Old wrestler

Earlier today, a murder occurred on the Campbellsville University campus. Appears the victim was a freshmen wrestler, Josiah Kilman (149, Montana state placer). The suspect shares the same last name as a wrestler that was previously on the Campbellsville roster, but I’m hoping that’s a coincidence. Terrible news, regardless. Last campus you’d expect something like this to occur. Sending prayers to CU and the Kilman family. https://campbellsvilletigers.com/sports/wrestling/roster/josiah-kilman/18509 https://www.thenewsenterprise.com/news_alert/suspect-sought-in-killing-of-student-in-dorm-at-cu/article_d91e3708-d364-11ee-984b-d368837c6252.html

I’ve heard some rumblings, but nothing concrete I’d feel comfortable sharing publicly. This is the most detailed coverage I’ve been able to find. https://nypost.com/2024/02/25/us-news/campbellsville-u-murder-student-charged-in-dorm-death/ Now that it appears to be confirmed that it’s Zeke Escalera, I am surprised he ended up at CU. This isn’t a knock to their program, as I wrestled for them, but after winning Fargo and Prep Nationals, I figured he’d get some looks from D1 programs. Tragic situation all the way around.

Heartbreaking news out of Oldham County. Max Emerson (2016 182 lb State Champ, wrestled at UotC, and current OC assistant coach) had his life senselessly taken away during a trip to Washington DC. Images of his murderer are now available. Hopefully they get this piece of human trash off the streets. The Emerson family is certainly in our prayers. https://www.wlky.com/amp/article/person-suspected-killing-kentucky-man-washington-dc/44478789

I’m gone for a week and come back to this gold. Sean, I truly appreciate your contribution to not breaking character and I applaud your comedic genius. I haven’t seen this type of commitment to a delusional, ex-athlete since Uncle Rico’s Oscar-worthy performance in Napoleon Dynamite. Well done, sir. Do you often seek acceptance by stripping down to your underwear, or are we just privileged with this gesture?

‘Because of me my son's high school team just won 2 tournaments, the first time ever.’ Ahh the self importance is oozing in this comment. How about giving a little credit to the young men/women on the team? You never hear Robert Ervin (Union County), Seth Livingston (Paducah Tilghman), Jason Moore (Walton Verona), Mark Hitchings (Trinity/Fern Creek), Rusty Parks/Joe Carr (Woodford County), Aaron Riordan (Oldham County) and countless other coaches on here beating their chest after a big win or a state championship. They’re leaders and they don’t require praise, they just continue to churn out excellent wrestlers and people. I’ll give you a hint, if you’re great at something, you don’t have to convince everyone. ‘Basically this forum is composed of negative people that focus upon losing and what a person can't do.’ Quite the contrary, the board is comprised of people that let their achievements speak for themselves and don’t require flaunting how good they could be at something, hypothetically. You seem like a person that is quite insecure, so you feel the need to puff your chest on what you have accomplished on an anonymous message board in a different state. People with meaningful accomplishments don’t need to impress people they don’t know. ‘In short, I produce champions.’ What you produce is a heck of a lot of excuses I.e. my son is a monster in practice, he didn’t get enough practice after football season ended, he’s cutting down to the weight class below and giving up weight, bigger kids need longer to grow in to their body, we didn’t have a feeder team, he’s only been wrestling part-time for 3 years, etc. This all may be true, but seeking out excuses to justify an undesired result isn’t what champions do. Champions overcome adversity and don’t constantly look for a reason why they aren’t where they want to be. Long story short, in the immortal words of Terry Brands, ‘you get what you earn.’ Stop all the talking for your son and let his results speak for itself. I’ll let you have the last word because quite frankly, I no longer see any value in exchanging back and forth with you (again, I thought this was satire, initially). I’ll go back to focusing on the young men and women that represented Kentucky extremely well at an extremely difficult Indiana tournament this weekend, or those that competed at the tough WCI.

Union County won the Mater Dei Christmas Tournament in ‘12 and ‘16, but no doubt a rarity for any team in the past 30+ years, outside of Mater Dei. Heck of a performance from our three Kentucky teams.

I’m on vacation this week, so I’ll bite. Here are just a few of the quotes that stuck out to me ‘He is a naturally gifted wrestler, however he has less than 3 years of wrestling experience and only 1 year of competative experience.’ He’s a naturally gifted wrestler that is in 10th grade and has already lost 5 matches (at least 2 by pin) in a state that is rarely ever in the top 20 when it comes to national results. Yes, I am very familiar with Bo Nickal, however there are exceptions to the rule. ‘We are all sure that if he wrestled more he would become an extraordinary wrestler.’ Extraordinary wrestler? I get being a proud dad, but that seems slightly presumptuous. Guess I should have studied more and gone to Harvard. ‘I have never pushed him hard in wrestling until now, but feel that now is the time for him to get serious.’ Again, being an involved parent is a wonderful thing, but this mentality is a great way to strain or ruin your relationship with your son. You know your son better than I do, but far too often you hear of dads pushing their kids to excel in sports, and for every Olympic gold medal this produces, there are 1,000+ stories of irreparable damage to the father/son relationship. ‘would be a world beater if he wrestled year around.’ Again, wow… I get being a proud parent, but the arrogance of this comment is remarkable. Let’s break a .500 record in Texas before we get him in Olympic consideration. ‘His grades are decent.’ My favorite part of this discussion. Again, I don’t feel the need to post my credentials on here, but I can assure you my win/loss record was favorable to one side. I had tunnel vision when it came to sports, but I was blessed to have parents that reminded me sports were secondary. Wrestling is great, but after my college career ended, I was able to transition in to life and become successful because I was well-rounded. *Everyone measures success differently. ‘He is talented enough in wrestling that he would get a D 2-3 if he wrestled year around.’ I think you’re underestimating the level of difficulty transitioning from Texas high school wrestling to college. I would encourage you to educate yourself on college rosters, especially starters. You will rarely find anyone that places lower than 5th in their state tournament, and nearly all receiving substantial scholarship money have won at least one state title, generally multiple titles, especially in states like Texas and Kentucky (also, D3 does not provide athletic scholarships). ‘If he had the 8 years of experience that most other top wrestlers have he would easily be a state placer.’ Again, I get the proud dad bias, but there are plenty of wrestlers that competed for 10+ years and never sniff the podium. And guess what, that’s ok. Wrestling provides some amazing life lessons, regardless of your wins/losses. Your assumption that your son would be a ‘world beater’ or ‘easily be a state placer,’ is insulting to people that accomplished those feats, without the excuses. Let’s say someone is 5-5 in amateur MMA, and they’re being pumped up on a message board to be the next Jon Jones, if he had started a couple of years earlier. News flash, it wouldn’t be well received and it shouldn’t. Either you do it or you don’t, the bs about what could have been could be played for anything. As someone that works in an MMA gym, I’m sure you have firsthand accounts of these kinds of people At the end of the day, I wish nothing but the best for your son. Wrestling is a tight knit group and we generally look out for one another. However, I can see you alienating yourself from the wrestling community very quickly with just the comments I’ve included. You can think I’m some jerk on a message board, and that’s ok. I’ll go to bed just fine. But realize many on this thread have already expressed similarities to what I shared, I was just more blunt.

I’m sorry I hurt your feelings. It’s perfectly normal to have a dad on here from a different state giving unrequested updates on your sons 5-5 record. Satire was wishful thinking… In terms of education, I don’t feel the need to beat my chest on what I accomplished in wrestling/MMA because no one cares. However, in terms of educating one’s self, I would say based on your thread, you have a LOT to learn about wrestling and life. Good luck to your son on his season, but maybe let him make some decisions about his life?

I genuinely assumed this thread was satire.

Are the members of the coaches association compensated for their time? I understand they’re a governing body and are elected officials, but I am unclear if they’re compensated for their time. Genuine question, I know text doesn’t always provide context. Regardless, this is a public message board and others are allowed to share conflicting views. The message board is filled with Ranger apologists, and while I appreciate his unparalleled dedication, it’s odd to me that we can openly blast certain elements of the Kentucky wrestling community, while other segments are off limits. If it’s because Ranger is not compensated for his time, I guess that makes more sense, but given the majority of this board relies on Rangers knowledge/insight to generate conversation, I fear this board will continue to lose interest if opposing thoughts are considered ‘silly’ or told to just be grateful.

I too am a little confused as to why we are unable to provide feedback. In fact, not too long ago, we had several people on this board call out the KHSAA, coaches association, etc. and that was infinitely more aggressive than this scenario. While I appreciate the effort Ranger has invested in to Kentucky wrestling, he is not immune to feedback.

Now that is a great perspective.

Unpopular opinion, but I tend to agree with you.

Chris took a beating on these boards over the last 10 years, some of it justified. However, at his core Chris was a proud father that may have expressed himself differently than I would but there was never any doubt he was his boys biggest fan. RIP, Chris. You raised some fine young men. Prayers to the Myers family.

Glad I’m not completely in left field on this one. If we think bombarding the KHSAA will get us traction, we are reacting off emotion. I think we need to identify 1-2 really big pain points and create alignment within the wrestling community. Right now we have so many grievances that we’ll get automatically shut down (it’s well known amongst most of us that the KHSAA couldn’t care less about appeasing the wresting community). The KHSAA are the gatekeepers. Pissing them off isn’t a sound strategy. Now to plantmanky1 point, creating an off season tournament designed to meet all of our asks may be more realistic. Our Freestyle/Greco ‘State’ tournament is laughable. Using our resources to make that more meaningful would go a long way, including better results at Fargo.

Now that is a great perspective.

By all means. Continue to cry on a message board. I can see some really impressive progress being made.

Literally responding to a question that was asked. Relax

With minimal research (could be more, but found this relatively easy) Vermont. https://www.teamusa.org/USA-Wrestling/Features/2020/November/03/Vermont-cancels-high-school-wrestling Based off the article it appears wrestling and indoor track did not take place. *updated New York, too. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.syracuse.com/highschoolsports/2021/02/a-nys-high-school-wrestling-championship-yes-but-its-held-in-pa-see-cny-roster.html%3foutputType=amp **updated Connecticut https://ctwrestling.com/2021/01/before-it-even-began-the-wrestling-season-is-over/3742/ ***updated Maine https://www.pressherald.com/2021/02/26/maines-high-school-wrestling-season-officially-canceled/# **** updated Nevada https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.rgj.com/amp/6680211002 ***** updated Rhode Island (still in limbo, but this late in to the school year it doesn’t look good). https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.providencejournal.com/amp/6817510002 https://www.win-magazine.com/2020/12/18/update-on-2020-21-us-high-school-seasons/ Good resource to educate some people on this board. We weren’t perfect, but A. we got to wrestle and B. we didn’t have to deal with some of the restrictions other states had to deal with this season. Long story short, we all want more for our kids, myself included. But complaining about every aspect of this season has not been constructive.

Good grief. Never seen so many grown men whine. We got to wrestle. Other states weren’t as fortunate. If we’re expecting to have the same treatment as basketball, then we better bring in the same community interest (this is in reference to the venue/excitement, not covid protocols). Seems like this board has been non stop complaining for the past couple of months (semi state format, venue, podium, etc). If you picked wrestling for the recognition, you picked the wrong sport. I don’t believe one kid tried any less to win a title this year because it was in a hs gym, and if they did than that says more about their competitive spirit then it does about the KHSAA. We’re a niche sport. Not sure when we forgot that (actually, that felt like one of the endearing qualities when I was growing up, blue collar mentality). I fully expect to get flamed for this response, but I think the Kentucky wresting community needs a dose of reality, not picking unnecessary fights with the KHSAA.

Attempting to get more perspective on female wrestling. If a girl is top 5-10 in the country would they likely be in contention to place at the Kentucky State tournament, qualify for State, be varsity, etc.? I realize every situation is different, but on average (I know weight plays a factor, too). Has Kentucky ever had a National champion? I realize that the future of wrestling will likely rely on the popularity of female wrestling, so I’m trying to embrace it more.

It’s a shame this has fallen by the wayside. As you get older, you realize that award is often times more important than a state title. I know they had this in 2007, Chris Espinoza (McCreary County) won the honor that year.

I have no dog in the fight, I wrestled 184 in college. It just seems like the bigger guys get called out a lot. 106 and 220 are very different weight classes with very different styles. Hard to really compare the two weight classes, at least in my opinion. There may be more technique at 106, but physical development has to go to 220 (just due to age alone). I can agree there have been some studs that have come out of 106, but that is typically early on in their career, and not when they’re at their peak. We can both agree that cutting weight classes is the opposite of what will help to grow wrestling. Thank you for the response. Unlike the college forum, it’s nice to have an intelligent conversation with people that have varying opinions.

Not sure why 220 is being singled out, but I don’t think that’s a fair comparison for a couple of reasons. First, in the last 5 years, 220 has produced an NCAA qualifier and a NAIA champion. Secondly, you can’t stand on a platform about not eliminating opportunities for high school kids, then suggest to cut a weight class that is largely dominated by upperclassmen. I’m not advocating that 106 should be eliminated, but I’m not sure I follow your logic.

I’m the first in line to celebrate the fact that the state of Kentucky was finally able to get a D1 program. As recent as 10 years ago that seemed highly unlikely, if not impossible. However, Bellarmine’s tuition is no joke (upwards of $60,000 annually). I realize that grants and scholarships will bring that down, but that’s a lot of money. I’m interested to see how that impacts recruiting/depth for their team.