Tuesday Q&A: Tossin 10 at Tom Brands, Iowa head coach

Each Tuesday, TheMat.com will be tossing 10 questions at a college wrestling coach. We visited with Iowa head coach Tom Brands in his office in the Dan Gable Wrestling Complex in Carver-Hawkeye Arena this morning, and asked him a variety of questions on topics both college and international. Brands’ Hawkeyes sit at No. 2 in the rankings with an unbeaten dual meet record, and a portion of its Big Ten schedule still ahead of it.

Question 1: At this point of the season, Iowa is No. 2 and other teams are making lineup changes. How do you assess the NCAA team race the rest of this season?
Brands: The rankings have it pretty good. It will come down to whether you perform at the right time of year, number one. Number two, can you overcome some of the lower rankings, meaning, do you do a better job with your seeds than the rankings predict. That is what it comes down to.

Question 2: Why was the Grapple on the Gridiron such a huge success and how did it impact wrestling?
Brands: It is a big deal, because it was a big deal to a lot of people. In wrestling, sometimes we tend to make a big deal out of things that aren’t big deals. Anytime you can get a “Big Pop,” a big explosion of interest in this sport, it is good. Live TV should have been there. Live TV wasn’t there so there could have been more, but there were 42,000 people in a football stadium and what that looks like was a tremendous statement for the fans from the University of Iowa.
Followup: You guys had a pretty tough dual too, right?
Brands: Yeah, that was one of the things that we talked about. When you put this thing together, you have to have a quality opponent there. The story has been told a lot. When we called Oklahoma State, there was no hesitation on their part. That is why it came together. No hesitation on a lot of people’s parts. Our administration was gung-ho from the beginning. Nobody hesitated.

Question 3: It’s less than three months to the Olympic Trials. How is the preparation going for Brent Metcalf, Tony Ramos, Daniel Dennis and the guys with the Hawkeye WC?
Brands: Things are on track for these guys, here at the Hawkeye Wrestling Club. They are tuned in for business. They are going to Krasnoyarsk, and leave in a couple of days. We will see what their results are and that will tell us more. Anytime you get to this level, it’s about how you feel individually. A lot of this what they are doing is because they need to do it. They are evaluating themselves. They are getting what they need to go forward. That doesn’t mean there is not structure and that we are not working with them. Mainly it’s about getting ready to compete. Here’s the other thing. They just got back from training camp in Colorado Springs, and we have a lot of help, with the National Training staff with Burnett and Zadick and Slay. Slay came out here and did an evaluation right after the World Championships and that was big for those two guys. Bruce Burnett came out six weeks later right before Christmas. And then they go out to Colorado Springs. It is a good partnership. The one thing about our program is that we put emphasis on this. We recruit guys who that want to be national, World and Olympic champions, and it is important that we follow through with that. Metcalf and Ramos have put themselves in positions to medal and win World Championships and Olympic Games. Now they have to keep building on that. Dan Dennis is looking good. Bob Telford, his best wrestling is ahead of him. McDonough’s best wrestling is ahead of him with his knee repair. Signs are all good.

Question 4: We have the women’s team here this week. Why do you welcome the women here at such a busy time? You don’t have to do that.
Brands: We welcome the women just like we welcome anybody. We have people from overseas coming in. We have had the Germans here. We have had some Austrians here. Anybody who approaches us that wants to come here and train, we are open armed, regardless of whether it is our cup of tea or not. It doesn’t matter. Steiner reaching out, that means something to us. I have a relationship with a couple of those girls out there. Whitney Conder, she is probably one I take a keen interest in, watching her results. Of course, to see how Adeline Gray and Helen Maroulis win World Championships. And then, seeing Leigh Jaynes-Provisor, how she overcame coming-from-behind to basically rise to the occasion and put the women in the top three as a team. Those are stories that aren’t lost on me. It’s the best wrestling in the world, and they are in our wrestling room. Plus, Steiner is a Hawkeye. How can you deny that?

Question 5: What is the key to Thomas Gilman’s success and what does he have to do to reach the top of the podium?
Brands: Thomas Gilman is on track to do that because he is giving himself more of a chance. He has a little bit more variety in his wrestling. In the past, the knock on him was how limited he was. That is not the case any more. He is going to have to keep broadening the horizon there. There are some guys in his weight class who tend to score and then keep it close, do everything by the rules so they don’t get called for stalling. Not really a lot of risk. So, we are going to have to work real hard to do fundamentals right. That means throwing your legs back, but we are going to have to work even harder on scoring from a variety of positions, front headlocks, getting to our offense on both sides. There is no secret formula on how he is going to have to be successful. He has done a good job of having more of a broad

Question 6: You have a pair of two-time All-Americans, Cory Clark and Nathan Burak. Are they good leaders for this team?
Brands: Yeah. They are leaders in their own way. Cory Clark marches to the beat of his own drummer, and a different drummer. Nathan Burak is a great moral leader. We have two different types of guys there. One thing about Cory Clark is that he is very, very competitive. He takes losing hard. When he competes, he competes hard. He analyzes things immediately, and you can see him getting better as he goes down the road. So for instance, we get beat, on a bus trip, and by the time he gets back to Iowa City, things are in his head. He is not one who dwells on stuff and pouts a lot. That is a good leadership quality. Nathan Burak, with the way that he acts and lives his life, that is a huge lifestyle example of leadership. It is important that those two guys finish up on the top of the podium, doing the things they have to do every day to get there. Cory Clark is only a junior and Nathan Burak is a senior. One of those guys only have one more chance at it.

Question 7: Is there one wrestler, or a couple of wrestlers, in your lineup that have made the most progress and improvement so far this season?
Brands: We are going to have to have 10 weights in the conversation and just recently, we have had some signs that are pointing to get some things ironed out at 141 and 165. I think it might be coming clearer who that guy is for our lineup. They are answering that question on their own. Sam Stoll has done a good job at heavyweight. He has been consistent and he has been tough. That doesn’t mean that we are not continuing to get better there. But, we need to have 10 weight classes in the conversation and, you look at our non-All-Americans, that’s six weights. That’s a majority of what we are trying to accomplish.

Question 8: If someone asks you, “In your own words, what is the Hawkeye style of wrestling?” what would you say?
Brands: Hawkeye style of wrestling is doing what you do best for seven minutes. That means building leads, that means scoring points, that means no so much creating action but creating action to score points. You know what? It is hard work. It is hard work to wrestle the way that fans appreciate it at the highest level. That is what is going to make this sport go forward and that is what is going to make this sport stronger as we go forward. There are a lot of different opinions out there about what need, but everything points toward working hard to score points. We need TV, yeah. We need attention from the media, yeah. You get that with high-level performances where guys are working hard to put points on the scoreboard. When you have two guys doing that, it is a pretty good recipe for a great product.

Question 9: Why is wrestling such a big deal, a part of culture, here in Iowa?
Brands: I don’t know who said it, but it is in the dirt. I don’t know if Gable said, or if I said it, or if Frank Gotch said it. But, that is a pretty good statement. It is in the dirt, it is in the soil, it is in the fiber of who we are and how the economy is here and what makes things go around in Iowa. Part of that is that it is natural to pick up wrestling because of the people of the state and who they are.

Question 10: What is key to the U.S. men’s freestyle performance in Rio de Janiero at the Olympics?
Brands: The formula is not complicated. The formula is we have got to be consistent with Burroughs and Snyder. We have to have some guys who haven’t come through come through. When I say some, we are talking about six weight classes and we have two that, if they are consistent, now you have to have four guys come through. We have the horses. It is up to these guys to get it done. You can stand on your head and wave a wand and it doesn’t matter. What it comes down to is being tough in tough situations. That is why we put this work in, and as a coach, when you get down to the nuts-and-bolts of something, you do that to make sure that you are not leaving any stone unturned. Ultimately, when you go out there, it comes down to toughness at this level. There may be better wrestlers out there but there should never be anybody who is tougher. Toughness can overcome a lot of deficiencies, such as talent, scoring ability, quickness, speed, all those things that are God-given. There are things I can do to make myself overcome that stuff. That is what we have to have. Metcalf has made his whole career on toughness. He has to have a breakthrough there.


Past Tossin’ 10 interviews
January 12 – Iowa State head coach Kevin Jackson 
December 22 – Arizona State head coach Zeke Jones 
December 15 – Rutgers head coach Scott Goodale 
December 8 – Nebraska head coach Mark Manning 
December 1 – Drexel head coach Matt Azevedo 
November 24 – Oklahoma head coach Mark Cody 
November 17 – Oklahoma City’s head men’s & women’s coach Archie Randall 
November 10 - Stanford head coach Jason Borrelli 
November 3 - Pennsylvania head coach Alex Tirapelle 
October 27- South Dakota State head coach Chris Bono