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History of MN f/s & greco?; who knows what happened....
Topic Started: Jun 16 2008, 01:34 PM (1,326 Views)
Tigerfan9311
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back in the early 80's? When I started out, I was a midget, I think it was AAU. Then we switched to Land of Lakes Wrestling for a while. Anyone older than me remember how this all went down? I know MN was way ahead of IA in freestyle and greco at the time, but the Gable dynasty had everyone convinced that Iowa-style was the greatest. Since MN was better at freestyle and greco, I believe that through some sort of Iowa bias, the importance of free and greco was downplayed for years. Chad Crow, Jim Short, Kay Lacher, Gordy Wiborg, and others were instrumental in those years. Just curious to hear some stories from that pivotal era.
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Iowan@heart
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I was on the board of directors for MN-USA wrestling in the early 80s. At the time, 90% of all youth events were freestyle and greco. USA-Wrestling had just won the battle over AAU for wrestling in Minnesota and had exclusive rights to the spring/summer wrestling events. There was a huge push at all levels to get kids into F/S & Greco once the High School season was over. Now, there are so many folkstyle events, that kids are burned out by freestyle season. I've got nothing against NYWA, but it has basically killed freestyle at the youth level in Minnesota. (Right now it's a better format, better product than MN-USA is offering).

In the late 70s, I wrestled for the Iowa AAU Freestyle and Greco teams. I wrestled with the team at the Junior World and Junior Nationals. To be honest, I don't remember how we did against Minnesota wrestlers in freestyle back then, but everyone feared Minnesota Greco guys. They were in another league at the time from us farm-boys.

By the way, our (Iowa) Greco coach at the time was Mike Farina who was the last high school wrestler to qualify for the olympics. Maybe Deitchler can get the spirit going in Minnesota again.
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determined
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Man you must be really old Iowan. Any stories about how you used to make fire?
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Jfjjames
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Minnesota still seems to do very well at the Duels.
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eskane
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Minnesota has won the Greco Duals 17 times.... really 16 times because one year we were CO-CHAMPS. that year we had 4 teams and our 3rd team also won the consolation championship. We were in the finals the first three years we were in the duals- - but lost to Oregon twice and Illinois once.... from there on out we won it almost every year.... I remember one year we beat the Wisconson RINGERS team 44 to 1 in the finals- - a Wisconson kid scored one point on Cuperus - going out of bounds. The team never let him forget it...Cuperous beat him 11 to 1.
One of the best wins was when we came back on California- - down 24 to 3 and beat them 29-29 on tie-breaker!
It is much harder to win it now--- you must have all of your studs - -and 9 good backups.....but it still remains just a "warm-up" for FARGO.
I get so mad at a kid that just quits after the duals- - because he had maybe 20 matches in 4 days.....in Greco & F S. Then they go home and take all of July off.
When the best they can get is in JULY!
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vet
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I recall minnesota AAU dominating Freestyle and Greco in the late 70's. Billy Maresch, Pat Fabor, Jim Martinez, Dravis boys, myself, Mooney? from Robbinsdale. Jim and John Meade, The twins from Prior Lake, Bigelbach, Mark Starr,Wasman, Shae Kennedy, Tesch from Moundsview, Joe Cyr, Pat Halloran the list goes on.. Wasn't there a brothers from Bemidgi, Nestle Grimes? The Barretts from Annandale,I think about Jim Meade sr. often and Jack Gauze?
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