Quote Originally Posted by Big Bird View Post
Gladiator Dad,
I think he may have been talking about a different pair than the Lehmans. This past year, 174 pounder Weston Dobler signed with Oregon State and 149 pounder Jordan Shearer signed with Nebraska. They were both West Fargo grads and multiple AAers in Junior nationals at Fargo. In fairness, Blake Thompson beat Weston Dobler in one of the Vegas tournaments this year (which surprised me quite a bit) and I'm not sure how he has down outside of that match. Oregon State has been able to consistently pull top ND HS kids there and that sucks. We've consistently seen the top West Fargo kids wind up at other places too (Schiller, both Lehmans/kind of, Shearer, Dobler). I don't follow ND HS wrestling all that much anymore, but the depth isn't even close to enough to support a D1 team. Still, it'd be nice to get the top ND kids every year, being as we are the premier in state school.
Thanks Big Bird, those names escaped me but those are the boys I was referring to...Shearer won SIX titles in ND if I'm not mistaken...

Gladiator Dad,
This is what I was told by some of the wrestlers themselves from ND and family members of Ryan Blees...I asked them why we lose in-state kids to other schools and the general consenus was what I stated above. They spoke the same tune about not being heavily recruited and the style of wrestling. I should also clear up what I meant about style, sorry I'm bad at wording, paraphrasing and what have you so I try my best at remembering what they said...so what I was "told" is that Kish doesn't like to teach or coach...assuming styles or moves...if that makes sense.

And about Ryan Bless, Kish might have been looking at Blees but the fact still remains, that John Smith beat Kish to the punch...and how do you say no to John Smith. The Blees family were shocked that they hadn't heard from Kish yet at that point...because they said had Kish been there first and stuck with it, who knows where Ryan would be now....and with Steiner as coach, it would have been almost a certainty where Ryan would be wrestling along with those W. Fargo boys because they are all in the same wrestling circle and talk and they all love Troy Steiner...

To take some heat off Kish, I think wrestling in the Big 10, 12, and Pac 12 played a role as well, but now that should work in our favor as well in the future...hopefully.

Thanks for your indulgence....I'm not ranting, I'm just passing on some info and answering questions.