In a little reported item, Davey Blake has been named head coach at McDaniel College. He succeeds Sam Gardner in the position. Blake wrestled for Appalachian State and McDaniel in college and has been the assistant at McDaniel for the past three seasons. Blake’s brother and father both also wrestled at McDaniel.
The Coaching Changes post has been updated to reflect this change. This is the eleventh head position to change hands since the national tournament.
Click to see a list of every team’s coach and email address. This is a quick reference that will continually be updated as coaches and conference affiliations change.
Click below for the Wheaton College wrestling incoming recruits for the 2007-2008 season.
Happy 4th of July to all the readers. Today’s update is the recruiting class from the UW-Oshkosh Titans. Click to see the wrestlers who will be suiting up for Head Coach Mike DeRoehn for the 2007-2008 season.
The general section of the photo gallery has four new photos at the top from the 2006-2007 Olivet College season.
There is now a d3wrestle.com Facebook group. If you have a Facebook account, see and join the group by clicking here. Please contact me if you have problems accessing this group.
With the number of wrestling camps of all stripes available every summer, one might think that there is no reason to defend wrestling camps. However, more than one camp director has told me that the last two years have seen decreasing enrollment. I cannot say whether there are fewer students going to camp or if the big camps at the bigger schools are just attracting more students, but the anecdotal evidence suggests that fewer wrestlers are going camping, and more are getting involved in shorter weekend clinics.
Depending on the situation, a wrestler can get a lot of value out of a shorter clinic, but I think that depends somewhat on the coaching. If a high schools hosts a clinic attended primarily by high school and junior high wrestlers from that school, then the wrestlers don’t get a variety of training experiences and coaching. Summer camp is the best way to be exposed to a large number of coaching styles, and camp affords wrestlers a great chance to learn something in a new way. At the Turner Wrestling Training camp this past week, each wrestler had the opportunity to learn from, at the absolute minimum, seven different top notch coaches. To me, this is the greatest value of a summer camp. The camp does nothing for the physical condition of the wrestlers; it’s just too short. However, the mental and technical aspects of wrestling can improve greatly in that short time, provided the athlete pays attention and has the desire to improve.
Even wrestlers with great high school coaches can benefit from this variety of experience, and I would encourage all wrestlers to find a way to spend a week at camp, even if only as a commuter. College wrestlers should also try to spend time working at camps in order to hone their own skills. Many college wrestlers plan to coach one day, and camp gives them an opportunity to get a jumpstart on their coaching education.
Fader announces recruiting class – UW-Whitewater’s recruiting class
Madden named wrestler of the year by the New York State Collegiate Wrestling Coaches Association – Hunter wrestler Terrance Madden was the DIII 184 lb. champion in 2007
Hawald takes Mount Union post – It’s not particularly new news, but it is the first mention this has gotten in the local paper.
Bogardus brothers hope to take hold of Empire gold – Cortland wrestler Zach Bogardus competed in the Emprie State Games this weekend. No results have been posted yet.
I will also be appearing at two other camps besides Turner Wrestling Training. On July 6-11, I will be at the Ken Chertow Gold Medal Training Camp at North Central College. On July 15-19, I will be at the Messiah Wrestling Summer Training Camp at Messiah College. It is not too late to sign up for either of these great training opportunities.
I will be out of town coaching at the Turner Wrestling Training Camp at Lock Haven University starting today until Friday the 29th. Posting will be light until I return, though I hope to post some comments from Augsburg Head Coach Sam Barber on two incoming transfer students some time this coming week.
Stevens Institute of Technology Head Coach Andy Lausier has accepted a position as Assistant Coach at Princeton University under Head Coach Chris Ayres. Coach Ayres confirmed Lausier’s new position for d3wrestle.com. Lausier coached at Stevens beginning with the team’s resurrection in the 2004-2005 season. He was an All-American at Lycoming College in 2001 and also spent two years as an assistant at The College of New Jersey.
Coach Ayres had this to say about his new assistant, “Andy represented exactly what I want in an assistant coach. He is dedicated, hard working, and most importantly, he is passionate about wrestling. Andy’s experience at Stevens was unique in that he resurected a dropped progam and built it up from scratch. This experience will enable him to make a huge impact on this program as we work to make Princeton Wrestling one of the best wrestling programs in the country. Essentially, I believe Andy will help us reach our goals quicker. I am thrilled to have Andy and believe he is going to make a big impact on program.”
The coaching change post has been updated to reflect Lausier’s departure.
UPDATE 7/2/2007: Princeton’s website reports that Lausier will be replacing former Lehigh wrestler and NCAA champion Troy Letters, who is leaving to pursue commercial real estate.
Lakeland College Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3
McDaniel College Highlights Fall 2006 | Winter 2007 | 2/10/2007
Links also in Videos section
Also, Luther College 2004 Highlights, Trinity College Highlights 2003 & 2004, 4x DIII champ Marcus LeVesseur vs. Ben Youel, and 2x DIII champ Jesus Wilson vs. Terry Brands @ 1993 World Championships.
I had the chance to speak with Elizabethtown head coach Eric Walker today about his team’s move to the Metropolitan Conference for the 2007-2008 season. As seen in an earlier post, for 2006-2007, Elizabethtown, Delaware Valley, Lycoming, and Messiah all joined the Midwest Regional. Now, only Delaware Valley is left. The main reason Walker cited for his team’s move was travel expenses. If Messiah and Lycoming had been able to stay in the region and bid to host it every other year or two, Elizabethtown may have stayed in the region. However, with Delaware Valley unable to host, and the other schools gone to the Empire Conference, Walker and his team were going to have to travel quite far every year, as Manchester often hosts the Midwest (as they did this year), and the school is close to 600 miles away. The move to the Metro makes the 180 mile trip to New York City the farthest Elizabethtown will have to travel.
In terms of selecting the Metropolitan Conference, there were three main reasons given. First was the aforementioned travel savings. Second, the Metropolitan Conference does not require the teams to wrestle dual meets against each other. This allowed E-town to keep its schedule mostly intact except for changing the national qualifying tournament. Finally, Elizabethtown approached the Centennial Conference about joining but was told the conference was not interested in expansion. A last minor factor was the fact that Wilkes, Scranton, and Kings, former MAC schools like E-town, were already Metro Conference members. The Metro conference said they were willing to take one more team, and E-town had the chance to take that spot.
Walker believes the Metro will be a better fit for E-town than the Empire would have been. Oneonta, Cortland, Brockport, and Oswego are all SUNY schools that can offer in-state tuition to New York residents. Though E-town is in Pennsylvania, this could be a disadvantage in recruiting in a conference with numerous state schools. Overall, Walker is happy with the move to the Metro an is excited to rebuild the tradition of the team he has led since 2003.
Eric Walker’s Bio at E-Town Wrestling
The reconfigured Metropolitan Conference now includes Centenary, Elizabethtown, Hunter, King’s, SUNY-Maritime, NYU, Scranton, TCNJ, Wilkes, and York.
Manchester College head coach and athletic director Tom Jarman is set to retire on August 1st after 18 years at Manchester. Prior to his time at Manchester, he was the head coach at Northwestern University and Taylor University as well as the 1963 NCAA College Division champion at 158 pounds for Wheaton College.
At Manchester, he led the team to three top ten finishes and coached one national champion (Darrell Carr, 149, 2002) and 22 total All-Americans, with 125 pound Eracleo Vallejo (5th) the last in 2007. Jarman spent ten years each at Taylor University and Northwestern before beginning his 18 year stint at Manchester. Overall, his teams have won over 400 matches, and Jarman is a member of the Taylor University, Wheaton College, Oswego High School, Indiana Wrestling Coaches, Illinois Wrestling Coaches, and NCAA Division III Wrestling Coaches Hall of Fame.
This map includes all 94 teams in NCAA Division III wrestling except Pacific, which is in Oregon. Of those 94, three (SUNY-Morrisville, Lincoln Christian, and Tri-State) have yet to compete in a national qualifying tournament, but will in the near future. MacMurray College appears to have finalized their decision to drop the sport based on the content of their wrestling website, but they are included in this list barring a formal announcement. Click to enlarge.
Elizabethtown College will be leaving the Midwest Regional for the Metropolitan Conference for the 2007-2008 season. Other former Middle Atlantic Conference teams in the Metro are Scranton, Wilkes, and King’s. More information will be posted as it becomes available. Along with those mentioned, the Metro includes Centenary, Hunter, SUNY-Maritime, NYU, TCNJ, and York.
Elizabethtown is the third team to leave the Midwest Region this year, as Messiah and Lycoming have gone to the Empire Conference.
Since the only wrestling going on right now is at the Senior level, I thought I would post a video of an interesting technique executed by Zack Esposito against Dough Schwab at the World Team Trials last weekend. You’ll see that he takes an elbow control, steps as if to do a duck under, but comes back the other way and trips the near leg. He executed the move twice in the match, but the one below was the cleanest.
Head Coach Keith Norris announced on Friday that the Johns Hopkins Wrestling Program will add 18 new wrestlers to their roster for 2007-08. Norris completes his second season leading the Blue Jays to a third place finish in the Centennial Conference Tournament and looks forward to next year. Norris states, “This group of student-athletes will add talent to an already competitive wrestling room. These young men are ready to challenge themselves on the mat and in the classroom here at Johns Hopkins University.†Seven of the wrestlers were state placers or National Prep All-Americans during their high school careers along with being one of the top students in their schools. The Blue Jays have a lot to be excited about with the addition of these student-athletes.
The following is an alphabetical list of the wrestlers that will join the Johns Hopkins Wrestling Team:
The Middle Atlantic States Conference held its last wrestling championships in the 2005-2006 season. For 2006-2007, Delaware Valley, Lycoming, Elizabethtown, and Messiah went to the Midwest Regional; Scranton, King’s, and Wilkes went to the Metropolitan Conference, and Albright dropped the sport.
d3wrestle.com can now confirm that, beginning with the 2007-2008 season, Lycoming College and Messiah College will join the Empire Collegiate Wrestling Conference. The invitation came around the time of the national tournament and was announced by Lycoming on June 13th and the Messiah College schedule shows them competing in the ECWC championships on February 23rd, 2008. Other teams in the ECWC are Brockport, Cortland, Ithaca, Oneonta, Oswego, and RIT.
This new arrangement will likely result in an addition of 1-2 national qualifiers to the Empire Conference and a matching decrease in the Midwest regional, assuming the Midwest Region does not lose any more teams. Of course, the relative performance of each qualifier in 2007 as compared to 2004 will have the final say, as the formula is based on three years worth of performance. Messiah has not had an All-American since 2003, but Lycoming’s calculation will include two from 2005 and one from 2006.
