Phil Davis, 2008 NCAA Division I 184-pound champ for Penn State, will be competing at UFC 109: Relentless at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas on Saturday, February 6.

Davis, who signed with UFC just last month, will be facing former World Extreme Cagefighting champion Brian Stann, who played football at the US Naval Academy.

A four-time NCAA All-American wrestler, Davis built a 116-20 collegiate career with the Nittany Lions. The 25-year-old Harrisburg, Pennsylvania native owns a 4-0 professional MMA record, having competed inside the Palace Fighting Championship, Ultimate Warrior Challenge and Ultimate Cage Fighting Challenge promotions. In Davis’ most recent MMA event in June, he submitted David Baggett with a rear-naked choke in 3:37.

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University of Minnesota freshman wrestler and former Olympian, Jake Deitchler has been ruled ineligible by the NCAA for the 2009-10 academic year.

The University of Minnesota received initial notice in September and appealed the ruling hoping for a review of the situation. Deitchler has not competed for the Gophers this season, while awaiting the results of the final appeal. Deitchler’s eligibility will be reinstated under the conditions that he is withheld from competition for the 2009-10 academic year, forfeit a year of eligibility and repay the $4,000 prize money he received.

A 2008 graduate of Anoka High School and an Anoka, Minn. native, Deitchler represented the United States at the 2008 Summer Olympic Games in Beijing, China. Following the Olympics, Deitchler spent the 2008-09 academic year training and competing full-time with USA Wrestling at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colo.

“In the NCAA’s ongoing effort to promote student-athlete welfare I do not think the NCAA is following or supporting their own ideology. The NCAA has handed a very young student athlete an overly harsh penalty,” head wrestling coach J Robinson said. “The punishment is quite severe and is a three part penalty. First; Deitchler must sit out a year, second he will lose one of his four years of eligibility, and third he must repay the money he received.

Craig Sesker USA Wrestling

Iowa’s Brent Metcalf shoots in on North Carolina State’s Darrion Caldwell during the 2009 NCAA finals in St. Louis. Photo by Larry Slater.

IOWA CITY – Brent Metcalf took the college wrestling world by storm during the 2007-08 season.

Metcalf’s first season as an Iowa Hawkeye was a memorable one as he won his first NCAA title, led Iowa to the national team title and won the Hodge Trophy as the best college wrestler in the country.

He came back strong again last season, extending his winning streak to 69 matches before he was upset by North Carolina State’s Darrion Caldwell in the 2009 NCAA finals. Metcalf helped the Hawkeyes edge Ohio State for the team title last March. Iowa won the title without crowning an individual champion.

Metcalf jumped right into freestyle competition after the NCAAs and placed second at the 2009 U.S. Nationals. He fell short of placing at the U.S. World Team Trials.

He just started his senior season as the nation’s top-ranked wrestler at 149 pounds for the No. 1 Iowa Hawkeyes.

Andy Hamilton • Iowa City Press-Citizen

The top-ranked Iowa wrestling team did enough Friday to beat up on two more opponents and set another school record for dual dominance.

But the Hawkeyes didn’t do enough to appease coach Tom Brands during wins against Bucknell and Rutgers in Lewisburg, Pa.

“There is seven minutes to wrestle and much, much more has to happen in those seven minutes,” Brands said. “I’m not sure we understand that right now. We could understand it, but then what’s the hesitancy? That’s the disconnect. We’ve got to figure it out. There’s got to be more happening in seven minutes.”

The Hawkeyes (7-0) won 16 matches while beating Bucknell 29-7 and handling Rutgers 33-9 to extend their school record of consecutive dual wins to 45 and match the program record for most wins on the road with 31.

Freshman Matt McDonough registered a pin and a technical fall in a pair of victories at 125, Daniel Dennis posted a technical fall and a major decision at 133 against No. 13 David Marble of Bucknell, and Jay Borschel notched two majors at 174, including a 10-1 demolition of Bucknell’s ninth-ranked Shane Riccio.

By KATHIE OBRADOVICH • kobradov@dmreg.com

Republican Jim Gibbons of Des Moines, a former Iowa State University wrestling coach, will run for Congress in Iowa’s 3rd Congressional District.

The winner of the GOP primary will take on incumbent Democrat Leonard Boswell.

Gibbons, 50, said Thursday that he is leaving his job at Wells Fargo Advisors to pursue a full-time campaign. “I think anything that you do successfully, you can’t do that with one foot in and one foot out,” he said.

He said he began thinking seriously about running when he got a call from an old friend, Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, a two-time NCAA wrestling champion from the University of Wisconsin.

“He called me up in the middle of the summer and he asked, ‘Jim have you ever considered running for Congress?’ And I said, ‘Every day.’ ”

Iowa has had a few wrestlers in top-level political positions, including former U.S. Rep. Jim Leach, R-Iowa City, and former Iowa House Speaker Brent Siegrist of Council Bluffs. Republicans have tried, unsuccessfully so far, to recruit former Hawkeye wrestling coach Dan Gable to run for office.

WILLIAMSPORT – A former Lock Haven University wrestler has filed a lawsuit against the university’s athletic director, former wrestling coach and president claiming the university tried to force him to wrestle when injured, and violated his freedom of speech by limiting his ability to speak out against the school.

Landis Wright filed the suit in U.S. District Court in Williamsport.

Listed as defendants are Athletic Director Sharon E. Taylor, former coach Anthony “Rocky” Bonomo, who retired from his post earlier this month, and university President Dr. Keith T. Miller.

The lawsuit states Wright, now 21, was one of the nation’s “most promising young wrestlers,” and ranked third in the state and seventh in the nation when a senior at Bald Eagle Area High School at Wingate.

The suit states Bonomo offered Wright a $10,000 per year scholarship to attend the university up to five years. The suit states Bonomo also offered Landis’ younger brother, Quentin Wright, a full scholarship as well. The suit alleges that violated NCAA rules, as Quentin was only a high school sophomore at the time.

When news surfaced in September that Ryland Geiger was leaving the University of Minnesota, it was more than just a small blip on the radar for the Gopher faithful.

The 19-year-old Geiger, who was one of the nation’s top recruits from the Class of 2008, was expected to make an immediate impact at 197 pounds for a young and talented Gopher team looking to get back to the top of the college wrestling world after coming off its worst NCAA finish (14th) since 1996.

Great expectations had been placed on the broad shoulders of Geiger after a prep career that saw him capture two Oregon (OSAA) state titles and win titles at prestigious high school events such as NHSCA Nationals, Cadet Nationals, and Junior Nationals. He was ranked No. 1 in the country at 189 pounds by InterMat.

Last season, as a redshirt for the Gophers, Geiger compiled a 19-3 record while competing in open tournaments. In the spring, Geiger won both the FILA Junior Nationals and FILA World Team Trials in freestyle to earn a spot on the Junior World Team. Geiger, though, chose not to compete at the Junior World Championships in Ankara, Turkey in August, and instead opted to stay in Minneapolis and focus on his summer term courses at Minnesota.

COB BASRA, Iraq – Who is Coach J Robinson?

Robinson has had an illustrious career as an Army Ranger during the Vietnam War, an Olympic wrestler and one of the greatest coaches in University of Minnesota history.

Robinson demonstrated his bravery by telling a roomful of military policemen how he listens to Britney Spears and Lady Gaga to get motivated.

Robinson is also caring. He flew to Iraq recently to motivate the troops and when he learned the government wasn’t going to pay his way, he was perfectly willing to fly halfway around world on his own dime.

All to offer a simple “Thank you.”

“When the chaplain called and asked if I could come, I thought it was the least I could do,” said Robinson, who was inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in 2005. “I was sitting at home, and you know what that’s like. It’s pretty good. Sometimes you don’t realize that until you leave.”

Robinson visited troops all over Contingency Operating Base Basra, at each stop encouraging Soldiers and telling them to embrace their deployment as a learning experience.

By Stephen Hennessey and Jocelyn Syrstad
Collegian Staff Writer

Bubba Jenkins admits he wasn’t even in shape at this point last season.

Each practice, even though the season has not started, has been harder than last year’s most difficult practice, redshirt sophomore Clay Steadman said.

The wrestlers were used to training for an extended period of time in the Lorenzo Wrestling Complex, but not spending a Friday night there for breaking a team rule.

Welcome to the Penn State wrestling team’s version of Friday Night Lights.

The itinerary entails sweeping the filth off the practice mats with a broom, cleaning with a mop and running up and down the length of the four giant practice mats, paper towel in hand, to dry the floor that has been the training ground for 98 NCAA All-Americans. After cleaning, wrestlers study in the bleachers of the facility, without any conversation, cell phones or iPods.

“It’s something you don’t want to get, but it’s really easy to get,” freshman wrestler Ed Ruth said. “As soon as you get it, you’re like, ‘I’ve got Friday Night Lights.’ It’s not really a surprise when you get it, it’s just that in public school they give you disciplinary actions, but they give you like a strike or a demerit or something to build up to that. But this, you just get it right away. It’s like sink or die.”

by SEAN KEELER

State College, Pa. — The wrestling room is bigger than a VFW hall, the mats wide as a country mile. Four high-definition televisions hang on the walls, each one placed strategically a few feet apart from the next.

“It’s a nice room,” Cael Sanderson says. “But obviously a room’s not going to win for you.”

He smiles. Penn State’s Lorenzo Wrestling Complex opened in 2006 to the tune of $4 million. Tucked neatly into the west side of campus, it’s more a penthouse than a palace, but every corner sparkles.
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“I think it was just a lot of bad information that was out there as to why I made the decision,” Sanderson said of the stunning coup that brought the former Iowa State wrestling coach here from Ames five months ago. “But really, that wasn’t the reason that I took the job. I was just looking at a long-term opportunity here.”

At the most recent NCAA wrestling championships, a dozen Pennsylvania natives were named to the All-American team; two were natives of Iowa. Steve Sanderson, Cael’s father, told The (Penn State) Daily Collegian last spring that his son had discussed a move to State College for at least a year, if the job ever came open.