As the Cliff Keen Wrestling Club nears the Olympic Trials in April, CKWC coach and veteran blogger Andy Hrovat will periodically share the progress, results and experiences from the road and inside the practice room. In his second installment, Hrovat recaps the club’s first tournament appearance at the Guelph Open, emphasizes the importance of creating a team environment and remembers the legendary Dave Schultz.
TUESDAY, JANUARY 31
Well, since I wrote about where I have been in the last blog, I want to now focus more about what’s going on in Ann Arbor. Last weekend, Ryan Churella and I drove four wrestlers to Canada for a tournament in Guelph. Our purpose for the Guelph Open was to get matches in, continue improving our skills, get the first weight cut out of the way and boost our confidence. In all aspects, I believe the tournament was a big success.
Even though Guelph isn’t a far drive from Ann Arbor, our guys were in a tough situation the day of weigh-ins. We could have driven up there really early and found a gym to lose weight, but the guys chose instead to lose the weight in Ann Arbor and hold it down for the length of the drive. I was proud they did not lose focus while driving up there, because it is easy to get negative thoughts in your head while cutting weight. This aspect of the sport is not fun, but like they say if you don’t weigh in you don’t wrestle.
The first thing that really stuck out in my mind at the tournament was that we have a real team here. When I was here training in Ann Arbor, for the longest time I was either by myself or only had Ryan to train with. I was in charge of everything, from telling myself when it was time to pick it up in my training to what I needed to focus on. It was good for me to take some lumps while learning how to wrestle internationally, but in hindsight I can’t say that it was the best training environment. If you look at the recent success by the Ohio Regional Training Center and the Nittany Lion Club, it’s clear to see that when athletes train together, they grow together. Now I see the same thing happening here in Ann Arbor.
We have a great blend of guys. We have great leadership with veterans like Josh Churella and Jake Herbert. Mike Poeta wrestled in a World Cup, Andrew Howe has had a ton of international experience for his age, and Tyrel Todd and Jimmy Kennedy are essentially both in their first full year of wrestling freestyle. I am new to coaching, so I’m working closely with Sean Bormet, who has been coaching at the international level for a long time now. He is helping me out a bunch. We can coach them and guide them in the right direction, but I believe they will learn more from each other than from me and Sean.
Now I’m not saying that coaching is not important. It’s very important, and we are responsible for training these guys and making sure they have the right amount of peaks and valleys in their training. We have to make sure they are being put in situations that will increase their mat awareness, increase their scoring opportunities and make them comfortable where the foreign wrestlers want them to be uncomfortable. I believe we are doing this better than any training center in America.
But the true learning comes from the spreading and sharing of experiences that each of these wrestlers has been through. They will teach each other how to travel overseas, how to eat healthy, how to scout opponents and how to recover between workouts. Most importantly, they will be able to push each other and know that, when times get tough, they have someone right next to them going through the same thing and working toward the same goal. Last weekend was just the beginning and while two of our guys didn’t compete, it was the first time we wrestled as a group. This is a hard sport, and I’m learning it’s difficult to keep everyone on the same page all the time, but our guys are coming together great and work well together. I am super excited to be with them in Ukraine for a little over two weeks. I believe after going through that experience together, we will have guys fighting for the Olympic spot at every weight class we represent at the trials.
On a side note, it has been 16 years this month since Dave Schultz was murdered. I never had the opportunity to meet Dave Schultz, but he was a huge influence in my wrestling. I remember almost every day while I was in college, I would get to practice early to watch his international matches. We had a handful of video cassettes of just Dave, and I would watch them over and over. Even back then I knew I was going to pursue a career in international wrestling, and he was the wrestler I wanted to be like. Still to this day I want to be like him and have his knowledge of the sport.
Wrestling is full of people from many different backgrounds who all wrestle for different reasons. The higher up you go in the sport, the fewer people are fighting for that top spot. But the ones still in the game are there because they are good. The friends you make and the people you encounter while training last longer than a lifetime. You train to become the best, and the fortunate few who achieve this become legends. Dave was a living legend, and we can’t ever let his memory fade away. As a country we need to support our current athletes that are training to become world and Olympic champions. These are the athletes that will become future heroes for many generations to come.
Andy
