Former Hokies Help Hawks

Okay. I'm a big Iowa wrestling fan and it was great to see the Hawkeyes win the NCAA wrestling championship again, their first since 2000.

The Hawkeyes got back to the top of the wrestling world for this year with a lot of help from some ex-Virginia Tech Hokies. First there was Tom Brands who returned to Iowa last year as head coach. He came back to Iowa City from Blacksburg where he'd gone to coach the Virginia Tech wrestling team. He coached the Hawkseyes to an NCAA title in his second year as head man at Iowa.

One of things he did to greatly aid his cause was to recruit five studs to Virginia Tech and then when Iowa called him back to the place where he won 3 NCAA championships under legendary coach Dan Gable, he brought these five studs with him. Four of them were starters for Iowa this year as redshirt sophomores. And three of them became hign echelon All Americans at the NCAAs this year.

Ex-Hokie supersoph (not to jinx this young man) Brent Metcalf won the 149 pound championship, while ex-Hokie, Joey Slaton took second in the NCAA tourney and former Hokie Jay Borschel took third place in the NCAAs as the Hawkeyes ran away with the tournament with seven All Americans including Mark Perry, champion at 165 pounds for the second straight year, Perry being the nephew of Oklahoma State coaching great John Smith.

If things go true to form, Brands will use his first title as a spring board to recruit some more blue chip recruits to Iowa City to help keep Iowa at or near the top of the wrestling world for a while. Also, if things go true to form, ex-Hokies Metcalf, Slaton, Borschel, Dan Leclere and T. H. Leet will all improve and keep on doing great things for Iowa wrestling for the next two years and work well with All Americans junior Charlie Falck and sophomore Phil Keddy as well as with Hawkeyes that we've not heard a lot from yet including sophs Ryan Morningstar and Chad Beatty.

It'll be fun to watch Iowa wrestling under Tom Brands, especially if he's able to continue to corral talent like the Blacksburg Five and keep it flowing through Iowa City.

He'll need to since John Smith, J Robinson and Cael Sanderson, to name some of his main coaching competitors, sure aren't going to be standing still.

By the way, if you want to read a great book about amateur wrestling, get the one I'm reading for the second time now, "Cowboy Up" by Kim Parrish which is about John Smith and the Oklahoma State wrestling program. It's as good as Nolan Zavoral's great book about Dan Gable and the Iowa wrestling program, "A Season on the Mat".

Take care. :)