http://media.www.dailyiowan.com/medi...-3372362.shtml Grappling with memorable
Eric Mandel - The Daily Iowan
Issue date: 5/16/08 Section: Sports
For all of those seniors preparing to, as Michael Scott of "The Office" would say, "throw their caps as high as their dreams," there is little question about the sports story you will remember from 2008 Hawkeye athletics.
Well, the story you most want to remember, anyway.
A six and six, no bowl-bid batch of blah from the football team, capped by a loss to Western Michigan? A rebuilding basketball team that often looked as lost as Tony Freeman off the dribble? Pass.
How about the Hawkeye heroes that returned to their pedestal atop the wrestling world by decimating the competition by earning a 21-1 record, national coach of the year (
Tom Brands), wrestler of the year (
Brent Metcalf), two individual NCAA champions (
Metcalf and Mark Perry) and it's 21st NCAA team title.
Yeah, we think they're the winners, too.
"The [awards are] pretty exciting," said former Iowa wrestling coach and current special assistant to the athletics director
Dan Gable, whose eyes puffed with pleasure upon hearing of wrestling winning three DI awards. "We are getting a lot of things thrown at us in a hurry, but it is how you take that and use that for the future as opposed to taking that and saying, 'Wow, that's great,' and then that's all the awards we get.
"I like taking all the hardware, but I kinda want to do it every year."
The additions of
Metcalf, Jay Borschel, Joe Slaton, and Dan LeClere - who were forced to sit out last after transferring from Virginia Tech - were certainly a huge boost to Iowa's lineup. But in the eyes of coach Brands, the main difference from last season's squad was the addition of "disciples."
He said a disciple is an athlete who wholeheartedly believes in himself, the program, and the ability to succeed on the highest level.
"Winning is important, especially in the state of Iowa - a wrestling state where they love to win," said
Metcalf. "Creating that atmosphere is good for the future of the program."
Even after the unit's lone letdown, to Oklahoma State, the group rebounded the next week and showed what, as Brands said, was "under the hood."
"I really think the National Duals is where we really went out and put our stamp out on the country,"
Metcalf said. "We were just coming off that loss to Oklahoma State and where it was kind of an eye opener, like, 'What are we doing? We're better than this.' "
Brands said that after the National Duals win, he realized he had a really good team.
"Righting the wrong" after a sloppy first day of the Big Tournament where they were in a unfamiliar second, is when he realized it was a great team.
The second-year coach said he believed the team had enough firepower in the room last season to win the NCAA title when they ended up finishing eighth. Now, he said, he "knows" Borschel, Falck and Keddy are going to win individual national titles.
"There's a big difference between fourth and first, so I think it is really going to get the momentum going for years to come," said redshirt senior Alex Tsirtsis, who will be plugged back into the 2009 lineup.
Metcalf said next year's team slogan should be "Taking Care of business - doing our jobs on a daily basis, doing the things we are supposed to do, the things we expect to do."
Brands said that consistency could lead to more praiseworthy seasons in years to come.
"I think people were hungry and starved over the however many years it was since Iowa had a national championship," Brands said. "That is why consistency is so important because when you do it once you've got to do it again and again."
© 2008 Daily Iowan
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