different right when three are in-house and one is remote here.
Speaker 2:But yeah, I mean In the doghouse. In the doghouse, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:yeah, you didn't mean to jump in.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'll just start from the top, because obviously I do spend a lot of time on Rockfin. I spend a lot of time on Wisconsin. Grappler Shout out to Zach and his rankings, love his rankings. There it goes in-depth, takes Fargo into account and things like that that just a lot of other ranking systems just don't do. They put out a number to put out a number right and don't realize that parents and coaches and fans of the sport are actually looking at this stuff and trying to educate themselves. So I think that's a big miss. A lot of times on these rankings is yeah, you can throw a ranking out, but as soon as people that love the sport and follow the sport right, once they kind of see and start realizing that hey, this doesn't really match up to what I'm seeing, what other people are putting out, you lose credibility quickly and that's just not good for the sport in general, for the fans. So I'll say just with this tournament in general, 144 and 150 are going to be kind of the staple weights that you're going to want to watch as a generic fan out there from a national standpoint. But obviously in years past, right, we've had national titles decided in this gym at this tournament for team states. Right, you talk Montini, I mean back in Wyoming, sam and Blair and Apple Valley when they were on the run. Basically the national title for a high school state right, that gets crowned unofficially, if you will. Right Was decided in Kekona gym. So we have that all the way to having six to 10 number one ranked kids in the country and for the top five pound for pound kids in the country, stuff like that We've obviously had those.
Speaker 3:I'm most excited this year for the overall depth of the tournament here we don't quite have the last year we were kind of obviously gifted right with the Wisconsin talent that came out with the Mirasola Twins, hopke, dylan Johnson, the big dogs at the top from a national ranking standpoint. But you look through this, I mean just from a ranking standpoint, 32 of the 44 teams are ranked respectively in their states. We have over 240 ranked kids respectively. I think I ran the numbers last year. And of everybody who competed at the cheesehead just last year in general I think there was about 160 or so state place winners in their respective States out of the athletes and stuff like that.
Speaker 3:This year the depth is is probably one of the best I've seen over the years, for sure, doing the numbers, and people just want to see, right, the nationally ranked kids and the flashy stuff. But they don't realize that, hey, each of these teams, for the most part, fields a roster of 14 kids, right, and a lot of them, majority of their rosters, are ranked respectively in their state right. So now, the best of the best of all divisions, right, whether you're Division III in Wisconsin or the top division in Iowa, from the top division out in Oklahoma, the best of the best get to go up against each other and not all these kids, right, go to Fargo, not all these kids go to Super 32s and stuff like that. So you're getting to really taste the talent across the country with 11 states represented and a lot of deep teams.
Speaker 3:And shout out to Scott for not allowing individual athletes right. Obviously we could really make our tournament be even better in terms of nationally rankings right, and get the cameras and everybody looking at, oh my God, number one versus number two in the country right, going up against each other. We like depth and we like the team format so much that Scott just doesn't allow individual athlete competitors and it's not knocking anyone else there or other tournaments out there like that. It just gives our tournament a different kind of layer that I think overall coaches love and the fans love in general, and just keeps it super competitive throughout the entire field.
Speaker 2:We're getting comments thrown at us quickly as we go through here. You and I know Joe Williamson. Joe's on, he's watching. Oh, I love you, show me some, joe Williamson. Joe says remember when your son was doing video during the cheese Scott? Now he would smash us with questions. He was tiny then, he was a little guy. Yeah, he actually started helping Joe at the Ironman one year, nice. We were out there and he was filming and doing commentary and then Joe came up to Cheesehead and he did it here. Joe learned how to make some pizzas. One of my buddies. They went to a pizza place. They went and made pizzas one night together. That's awesome. Yeah, he's a great guy. I miss the heck out of him. So we got Teague popping in too. I'm pretty sure it's Teague. You'll be talking to those guys on.
Speaker 1:Thursday.
Speaker 2:Yep Thursday. I don't care if you're on eight times this week. Whatever gets this tournament out there, I don't care, we'll bring you on tomorrow. You'll have fun too. Hickman, missouri, with an all-time mascot, the Q-Pies. Basically a baby Cuban T, always with the fun facts, always coming in with the fun facts. Tony's Pizza is what he said was the pizza that you guys are cooking. It's a tricky one. Good job, joe. I know I'm excited. I think Brent's got a cold. Are you allergic to my house? No, no, I think Brent's got a cold. Are you allergic to my house? No, no. I want to look at a couple of Wisconsin teams. I'm excited too.
Speaker 2:The one I and this kid's kind of a sleeper here, perry Bear, if we can keep his head from getting hit, I think he might do all. Right, he's a really good athlete. He is an yes, right, he's a really good athlete. He is an athletic, yes, athletic. He's extremely athletic, because last year watching him wrestle, I mean, I think that kid, I think he would have run through a brick wall for anything at that point last year, just the way he was wrestling. And now. So, in all fairness, perry, you're screwed a little loose in some spots.
Speaker 2:That's all right, though, because that's what's got to be where you are. That kid has worked so hard in the offseason this year with Liam and stuff. I'm really excited to kind of see how he does off the component team. I mean obviously everybody else on there is going to be in spring.
Speaker 2:That's another one that's going to be fun to watch at 190. Man, he wrestles like he's 125. Well, I'll tell you what he gave that kid from STMA all he wanted, all of it, and so I expect him to play fairly high. I'm expecting almost his ranking. I'm expecting fifth, if not higher. Yeah, there's some good kids in that weight class, but he's capable of beating any of those. Jeffries, right right Fenimore. Obviously always fun to watch Tristan wrestle Cade Birchman he's always fun to wrestle too.
Speaker 1:He's a highlight film.
Speaker 2:He is. He's a highlight film. I love him. I love him. And then, obviously, illinois we know a bunch of those guys from Ward Township Aaron, stewart, caleb Noble. I had to see those guys out at the Ironman, did you? It was fun. I got to talk with Caleb. He was bad. Yeah, oh, awesome guy. Oh, great people, awesome guy. And I'll tell you what Stewart had two really just bloodbath matches that I saw in his semi-final loss, where he lost to Cunningham Yep.
Speaker 1:Asher.
Speaker 2:Yep. And then he lost to a Brown commitment. Really, yeah, interesting, and I was happy to be sitting by the Brown coach.
Speaker 1:It was it must have been a good day for him.
Speaker 2:Huh, yeah, he was very excited because Aaron Stewart has, you know, far. Yeah, he was very excited because Aaron Stewart has, you know, fargo just moved through it last year. Yeah, leo Russell wasn't much of a match on that one. That kid's an anomaly, you know, he's just out of this world as far as the training he does. I mean his dad's a football coach, so he's got a lot of background when it comes to lifting, getting strong. I know he wants to play football, but he wants to play D1. That's going to be Ralphie Short. Yeah, he's mad, but he is, he is, he is. Yeah, he does. Wow, I mean, he put up some real things. Yep, yep, for sure. Then you got some humidity action coming back around town out of Joliet. That'll be a fun one to watch. Yeah, their coach is hoping they're finally getting healthy. They were out at Duels in Stillwater, oh, really, yeah, okay. Well, that's right. The one that Bishop McCord won, yep, yep, and you know they got an outstanding program. They really challenge their kids with their schedule.
Speaker 2:So, that's what I mean with teams that you don't look at that record and think a kid's 16 and 8.
Speaker 1:Because that was a hard 8.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was a hard 8.
Speaker 3:I'd be willing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what's up?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'd be willing to bet Jollibee Catholic out of any team in this tournament. Probably I'd be willing to go out on a limb and say they probably have the toughest in-season schedule out of any team that comes to this tournament. I mean you talk about those duels out in Oklahoma playing, going up against Bishop at court and all of those guys, and I mean they got a young team. I talked to the coach last year at the social after Friday nights and he just flat loves this tournament. He loves challenging his kids and the kids buy into it and I think that's the biggest part as a program is you have to have people that aren't afraid to get their back pushed up against the wall right, take a scuff on their knee kind of get punched in the mouth a little bit and then come back because what does that do? That just overall builds your program and just overall builds the the, the kids.
Speaker 3:And when it comes time for their in-season state tournaments, right there these kids are battle tested, right, and you see them with double 12 to 16 losses in state finals down in Illinois, right, um, so they they're, they're a really good program. They. They kind of got beat up a little bit out in Oklahoma at those duels, um, but they'll. They'll tie their shoelaces right back up and come here ready to ready to wrestle, for sure. Um, come, come, cheesehead time and um, give give lowell, give southeast poke, give kakana, give some of these other programs, um, that are kind of looking to be favorites for top five in terms of placing to be right there, neck and neck with those guys.
Speaker 2:For sure, and I always notice that too, you know, especially with the Julia Catholics and even Warren, when those guys really started coming around again, I noticed that those guys do try to they get in as much as they can. Kakao always tried to too. But that's where the, that's where the realistic thing came in for me. As far as cause, I, you know coaching, soccer and things like that, you know, kind of pay attention. I just want to take, I want to put my kids in this tournament, cause I want, I want to get them in this tournament right, just because you want Forehand, I wasn't thinking well, my kids are going to get crushed.
Speaker 2:I just wanted them to be in it.
Speaker 2:I didn't care what was going to happen, I just wanted them to be in the tournament because that way they get that experience.
Speaker 2:What kind of experience are you really getting? If you're really setting them up, if you're going to take them to something like this, which great, that's awesome that you're pushing the kids, but knowing what kind of team you have and that you know the mentality, like you were saying, austin, some of these kids have got to be willing to take an injury or be able to get pushed to a limit that not every school is going to be able to, and to no offense to anybody in this state, but like taking Reidsville to Powerade, you know, like that wouldn't make any sense. It just doesn't. The kids aren't ready for it. Would it be great for them to get the experience? Hell, yes. But at the same time, though, too, in a tournament like this, the way that it's set up, with the backside and the constellation brackets, it allows those kids to at least get something from it, not just a regular two and done if you lose in your own.
Speaker 3:Well, the best part, too is is they wrestle that top edge talent right in in the around the. The pool plays around robins, right, but then on the backside, even if they go right one and two or whatever in the pool, then they're wrestling more equal level, caliber talent, right. So these we talk about 11 states being represented from all over, right From out in Nebraska to Oklahoma to Louisiana this year up in Michigan. Now these kids are not only that. The programs are investing a lot of money for these students and busing and travel and hotels and everything like that. That these kids are guaranteed multiple matches to your point and they're getting to wrestle the top-edge talents across the country, but then they're also getting to get great experience and great competition of other similar, similar ranked kids right, respective to what their skill level might be, to really see, okay, how do I stack up against the top edge? And now, how am I stacking up against more kind of equal playing field, if you will?
Speaker 3:And then it's the. May the best man win right out there on the in the circle. So I think that's the best part about it is Scott understands that these programs are investing a lot of money to come out here and put on a show for for all the fans and all of us at the cheese head here. He wants to reward them and give these kids multiple matches and the more mat time in the most mat time as possible, I think. Which is the biggest thing, and I think that's one of the biggest feedbacks that he gets from these coaches and why the waiting list gets up to 60-plus teams wanting to be in here is because they're not going out to travel and get two matches and then their kid's sitting on the bleachers right watching the rest of the team compete all weekend right.
Speaker 2:Yep, yep. So I zoomed out just so people get an idea. That's not even full teams, those are just the kids that are either respected in the ranked or whatever. There's going to be more right and there will be some movement. I know the coaches are all putting in their lineups tomorrow and Wednesday.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So what we see here is what the rankers see for their weight classes. But we're going to see some changing guys changing weights, and so it'll be interesting to see who ends? Up in what bracket together?
Speaker 2:That's always fun and since you scrolled out, I kind of Montini, I. I'm just looking at them and they're back. They're back. Coach Boo's back at the helm there and when he was the head coach and Izzy was the assistant, he really built Montini wrestling into Montini. And he's back there there now and he's trying to do the same thing again. I think, yeah, they're loaded. There's just the Flavin Duels down at DeKalb. They made it in the top pool.
Speaker 1:It's nice.
Speaker 3:Montini. They dropped down to the second division down there with all the changes. But yeah, to Scott's point, they're definitely back. They're the top-ranked school down in Illinois in 2A so they're really solid. And if you scroll to Lowell Michigan, there most people are like, wow, they have more kids than 14, right, you only have 14 field roster. That just shows how deep Lowell michigan is. I mean you look at multiple weights, right, they got the number one and number two kids ranked in michigan and they're both on the same team, right. So you talk I mean they got 16 kids ranked in michigan um in their respective division and obviously you only get 14 slots right to fill the roster. So you talk about a team like that and it's so big for team scoring wise to to get your kids into that top 16 first and then that top eight to really get all the additional points. That's where a team like low can can be sneaky because they're they're super deep and um. It's just they got the talent um to to compete for those top eight points it's.
Speaker 2:It's interesting, you don't hear? I mean, obviously we hear probably more about, like Michigan, schools and things like that and the competition and everything but a lot of times you don't really like.
Speaker 2:They're kind of a sleeper state In my eyes because you only hear about them once they get to college. You don't hear a lot about high school wrestling out of Michigan, unless it was some dude that did something big in college. I know people out of Michigan. Unless it was some dude that did something big in college, I know people out of Michigan but you just don't. That's when that blows up. Their hands were tied because of the stupid travel and so those kids, they just couldn't get the exposure, because Michigan wrestling is really good.
Speaker 2:It is, and now they're getting a chance to show it off, right. Well, mike Krause you know, I mean, oh God bless him, right. I mean if that guy couldn't have blown a state up for wrestling, I don't know who could have. I mean straight out of the horse's mouth. I mean that guy was everything about what he was doing, and Michigan wrestling was one of it.
Speaker 1:It's just crazy to see like you were saying Austin with.
Speaker 2:Like you were saying Austin with this many guys on here, I can't believe we haven't heard more of them throughout just the year this year, you know like I think I've heard about them once or twice and that was it. It was just kind of like a passing comment on flow or something like that, and then that was it.
Speaker 3:But these guys are yeah, I mean, it takes a lot to people don't understand how much it takes for your team to be ranked in the top 50 on mat scouts willie's rankings out there, and just to say, I mean, just for kona to hit outside, looking in, basically honorable mention, right, you don't realize what it actually takes to get that.
Speaker 3:I mean, they're not just looking, okay, let's go pull up the, the respective local state rankings.
Speaker 3:Okay, look at this, they're these, these teams that are ranked out there are going to the power raid, right, they're going to, uh, the doc b. Right, they're going to the flavor and all these big in-season tournaments, and not only that, their kids are competing out of state or in the offseason, right at um super 32s, right, fargo, all that and and all of that goes into that. And it's not just having one or two or three kids at the top that are really good, it's all 14, right, you gotta be, you gotta be able to compete in a dual format and really, um, go, go up to test. Just I mean, for example, look at southeast polk, right, they just beat waverly shellrock 60 to 14 in a dual meet and that speaks fine, right, waverly shell, waverly shellrock is the number two ranked team in the big division in Iowa and they just smacked them in a duel 60 to 14 um recently. That just goes to show, um that, what it takes to get those teams, uh, under the national lens right well, there's.
Speaker 2:There's ebbs and flows. They're gonna look at simile now. Simile was on fire list. Well, last year, maybe the year before that last year, this year they're kind of this year they're kind of taking a little take a. You know they're watching those guys out at Eau Claire Good wrestlers like Jay O'Gristle-Shorts, a little decent wrestler, all those guys. Salas always been watching him for a while but it just seemed like because they were a tournament team right Like those guys, took over tournaments because they killed it on the front side.
Speaker 2:They were pinning guys constantly.
Speaker 1:And that's all it was.
Speaker 2:It's just the points that they're riding, and I mean, when you're talking about like teams like celtics, poke and lowell showing up with the lineups that they have, like that's going to be a fun point race, like I don't even think I'm going to watch anything else except for those two running the race with points obviously watching liam wrestle, but I mean that's that's going to be fun to watch right there because, that both, both of those sides are stacked, so that's cool.
Speaker 2:Um, providence Catholic. You know the guys like this where you see, like a Justice, heeg and Lucas Forsythe I've seen these guys wrestle a couple times Like they're all tough. But, man, you come in with a lineup that's 14, 15 deep, but guys that can handle whatever they want to. It's like man. Okay, now they're coming to play. What are you looking for, glenn? Is there specific?
Speaker 1:ones you're watching.
Speaker 4:I'm a big number. A couple years ago we had over 50% of the competitors in the Chesa make it to their state tournament and it was like right around 30% came home as place winners. Really, we had like seven teams that competed in the Chesa and won their team state title within their division, and even I think of years ago, in 2006, I want to say 130, the champ all the way through the sixth place winner all won a state title in their respective states that year. So that's one of the cool things about how he does the bracketing. Here is everybody, I believe, that comes to this tournament because of the bracket he has set up, leaves this tournament as a better wrestler. They improve and I think the more we can focus on improving athletes.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and not necessarily all results driven, because these guys are so young in their career right, they have a lot left that I'm sure they all want to accomplish after they leave their schools. Yep and um, you can start trusting a process, focus on improvements and not just be so results driven. I think you have you actually. You just make you get so much better when you take that approach. Yeah, I think. Um, when it's all just results, results, results. I'm sure you can become a better person.
Speaker 4:You become a better athlete, a better teammate and I think when you're doing all those things right, eventually it's transitioning. The results that come right. Yeah, um, so that's one. I think that's one of the beautiful things about this tournament, just how it's set up. I think every kid leaves as a better wrestler because of the bracket allows them to get challenged in the beginning and then they're going up against kids right in their caliber, right they're going to see how they stack up against them.
Speaker 2:Well, it's like you said too, they're getting that exposure too to good national-type wrestling. Win or loss doesn't matter, they're getting that exposure to that type of wrestling. I mean, as a coach I look at that as now my kid's getting set up, you know, maybe a little bit better for the postseason Once regionals come, sectionals come, all of this and I've discovered this even just coaching, soccer, all of this stuff, because everybody's in high school wrestling right now we're all in high school. All this is a building block of the postseason because it's essentially really to a school. The postseason is what matters, right? I mean so getting these kids exposure. I don't care about a kid that's never been ranked and just started wrestling three years ago.
Speaker 2:He gets his hand on a kid that's number three in the country to change his view a little bit on maybe what he's been doing or working on. So then you're getting that exposure to get better, you're opening those those um, I guess, uh roads in your head. What I got to do to be a better wrestler, better thing. So totally, I totally agree with just building off of what?
Speaker 3:building off of what glenn said? Um, I didn't run the numbers yet because I wait for the precedes to to come out, but last year, going into the tournament, there was 28 returning state champs from the year prior. There was 50 returning state place winners and then there was 54 returning state qualifiers, which equates to 132 returning state qualifiers, and 78 of those were place winners from the year prior. So that information. I'll have that once the precedes, along with the precedes up on our Twitter page right here. I just retweeted this podcast, so if you're out there listening, follow Chiefs Head underscore HS and I will have that published out there. Last year, 132 returning state qualifiers from the year prior out of about roughly 370 athletes I think competed last year roughly between 370 and 400, so you're talking almost one-fourth of the field, if not more, was a returning state qualifier in the respective state well, I think we had 17, it's seven team state champs.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the thing is the new coaches that come in every year when they're getting into that second day, and it's usually around. We get through the round robins and they're like and I tell them now you're getting into the meeting line.
Speaker 2:You're either going first through eighth or ninth through 16th, and their kids like but I've only already lost three times, shouldn't that be done? No, put your singlet back on, get out on that mat. Yeah, you got another three managers to wrestle. Holy crap, coach, I just got small, doesn't matter. There going to be a guy that happens in every weight class, that's going to go one and five and he will take 16th in the bracket and he's a damn good wrestler, correct? That's what I love about the format, right, I mean because, like we've been talking about, you don't know what's going to happen.
Speaker 4:You don't know? You couldn't lose a match and get your hand raised to the champion.
Speaker 2:Correct you couldn't lose a match and get your hand raised to the champion, correct? You don't know. There's a four-time champion that lost Every one In every tournament. No, he lost. He went undefeated three years ago. No, he lost in the Round Robins Okay, but still won the tournament, because he lost in the Round Robins and then came back in the bracket and won the bracket. This is nutty. He got called for a slam, oh really.
Speaker 4:Mikey Badafield, four-timer Cheesehead change.
Speaker 2:He got called for a slam that's nuts. She said change. I got told for a slam that's nuts. That's crazy. We have nationally ranked individuals pulled up. I'm just amazed by the difference of teams that you're able to bring in and still have, obviously, like I said, kids that are still just trying to get better versus kids that feel like they're at the top of their game. You know, and to have that mix is man. It's awesome. I think you'll see some kids added to the nationally ranked after this weekend.
Speaker 1:I'm sure this is their.
Speaker 2:You know, for the kids, this is their shot.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 2:You go out here, you perform well, you know, I'm pretty sure my good friend willie will be watching.
Speaker 3:Willie said yeah yeah, it just happened. Well, to scott's point, right, it just happened with davis perot. Perot went out and beat wolbert in the finals at the minnesota christmas tournament and he wasn't even honorable mention, or outside looking in, he jumps the 20th in the country. Um, so a lot of that's going to happen and, as you see there there's five wrestlers right between 144 and 150 that are all ranked within the nation. Some of those are probably going to shuffle there. Obviously you get pound allowances here after the right after the holidays here coming in. So that's when, um, right after after the new year, this is when the kids kind of start to your point earlier.
Speaker 3:Brad is focusing on that postseason right. Where do they want to go? What's going to give them the best shot to get experience and position themselves to be a state champion, respectively, in their tournament? Obviously, they want to go out and win every competition that they're in. But you ask, really, any athlete right in the field, almost all of them are going to say I want to be a state champ within my state, right? So that's their kind of goal going into the tournament. Um, so this is when they kind of start focusing on, okay, what weight I'm going to be competing at for the most part come the post-season time and they get the pound of ounces so they start moving around. So there could be a lot of uh, a lot of craziness that that happens, especially in those middleweights there, to make it good for the fans watching it.
Speaker 2:Totally Well team-wise Southeast Polk is. You know, they're the defending champions and so they're trying to come back and win it again. And it's not. You know, in the modern history of Cheez-It there hasn't been. You know, winning it back-to-back is really, really hard.
Speaker 1:Is it oh?
Speaker 2:yeah.
Speaker 1:So we got 99, st Ed's.
Speaker 2:I'm not surprised by that one. Yeah, that was they won. So that year they won the national title and they beat the defending champs, walsh, jesuit, at our gym. It had to be so nice to have these schools back. Yeah, and Walsh just dropped off. Ed's is still Ed's. I would love to get those guys back together.
Speaker 2:I talked to Heffernan yeah, heffernan down in Iowa a couple months ago about it. He's like what's that crazy rule you guys have? I was like what do you mean? He goes. Well, we want to get into the cheese. I was like, oh, that's right, you guys are out of the realm of things we can wrestle. Now he goes, you guys need to change that rule. I was like, yes, yes, we do, but that'd be awesome to get those guys back because everyone's an awesome guy. Yeah, yeah, hey, christina, we got a dog down here, shift here. So Apple Valley's won a couple times. Rapids Rapids went on a run. They were really, really tough Three times in a row. Yeah, wow, okay, okay, yep, and Brandon Florida in there yeah, yeah and then Apple Valley came back.
Speaker 2:Yeah, smashed it, smashed it 2010.
Speaker 3:That's the year, um, that's the year Wyoming Sam and Blair were here and Apple Valley beat them. That's when, um, that that's when the national title was basically decided in uh, in Kekona's gym, there, because I think Blair took fourth, or one of them, wyoming Sam or Blair one of them took fourth place or sixth place Didn't even place in the top five.
Speaker 2:We had seven of the top ten teams in the country. That was Mark Hall here, wasn't it? Yeah, that'd be around zero. Yeah, Southeast Polk Montini. Then you got Simley, Then again.
Speaker 2:Simley was the tournament team man, Like those guys, turned it up. Any time there was a tournament around. They pinned everyone, every single guy. Or Tech, Yep, you know they have a great program. Coach Short Yep, they do. I agree, he knows what he's doing. They're going to be just fine. Oh yeah, I'm going to cast on a battle for the state title in Minnesota, for D2. And then you'll see Montini, 17 and 18, Mount Carmel, 16, 19. But that back-to-back is you better have a specialty. There's a couple years. I just think. I really am impressed with the fact that I mean Rapids.
Speaker 1:And don't get me wrong, I knew they had a dynasty back in the day, but, holy cow, I didn't know they wanted three years of them, took the continent and knocked them off.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's always fun to see. That's always good. It goes to show you Wausau West. In 2008 they had that program yes yes, correct.
Speaker 2:so here's the other question. We talk a lot about the competitors, we talk a lot about the coaches. What about the referees? What are their thoughts? Is this a good learning experience for referees? You know, like, hey, because you always have I mean, you always have Steve there. You know, you always have the top guys like top referees in the country. Obviously you want good referees, but, like, what are their takeaways when they leave? The tournament was just a great tournament kind of thing. But they, hey, we love the fact you guys had this for us. Like, what do you guys do differently for referees here than other places? I think it's pretty common now.
Speaker 2:They all get a nice shirt. Sure, like, last year, we gave them their disc, flip disc. Yeah, it has a cheese head guy in it. So they go to a tournament, that's cool. This year, their wristbands will have the cheese head guy in it. That's a gift. This year, their wristbands will have the cheesehead guy on it. That's a gift. This year Are you giving that away? Is that supposed to be a surprise? No, that's okay. They know, okay. They know Okay, yeah, but really, what this tournament does for the officials as far as their learning curve is the scrambling positions? Oh okay. Is the scrambling positions? Oh okay, it's a real, because you do see so many high-level kids. It's a true test. There's a lot of tight matches. Yeah, like I tell them from the first whistle, you better be ready, because you don't know what you're walking on the mat into or in front of yeah.
Speaker 2:It's like you better be ready to, you know, sit back and make the call when it's appropriate, and it's not easy with the level of wrestling that they get to see here. New rules. It's not to see here yeah New rules.
Speaker 2:It's not a normal tournament. Right Now you're adding the new rules with it. Out of bounds rules are different, points are different, and that's a good thing. I'm glad of the timing of our tournament. Yeah, because they've had all of December to work out the key. Yeah, yeah, so they now should understand the out of bounds really well, you know, because they are all part of associations. Yeah, that are developed bad habits already. No, they better not, they know they. It's just like teams. You might not be bad.
Speaker 2:Stalling's been a point of contention. You know stalling's been looked at and kind of scrutinized it quite a bit when it comes to especially college wrestling. I know it's not the same, but it kind of is the only difference now I think, between college wrestling and ice wrestling is variety of times, that's it. So a lot of stalling isn't being called properly. I mean, as far as you know I think we just had this argument on Twitter the other day If two guys are actively trying to shoot and you don't have the scoring of an end period, end of the first period or whatever, there's no need for a stalling ball. If they're still active, why do you need to have a stalling ball? That's some. I actually talked to our officials about. This is one of those things where these are both two high level athletes, it's going to take some grit to break their positioning to be able to get a clear shot, for sure I. I can't expect a guy just to dive in yeah, he's not wrestling uh, some scrub.
Speaker 2:You know he's wrestling another very talented athlete, yep. So it's going to take some time for me to wear him down so that I can score. Yeah, well, I mean hand fighting, positioning, I mean all that matters. It doesn't just happen 30 seconds with some of these guys to be able to figure it out. So that's the one thing I think I'm going to be watching the most just to see how things are going to call. When it comes to just.
Speaker 2:Obviously, I'm going to enjoy the match. It's going to be stunning referees. But I kind of want to see all this stuff that's going to get called because I mean, in the end of it, it's going to come down to state. You know these guys will be at the state tournament, things like that, and making sure everybody has their own opinions about everybody else as far as who's won or whatever. I have a lot of respect because you know, having coached and obviously yelled at a referee or two in the past, you don't want to get to that point. But at the same point, though, too, some of these guys don't pay attention very well. Well, we're blessed, actually, because we've got some pretty dang good officials.
Speaker 2:You have Hell, yeah, and their experience. You know, we're bringing in a couple new officials, but they're not new to officiating. Yeah, yeah, yeah, and that's good. One's out of Colorado, one's out of Indiana, nice, nice, so it'll be their first time in this venue, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:But they, you know, we got 18 others that have worked this tournament last year, sure, and 15 of them have worked it for multiple. So that's very comforting for me knowing that, because they know what they're walking into. So the other thing I think is pretty impressive is food. You guys, you're looking at these cameras and you see all of me, yes, food support. You guys kind of, not only I don't think you change the game necessarily, but you pay attention to details. You pay attention to I mean youth tournaments aside, but a lot of the national tournaments we go to.
Speaker 2:You don't get to hear about this stuff. Coaches don't always come up and be like man, that lunch was garbage. You don't hear them talking about that stuff. But now, seeing it in the backside, you guys cater in for these guys. Now I'm seeing it in the backside Like you guys cater in for these guys. You hand-pack lunches for the table workers and take them around to them. So you guys, kind of it's almost like you've been to a tournament and saw what was missing. Well, we do. We cater in for the coaches' meals. We're blessed that we're able to take care of our workers very well too, and our concession stand like it's frustrating.
Speaker 2:Sometimes you go to tournaments and they don't have healthy options for your animals. It's the worst. It makes me not want to go to a tournament. Yeah, and you know this is a tournament run by coaches. Yeah, like we've been there, we know what we want and we, we know what what we want, and we want to make sure we supply that to, you know, to the athletes, to the families, you know, and then we get some non-healthy stuff. Like you know, we're coming to wisconsin. We're gonna have a brat for you, correct?
Speaker 2:you know we gotta have a brat, we gotta have a cheeseburger yeah, you know there's gonna be those options for us guys. Donuts we got to have a brat, we got to have a cheeseburger. You know there's going to be those options for us guys. Donuts we're going to have plenty of donuts, making sure you guys have donuts covered.
Speaker 3:I think the biggest thing too. I think the biggest thing too, is the affordability too. Right, you got to realize these. Not only are they traveling right to come to your tournament to watch their kid compete, right, whether it's from oklahoma, whether it's from louisiana, right, whether it's from all of these out of state right, 11 states represented. Um, they're spending a lot of time in your gym, right, and it's not a lot.
Speaker 3:I mean, work economy is it's kind of I mean it's not super far away from other stuff, but you want to keep them there, you want them to support and you want to make it affordable to them and give them options right To to want to be able to come back. Right, because that that feedback goes back to their coaches, that goes back to their programs, and they're spending a lot of money to come here and they could choose to go to a different tournament in statestate right, where they save a lot of money. Right, because the feedback from the kids and the parents is that is like, man, that was super expensive there. They didn't have a lot of good options. Right, we didn't really know. We were there for 12 hours on Saturday, right, like it's a long day. Wrestling starts at 8 in the morning on Saturday, so we have breakfast options available. We have all the additional things to keep people in your gym and just overall support the tournament in general and not feel like they're getting gouged right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think the big thing too, and I was looking forward to it and I'm getting a penterman's ass about that we need a hotel built by that quick trip. If we could have a hotel in town, we could literally keep everybody here and everybody would definitely be involved in whatever we get. All that, we can literally keep everybody here and everybody would definitely be involved in whatever we have going on. So, um the I, when I saw that happening, I literally was like holy cow, like we could have everybody here. We could have everybody right in the middle of town, teams, coach everything, because I'm pretty sure you could almost get a whole, almost, I think almost all the teams in one hotel, but maybe a little excess.
Speaker 2:But it would have been nice to have that all centered right here. Give it all the community money to be able to do that. But like you said, Austin, it's not like the stuff is. Appleton, it's not that far down the road from us, it's just about five, ten minutes down CE or whatever. It's not a huge difference.
Speaker 1:but man, it'd be great to have that hotel.
Speaker 2:It's just an empty gravel lot now that they keep covering and uncovering. But yeah, so I know I'm excited there's a lot. So you used to do a duel. We did that not happening anymore. No, we're not.
Speaker 1:For now. For now Okay.
Speaker 2:We're up to 44 teams. I got a lot in my plate. The duels were awesome. I loved them. Teams wanted to put it on the line. It was cool to watch, but as this tournament keeps evolving, if you need help facilitating it, you let me know. Yeah.
Speaker 1:If you need help, facilitating it, you let me know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's just it's a matter of the teams you know, being able to come up a day early another day of school, being able to be strong enough to be able to have good duels you don't want duels and so that we really looked at it and in the future it'll come, it'll come back or something else I have in the back of my head might happen, okay. Okay, I know I talked to you about doing like a mini cheesehead.
Speaker 2:Trying to get something that ties, because what I'd like to do is find out where these high schools, where their middle schools are Like, which middle schools feed into those and get those middle schools up here during a regular season to get them to compete, if middle schools can do it.
Speaker 1:Just a miniature version, just for a younger side of it.
Speaker 2:It's really all I really want to do, but we'll see what that happens. I don't know.
Speaker 1:Austin do you have anything else we're going to wrap this up.
Speaker 2:We've been going for about an hour and 11 minutes and I know you guys have got stuff going on.
Speaker 3:Austin guys, that stuff so awesome. You got anything else you want to add in? Yeah, no, just um, all the social media, right, put a lot of time, effort into it. Uh, glenn myself and scott behind the scenes, um going out there. So, uh, don't make it all pretty and nice just for for our own eyes, right? We? We want people to be educated out there.
Speaker 3:Um, obviously we, we have a huge passion for the tournament and the sport of wrestling in general. So, um, just helps us out. It helps everybody, right, it helps the community, helps the sport, it helps everyone, just interactions and stuff like that, and not only that, but you can find a lot, of, a lot of stuff out there and it's pretty cool to see the growth over the years, right, of all that effort and time put in there. And if you have a question about the tournament or numbers or wrestlers or competitors or anything, I mean, there's a pretty good chance you can find it on our Twitter page there, right, we put a lot of time into that. So at Cheesehead underscore HS on Twitter or X, it's called now You'll find anything you need to know, from pre-sale on tickets to the live stream information to the tournament address, right, if you're traveling there, hotel information and all that stuff is up there.
Speaker 2:So I'm looking forward to it. Is it cheeseheadcom for the website?
Speaker 3:It's twittercom. Forward slash cheesehead underscore HS. So cheesehead underscore HS for high school. That's the website. Yeah, that's the Twitter page. Yeah, it's Twitter.
Speaker 2:The website is Cheesehead Wrestling. Cheesehead Wrestling Okay.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and everything's linked on the website as well, so I believe there's a link right to the Twitter page all the information about past champs. I know Tom Goff posts a write-up usually on there too. But yeah, looking forward to it and appreciate you having me on here for sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, dude, and you're going to be. Obviously he's going to be at the tournament. Right, he's going to be at the tournament. They don't just text you and say this happened and then you put it down.
Speaker 3:Yeah no, I'm on there. Usually, glenn and I are out running around Matt's side video and in film of the matches going on and and that, so we post that out there for for the fans too, to get some live action going on. We usually do like a walk-in video right to show the show, the overall facility, because we know not everyone can make the trip, right, um, especially when you're coming from oklahoma and louisiana and stuff, it's just pretty expensive, right, airfare is not cheap nowadays and, uh, it's january in wisconsin, right, so people never know what the weather is looking like and and stuff like that. So we, we do the best we can to publicize it is as much as possible without giving giving away too much, because we do know, um, people out there are actually paying admission to come there too, so we want to, we want to protect those people as well.
Speaker 2:Um, but still, um, overall, the goal is just to create a good environment right, and grow the tournament and and publicize it the best we can so here's a question I have, because this sometimes with events, what they'll do is they'll stream part of it for free, and then championships you might have to, like, pay a premium, is there? How's that going? For the rockfin it's? It's ten dollars for the whole term. Okay, just the tournament, not to subscribe to Rockfin, right.
Speaker 1:Okay, just that tournament.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that tournament. We charge a premium of $10. You go to Illinois, madman, go on the Rockfin page and then it'll be the option. Okay, you look at it if you sit at home if you're a Rockton subscriber for $10, you're going to get to see some pretty good wrestling. I've been Rockton forever. Now there's so much wrestling stuff on it, We'll put a link to that Illinois Mat Men 2.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it'll be on Twitter.
Speaker 2:We'll put that in the comments or the description of the show. So that way if people go to this they'll hear whoa, it'll be on the bottom. So all the links to everything Cheesehead will be on the bottom. Illinois, mad Men, your website, the Twitter site, all that stuff will be on there.
Speaker 4:Glenn, thanks for having me. It's been a lot of fun and I hope everyone just enjoys the performance this weekend and have some fun.
Speaker 2:Bring the positive, keep things positive you see a little bearded guy walking around the camera. Make sure you wait, because they want lots of interaction. So I'll be running around too, probably taking pictures of something, but as far as anything like that goes, I'm watching. So and, and I just thought of this because we you asked me what's new. Yeah, yeah, in the beginning for the finals. Yeah, for the finals, we're actually going to put the athletes' bios and their pictures.
Speaker 1:Nice.
Speaker 2:So when you look at the score you're going to see right after the semis, we'll take pictures of each of the athletes.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:And then we'll write a small bio so that when people are watching from the stands they can say, okay, this kid was a fireball American, he was a state champion. Okay, returning, she's had a place winner, nice Record. This is their record and I think it just. It's always adding little things as technology grows and we can use them. You guys are evolving with the sport and it's almost like you're going to have Zach's website right in front of him while they're looking at the bio of a wrestler.
Speaker 2:And that's the other thing too. That's cool about Zach's rankings. It's all coach availability, that's. The other thing too is coaches could be watching from a different distance. That haven't seen a certain kid. They're like, oh, wait a minute, he did Wow. Okay, they might reach out to him. I know a coach you do that may be watching from far away.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:This little school called Gardner Webb. I think he has an interest in the Red Bulls. Does he? He's watching the pipeline going through there. Clayton Keaton, if you're watching, we hope that you can actually make it, but we know you'll be watching because you're a beloved fan of the Cheez-Its. So it's Keaton Cleaver that would be Scott's son. How's he liking coaching? He loves it. He loves it. He did really well. Yeah, they got Southern Scuffle. See, that's the first time ever Southern Scuffle is not on New Year's Day.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2:And then the second, and now it's the same exact time as Chisa this year, so he'll be doing his coaching down Chattanooga while we run the tournament up here Nice, nice. So it's going to be kind of hard for him to watch anything live if he's not a coach. Catch a couple things here, but at least I got Carly. Carly came back from school, so she'll be at the math table, okay, so yeah, but.
Speaker 2:I just want to encourage everybody. Like there's nothing like being in the stands Right when these hype matches come up, and they're up all the time, correct. Like we said, there's no easy way out because your, your kid could have lost, but now they're getting thrown back in and maybe have a harder road to the finals, but they're still still rolling. It's still a road. It's a little detour, maybe a little bumpy, but it's a road. You can still get there. You can still get there and I've been advocating, but saying this for quite some time now don't just, if you can get to the gym, get to the gym, get there, get your butt in the seat, watch live, watch in front of you.
Speaker 2:I'm all about the subscription, things like that, but right now, wrestling needs you to show up and watch live wrestling. I don't care if it's, I don't care if it's high school, I don't care if it's college, I don't care if it's naia, I don't care if it's gradeIA, I don't care if it's grade school. Show up, pay the fee, go watch wrestling, because we are going to need it. We are going to need that support. We are going to need people showing up Right now. We're in a weird time of sports and I think people need to kind of come to the realization that not all this is going to be your own when you think of it.
Speaker 2:So get your butts in the gym. Pay fee, sit down, watch it. There's nothing better than honestly being in a gym watching wrestling in front, right, I, I'm always a fan of getting on tv and watching. I mean, obviously I can't be down in iowa, so I had the soldiers done. Yeah, turn that off pretty soon, do that. But um, I just get there, get there and watch. It was weird sitting in the iron mat and actually just getting to be a fan. Right, I wasn't coaching, I wasn't running the tournament. I sat in there and I had my popcorn and my soda and I'm sitting there. I envy you fans. I got to be one for once and it was pretty fun. Different type of energy it is. You don't have the nerves, you have more excitement. Yeah Well, running the tournament gets awful stressful.
Speaker 2:I can imagine, because you want everything to be right for everybody. Yeah, right, and being able just to walk in and be carefree is kind of fun.
Speaker 1:Good Saunas Nationals. I learned that real quick.
Speaker 2:I was like man. I hope this goes right over here. I hope this goes way in. Go right all that stuff. Because one hiccup and someone's complaining about it, you're already getting one star on Reddit, you know whatever it is. So that's why I kind of want to bring up a lot of that smaller side stuff that most like spectators don't see. Like coaches enjoy this tournament because they can go eat a normal meal they can find something.
Speaker 2:okay, I got to go, but at least I know I can go in here and I'm going to get some fettuccine. That's a good shit. I was a little jealous what they were eating versus what I had to go buy. I think it's a little nuances about this tournament that are great. I'm excited, especially for this year. More teams, five more teams this year. Think you're going to add on more.
Speaker 3:I'm not sure.
Speaker 2:We've got to see how this goes. Okay, I always want to give opportunity right, as long as we have enough room in our facility and it runs the way we expect it to run. I'd never say never. I'm made of opportunity and it runs the way we expect it to run. Yeah, I've never seen that A man of opportunity, a man of opportunity. So again, guys, thank you, thank you, appreciate it. Thank you, austin, appreciate it. Of course I hope everybody shows up, gets to the gym, but it's been about an hour and 20 minutes and we are out. It's been the Vision Quest podcast with the Cheesehead crew. Thanks again, guys, thank you.
