By Michael Rand
Special to ESPN.com

The broader sporting world is filled with cautionary tales, and Cael Sanderson knows it. Everywhere you look, there are examples of successful athletes who have had trouble translating the glory of their playing days into coaching or the front office. Matt Millen won three Super Bowls as a player. As a Lions executive, he’s lucky if his team wins three games in a season. Isiah Thomas? Michael Jordan? No comment necessary.

So the natural question for Sanderson is this one: How is he going to be different? As a college wrestler at Iowa State, he was the best there ever was. He wrestled in 159 matches and won 159 matches, taking home four NCAA titles in the process. He won an Olympic gold medal in Athens. To watch him on the mat was to see poetry in motion; he was so skilled and so far ahead of opponents both mentally and physically that they often didn’t stand a chance.

But exuding greatness and teaching it are two different things. When Sanderson accepted the head coaching position at his alma mater in March, he was 27 years old and just the sixth head coach Iowa State has had since 1916. He not only had the expectations set by his predecessor, Bobby Douglas, Sanderson also had his own flawless precedent to fuel expectations.

Wright triumphs at Millersville

MILLERSVILLE–Bald Eagle Area junior Quentin Wright claimed the 157-pound title during the Floyd Shorty Hitchcock Open at Millersville University.

Wright defeated Delaware Valley junior Ryan Herwig 9-8 in the finals. Herwig qualified for the NCAA Division III championships last season.

The Hitchock Open was the third college tournament Wright has entered this season. Wright finished fifth at the Nittany Lion Open last month. He also participated in the Mat-Town USA Invitational in November.

Wright is 15-0 wrestling for BEA. He won the 160-pound title at the Beast of the East and Manheim Tournaments.

Article from January 08, 2007

By Ward Gossett
Assistant Sports Editor

Chattanooga Times Free Press

This past Saturday was a good day for wrestling, specifically the Central Invitational.

The area’s oldest continuing invitational tournament — 38 years and counting — enjoyed a rejuvenation, and its 18-team field was the toughest it had enjoyed in years.

It was long — the last match wound up with an 11 p.m. start time — and admission prices were high ($12 for adults and $8 for students), but the gym was packed from start to finish, probably because state powers Baylor and Soddy-Daisy were in the field after long absences along with Notre Dame, up-and-coming Sonoraville and traditional Georgia powers Brookwood and Ringgold.

Despite the pleasure of seeing numerous rough-and-tumble matches, I left with a sour taste in my mouth because of a couple of distasteful incidents.

A wrestler from out of town was disqualified for punching a competitor — embarrassing himself, his coach and teammates and the sport in general. It obviously isn’t the picture supporters of and competitors in the sport want to see. That youngster, believe me, faced a stiff follow-up practice and some sort of punishment that may carry through the week.

Andrew Hipps, Senior Writer

Tim Hartung, who hails from a Durand, Wisconsin, was a one-time state champion who wasn’t heavily recruited coming out of high school. But he went on to wrestle at the University of Minnesota, where he became a two-time NCAA champion, three-time All-American, and helped put the Gophers on the collegiate wrestling map. He became the first Gopher in 51 years to win back-to-back NCAA crowns. After his collegiate career, Hartung went on to have a successful freestyle wrestling career. He was an alternate on the 2004 U.S. Olympic team. In 2002, Hartung won the U.S. Nationals and was a World Team member. He also placed several times at the U.S. Nationals and World Team Trials.

Hartung has coaching experience at three of the nation’s top collegiate wrestling programs: Minnesota (five seasons), Iowa (two seasons), and is now in his first season as an assistant coach Iowa State.

RevWrestling.com recently caught up with Hartung to talk to him about his career at Minnesota, his international career, his brief stint at Iowa and whether or not he still harbors any hard feeling toward the program, his relationship with Cael Sanderson, and what the Cyclones need to do to challenge for a national title in March.

Westside (Missouri) News

Countdown to Fight Night

LAKE OF THE OZARKS — Gravois Mills’ own Jesse Shewmaker, a multiple Golden Gloves champion, will square off with Travis Allen Saturday night Jan. 20 in the main event of “Fight Night at the Lake of the Ozarks” at the Country Club Hotel & Spa in Lake Ozark.

Top Gun Promotions, owned by Damon Shewmaker (Jesse’s father) will present six bouts featuring fighters from the lake area beginning at 7 p.m. Jesse Shewmaker, 27, is undefeated in 11 professional fights and, according to his father, won Golden Gloves titles in the heavyweight and light heavyweight divisions from 2000 to 2004.

“He’s kinda like Mike Tyson, he can knock you out with either hand,” said Damon Shewmaker, a lifelong Gravois Mills resident. “He knocked Josh Stonebraker out in the first round with his jab. He’s strong…in fact, we’re having trouble finding guys who will agree to fight him.”

A multi-sport star at Versailles High School, Shewmaker was an undefeated prep wrestler and standout football and baseball payer before turning to boxing following his graduation in 1998.

There are places every wrestling fan must make a point of visiting at some time in their life. One of those is the new Dan Gable International Wrestling Institute and Museum in Waterloo, Iowa. The new, 21,000-square-foot facility opens Jan. 12.

For more information on the museum go to www.wrestlingmuseum.org or call 319.233.0745.

By Andrew Berglund – TWM Freelance Writer

As you enter the lobby of the new Dan Gable International Wrestling Institute and Museum in Waterloo, Iowa, your eyes will immediately be captivated by a 10×20 foot mural of arguably our nation’s greatest leader, Abraham Lincoln, in a wrestling match. As you round the corner, your focus will shift to a near life-size depiction of Jacob in a fist clench, wrestling the angel of the Lord. As you inch forward, your imagination will continue to deepen as you read quotes from Homer and Achilles about the sport whose heroic figures and stories of triumph date back 5,000 years.

Zalesky returns to Iowa

Speaks out on being fired

By Andy Hamilton
Iowa City Press-Citizen

CEDAR FALLS — From a distance, he looked like he raided John Smith’s closet.

But closer up, the Oregon State emblem was visible on the bright orange button down that went with the black tie and black dress pants that Jim Zalesky wore Sunday.

“I did tell Smith when I saw him at Reno, ‘Hey, I’ve got a trademark on the O-S-U chant, so Oklahoma State’s going to have to come up with some other cheer,’” said Zalesky, retelling a December conversation with the Cowboy coach at the Reno Tournament of Champions. “He started laughing. He said, ‘We’ll support you until you get too good.’ It was funny.”

Zalesky might wear different colors than the black and gold he donned for nine seasons as Iowa’s head coach, but his sense of humor is one thing that hasn’t changed.

Zalesky has a new job, a new team, a new challenge.

Back in his home state for the first time since this summer, Zalesky’s unranked Oregon State Beavers split a pair of dual meets Sunday at the McLeod Center, suffering their first loss of the season in a 21-12 defeat against No. 18 Tennessee-Chattanooga and beating Northern Iowa 25-16.

Tennessee-Chattanooga wrestling coach Chris Bono said he considers today’s double-dual against Oregon State and Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls to be a homecoming.

Bono was named head coach July 29. This is his second season with the Mocs. He was an assistant coach for nine seasons at Iowa State, where he won an NCAA 150-pound championship in 1996.

“It does feel like I’m coming back home,” Bono said. “I’ve been talking to my team about how it’s going to be fun to go back to Iowa and wrestle. I’ve got about 50 Iowa State fans who are coming to the matches.”

Bono said he’s trying to instill to his wrestlers the same mentality he used to win 130 matches for the Cyclones: score as many points as possible and never let conditioning play a factor.

“We’re in shape, that’s what we’ve got going for us,” Bono said. “I don’t know how much talent we have, but we’re in shape and we’re going to go out and fight.”

Northern Iowa coach Brad Penrith hopes to see measured improvement from his team today.

Tom Franck, Staff Writer
tom//revwrestling.com

There’s obviously still a lot of season left, but a month and a half of Division I college wrestling is in the books. In the six plus weeks of action … a good number of questions that enthusiasts entered the season with have been answered. Here are 10 notable things we’ve learned thus far:

1. You can’t turn your head away for a second this year in a Ben Askren match. It will probably be over by the time you return your gaze to the action. After watching Jake Herbert major Roger Kish in the NWCA/All Star Classic, one had to wonder how anyone beat him last year, especially at a lower weight class. Then you watch Askren and say “Oh, that’s how.” Askren’s incredible run of first-period pins this year is nothing short of stunning. He should also start promoting the “Ben Askren Diet,” which makes you weigh anything but 174. The mass exodus of 2006 NCAA All Americans at 174 is completely justified (second place Herbert went up to 184 and third and fourth placers Mark Perry of Iowa and Ryan Patrovich of Hofstra went down to 165).

(For RealProWrestlingFans members: Corey Jantzen is the younger brother of Jesse Jantzen, who competed in Season 1 of RPW.)

Shoreham-Wading River’s defending state Div. I champ ruled out by NYSPHSAA
BY GREGG SARRA
Newsday Staff Writer

Shoreham-Wading River’s Corey Jantzen, the defending state wrestling Division I champion at 125 pounds, has been declared ineligible to participate for the rest of his senior season by the state Public High Schools Athletic Association.

Jantzen, who competed as an independent, was disqualified from further high school competition after he violated state rules by his participation against collegiate wrestlers at the Midlands Tournament in Evansville, Ill. last week.

“We have a rule in the state handbook that is very clear and states student-athletes cannot compete against college athletes,” said Ed Cinelli, the executive director of Section XI, Suffolk’s governing body. “We don’t give a waiver of a rule of this nature. I was never given any indication that he was competing in a collegiate tournament.”

Jantzen, who has already accepted his admissions letter to attend Harvard, became only the fourth high school wrestler, and the first from New York, to compete in the Midlands Tournament. He finished seventh in the competition.