by Peter Dewey

A large contingent of Texans crossed the Red River the day after Thanksgiving to pit their wrestling prowess against the some of the best wrestlers in America at the Oklahoma Open. In addition to the usual collection of Okie bad boys were wrestlers from powerhouses Rio Rancho in New Mexico and Iowa City (Iowa) West and some very tough grapplers from Butte, Montana and other places. Texas wrestlers even outnumbered Okies in a few weight classes, and nearly tripled their medal count from last year.

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By Jeff Pape

We will review several aspects you need to know if you are buying new wrestling shoes. Perhaps you are a first-time buyer or it has been a while since you purchased shoes. In this release, you will find out more about youth vs. adult sizes, wide-width shoes, proper sizing, setting a budget, color selection, and split sole vs. uni-sole shoes.

Youth sizes versus adult sizes
Because the market for wrestling shoes is small for youth size shoes (under a men’s size five), the color selection and options are fairly limited. For example, adidas offers two colors and Asics offers four colors to choose from. Recently, adidas and Asics have made some of their top wrestling shoes at available starting at a size 4. Once your wrestler reaches a size five, you now have access to shoes in all sorts of colors and designs with prices ranging from about $45 to $130. We often get comments from customers that we do not offer a wide variety of youth wrestling shoes; we currently offer every youth wrestling shoe available from adidas, Asics, and Matman. That’s 90% of the market!

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The Newman University Jets made the most of their trip south to the SWC Open hosted by the University of Texas at Dallas. The 2nd year NAIA program looks to be growing strong under head coach Mark Stovall placing 15 wrestlers with 6 champions. This allowed them to easily take the team race with 78 points. Kansas State University, led by 133lb champion Sean Cillessen, placed 2nd in teams points with 28 points with 4 wrestlers placing.

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Houston Metropolitan Championships

Russell Pate

It was a great 2 days at Klein Oak as 41 teams came together for an early season tangle. The Woodlands was the dominant team of the tournament, scoring an impressive 233 points, while their JV finished 18th overall (14th out of the Houston schools). A very deep Dallas Jesuit team finished 2nd despite having only 2 in the finals. New Orleans Jesuit finished 3rd by placing 9 of the 11 wrestlers they entered. But the surprise of the tournament was Cy Fair, never a factor in previous years, putting 4 wrestlers in the finals and topping 200 points to finish 4th.

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by Peter Dewey

Southern Assault has been known as the best early season tournament in Texas. It is no more. In its place was the new Warrior Invitational. Would this tournament deliver the early season matches we have come to expect from Southern Assault? The Warrior Invitational delivered Big Time!

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Last night I had a wonderful evening officiating two well coached teams, Flower Mound and McKinney. The kids were respectful and wrestled well and the parents cheered them on. I felt pretty good and several of the parents that know me and some I just met came up and thanked me for a good job officiating. This was a marked difference than what happened 24 hours earlier at the Allen-Creekview Dual at Allen High School.

In 34 years of officiating, and 18 as a wrestler at all school levels, I have never witnessed or had such bile directed at me from a group of parents and fans.
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The Story of the only Texan to ever win an NCAA Division I Wrestling Championship — Bob Johnson

Reprinted with the permission of Amateur Wrestling News
for subscriptions, please call 405-521-8750

by Jay Hammond

Bob Johnson of Oklahoma State may have been the shortest 177-pound champion in the history of the NCAA tournament. The Amarillo, Texas native won back-to-back titles at that weight class in 1961 and 1962 for the OSU squads that won team titles for coach Myron Roderick. Johnson is a rather unlikely looking champion in the group photo of the 1961 individual champions — he is wearing horn-rim glasses and shorter than everyone else in the back row except for teammate and 157-pound champion Phil Kinyon.

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Texas’ Top 10 Recruits

by Shaun Shaikh

Top Recruit:
Ben Ashmore
Bishop Lynch College Prep, Forney, TX
Project College Weight: 125

Background: Since Ben Ashmore arrived on the scene as a freshman at 103, he has been the best wrestler in Texas at any weight class and at any age level. As the poster child for the highly regarded Team Monday, coached by Olympic Gold Medalist Kenny Monday, he has lead the charge for Texas Wrestling gaining recognition on the National Scene. He’s been an All-American at Fargo several times, placing as high as 3rd, and won Prep Nationals twice. He’s won State three times. However, his most impressive accomplishment was probably winning the Beast of the East last winter, completely decimating the stiff competition. His career record is 80-1.
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Midweek Dual Recap/ Saturday Preview

Russell Pate

Houston saw the start of the wrestling season last night with duals going on all over the area. Here are some of the highlights.

#5 Cinco Ranch took on #15 Friendswood in a great season opener. Cinco proved that just because they graduated a lot, they are not going to go away silently. Friendswood coach Bill Baker commented that, “As usual, Dushane has his kids in great shape and wrestling tough.”
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Here we go again. Ain’t it great? I love this sport and more importantly the people I know and respect through this sport. So many honorable coaches, parents and wrestlers and officials. Of course, there are a few exceptions and we won’t mention them. That doesn’t mean they will go totally igored during the course of the season when behavior warrants it.

I have been so blessed in my life to be associated with men and women and kids who live by a code. Rationalizing right and wrong is not an option. Right is right and wrong is wrong. There are no gray areas.

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