New shoes, new moves

Today Matt and I drilled for a good hour. This was no ordinary drill though, as we were donning our new Adi-strike shoes for the first time. We wrestled faster, stronger, and longer than ever and it is undoubtedly a result of the new shoes. I have another drill with Colin this afternoon so I will try and report back with the updated results from Rd. 2 of the Adi-strike Revolution.

UPDATE #1 @ 2:25pm

There is most definitely some magic in the shoes. During my last workout I floated over the mats like fog on a mountain lake. I was poetry in motion...I look forward to practice later, I expect jaws to drop and eyes to bulge!

Viva los Adi-strikes!

Practice Update

(Matt Fullowan, Soph. - 174lbs, Colin Ely, Soph. - 197lbs)

Today we had a good, hard, and short practice. This year we have implemented bi-weekly drill sessions in the mornings which gives us a great opportunity to work with the guys and get them caught up on technique and the "style" of our program. In those sessions we break down the core positions (feet, short offense, defense, top, and bottom) and work on how to score in each of them. While we throw a variety of moves at the wrestlers, the goal of the sessions is to emphasize the importance of scoring from each of the positions, and not so much on what move they eventually score with. Sure I would like each of them to use the moves we show, but realistically they all have certain techniques and moves that they do better than others and their comfort level in each position is paramount to any one move I could force on them. The mantra this year has been "If you have to think about it, it's too late!" What this means is that in every position you encounter throughout the course of the match you must have a reaction to capitalize on it. You do not have time to react to what your opponent does you must act on what you are going to do. This is only achieved through repetition and constant drilling...hence drill sessions.

Because we focus on technique in the mornings we are able to focus on old fashioned hard wrestling in practice. Our practices deal with situations, fast paced drilling, and of course, live wrestling. They usually run for 90 minutes, but every now and then we push the guys for 2+ hours. Tuesday we had a 2hr practice with a 20 minute conditioning afterwards. Matt Fullowan lost 10lbs in that practice wearing shorts and a t-shirt. Ladies, please feel free to contact Matt for his "8 Easy Steps to a Fabulous Beach Body" workout book in stores this spring...

To contrast Tuesdays hard workout we went 90min and 65min Wed and Thursday respectively. This gives the guys ample time to recover without sacrificing their cardio and wrestling development. Today we did three matches and everyone worked extremely hard. We have a small team (14 guys plus coaches) which can work to our advantage in certain cases. Live wrestling is one of those cases because guys know each others styles very well and it forces them to focus on technique if they want to score on their opponents. It also can hurt when you don't have a lot of different styles for each guy to work with. Because of this, the coaches play an important roll in the live wrestling in practice. I do not think we have had a live session that I have missed since I got here and they guys I work with have been steadily improving. I work with everyone from 174-HWT but also work with the entire team during drill sessions which I run every week.

What has really made me excited this season is that 4-6 guys/week come to me for extra workouts above and beyond the mandatory 2 workouts (drills) per week. Everyone from 125-HWT has been in for extra instruction, and so far I am seeing quite a few front headlocks and scoring from underhooks-which is my dream come true. Most of the guys had never seen the stuff I teach them so it is always fun to show new techniques and moves for them to try out during practice. As with any team there are always one or two guys that are very special, and as a coach you hope they do very well. I want all of my guys to reach their goals and I will do everything I can to help them do just that, but Matt Fullowan (174lbs) and Colin Ely (197lbs) have become my special projects.

Matt wrestles a style almost exactly the same as mine (don't worry those who know me, he shoots much more than I did) with lots of pressure and cerebral leg attacks. Over the last 4 weeks he has become a very different wrestler. He will be a threat in the EIWA this year and anything less than a trip to NCAA's would be a huge disappointment for Matt, something I feel comfortable saying he didn't recognize prior to this season. Every day at 11am I can look up at the office door and Matt will be standing there asking me to workout. He has not missed a day since I got here and it is showing in his wrestling and success in the room. From what I hear, there are still a bunch of seats left on the Fullowan band wagon if anyone is interested in getting on board early (no guarantee there will be room later in the year!).

Colin Ely is a different animal all together, literally. Colin has hands like dinner plates and they do not feel very good as they come crashing down on the back of your head/neck. He has a never ending gas tank on his feet and has no problem bending your knees 90 degrees in the wrong direction should you turn your back on him during a live go. When I first wrestled with Colin he would dive in at the legs and hope to hold on and if he was luck score. Those who know my style know that is not the best strategy when wrestling me. After countless front headlocks and reshots, Colin learned how to select his shots with more caution and he is now starting to get in and finish them on most of the guys he wrestles. The gains he has made in 4 weeks are amazing and I look forward to his continued improvement throughout the year.

Time to watch my Yankees figure out how to hit against Philly. I am working on a special guest poster for early next week which I am sure you will all enjoy. Until next time....

MG

"To be a warrior is not a simple matter of wishing to be one. It is rather an endless struggle that will go on to the very last moment of our lives. Nobody is born a warrior, in exactly the same way that nobody is born an average man. We make ourselves into one or the other."

— Carlos Castaneda

Inaugural Burn

I would like to kick off "Matt" Burn with a big "thank you" to all of the administration and F&M Wrestling alumni, fans, staff, and wrestlers for providing me with the opportunity to get back into the sport I love so very much. Throughout my interviews and hiring process it became very clear to me that there are a lot of people who care very much about F&M Wrestling, so when I was hired I made it my mission to find ways to give back to them for all they have done for us. This blog is one of those efforts.

Through "Matt" Burn I hope to give our fans a peek behind the curtain of a Division I wrestling program in the early stages of rebuilding. I hope to offer a unique viewpoint on our team, our wrestlers, and all things F&M Wrestling both on and off the mats. We are very lucky to have so many ways to reach our alumni, fans, and families so that you can all follow your favorite team as we climb the EIWA and national rankings over the next few years.

I look forward to updating this site often, and I will be as candid and straightforward as possible in an effort to paint the most accurate and detailed picture possible for our national and alumni fan base. I will also bring in some of our wrestlers and department members to guest post from time to time so there are different perspectives on the season. Finally, I encourage all of you to send any feedback, questions, or ideas that you would like to see on the site as we continue to grow "Matt" Burn within the F&M and wrestling communities. My contact info is in the profile section of the site.

Now onto the good stuff!!! The first month of my coaching career has run the gamut from educational to exhilarating! My first day on campus was hectic to say the least, running from orientation meetings to wrestler introductions, and finally to practice. To be honest, I did not know what to expect as far as how the wrestlers would receive me, and I was very nervous before I met them for the first time. Would they be open to a new coach? Would they be excited about the upcoming season? Were they willing to work as hard as necessary to become successful? Were they any good? All of these things ran through my mind for weeks and finally they would all be answered whether I wanted to know or not.

Before we go any further let me give some background on myself to help put this blog in context for everyone moving forward (cue time warp graphics/sounds):

I grew up in Northern New Jersey and started wrestling in high school. I was not very good when I started and it is fair to say that my transition into the sport didn't go smoothly. I was used as a throwing dummy/punching bag/ easy match for most of my first year, frequently enough for my coaches to let me know I didn't have to keep getting back up and practicing all the time, that it was ok to sit out a day. That was when I was bitten by the wrestling bug. I had dabbled in football and baseball all through my youth, but for some reason I never really made the jumps necessary to earn a regular place in either sport.

With wrestling it was different...

In wrestling I was able to control my own destiny. I didn't have to rely on someone throwing me the ball or blocking for me to run or making a three-pointer at the buzzer. I only had to worry about me working out, and me practicing 2x day and studying tapes nightly. I loved that success was directly related to the amount of effort put in during the practices. Taking that information and adding what I recently learned in science class (that there were actually abs under my "protective layer" of chub) I decided that it was in my best interest to focus on wrestling and working hard to improve in the sport.

Lo and behold, this formula worked and by my senior year I was one of the top wrestlers in the state. I ended my year with a 3rd place finish in the state tournament and parlayed that success into a spot on the Columbia University Wrestling team. After a year at Columbia where I took 4th at EIWA's I decided things were going to smoothly at home and I needed to create more stress in my parents lives. Clearly the best way to do this was to transfer to Cornell University were I would be competing for one of the top teams on the east coast.

This strategic move was hands down the best decision of my short life and because of my experience at Cornell I am now doing what I always dreamed of for a career. While at Cornell I was lucky to be coached by Rob Koll, hands down the best coach and mentor anybody could ever ask for. While with Rob, I completed a successful wrestling career, culminating with an EIWA title and All-American honors my senior year, but what was much more valuable was that I had the opportunity to learn and observe how to build a decent TEAM into an elite PROGRAM. Those invaluable lessons and experiences are what I hope to bring to F&M in my role as assistant coach.

(cue time warp graphics/sounds) Aaaand we're back at F&M:

Coach Schuyler introduced me to the team and of course I was excited to get things started with these guys. Who would be the workhorses? Who would put in the time, blood, sweat, and tears necessary to achieve greatness? Surely not everyone would have that drive....right? Well I can honestly say I was surprised to hear everyone of the guys say they were willing to do what it takes to get better. They were all open to new ideas and training techniques. They were all open to extra workouts and high intensity drills/conditioning. Not one wrestler rolled their eyes or looked away when I shook their hands. Not one wrestler backed down or had an excuse for why they couldn't make a drill session. They all met my challenge with a youthful exuberance and excitement that I knew would soon disappear after the first sprint workout (Muahahahaha)...

So there I was, standing in front of 15 wrestlers who entrusted me with their careers. How exciting is that?!? Over the next four weeks some of the guys improved at incredible rates never looking back at the boys they were the prior year, and as expected, some went through the familiar peeks and valley's any wrestling renaissance presents, but most importantly as of this post all but one are still with me, training hard and becoming better. As a rookie coach this is much more than I could have ever hoped for. That retention percentage (93%) is better than any team I had ever been on in my career. That retention rate is a great foundation for us to recruit on and build our program on. It is a great first step, hopefully the first of many...

Wrestling Back

Unless you are standing on Franklin & Marshall’s picturesque campus, it is likely that you cannot feel the positive energy buzzing around the wrestling program. The buzz is palpable. The electric feeling came in the form of a vote of confidence by the team’s alumni, who mobilized to add a full-time assistant coach. That precipitated the hiring of the Cornell All-American, Matt Greenberg, whose positive energy at times seems boundless.

His energy will be needed.

There is no question that the program has been down on the mat and at times, written off. The rumors of our demise have been greatly exaggerated. The restoration of Franklin & Marshall’s proud wrestling tradition will be a long and arduous journey. There will be fits and starts, as well as potholes and obstacles, but the veritable David of the Eastern Intercollegiate Wrestling Association has its determined sights set on the conference’s many Goliaths.

Franklin & Marshall is committed to restoring its wrestling program to its rightful place. The place that was carved out by Charlie Mayser’s matmen, who toppled Army, C.C.N.Y. and Princeton in a span of three weeks in 1926. Those teams went toe-to-toe with the wrestling giants of their day – Chicago, Michigan, and Nebraska – and won.

Frank Burgess, who led tiny F&M to a fourth place at the 1939 NCAA Championships, cemented that place. There were the pre-war winning streaks and Mayser men shaping the EIWA. Roy Phillips, for whom the wrestling room is named at F&M, coached Penn. Following the war, Bob Schell, Stan Mousetis and Bob Wendell wrestled to the 1948 NCAA semifinals at Lehigh.

That was just the first golden era.

Wrestlers like Jim Clair, Doug Ward, John Stevenson, Nip Brown and Craig Blackman carried the torch with EIWA medals and NCAA appearances. A small skirmish in the large Cold War played out in our gym when the Diplomats hosted a contingent of Soviet wrestlers. There was the wild weekend when F&M shocked both Pitt and William & Mary.

Even in what have been the program’s darkest hours, wrestlers like Mike Parziale and Justin Herbert have been beacons of light, reminding us of F&M’s once and future prominence. Through our history, we shape our identity, and we know who we are. We are the tiny college walking proudly amongst giants, we are shapers of the EIWA, and we are decidedly Division I. To borrow a line from that other Blue and White team in Pennsylvania: We are, F&M!