2010 World Championships

Coaches Apprentice Program (Day 6)

Friends Off the Carpet

Last year in Turkey at the Junior Worlds, the CAP coaches met and made friends with Reza Herbst.  He’s in Moscow this year as a FILA VIP.  Reza saw the CAP coaches in the lobby of the Cosmos and came over to talk with Mike Stokes. 

“My friend, Action Jackson!” Reza said to Mike while giving him a bear hug.

Lots of friendly banter.

He asked Matt Oney and me where we were from and we said Hawai’i.

“Hawai’i,” Reza said in a mock amazed voice.  “You must be angels.  Angels come from Heaven.  Hawai’i is heaven and you come from Hawai’i.  I am in the presence of angels.”

Reza talked about international wrestling and the coming together of nations to compete.  He said that everyone in America thinks that Iranians hate the USA but that’s wrong.  If you asked 70 million Iranians where they would want to live if not in Iran, they’d say USA.  It’s not the people, he said, it’s the politicians. 

And in wrestling, he said, the Iranian wrestlers want the USA to medal – when the USA wins medals, it’s good for wrestling.

Everything he said made sense to this angel.

Reza spotted Daniel Igali, the 2000 Sydney gold medalist from Canada.  He called Daniel over for introductions and photo ops.

After lots of pictures, we all shook hands and said we hoped to meet next year in Turkey for the Worlds.

Robbert Wijtman

Robbert is a CAP coach from Northern California with a passion for photography.  Both Coach and Press credentials hang around his neck.  He retired from being a government biochemist and bought a ranch in the Marble Mountain Wilderness.  He’s a club coach.  At this tournament he wears a green press vest, taking pictures of all the action.  We are trying to link his photos to the blog.  He does wonderful work.

CAP Field Trip (Day 2)

Julia said she would be at the venue at 4:00 p.m. to pick up the coaches for their trip to the Wrestling Palace.  She arrived at 4:01 p.m., apologizing for being late.  She had been baking pirogues for us and lost track of time.  Matt Hampton brought back some pirogues for the coaches who stayed at the venue.  To die for.

Cody Bickley (NCEP Manager for USAW), Ted Schanen (high school coach from Colorado), Keith Norris (the head coach for Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland), and John Grecco (club coach from Florida) made the field trip to the wrestling palace.  The wrestlers at the Palace go live on Friday nights so the CAP coaches didn’t get on the mat even though they had their wrestling shoes with them.  Two hours of live GR for a group that ranged from 15 – 22 years old.  Keith said that even when there was a mismatched pair, talent-wise, the superior wrestler showed no mercy.

Ted came back from the gift store at the Wrestling Palace with a Russian singlet – a red one (what else could it be?) – that he’ll wear on “Red Flag” workout days, signaling by his coaching outfit what level of intensity and focus he expects from his athletes.

Keith decided that Sambo shoes would make the perfectly unique souvenir to remember his time at the 2010 World Wrestling Championships.

Erasing a Bad Day on the Mat in a Foreign City

Our 3 wrestlers today exited the tournament way too early and in very preventable ways.  We regretted having to return at 7:30 p.m. for the US-less medal matches, but we needed to complete the filming for the day.

Steve Glassey (he runs Camp of Champions Wrestling Schools and is based in California) and Kurt McHenry (he has a club program in Northern Virginia) led several CAP coaches on a short walk to a take-out restaurant that served shawarma.  We ate spicy shaved chicken wrapped in a soft, thin, disc of pita bread, with a salad like cabbage-mix, tomato, cucumber, hummus, and a dill-yogurt dip.  One shawarma made a delicious and filling meal.

But while our stomachs were satisfied, our spirits were wanting and to remedy that we found a bar that sold spirits and beers.  I drank a cold, tall, dark Kozel and felt better.  Steve ordered a round of Jagermeisters for the willing at the table as a consoling chaser.  We walked back to the venue emotionally recharged, the sad day on the mats behind us.

A Farmer’s Market had been set up on the street that fronts the venue.  They sold meats, sausages, fish (dried and fresh), eels, plucked whole chickens, cheese, honey, cashews, pecans, peanuts, sunflowers, all sorts of vegetables, and fruits of every kind.  Russian grapes and apples taste good but different than US grapes and apples.  The place was jammed with people who must have been practicing for eating etiquette at the Cosmos.

Bathroom Layout

Our bathtub must have rusted out sometime in the past and management replaced it with one with adjustable legs and a sliding wooden façade that keep it elevated off the floor.  I think that the tub rusted out because our bathroom floor has a drain in the middle that is needed after every shower no matter how I pull and position the curtain.  But no curtain could possibly hold back the fire-hose pressure of water that jets from the hand-held showerhead and blasts the dirt and soap off your body as much as it washes it off.

Two heated pipes curve along the wall next to the toilet at head height to the person sitting.  We think the pipes are heated towel racks and that’s how we use them.  But the positioning forces anyone sitting there to lean to the right to avoid a wet towel or a burned ear.

As if that weren’t enough, the toilet seat is too small for a normal adult’s bottom, even without the forced awkward angle of use.  And they installed the toilet 6” – 8” too close to the wall.  Hot pipes, small seat, and no room to sit up straight means that no one reads in our bathroom; you need both of your hands free for balance.