Wrestling has always been a significant part of the culture in Iowa - long before the 21 U of I NCAA championships, before Gable wrestling at Iowa State - all the way back to Frank Gotch. The Hawkeyes perenially lead the nation in collegiate dual meet attendance, with the Cyclones generally in the top 5 in that category. Our high school championsip finals are televised live and get pretty good ratings. Our state public television network broadcasts 5 or 6 college meets a year. We have all been exposed to wrestling in some way since we were little (I'm 58 - so I'm not just talking about the last 20 years).
Almost everyone knows or is related to someone that has wrestled at some level. If you are an American wrestling fan, there are few better places to live than Iowa. This year alone I got to go to 2 NCAA championship tournaments, National Duals, 3 Division III tournaments, 8 college dual meets and a high school all-star meet. In three weeks I get to go to an Olympic qualifying tournament - all of this without leaving the state - heck, I never had to drive more than 120 miles.
I don't suppose that really answers your question, but I got to ramble.
I don't know about Oklahoma, but I'll continue from GG's rambling on Iowa.
Of course some guys from my family (farmers in southern Iowa) had aways wrestled, as wrestling contests were not uncommon at rural fairs and town festivals. My understanding was that in Iowa, wrestling was more a rural thing than an town thing before the 1940s.
Professional wrestling was big, too, and many of the touring pros were former amateur greats (Vern Gagne, Bob Geigle, etc.) Everyone knew it was theater, but the real oldtimers spoke of real wrestling before Strangler Lewis, back in the days of Farmer Burns, Frank Gotch, and submission wrestling. Burns helped coach the Cedar Rapids Washington high school team that won the first Iowa state tournament in 1921, and he founded wrestling clubs around the state. Iowa state started team wrestling in 1916, and I believe I saw a poster of an University of Iowa meet from 1919.
In my youth (circa 1961) in Cedar Rapids, wrestling was demonstrated in the 3rd grade in gym class, boys with boys, and girls with girls, and sometimes mixed for demonstration. Mostly it was trying to understand the folkstyle positions and scoring. I'd call it "wrestling appreciation," like "music appreciation." But EVERYONE was exposed to it. Real coaching with teams and uniforms didn't start until the 7th grade.
Seems like everyone in Iowa has a wrestler in the family, or knows one from their neighborhood. My nephew wrestled for UNI. The guy up the street was the 9th grade city champion. I had a weekend job as a store clerk in high school, and my boss was Gable's aunt. (I never had a job that was more fun or a nicer boss since then.) Gable was a legend even when he was still in high school. (Gable and Les Anderson were some of my PE teachers at ISU. LOL)
I'm not sure that any of this is any different than in Oklahoma, Minnesota, Nebraska, Vermont, or Pennsylvania, other states with old wrestling traditions. There's been a lot of cross-pollination between traditions, too. But at some point wrestling became intertwined with Iowan identity. Public Broadcasting, Gable, all the NCAA championships, and the huge high school tournament certainly contributed to it.
Last edited by grapplefan; 04-27-2008 at 08:35 PM..
The last time I was in Cedar Falls, my friend and I were hanging out with a couple of guys, and we mentioned that we were in town for National Duals. They knew about the event, knew about Mark Perry and Ben Askren, and talked about it like I might talk about college basketball - knowledgeably, but not fanatically. I asked them if they wrestled, and why they knew the sport so well, and they just looked at me like I was crazy. Of course they knew about it. I really liked that, and was impressed by their attitude.
I used to live in Des Moines from 2nd grade kindergarten to fourth grade. Didn't know anything about wrestling while I actually lived there but I guess that isn't surprising at that age.
All that being said, I would actually fully expect a team like Iowa to be leading in attendance when they have no professional sports teams to follow. I think this has something to do with the great attendance seen at Iowa's Football, Basketball and Wrestling.
__________________ "That is what Gable would have done to Owings the second time around. (Metcalf/Caldwell)"
I grew up in NW Iowa and I was in HS in the mid to late 70's. My only brother is much younger than me, and I didn't have any relatives who wrestled. The town I went to school in had a population of about 3000. On a Friday or Saturday night, if the basketball game was out of town and wrestling was home, we went to watch the wrestling. It didn't draw quite as many as basketball, but had much better attendance than here in Illinois.
__________________ "You can't have a light without a dark to stick it in." -- Arlo Guthrie
"All that being said, I would actually fully expect a team like Iowa to be leading in attendance when they have no professional sports teams to follow. I think this has something to do with the great attendance seen at Iowa's Football, Basketball and Wrestling."
That's an oversimplification that is frequently cited by people that don't live here. We have easy access to professional sports teams in Chicago, St Louis, Minneapolis and Kansas City. Go into any sports bar in Iowa in the summer and you'll see the Cubs/Cardinals rivalry represented by both sides.
The implication becomes, "Those poor yokels in Iowa don't have anything better to do, so they go to wrestling meets." Could it be, perhaps, that we go to wrestling meets because we actually embrace the sport?
That is not what I said nor what I inferred. Those are your words GG.
I am not talking about following another professional sports team or watching them on t.v. at a sports bar. I am talking about attendance as I thought that you were.
__________________ "That is what Gable would have done to Owings the second time around. (Metcalf/Caldwell)"
I just always have a problem with that argument. To me it always implies that if suddenly the Chicago Bulls would move their home to the Wells Fargo Arena in Des Moines we would all stop supporting wrestling. Whether you mean to imply it or not, in my mind, it reads, "Wrestling is the poor stepchild of sports - if there are real sports around - like professional baseball, football or basketball - people won't go to wrestling meets."
Many, many people just flat underestimate how much the people in this state care about wrestling.
So how are people in Iowa and Oklahoma? 
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