Transcript
00:00:00 The following is a conversation with Tom Brands,
00:00:02 Olympic champion and world champion in freestyle wrestling,
00:00:06 three time NCAA wrestling champion at University of Iowa,
00:00:10 and one of the greatest coaches in the history of wrestling,
00:00:14 leading the University of Iowa Hawkeyes for 15 years,
00:00:18 including in 2021 winning the national championships,
00:00:22 and getting a coach of the year award, his third.
00:00:26 He’s known for his intensity, focus, and mental toughness,
00:00:30 embodying both as a wrestler and coach,
00:00:33 the culture and spirit of Iowa wrestling.
00:00:36 We recorded this conversation almost exactly three years ago
00:00:39 after I attended the University of Iowa
00:00:42 versus Iowa State wrestling meet
00:00:45 in the historic Carver Hawkeye Arena.
00:00:48 Tom graciously invited me to his home,
00:00:50 where his family, a couple of friends, and me
00:00:54 spent several hours chatting about wrestling and life.
00:00:57 We recorded this brief podcast conversation that evening,
00:01:01 and I wasn’t sure where, how, or whether we’ll publish it.
00:01:06 But returning to it now three years later,
00:01:08 I realized just how meaningful that evening was for me.
00:01:12 And even though I was nervous,
00:01:14 didn’t even put on my jacket,
00:01:16 it’s a moment I would love to share with others.
00:01:19 The mix of intensity and heartfelt kindness
00:01:21 from Tom and his family
00:01:23 made me want to stay in Iowa forever.
00:01:26 I think I will return there soon enough
00:01:28 because of the amazing people there,
00:01:30 and because Iowa is still, in many ways,
00:01:34 the heart of the indomitable spirit of American wrestling,
00:01:37 a sport I love and to which I’m deeply grateful
00:01:41 for humbling me early in life
00:01:43 and helping me and many others
00:01:46 build character through hard work.
00:01:49 This is the Lex Friedman podcast.
00:01:52 To support it, please check out our sponsors
00:01:54 in the description.
00:01:55 And now here’s my conversation with Tom Brands.
00:02:00 What’s the best motivator for you or for your athletes?
00:02:04 Hatred of losing or love of winning?
00:02:08 For me personally, it was definitely the hatred of losing.
00:02:10 I was not a guy that was about pageantry.
00:02:13 I was not a guy that was about the parade.
00:02:18 When I wrestled in Atlanta,
00:02:20 I rented a three cylinder Geo with my wife,
00:02:22 drove home and mowed the lawn
00:02:23 because it hadn’t been mowed for a month.
00:02:25 And I remember one of our neighbors driving by
00:02:28 and they were like, they did a double take,
00:02:29 like, well, that’s the, I thought he was in Atlanta.
00:02:31 Well, I was in Atlanta yesterday.
00:02:33 I just sat on the stand
00:02:34 and got a gold medal put around my neck.
00:02:36 That’s how I was.
00:02:37 That doesn’t mean that it was the right approach
00:02:40 or the wrong approach.
00:02:41 It’s just what worked for me.
00:02:42 But when you were a kid, you and Terry,
00:02:44 you dreamed about winning that Olympic gold.
00:02:46 Yeah, so.
00:02:47 That’s about winning then.
00:02:48 So there is the lure of winning,
00:02:52 but what drives you is that,
00:02:55 you know, as you move forward,
00:02:56 there’s just no reason that you have to settle
00:03:01 for anything but being the best.
00:03:03 And if, it just, it would get to you to the point where
00:03:08 that’s not gonna happen to me again.
00:03:10 So what, the thing that keeps you up at night
00:03:13 is the losses and that’s not,
00:03:15 that’s not gonna happen to me again.
00:03:17 That’s the thought that keeps you up at night.
00:03:18 That’s the thought that drives you in your training.
00:03:21 That’s why you do, you know, nine ropes
00:03:24 when Gable says do three ropes and buddy pushups
00:03:27 and you’re out of here and you do nine
00:03:29 or you do them until you can’t do any more.
00:03:32 And it’s a very rare ingredient.
00:03:34 The older I get, the more rare I find it is.
00:03:37 The ingredient of loss feeding,
00:03:41 feeding that, the drive of hard training?
00:03:44 Maybe that because everybody’s so worried
00:03:46 about the negative whatever
00:03:48 and you’re putting too much pressure on yourself.
00:03:50 So maybe that.
00:03:51 But what I meant was it’s when a coach says,
00:03:53 okay, finish with four ropes and, you know,
00:03:56 buddy pushups and four way neck, you know,
00:04:00 I would do 12 or 10.
00:04:02 That’s rare.
00:04:03 It’s no longer about what the coach says.
00:04:05 It’s your own demons that you’re trying to exercise out.
00:04:09 What’s the few losses you’ve had in your life?
00:04:12 Are all of them just melt together
00:04:16 or is there something that stands out in your mind?
00:04:18 I’m a guy that remembers my career that well.
00:04:23 I know that I am judged on a very small portion of my life
00:04:29 and that’s minutes of wrestling matches,
00:04:32 you know, a lot of winning,
00:04:33 but there’s some losing in there too.
00:04:35 And, you know, people think they know you because of that
00:04:38 and they think they know you
00:04:40 because they see you in a press conference.
00:04:42 But, you know, to go back to the original question,
00:04:47 you know, I don’t know how to answer that.
00:04:49 So there’s no losses that just that eat at you still.
00:04:53 There’s opponents that I have learned a great deal from.
00:04:57 I mean, my loss to John Smith in 1991,
00:05:02 US Open was something that I learned a lot about.
00:05:08 I learned a lot about positioning.
00:05:09 I learned a lot about the importance of par terre.
00:05:13 You know, in a certain kind of crazy way,
00:05:16 I learned that I could go with the best guy in the world,
00:05:18 even though it was 14 to four.
00:05:20 And this is when Tech Falls were 15 or 12 points.
00:05:22 I didn’t get Tech Fall and that wasn’t a badge of honor for me.
00:05:25 But I knew I could go with him
00:05:27 because it was one point takedowns.
00:05:28 I scored four takedowns on him.
00:05:30 And I learned that I had to move my feet
00:05:34 and I learned what it meant to move your feet constantly.
00:05:37 And there’s no break.
00:05:39 John Smith is a very, very intense competitor
00:05:43 that people know that now, six time world Olympic champion.
00:05:47 And I felt that firsthand.
00:05:49 But I did not go in there taking a back seat,
00:05:53 even though the score was very lopsided.
00:05:57 But you knew you could stand with the best of the world.
00:05:59 I knew that this is what this is about.
00:06:03 And you know what, you move your feet
00:06:04 and you don’t give up a lace that’s so damn tight
00:06:07 that you can’t feel your calf muscle.
00:06:11 And I had to get ready for the consolation
00:06:12 side of the bracket,
00:06:13 because I believe that was in the semis.
00:06:17 And you just learn from that.
00:06:18 And it was better than learning from a win
00:06:23 over a second ranked senior level guy
00:06:26 when you’re a junior in college.
00:06:28 You’re wrestling the best on a stage.
00:06:31 So if you look back, you probably spent tens of thousands
00:06:34 of hours on the mat, spilled sweat, blood,
00:06:39 even tears, maybe, maybe a few times.
00:06:41 So technically or philosophically,
00:06:43 how would you do any of those hours differently?
00:06:45 Just looking back at the tens of thousands of hours.
00:06:49 I would be more, probably in my older age,
00:06:53 I probably would have been more relaxed in my training
00:06:56 and probably would have went another cycle.
00:06:59 If I could do it over again, in 96,
00:07:02 I really thought that when Gable retired,
00:07:05 that I would be the next guy in line.
00:07:07 And I was wrong and that was immature of me.
00:07:09 In terms of the coach.
00:07:10 In terms of the coach, yes.
00:07:12 And I knew that Gable was close.
00:07:14 I mean, I didn’t know when, but it just so happens,
00:07:16 you know, 97 was his record breaking year
00:07:18 and then he retired, but I didn’t know how close he was.
00:07:21 But I knew that he had, you know,
00:07:23 he went down with a bad hip injury.
00:07:25 And so, you know, you’re just, you’re not gonna.
00:07:29 So what does a relaxed Tom Brands look like?
00:07:33 You’re saying you would have been a little more relaxed.
00:07:35 More like where, you know what, I was pretty dang good
00:07:39 and I was getting better every day,
00:07:41 but maybe doing a little bit different, a little bit smarter.
00:07:43 And Terry actually did that going through 2000.
00:07:48 He had to do it.
00:07:49 And he would have been in the, you know,
00:07:53 the funny farm, let alone the, you know, the physical farm,
00:07:58 whatever you want to say, mentally and physically beat up.
00:08:02 But he had to learn to less is more type approach.
00:08:07 And how it came around was, is, you know,
00:08:12 you work hard at feeling good.
00:08:14 You work hard in your recovery.
00:08:16 So even when you’re not wrestling hard in that wrestling room,
00:08:21 and looking for the toughest partner to go,
00:08:25 you’re still working hard in your recovery.
00:08:28 And massage could be that.
00:08:31 Stretching could be that.
00:08:33 Things like that, that are more fluffy.
00:08:37 And that’s something you weren’t as good at?
00:08:39 The recovery aspect of this?
00:08:41 Never, never.
00:08:42 There’s not a place for it with young people.
00:08:45 Because in my opinion, there’s so much development to have,
00:08:49 there’s so much development to have happened.
00:08:52 I mean, when you need to learn wrestling,
00:08:55 you need to be wrestling.
00:08:57 And as you get older, your body won’t do it anymore.
00:09:03 And so to learn wrestling, it’s more of a,
00:09:05 probably a relaxed approach.
00:09:08 So if you had to choose between two athletes
00:09:11 who would dominate competition,
00:09:14 one who drills 100,000 reps of a specific take down,
00:09:17 specific technique, or one that spends that time live wrestling?
00:09:22 Both, it’s the same.
00:09:24 And I like to live wrestling,
00:09:25 I was always wanting to live wrestle,
00:09:27 bring the warm up into the live wrestle, let’s go.
00:09:30 But where I got really, really good was a repetition.
00:09:34 And I was disciplined enough to know that the things
00:09:37 that you hate to do in this sport
00:09:40 are the things that make you the very best.
00:09:42 And that is a rare ingredient as I’ve gotten older.
00:09:45 And you spend a lot of time communicating that
00:09:47 to younger athletes.
00:09:50 So the thing, if you feel yourself hating something,
00:09:53 that’s probably the thing you should be doing.
00:09:55 Yes, as a matter of fact,
00:09:56 I had a strength coach when I was really young.
00:09:58 He was just a fricking guy that would,
00:10:01 he wore white, like he was almost like a nurse,
00:10:04 nurses clothes.
00:10:05 He wore all white from head to toe.
00:10:07 And he was in Cheyenne, Wyoming.
00:10:10 And his first name was Walt.
00:10:11 And he taught Terry and I to hate the bar away from you
00:10:15 on that last rep when you’re dead.
00:10:17 And whether it’s a curl, you hate it up.
00:10:19 And then you do the negative and you hate it down
00:10:21 and you hate that bench up and you hate it.
00:10:23 You look at the bar and you hate it away from you.
00:10:26 So I learned and I was young, I was young.
00:10:31 And I remember being born, my mom’s sister lived out there
00:10:34 and we were dropped off to stay out there with our cousins.
00:10:36 And I was born a little bit.
00:10:38 And they always treated us really good.
00:10:39 But this was like the single most bright spot
00:10:45 in a weightlifting, like enlightenment,
00:10:48 even though I lifted weights.
00:10:50 But I never knew the psychology behind lifting weights.
00:10:52 It’s just to look good and so you can flex
00:10:54 and look in the mirror or is it for performance?
00:10:57 And this guy was about performance.
00:11:00 And you said repetition.
00:11:01 Do you mean technique?
00:11:03 I’m talking repetition, technique, technique, technique,
00:11:05 drill, drill, drill, hit, hit, hit, drive, finish,
00:11:07 hit, hit, hit, drive, finish.
00:11:08 So you believe in that.
00:11:10 I believe in that wholeheartedly.
00:11:14 And I believe that you have to do it on your own.
00:11:17 I don’t believe in the coach taking you to the promised land.
00:11:21 So in the guys today or in yourself,
00:11:25 how often do you see people that grow the belief
00:11:29 of doing 10,000, 20,000 reps?
00:11:32 I think it’s rare.
00:11:33 I think it’s very rare.
00:11:34 And I think it’s especially rare.
00:11:36 I mean, you can talk about that as a coach,
00:11:37 but it’s especially rare to bring a guy to that understanding,
00:11:42 but you never stop trying.
00:11:43 You’re always trying to reach him.
00:11:46 I mean, we didn’t have a good performance out there tonight,
00:11:49 but you know what?
00:11:50 You don’t stop communicating.
00:11:53 And there’s a lot of programs out there
00:11:56 that put their head down when things aren’t going their way.
00:11:59 And then as things start going their way,
00:12:00 then they rise with the tide.
00:12:02 There was no difference in the demeanor of our corner.
00:12:05 And we talk about that, that’s a philosophy.
00:12:08 And so you’re reaching your guys that way.
00:12:11 So go back to your point or your question.
00:12:13 Do you believe in the 10,000 reps?
00:12:16 And yes, I do.
00:12:19 How do you inspire people to do that?
00:12:20 So by example, but communication.
00:12:23 But I mean, in my experience, what I’ve seen communicating
00:12:28 the value of repetition and drilling
00:12:30 is a hard thing to communicate.
00:12:31 It’s hard.
00:12:32 And it’s very rare to have somebody that goes in there
00:12:34 and will do it on their own.
00:12:36 Do you have young guys that step up and do that?
00:12:39 We do, and it’s rare.
00:12:41 And the guys that do it on their own
00:12:42 and have done it on their own
00:12:44 are the guys that are in that lineup and doing well.
00:12:48 The other thing is that when you talk about
00:12:52 getting to that next level,
00:12:54 a lot of times what held you back
00:12:58 was I did everything the coach asked of me and nothing more.
00:13:02 Right.
00:13:03 I mean, you can be a great guy for a coach as an athlete,
00:13:09 and you did everything that coach asked,
00:13:10 but you did nothing more.
00:13:12 So you’re really looking for the guys
00:13:14 that go way beyond what the coach says.
00:13:17 We don’t want guys that are looking at their watch
00:13:20 running out of the room when practice is over.
00:13:22 We want guys that know what they have to get done,
00:13:25 and they might leave early,
00:13:26 but they’re not looking at their watch.
00:13:28 They might be done early.
00:13:29 They might be, we might be on a whole different path,
00:13:32 and this guy just excuses himself.
00:13:34 I’m all about that.
00:13:36 We are not autocrats.
00:13:38 There’s an internal engine in there.
00:13:40 Is that something you’re born with,
00:13:42 or is that something you can develop?
00:13:43 I think you are born with it.
00:13:45 You develop it also,
00:13:46 and I think that there has to be comfort,
00:13:48 and I go back to communication,
00:13:50 that young people are comfortable enough to communicate
00:13:55 that I need to take the day off.
00:13:59 So what do you mean by communication?
00:14:00 Or I need to do something different.
00:14:00 Communication, exactly.
00:14:02 So letting athletes be part of their own development.
00:14:07 Communication to me is letting them know
00:14:11 what they need to do to get themselves in contention
00:14:15 to be the starting quarterback,
00:14:18 and then to give them boosts and compliments
00:14:22 when they earn them,
00:14:23 and I don’t have time to waste with lies and cheating.
00:14:32 And when I say cheating,
00:14:33 I’m talking about when they cheat themselves,
00:14:34 and so those become very direct conversations,
00:14:37 and the conversation starts like this.
00:14:39 I don’t have time to waste, and neither do you,
00:14:42 and so why are we wasting our time?
00:14:44 And here’s what I mean by that.
00:14:46 We’re having a conversation about your accountability.
00:14:49 If you look in the mirror and you’re accountable,
00:14:52 then we aren’t taking the time to go through this.
00:14:55 We’re already on our way to solving the problem.
00:14:57 Problem can’t be solved without that understanding.
00:15:00 And that has to do with symptoms
00:15:03 that you see in the wrestling room.
00:15:04 There’s something where the fire’s not quite there.
00:15:05 That has to do with mental, emotional,
00:15:07 spiritual, physical, everything.
00:15:10 Everything that you know about.
00:15:11 You know, I had a boss,
00:15:14 and our athletic director is a great athletic director,
00:15:16 and he’s a great athlete,
00:15:17 and he’s a great athlete,
00:15:18 and our athletic director is a great athletic director,
00:15:20 and he gives us everything we need to be successful,
00:15:22 but I had a boss, his name was Fred Mims,
00:15:24 and I didn’t think anybody could be better than him,
00:15:26 and then all of a sudden this Gene Taylor guy came in,
00:15:29 and then he was pretty doggone good too,
00:15:30 and he actually was just like Fred
00:15:33 and maybe even a little bit more current,
00:15:35 and then he ended up taking a job at Kansas State
00:15:37 where he’s the athletic director now,
00:15:39 and then this lady, Barbara Burke, comes in,
00:15:43 and I didn’t think anybody could be better
00:15:45 than Gene Taylor or Fred Mims,
00:15:46 and this Barbara Burke, she’s better than both of them,
00:15:50 and the reason why is because she’s a problem solver.
00:15:52 She doesn’t waste time.
00:15:54 She’s direct, and she’s a problem solver,
00:15:56 and that’s what we need.
00:15:57 You need problem solvers.
00:16:01 So on the flip side of problems and technique and repetition,
00:16:06 here’s a thing called toughness, mental toughness,
00:16:10 something that maybe you or maybe even Iowa in general
00:16:14 is a little bit known for.
00:16:15 So how do you train mental toughness as a coach?
00:16:19 You train mental toughness by putting them in situations
00:16:23 that they’re willing to go through
00:16:27 but don’t think they can make it,
00:16:28 and then they go through it,
00:16:29 and then all of a sudden those berries are down.
00:16:31 Does that have to do with physical usually exhaustion,
00:16:36 the four reps on the ropes?
00:16:38 It has to do with that,
00:16:40 and it has to do with understanding why we’re doing it.
00:16:45 And sometimes understanding why we’re doing it
00:16:47 might not come for months, but there’s blind faith,
00:16:52 and we have a heavyweight in the room right now,
00:16:54 this young guy that he’s like that.
00:16:58 He doesn’t necessarily understand it.
00:17:00 He asks a lot of questions, but he doesn’t,
00:17:03 and he’s been here four months now,
00:17:04 four and a half months now,
00:17:05 and he’s getting better every day.
00:17:07 So mental toughness too is a matter of repetition.
00:17:11 Mental toughness is a matter of repetition
00:17:13 and having an open mind and being extremely accountable,
00:17:15 and not only accountable that when you maybe,
00:17:21 when something doesn’t go your way,
00:17:22 that you look in the mirror and own it,
00:17:24 but accountable to the point of view that,
00:17:27 you know what, I gotta get tough in this situation
00:17:30 right here, right now,
00:17:31 and this is what’s gonna make or break me.
00:17:33 And I talked about my own career being defined by,
00:17:36 you know, a couple of minutes on the mat,
00:17:39 but that’s when you’re gonna be defined.
00:17:41 That’s how you’re gonna be defined.
00:17:43 That’s okay.
00:17:44 So people are gonna talk about you,
00:17:46 so you might as well have them talking about
00:17:47 how doggone tough you are.
00:17:51 What about, we live in a world now,
00:17:53 I have often in my own work,
00:17:55 I hear about this concept of work life balance
00:17:58 or overtraining.
00:18:00 So you’ve been one of the hardest workers ever on the mat.
00:18:04 You’ve coached some of the hardest workers ever.
00:18:07 Do you think it’s possible to over train, train too much?
00:18:10 How big of a concern is it?
00:18:11 I think peaking and burnout are frames of mind
00:18:15 or burnout is a like you let things probably
00:18:19 get to the point where you could have arrested them
00:18:22 with a good frame of mind.
00:18:24 But peaking is a frame of mind
00:18:25 and you have to know, be able to read,
00:18:28 and that’s a lot of it.
00:18:30 And the individual athlete also has to know
00:18:33 that it’s a frame of mind.
00:18:35 And so when you have a coach that’s reading that the right way
00:18:38 and you have an athlete that is knowing that
00:18:42 when zero hour comes that you’re gonna be ready to go
00:18:46 and knowing that there’s light at the end of the tunnel
00:18:48 if you feel like you’re burning that candle at both ends,
00:18:51 light’s coming at the end of the tunnel.
00:18:53 I mean, you’re good to go.
00:18:55 So you think about Gable and that whole dream
00:18:59 of being carried off the mat because you worked so hard.
00:19:02 And again, do you think it’s possible to overtrain?
00:19:04 So you said it’s mental.
00:19:07 I do think it’s possible to overtrain
00:19:08 if you have a lot of distractions.
00:19:11 And if you’re looking at your watch running out of the room,
00:19:14 then yeah, that frame of mind
00:19:16 isn’t gonna lend itself to excellency.
00:19:19 And the thing is, is we have to accomplish
00:19:22 what we need to get accomplished to get better every day.
00:19:24 You can’t kind of accomplish what you need to accomplish.
00:19:26 You have to accomplish it.
00:19:28 And when you’re in that mindset,
00:19:31 then the clock is irrelevant.
00:19:33 There’s no place for a clock in the wrestling room.
00:19:35 And maybe a clock that times a match,
00:19:39 but it may be a clock.
00:19:40 We’re student athletes here,
00:19:42 but that’s why we encourage when you schedule your classes
00:19:47 that you don’t have a class that comes right up to practice time
00:19:53 or starts as a night class and it starts at 5.30.
00:19:56 Go to get the 6.30 class or the seven o clock.
00:19:59 So you leave it all behind your heart,
00:20:01 your passion is completely in it.
00:20:02 There’s no problem.
00:20:03 When you walk in that wrestling room,
00:20:05 there’s no distractions and it’s never eternal.
00:20:08 The only thing that’s eternal is death.
00:20:11 You know, there’s nothing.
00:20:12 Sometimes guys come in there and they wig out.
00:20:15 It’s an hour and 25 minutes,
00:20:20 or an hour and 45 minutes.
00:20:22 You have to be willing to go as long as it takes.
00:20:25 There’s no clock.
00:20:26 There’s no clock.
00:20:28 Again, wrestlers are some of the hardest,
00:20:30 some of the toughest people in all of sports,
00:20:33 but weight cutting often breaks people.
00:20:35 So what’s your thought on weight cutting,
00:20:38 both nutrition wise, mental wise?
00:20:40 How do you approach and think of it as a coach
00:20:43 in your own career too?
00:20:45 It’s a lot of discipline and it’s a lot of discipline
00:20:50 during a very uncomfortable time period
00:20:51 that really doesn’t last that long,
00:20:53 but it feels like it lasts long and it’s painful.
00:20:56 But once you shrink your body down
00:20:58 and if you’re hydrated, you’ll get through it.
00:21:01 If you’re a little hungry, but you’re eating,
00:21:04 but you’re hydrated, once you break that sweat,
00:21:06 your energy depletion goes away.
00:21:09 That’s a fact.
00:21:10 I’ve practiced that.
00:21:11 You come in and you’re yawning
00:21:13 and you’re starting to shrink your body down
00:21:16 and it’s that time of year where,
00:21:17 hey, I gotta get my body shrunk down
00:21:20 and you’re dehydrated, you are dead in the water.
00:21:23 But if you’re hungry and hydrated,
00:21:26 when you break that sweat…
00:21:27 Have people gotten better with that over the years,
00:21:30 over the past few decades?
00:21:30 I think that coaches, science is better.
00:21:34 I think that coaches communicate it.
00:21:35 I think they always have.
00:21:37 I think the bottom line is,
00:21:38 is having the energy to implement that
00:21:41 and taking a guy by the hand when he doesn’t understand
00:21:46 and he’s new in your program and he’s essential
00:21:49 and or he’s unwilling to and not disciplined enough
00:21:51 because when you take him by the hand enough,
00:21:53 they won’t learn that discipline.
00:21:55 This is a fact.
00:21:56 This is an important aspect of wrestling, buddy.
00:22:00 You know what I’m saying?
00:22:01 So, you know, it’s not just go and show up for the match.
00:22:06 I mean, it’s not about just making weight either.
00:22:08 You gotta be able to make weight.
00:22:10 That’s part of the warm up.
00:22:12 That’s part of the process, getting ready to wrestle.
00:22:14 It’s a whole thing.
00:22:14 It’s a lifestyle.
00:22:15 Yeah.
00:22:16 When did you first start believing
00:22:19 you’re going to win Olympic gold?
00:22:21 I don’t know.
00:22:22 I mean, I found out I got really addicted
00:22:25 to wrestling really, really fast, started late.
00:22:28 But looking back at my life,
00:22:31 wrestled my whole life with my twin brother.
00:22:34 And when Terry and I would fight, it was wrestling
00:22:37 and it was to maim.
00:22:39 And so if you’re trying to maim me,
00:22:43 I better be tough because if I roll over
00:22:47 and expect you to scratch my belly
00:22:49 when you’re trying to maim me, I won’t lose my head.
00:22:51 And Tom and Terry Brands, there was no alpha male.
00:22:55 And when it was on, it was on for real.
00:22:58 What do you mean there’s no alpha male?
00:22:59 There’s both?
00:23:00 There are a lot of twins.
00:23:02 There’s a dominant twin.
00:23:03 Oh, a lot of them.
00:23:04 Ah.
00:23:04 Very few times is there a situation
00:23:08 where I’m going to win every time in everything
00:23:11 and then he’s thinking the same exact way.
00:23:13 And Terry used to describe it like when we used
00:23:15 to get interviewed a lot about our careers.
00:23:17 Like it’d be like you grabbing a steering wheel
00:23:19 and me grabbing a steering wheel and fighting.
00:23:22 And that’s what it was like when you would wrestle him
00:23:24 or fight him.
00:23:25 And so I had that benefit.
00:23:27 So when did I know?
00:23:28 Well, I got addicted to wrestling really, really fast
00:23:31 in fifth grade and started to research it.
00:23:34 And I don’t know why and talked about the Olympics
00:23:37 and put it in my head and remember said something
00:23:43 about being an Olympic champion in fifth grade.
00:23:45 And somebody made fun of me and I got in a fight
00:23:47 in the playground.
00:23:49 And I remember getting pulled in,
00:23:53 getting in trouble for that.
00:23:54 And the people that got me in trouble for that
00:23:57 were smart enough to not rake me over the coals,
00:24:00 but they researched or they actually found out
00:24:03 what the fight was about.
00:24:04 And I was distraught.
00:24:06 I was really emotional, like crying
00:24:09 or whatever you want to say.
00:24:10 You don’t want to admit that too many times.
00:24:12 But it wasn’t because I got beat up or got my nose bloodied
00:24:15 or got punched in the face or broke my arm
00:24:19 or there was any pain.
00:24:20 It was because they stomped on my dream and they doubted me.
00:24:24 And so I fought for that.
00:24:26 And that was a lesson.
00:24:27 There’s going to be a lot of doubters.
00:24:29 And one thing we talk about as a staff is our staff
00:24:34 has to be lockstep in that hallway, in our offices.
00:24:38 And when you deviate outside of that, that is heresy.
00:24:43 So everybody has to be on board,
00:24:45 confident that you’re going to be number one in the country.
00:24:48 When we go forward and we go put our public foot forward,
00:24:51 there is a decision.
00:24:52 We are unified and there is no backbiting.
00:24:55 And we have great people right now.
00:24:56 And we hadn’t had that before.
00:24:58 We’ve had detractors in our Hawkeye Wrestling Club.
00:25:01 We’ve had guys that would go out and get rolled up
00:25:03 in ankle laces and not be able to walk.
00:25:05 We’ve had guys that would go out and get rolled up in ankle laces
00:25:08 and not care in our club.
00:25:11 And we got Brandon Sorensen,
00:25:12 who got rolled up by James Green last night.
00:25:15 But I’ll tell you what, I don’t have a problem with that.
00:25:18 You know why?
00:25:18 Because I know it means a lot to him.
00:25:20 He didn’t roll over.
00:25:22 He didn’t quit because he was on the consolation side of a bracket.
00:25:25 And so when you have that and then you have,
00:25:29 if there’s a disagreement, it’s behind closed doors.
00:25:31 And then you’re moving forward.
00:25:32 And when you have people that when they’re meeting your fans
00:25:35 and your supporters, you know, they’re talking the right way
00:25:38 with the right message.
00:25:40 And anything that’s cattywonk is to that,
00:25:42 you got to be careful there.
00:25:44 You got to be careful there.
00:25:46 So that in terms of affirmation, in terms of really believing
00:25:49 as a team, as an individual, believing that you’re the best
00:25:52 in the world, did you, I’m sure you had detractors.
00:25:57 You had people that continued after fifth grade.
00:25:59 And that’s probably where my hatred of losing trumps
00:26:03 my love for winning because I wanted to shove it up
00:26:06 their rear end bad.
00:26:08 Yeah.
00:26:10 And the thing is, is we maintain a high level
00:26:13 and there’s very few programs.
00:26:15 Oklahoma State, Ohio State now, Penn State.
00:26:19 I mean, there’s four programs that try to win
00:26:21 a national title every year.
00:26:23 And that’s it.
00:26:24 And these other teams, they get up and they got a good team
00:26:28 and they get up and they get going.
00:26:30 And then when things don’t go well, okay,
00:26:32 we’re going to do it next year.
00:26:34 Or this is a down year.
00:26:35 We’re going to get right.
00:26:36 We’re three years out.
00:26:37 So no matter what you’re fighting for first.
00:26:39 We do.
00:26:40 And we haven’t won and you say, well, even one in eight years.
00:26:43 Well, you’re right.
00:26:43 We haven’t.
00:26:44 But look at our results are better than anybody out there.
00:26:47 And it’s besides Penn State.
00:26:49 And it’s because of our mentality and because we have great people.
00:26:54 Ryan Morningstar, Bobby Telfer, Terry Brands,
00:26:56 our medical team, even our strength coach,
00:26:59 Quinn Holland, we’re all on the same page.
00:27:02 And when I send something, I hit it immediately.
00:27:04 I don’t have time to waste.
00:27:06 There will not be dissension in that hallway.
00:27:09 Everybody’s in together.
00:27:10 Yeah.
00:27:11 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta.
00:27:14 Can you take me through the day when you’re going for the 62 kg gold?
00:27:19 What did you eat?
00:27:21 Drink?
00:27:22 What did you think?
00:27:23 It really doesn’t matter.
00:27:24 Um, I have a routine that, you know, I had a routine as a competitor
00:27:28 that I could run through right now.
00:27:31 Um, it was a lot of self talk, very, very positive self talk.
00:27:35 Visualization.
00:27:36 Yes.
00:27:36 Visualization, um, self talk.
00:27:39 Um, and, and that’s how I was able to relax and getting ready for
00:27:43 matches my whole life.
00:27:45 Learned that very early age at a camp and a developmental camp
00:27:49 at a young age, Terry and I did.
00:27:51 And, um, I can tell you what I ate and I can tell you what I did to
00:27:57 relax and it doesn’t matter.
00:27:59 Um, what you have to do is you have to find that piece.
00:28:03 And I just know that when I was getting ready for the finals match,
00:28:08 I had gone back to my room.
00:28:09 I had my relaxed material, you know, and I was able to relax
00:28:15 because I prepared for it.
00:28:17 Hopefully I’m right on this, but just looking at the insane bracket
00:28:21 you had to go through, you had to beat, just to get to the finals,
00:28:24 it had to be three world champions, eventually world champ.
00:28:27 I mean, Dave, and you know what?
00:28:29 I don’t talk about that and nobody else does either, but everybody
00:28:31 talks about it in their own career.
00:28:34 So now you’re making my head big, but yeah, I had a road, I had a road.
00:28:39 You’re right.
00:28:39 That is the hardest bracket I’ve seen.
00:28:41 So I’ve talked to a lot of Olympic champions.
00:28:43 That is the hardest bracket I’ve seen of any champion.
00:28:46 So maybe I’m confused on this, but it seemed like a really tough day for you.
00:28:50 Did you have, did you know the bracket ahead of time?
00:28:53 Did you know who you faced?
00:28:55 You see the draw and it’s a two day tournament.
00:28:58 So psychology comes into it as much as physical shape, you know,
00:29:05 because there’s those, you got to sleep, you know, the night before
00:29:09 after the weigh in, then you got to sleep again that next night
00:29:11 after your semi final match is going to be in the morning.
00:29:14 You know, and then you have to go back and rest because your final
00:29:16 matches in Intel, whatever time it was.
00:29:19 And so all this relaxation and all that stuff that you just talked about,
00:29:23 that visualization and self talk, that’s what helps you.
00:29:25 It’s your routine.
00:29:27 And was there any doubt, any fear, any, anything there?
00:29:31 The fear is the type of fear.
00:29:34 And I just talked about this to one of my athletes today.
00:29:38 Jack Dempsey talked about fear and the fear of losing is what motivates
00:29:43 him to try to take his opponent’s head off.
00:29:45 He was a boxer and that’s okay.
00:29:49 So fear of competition, fear of screwing up, fear of, oh, I don’t feel good.
00:29:54 No, no.
00:29:55 But that little fear that, you know what, there’s somebody out there
00:29:58 that thinks that, you know what, they’re going to, they’re going to revel in my,
00:30:03 they’re going to, they’re going to, they’re going to eat it up in my misery.
00:30:07 They’re going to love, they’re going to be thriving because I fail.
00:30:10 And I’m not going to let that happen.
00:30:13 You’re identical twin brother, Terry.
00:30:15 You’ve been at him, like you said, your whole life, and you’re both some of the
00:30:21 greatest wrestlers of all time.
00:30:23 You won the gold medal.
00:30:24 He won the bronze medal.
00:30:25 You’ve mentioned, you know, all that really matters is the six minutes or,
00:30:30 you know, just a few minutes, sometimes a few seconds to find your whole career.
00:30:33 So how do you think about that thin line, the tragic line, and how do you
00:30:38 think about that line, the tragic line at the Olympic level between winning and
00:30:42 losing?
00:30:43 I think you come to peace that in the end, when it’s over, that you did the
00:30:47 best you could.
00:30:49 And that’s certainly the case with Terry.
00:30:53 He has a career credentials are better than mine internationally.
00:30:57 You know, he won two world championships.
00:30:58 I won one and he won an Olympic bronze medal.
00:31:01 And, you know, I won an Olympic gold medal, but I only won one.
00:31:06 The thing is, is that’s not what’s important anyway.
00:31:09 What’s important is, is that when it’s all over, you know, how do you look
00:31:17 back on it?
00:31:18 And you’re kind of like, well, you just said that you made sure that you
00:31:22 weren’t going to leave anything undone.
00:31:24 But you know what?
00:31:24 There were tournaments where I did leave things undone.
00:31:27 And so how do you come back from that?
00:31:29 Well, Terry never came back from 2000 because he retired.
00:31:32 Well, you know what?
00:31:33 Duplicate and exceed when you’re communicating to these young athletes.
00:31:38 And because of that experience, that makes Terry a better coach.
00:31:41 Because of, you know, 1995, that makes me a better coach.
00:31:46 You know, realizing that there are certain things that unraveled in that
00:31:51 year that I could have controlled looking back on it.
00:31:54 And when you have that perspective, you can communicate.
00:31:59 So what control is there?
00:32:01 Can you control everything?
00:32:02 How big of a role is luck?
00:32:04 Control how you react to an injury, control that.
00:32:09 So you can’t, you don’t have any control over it.
00:32:10 It’s over, you know, you have whatever and whatever happened, but relax.
00:32:18 And you learn to deal with injuries better because of that.
00:32:20 You have that experience that you let this thing maybe get the best of you.
00:32:25 And that’s just an example.
00:32:27 And, you know, Terry put a lot of demons to rest with that bronze medal.
00:32:34 So becoming an Olympic medalist, a few demons could relax.
00:32:38 Well, a little, he will never admit that.
00:32:40 And he probably isn’t truthful.
00:32:42 And I should, I’m speaking for him, but he’s truthful when he says that.
00:32:45 But if I look at it and bronze sucks, but if I look at it, he did put some
00:32:54 demons to rest and I’m proud of him for it.
00:32:56 There’s something there that is a consolation in the fact that he won the consolation medal.
00:33:04 The consolation medal sucks, but there is a consolation that he won the consolation medal.
00:33:08 That’s a tough medal to win, by the way.
00:33:10 Yeah.
00:33:11 But do you see the Shakespearean tragedy of it all that the line between winning and losing?
00:33:18 So you often say that, you know, winning is everything, but it feels like, especially
00:33:23 at the Olympic level, or you talk about NCAA finals or that tournament, you know, a split
00:33:30 second miss move can result in a loss where you dominated all the way up to there.
00:33:37 That’s where your psychology comes in.
00:33:39 And that’s where the repetition and all of the self talk and visualization
00:33:43 and the physical shape and everything comes together.
00:33:47 And so that doesn’t happen.
00:33:49 And tonight, we got beat twice, actually three times, and we out wrestled those.
00:33:55 We lost three matches and we out wrestled the guy for six minutes and 30 seconds, or
00:34:01 one match went to overtime.
00:34:04 And if our guys can move forward with the right perspective, I’m confident that they’ll
00:34:09 be better.
00:34:11 I’ll tell you what, I’d take our guy over their guy any day, any day, because our guys
00:34:16 get up for every match.
00:34:17 And now we got a lot to work on.
00:34:20 A lot to work on.
00:34:21 But you know what?
00:34:22 I can say all that and I’ll take our guy and blah, blah, blah.
00:34:26 But what are they going to do tonight in their meal?
00:34:28 What are they going to do tonight in their rest?
00:34:30 What are they going to do tomorrow in their recovery on their own, necessarily?
00:34:35 What are they going to do Monday?
00:34:37 Great wrestlers can use their imagination with a win that they’re not satisfied with
00:34:46 and go forward as if it was a loss.
00:34:49 But it’s still easier to go forward with that win.
00:34:52 But they can, they don’t just, oh, I won, I’m fine, goes on.
00:34:56 But then when they lose the exact same way that they could have lost before, then they
00:35:01 go off the deep end.
00:35:02 And then that’s when they lose.
00:35:03 They could have lost before, then they go off the deep end and then that’s when they’re
00:35:07 going to make the change in their life.
00:35:08 And we talked about that to our team tonight.
00:35:12 And the mature, rare ingredient is, is guys that can get better even with success like
00:35:21 it was a loss without beating themselves up.
00:35:24 That’s complicated.
00:35:25 It is.
00:35:26 It’s a balance.
00:35:26 You often talk about Iowa’s focus on creating individual champions like Spencer Lee.
00:35:34 Can you explain the philosophy of focusing on individuals versus the team?
00:35:39 I think that we need to put them both together and the individual impacts the team.
00:35:45 And, you know, we haven’t done that since 2010 and we need to do a better job of putting
00:35:53 10 weight classes out there that contribute to the team.
00:35:57 And if it’s not 10, then it’s nine.
00:35:59 And if it’s not nine, it can’t be four, you know?
00:36:03 And that takes a lot of pride and it takes a lot of, you know, where the coach is on
00:36:10 top of it.
00:36:12 And, you know, you’re not just working on the easy things, the glaring things.
00:36:19 You’re working on everything.
00:36:21 What do you mean by everything?
00:36:22 So, the…
00:36:24 Like there’s just some, you know, there’s ideas that when you’re a coach that aren’t
00:36:32 there beneath the surface and you got to find them.
00:36:36 And that’s where communication comes in.
00:36:38 Yeah.
00:36:38 But you’re talking about, yeah, we got to move forward.
00:36:42 Well, what does that mean?
00:36:43 Well, I know what that means.
00:36:45 But how many guys really know what that means in their program?
00:36:52 You know, there’s so many levels of that.
00:36:55 You’ve said before that winning is everything and that means people lose.
00:37:00 Most people lose, you know, there’s really in whatever the context is only one winner.
00:37:06 In many parts of our world today, outside of wrestling, that concept, the brutal honesty
00:37:10 of that is uncomfortable for people.
00:37:12 So, how do you think about this very philosophical, difficult concept of, you know, there only
00:37:23 being one winner, that winning is everything, this kind of really painful idea?
00:37:27 I don’t think that that’s a bad thing to have that mentality.
00:37:31 I mean, I think Akutukov, I remember a story I read about him.
00:37:36 He comes to mind.
00:37:37 You know, Sargush, I remember when he lost in London and I remember the look on his face.
00:37:45 And those are some of the greatest wrestlers in the history of the sport, freestyle wrestling.
00:37:49 And, you know what?
00:37:52 It’s what works for you.
00:37:54 You can talk about being at peace with your results and that the approach is and the journey
00:38:00 is what it’s about.
00:38:01 But, and that’s great and that relaxes some champions and that makes some champions really,
00:38:07 really tick, but not everybody.
00:38:11 So, it’s okay, it’s okay.
00:38:14 And if that wigs you out and that really makes you uptight, then go the other route.
00:38:20 You have to find what works for you.
00:38:22 And that takes a lot of work.
00:38:23 If you’re lazy, forget it, forget it.
00:38:26 So, you and Terry, but in general, how do you find the line between extremely physical,
00:38:33 extreme physical wrestling and rough wrestling or angry wrestling?
00:38:37 So, to which degree has anger, whether it’s in your wrestling room these days or in your
00:38:41 own career, entered wrestling?
00:38:43 Do you see it as a tool that can be used in the wrestling match?
00:38:47 I think there’s a balance or not even a balance.
00:38:50 There’s a lot of balance in the wrestling world.
00:38:52 I think there’s a balance or not even a balance, there’s a line that you go up to and you can’t
00:38:58 cross it.
00:38:59 Sportsmanship is everything.
00:39:01 You can get dinged for points.
00:39:02 You can get thrown out of tournaments.
00:39:05 There’s rules with flagrant misconduct where you’re kicked out of the match, other team
00:39:12 gets the points and then you have to sit the next meet.
00:39:15 So, it’s very serious.
00:39:17 The NCAA sends a message, a very serious message about sportsmanship.
00:39:22 Yeah.
00:39:23 And so, we talk about that.
00:39:24 The other thing with wrestling is there’s rules in wrestling.
00:39:27 These guys that are tough guys outside of the rules, that’s what you want in your opponent.
00:39:34 That means they’re frustrated.
00:39:38 You got to be a tough guy inside the rules of the sport.
00:39:43 That’s more honorable than cold cocking somebody and knocking them out.
00:39:47 So, yeah, anger doesn’t mean breaking the rules.
00:39:49 But I mean, you know, a lot of people know you just watching you as a coach.
00:39:54 There’s quite a bit of passion there.
00:39:56 Well, come and do what you’re doing tonight.
00:39:58 I mean, break bread with me in my kitchen and see how big of a jackass I am.
00:40:01 Now, you’re a pretty nice guy.
00:40:03 Well, I’m not asking for that necessarily, but thanks.
00:40:05 I’m saying, you know what, as a coach, I mean, okay, come spend a month in our program and
00:40:12 you’ll see really what kind of people we are.
00:40:15 And there’s a stigma out there because they are very threatened by our program.
00:40:20 There’s nobody else that threatens the sport of wrestling like we do.
00:40:25 And that’s the truth.
00:40:26 There’s a legend to Iowa wrestling.
00:40:29 There’s one of the most intimidating.
00:40:31 There’s a legend to John Smith.
00:40:34 It’s the same thing.
00:40:35 They get up for John Smith.
00:40:37 They get up for Oklahoma State.
00:40:39 They get up for Penn State.
00:40:42 My question is, okay, I’ll answer it.
00:40:44 I’ll answer it this way.
00:40:45 I’ll give you an example in my coaching career.
00:40:48 I coached at Virginia Tech for 22 months.
00:40:52 We recruited the number one recruiting class.
00:40:54 We got the administration to change 100% 180 how they looked at wrestling.
00:41:00 Here’s the thing.
00:41:01 And because of how serious we were and because we weren’t idiots,
00:41:06 we were able to do that with our administration.
00:41:09 But my point is this, we tried to win.
00:41:12 We tried to win, even at Virginia Tech.
00:41:14 It wasn’t a stepping stone for me.
00:41:15 It ended up being one quickly and looking back on it.
00:41:18 I was a fool to think that I’d be there for 20 years.
00:41:21 But you believed you would be.
00:41:23 I did.
00:41:23 Yeah, I did.
00:41:25 I did.
00:41:26 So do you remember a time that you really pushed yourself to your limits?
00:41:32 So Gable talks about having to be carried off the mat.
00:41:35 Have you really found that level?
00:41:37 I said something about that too in a book and I think I was mistaken.
00:41:41 A book and I think I was misquoted one time.
00:41:44 And actually it was Gable’s quote.
00:41:45 And I was trying to make the point that Gable’s quote was like this.
00:41:50 And they were making it like it was my own words.
00:41:53 I think it was a first wrestling tough book, but it’s a good book.
00:41:58 But the story is Gable’s.
00:42:00 And I don’t know if there’s anybody that has done that besides him.
00:42:06 And I think that’s a very rare quality.
00:42:08 But I’ve definitely been in that nirvana level of, you know, you could go all day long.
00:42:17 And it doesn’t, you have to shoot me to stop me.
00:42:20 Yeah.
00:42:21 But there’s a balance because you’re not going hard with and holding your breath.
00:42:25 It’s not a, it’s a relaxed and like you got a guy cornered and who’s most dangerous?
00:42:34 Well, the guy that’s cornered.
00:42:36 And so that’s where you relax, I’m not bum rushing him.
00:42:40 I’m relaxed.
00:42:40 I’m still moving, fake and very fluid.
00:42:43 Guy falls down his face.
00:42:44 I run around behind him.
00:42:45 That’s offense.
00:42:47 You don’t have to just grunt to the leg and call that offense.
00:42:52 Offense is a in and out, smooth.
00:42:56 Now you sound like a Russian wrestler.
00:42:58 Yeah.
00:42:59 Well, that’s, they’re the best in a certain light, looking at the history of wrestling.
00:43:04 Wrestling is much bigger than folk style, freestyle, Greco.
00:43:07 It’s, it’s one of the oldest forms of combat period.
00:43:11 There’s been cave drawings 15,000 years ago.
00:43:14 Do you ever see, so you’re, you’re, uh, one of the great coaches of all time.
00:43:19 You’re now focused on a particular rule style right now, but do you ever see wrestling
00:43:23 as bigger than all of the, this, you know, as, as, uh, one of the pure combats?
00:43:29 I do, and we’re raising $20 million for a facility to make it the best facility on the planet.
00:43:34 We have a vision to build the best facility on planet earth and put the best wrestlers in it.
00:43:41 And that is bigger than wrestling.
00:43:45 It’s for the university of Iowa and our donors are doing it for the university of Iowa, but it is
00:43:52 about the value of wrestling to me.
00:43:55 Also, there is so much value to wrestling blind, blind people don’t play football.
00:44:01 They wrestle blind people, don’t play basketball.
00:44:04 I mean, maybe they do, but it’d be very difficult.
00:44:08 They can wrestle.
00:44:09 Wrestling is a field sport.
00:44:12 Yeah.
00:44:12 There’s no ball.
00:44:13 There’s nothing.
00:44:14 It’s just two guys or two girls and that’s it.
00:44:16 That’s right.
00:44:17 And, and you, I mean, I’m not going to say you can’t because somebody will get a hold of this
00:44:21 and I’ll get an email or a letter that says, you said blind people can’t play baseball and blah, blah.
00:44:27 I’m just saying that blind people can wrestle very effectively.
00:44:31 Yes.
00:44:31 I’ve wrestled with, with my eyes shut.
00:44:33 I mean, was honest about it too.
00:44:35 And it was, I was effective.
00:44:38 So why, why was I able to be effective?
00:44:40 Because wrestling is a, is a, is a sport that you, you can overcome a lot, your demons that
00:44:47 you’re overcoming, they’re not limited with whether I’m blind or not.
00:44:54 The demons that are overcoming are inside you.
00:44:56 You have to overcome those demons from within.
00:44:59 So what’s the future of Iowa wrestling look like with this facility and this momentum you have now
00:45:04 and this great group of guys you have now?
00:45:06 We have a good young group of guys and, um, you know, there is a lot of buzz in the program.
00:45:14 And probably hasn’t been this much buzz for quite some time.
00:45:18 And our job is to, you know, be relaxed and be focused and not get caught up in the buzz.
00:45:27 Um, but we have to put it together and we have a catalyst Spencer Lee, but he’s going to have to,
00:45:32 he’s going to have to get better.
00:45:34 And we have some other catalysts as well that are, um, you know, going to help us in the future.
00:45:39 Um, but they got to get better.
00:45:44 And so all this stuff about independence and accountability and, you know, being able to
00:45:51 get better every day under duress and not knowing that you’re getting better, but you are, you know,
00:45:59 you know what that, you know what I mean by that?
00:46:01 Like the great thing about Gabo was wrestling for him was, is you were getting better and
00:46:05 you didn’t know you were getting better.
00:46:07 Well, yeah, just like you said, uh, grow from success.
00:46:10 So even you, you never allow yourself to think that you’re, that you’re, you’re getting good.
00:46:16 All of a sudden you do something in the practice room that you’ve been working on and all of a
00:46:20 sudden you hit it and it’s like, it was automatic.
00:46:22 And then that, you know, yeah, that multiplies success.
00:46:26 And so if I may say, so you’re a bit of a man of the Bible.
00:46:31 What’s, where do you go, what do you go to the Bible for your faith, strength, love, patience?
00:46:39 I talked about things that you can’t control.
00:46:41 You turn them over.
00:46:43 So the biggest thing for me is I got to turn over the things that I can’t control, turn them over
00:46:49 to that power and I’m going to be a lot better off.
00:46:52 And that’s the reason why I’m not in the funny farm because very competitive to me.
00:46:57 Yeah.
00:46:58 It’s very serious that we, we know that these young wrestlers come to school here to be the
00:47:05 best that they can be and to accomplish goals that like me, when I was young, they’ve set out
00:47:11 to accomplish and they chose Iowa to do that.
00:47:14 So we have to deliver.
00:47:16 And because of that, um, peace with God, you know, it’s peer, it’s a peer motivation.
00:47:26 It’s a peer motivation and it’s a peer platform.
00:47:31 It’s not, it’s not doing this for my ego.
00:47:36 We’re not corrupt people.
00:47:37 We’re not liars and cheaters.
00:47:40 And so often that gets in the way of a decent person.
00:47:46 Yeah.
00:47:46 First and foremost, you’re a good person and God helps you be that.
00:47:50 Yeah.
00:47:51 And we’re serious about wrestling.
00:47:52 Right.
00:47:55 So a couple more questions.
00:47:58 What’s the role of family in wrestling?
00:48:01 You mentioned your wife, who I read, uh, turned you down when you asked her for a phone number,
00:48:08 said it’s in the phone book.
00:48:10 That’s pretty smooth.
00:48:11 Her story of that is that she didn’t want me to have to remember the number.
00:48:16 And I say at this point, and I say, there’s no way.
00:48:21 And I remember it very clearly like, Hey, it’s in the phone book.
00:48:24 And I was like, okay, she’s blowing me off.
00:48:25 That’s okay.
00:48:28 But luckily here’s the thing with family.
00:48:30 I mean, we, we have great people in our program.
00:48:33 We have great parents.
00:48:34 We have a culture of parents that that’s part of the buzz.
00:48:39 And this class that you see wrestling right now, that’s been here a year now,
00:48:43 um, Lee, Mirren, Costello, Warner, and then Lugo was a transfer and I’m forgetting somebody.
00:48:49 I don’t want to forget anybody, but, um, these parents are phenomenal.
00:48:53 And that’s a different parental culture.
00:48:56 Um, so the Kemmerer’s dad is the same and, and, um, so there’s a lot of good there.
00:49:02 And that, that’s a big, that’s a big, a big move because how we talk to parents, we don’t
00:49:07 talk to parents to get along with them.
00:49:10 We talk to parents to help them understand, you know, where we’re at with their sons.
00:49:15 And when you can have a direct conversation with a parent who helping his son or her son,
00:49:21 the mom helping her son to be accountable and to own it, then you can get a lot accomplished.
00:49:28 And that’s what we’ve been able to do.
00:49:29 And so you’re solving problems.
00:49:31 Like I talked about earlier, um, that’s part of the family.
00:49:34 The other part of the family is the coaches, um, are like family.
00:49:38 The other part of the family is the coaches, uh, significant others and wives are part
00:49:44 of the family.
00:49:45 And we fed, you know, we fed 40 guys and an entire coaching staff and wives and their
00:49:52 children here at Thanksgiving, and that equals 70 people.
00:49:57 And it’s, it’s fun.
00:50:00 It’s fun.
00:50:01 So family means administration.
00:50:04 Gary Varda, my, my athletic director gives us everything that we need to be successful.
00:50:09 And he has an open mind for, for the sport of wrestling and wrestling is important in
00:50:14 Iowa.
00:50:14 So that’s a no brainer, but not if you’re not a wrestling guy, but he sees we do it
00:50:20 the right way.
00:50:20 And so the commitment is there from him.
00:50:23 If we were doofuses, you know, he, the commitment wouldn’t be there.
00:50:28 So family is, everybody’s all in, I mean, it’s from the wrestlers to the family.
00:50:32 It goes back to what I said earlier about our people.
00:50:35 Our people are great.
00:50:36 Ryan Morty Star is great.
00:50:37 Bobby Telford is great.
00:50:39 Bobby Telford took over for a guy named Ben Burhow, who is great.
00:50:44 Our medical team is great.
00:50:45 Dr. Westerman, Dr. Wolf, Jesse Donaworth, our athletic trainer is great.
00:50:53 Terry Brands is great.
00:50:55 Mariah Stickley and, and Elise Owens, our managers are great.
00:50:59 My daughter’s a manager as well.
00:51:00 It’s great.
00:51:00 They’re, they’re hardworking young women.
00:51:03 Our rest, our Hawkeye Wrestling Club is, is where it needs to be in terms of how they
00:51:09 help in their role.
00:51:11 And now we have four women in there and that’s great.
00:51:16 And, you know, at least one of their dads is super involved with us.
00:51:20 But, and so it’s, one thing that I’ve learned is that you have to have that.
00:51:26 And if you don’t have that, then you have to address it quickly.
00:51:31 And those outliers, you know, let’s solve that problem.
00:51:34 Let’s get it out in the open here.
00:51:36 And if they’re, you know, if it doesn’t work out, it’s not going to work out.
00:51:39 That’s a heck of a Thanksgiving dinner.
00:51:42 Yeah.
00:51:42 Next year.
00:51:43 Well, I don’t know if it’d be legal, but I’d have to check with our compliance and, you
00:51:48 know, they’d have to vet you.
00:51:49 You could come, you can come and see what it’s all about.
00:51:52 This room is full.
00:51:54 Oh man.
00:51:57 Well, yeah, I’ll be back next year then.
00:51:58 All right.
00:51:59 Awesome.
00:52:00 Last question.
00:52:01 In 2014, I watched this video four years ago of you competing in, I believe, your first
00:52:10 swim meet against your brother, Terry.
00:52:14 And you came out victorious.
00:52:17 Not really.
00:52:18 Okay.
00:52:19 So let’s, did you cheat?
00:52:21 Here’s what happened.
00:52:22 I had researched this thing because I’m, that’s how I am.
00:52:26 You practiced.
00:52:27 No, I didn’t.
00:52:28 But I researched it.
00:52:29 In swimming, if you flinch on that starter block, it’s a false start.
00:52:34 You can’t twitch a finger and because they would be doing that to get their buddy to
00:52:38 move or the guy next to him, you know?
00:52:40 So you have to be rock solid.
00:52:43 Well, when we went, Terry was leaning forward as the gun was going off.
00:52:47 So he’s moving.
00:52:48 And so I was like, no, no, no, false start, no, no, no, no.
00:52:51 And he couldn’t hear me.
00:52:52 It was already in the water.
00:52:53 And so he took off like a bat out of you know where for the end of the pool and couldn’t
00:52:57 hear me and got to the end of the pool and it was a down and back.
00:53:01 Well, that’s a hard thing to do with a guy with no body fat.
00:53:05 And so he burned a lot of energy and he come up on that end of the pool and he was like,
00:53:09 where’s, where’s he at?
00:53:10 Cause he didn’t see me.
00:53:11 And so we stopped him and then he came back and then we went another one and I beat him.
00:53:15 Um, but it’s the only time that, you know, I would say that he was tuckered out.
00:53:21 And that’s the reason why.
00:53:22 And, um, I’ll also say this, we did a time where we timed my race, the one I won, and
00:53:31 then we timed his first down to the wall.
00:53:35 And then we timed his, the actual race where once he hit the wall, we timed him on the
00:53:39 way back and he’d beat me.
00:53:42 That’s the only time.
00:53:42 The way back and he’d beat me now.
00:53:45 How’s that for being a, that’s pretty honest.
00:53:48 That’s pretty honest.
00:53:49 Accountable.
00:53:50 Wow.
00:53:51 Person.
00:53:52 And I’m going to tell you something else.
00:53:53 Getting in those shorts, those swim trunks.
00:53:55 That’s impressive.
00:53:56 They are tight.
00:53:57 Yeah.
00:53:58 So is there, outside of wrestling, is there a thing that Terry got the better of you?
00:54:05 I mean, I guess this could count as one, uh, that you’re still really bitter about that
00:54:10 you need to avenge.
00:54:11 I mean, that’s past.
00:54:12 I mean, we, he’s got an UNO title.
00:54:14 We have UNO world championships.
00:54:16 He’s got an UNO title.
00:54:17 I have, I have yet to have one.
00:54:19 Morningstar has two titles.
00:54:21 That’s unprecedented.
00:54:23 So there’s only four trophies out there and Terry’s got one of those and I don’t have
00:54:26 one yet.
00:54:27 Yeah.
00:54:27 Well, it’s still time.
00:54:29 Tom, thank you so much for letting a Russian with a tie into your home.
00:54:34 Thanks for listening to this conversation with Tom Brands.
00:54:36 To support this podcast, please check out our sponsors in the description.
00:54:40 And now let me leave you with some words from Marcus Aurelius.
00:54:45 The art of living is more like wrestling than dancing.
00:54:49 Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time.