Ed’s Word: Number: 6 December 26, 2008
1. This will be the last Word for 2008. Also, I will no longer list the rankings, until toward the last of the year. You can get all of this information via WIN; Wrestling USA’ Amateur Wrestling News; or Best Weekly and by the time this info is published one of the ranked people have been defeated, etc.
2. Tom Cortez who did his prep wrestling for Willowbrook - then Adams State has been named to the National Hall of Fame, Lifetime Achievement, Colorado Chapter. Congratulations to Tom.
3. Hall of Famer Coach Mike Bukovsky has reached the 400 win milestone. He is at Montini.
4. Hall of Famer Tim Haak of Harvard has reached the 500 win plateau.
5. Gary Larsen of the Daily Herald has just finished an excellent 4 part article on Hall of Famer Charles Farina of Leyden East and Gordon Tech. Gary is going to do a few of these articles throughout the year. This is on his website.
6. Dekalb High School recently won its 800th Dual meet going back to I believe 1954.
7. Craig Fallico of Maine South has reached the 200th win plateau.
8. Illinois Best Weekly is @yahoo.com phone is 615-333-3373. This is a worthwhile guide.
9. The 3 class system - rules - procedures, etc has been posted by the IHSA. Seems to be quite organized and ready to go. Class A is from 0 to 754 as determined by the schools on September 29th; Class AA is from 754.01 to 1652 and Class AAA is from 1652.01 - up. Top enrollment is about 8000. I still prefer using a 33 - 33 and 34 percent cutoff. With a cutoff etched in stone, I can see some manipulation involved - with percentages, you do not know. This allows more flexability - one year you are at the top of one class - the next year you could be at the bottom of the next class. When you use percentages you would have to take that % from the schools that indicated that they had a program for that year, but I do not see any difficulty with that, except taking a little time to list them.
10. Christian Brantley won the HWT Title at the Northern Iowa Open - he also beat two nemesis in Eric Thompson, now at Iowa State and The HWT Erickson at Iowa U. He has lost to Wisconsin. Nick Fanthorpe is rolling right along - I believe he is undefeated - one of his huge victories is 10-2 over Slayton of Iowa who was 2nd last year. The Midlands which is this coming Monday and Tuesday has a record number of entrants - headed by Iowa - Iowa State - Illinois and Missouri and of course Northwestern. All of them have excellent teams. There are quite a few other teams - Virginia Tech; Michigan State; Northern Illinois; Northern Iowa; Purdue; Indiana; Cal State Bakersfield, just to mention a few. Starts at 9:30 AM on Monday - Finals are around 6:00 PM on Tuesday. Probably the best college tournament in the United States prior to the Nationals.
11. Elmhurst College is doing quite well defeating Wheaton College; Cortland State; Pacific U.; They did lose to Wartburg, ranked number 1 and to Coe ranked 2, altho in the Coe Match Oster of Elmhurst pinned Rush of Coe, who was 2nd last year - Oster was 5th. Chicago defeated Pacific U. North Central defeated Augustana. Northwestern beat Clarion State and Pittsburgh. Illinois U. defeated Findlay College and McKendree. North Central also defeated UW-LaCrosse. Illinois finished 13th at Las Vegas - Jimmy Kennedy Won the 133 pound championship. Iowa U. beat Iowa State before a New Record for Attendance - 15,955/ Wrestling for Iowa State were Fanthorpe who won; Clark who lost; Burk who lost and Ward who lost.
12. The Victory Plaza at Northern Illinois has been named after the Robert Brigham family. Robert, Sr was the Wrestling Coach; Assistant in Football and Athletic Director there for many years.
13. High school team rankings have Montini at 13th after a 13th place finish in the Iron Man; Glenbard North at 25th and Mt. Carmel at 29th, but due to some losses, the last two will be changed.
14. Some good dual meet teams at this point in time seem to be: Oak Park; Dundee Crown; Dekalb; Providence; Neaqua Valley; Crystal Lake Central; York; Montini; Harvard; to mention a few - I do not know which class they are all in. Best Weekly will give you all this information week to week and rank the individuals also.
15. The United States GR Team defeated France 4-3- Jacob Curby won 1-1 and 4-1 - Peter Kowalczuck lost. At the Henri Delgane Tournament the USA was First followed by France and Russia in GR. Jake Curby placed 5th and Peter Kowalczuk placed 2nd. In FS the USA was 5th - Canada won it over India. The US women were 2nd behind Romania and just ahead of France.
16. In some Veteran’s tournies - Tom Lecuyer placed 3rd in Switzerland and DNP in France; Mike Kelly DNP in Switzerland or France.
17. Some Duals coming up at the Collegiate level: Northern Illinois goes to Dubuque, Iowa for an Open T.; on the 3rd of January; The 10th they are at Edwardsville with Missouri Baptist; the 15th have Ohio U.; the 24th at Kent State and the 30th they are at Northern Iowa. The home meet on the 15th is at 7:05 PM. Illinois is at West Virginia on the 9th of January; At Pittsburg on the 10th; At Purdue on the 23rd; and at Iowa on the 25th.
18. I thought you might be interested in which colleges our Hall of Famers have been associated: Augustana - 6; Bradley - 1; Concordia - 1; U. of Chicago - 2;; Chicago State - 1; Benedictine College - 1; Blackhawk JC - 2; Belleville JC - 1; Crane JC - 1; College of DuPage - 1; DePaul - 1; Elmhurst - 3; Eureka - 1; Eastern Illinois - 30; Greenville - 1; George Williams - 2; Harper JC - 3; Illinois Wesleyan - 3; Illinois College - 1; Ilinois State - 35; Illinois U. - 59; Joliet JC - 9; Knox - 2; Lincoln JC - 3; Lewis U. - 3; Lake County JC - 1; MacMurray - 3; Milikin - 3; Monmouth - 5; North Central - 5; Northeastern - l; Northern Illinois - 24; Northwestern - 19; Quincy - 1; Shurtleff - 1; SIU-Carbondale - 17; SIU-Edwardsville - 8; Triton - 4; Wright JC - 2; Wheaton College - 4; Western Illinois - 17. 2 were Marine Retirees and 2 Army Retirees; 17 unknown. These figures do not include those from out of State. Take a good look at these numbers and relate them to those that have dropped their programs.
19. The Grand Marshalls selected for 2009 are: Naill Collins of Oak Park and St. Patrick;s; Mark Gervais of Marist; Bob Jones of Decatur and Tony Licocci of Rock Falls. Congratulations to these men. Happiness is doing with a smile what you have to do anyway. Blessed is he who, having nothing to say, refrains from wordy evidence of the fact. In the long run the pessimist may be proved right, but the optimist has a better time on the trip. Ego Trip: A journey to nowhere. One of the hardest things ab out the business of life is minding your own.
20. I hope all of you had a very Merry Christmas and will have a Happier 2009.
Ed
