By Mike Chapman, W.I.N. Columnist

If I had a magic button that I could push to get anything I wanted for wrestling, here is a short list of things I would do:

1. I’d move the collegiate wrestling season away from March Madness. Wrestling does itself a huge disservice by continuing to hold its premier event, the NCAA Championships, during the height of the men’s Div. I basketball tournament. The nation’s sports media are so obsessed with basketball that 99 percent couldn’t care less about wrestling’s biggest shot at the spotlight. For wrestling’s decision makers to continue to ignore that extremely plain and powerful fact of life is stunning!

2. I’d try a dual meet Final Four national tournament wrestle-off like J Robinson has been advocating for several years. “It’s something that we need to grow our sport,” said Robinson in a USA Today article by Gary Milhoces, March 14. I would start the season the first weekend of January and hold the current style Division I (individual) championships in mid-April and the dual meet championships the last weekend of April. Sixteen teams would be selected to participate in the bracketed events, just like with basketball.
Tournaments like the Midlands and the Southern Scuffle could kick off the pre-season with their events in late December, but the collegiate dual meet season wouldn’t start until January.

3. I’d form a Wrestling Commission whose task it is to offer leadership in all areas of the sport, but primarily to promote and market it. One of the persons I’d put on the force ASAP is Al Bevilacqua, who truly understands how “big players” get involved. What he has done with the “Beat The Streets” program is amazing.

4. I’d name J Robinson to head up the Commission and find him the money to implement the changes that needed to be done. Robinson is a visionary in the same mold that Gary Kurdelmeier was back in 1972 when he took over a slumbering program at the University of Iowa and turned it into a powerhouse. Kurdelmeier understood that wrestling needed to change in order to grow and he wasn’t afraid to take chances in order to get the program moving upward.

Prior to Kurdelmeier, Iowa meets were held on a Saturday afternoon with intramural basketball games in the next room. Crowds of 100 or less were common and media attention was non-existent. Within a few short years, the Hawkeyes were wrestling on Saturday nights and drawing 10,000 fans for some meets, with newspapers, radio and television all involved.

It is obvious that Robinson knew what it took to turn Minnesota into a national power and he also understands what it takes to make wrestling grow. He is an idea man in the Kurdelmeier mold. Robinson is not afraid to dream big, state his opinion and take calculated risks to make things better.

5. I’d provide the funding to make the Wrestling Commission a viable force, able to devise a long-term game plan and to activate it. Wrestling desperately needs a central authority whose primary responsibility is to market the sport of wrestling like never before, and a charismatic person to lead the charge.
THE STRUGGLE TO make wrestling a more attractive spectator attraction has been going on for at least six decades.

“How can we stimulate more interest in wrestling among the spectators and contestants?” asked Fendley Collins, head wrestling coach at Michigan State University, way back in 1945. Writing for the Official Wrestling Guide, published by the NCAA, he offered one main suggestion: more pinning!

“The answer is to teach a more interesting and spectacular style of wrestling,” Collins wrote. “Too many of our leading college coaches are so greedy for winning they seem to have forgotten that the ‘fall’ is the real objective of an amateur wrestling match. Wrestlers are being taught to hang on and stall out a match with a two-point lead instead of opening up and wrestling. Then, the average spectator begins to wonder if that is all there is to the sport because nothing much happens in these stalling matches.

“Athletes who stimulate the most general interest are the Tom Harmons, scoring the touchdowns, the Babe Ruths hitting home runs and wrestlers scoring falls.”

He asks what is the solution. “Boys can and should be taught that the ultimate objective is to pin the opponent’s shoulders to the mat and not just to sneak behind and hang on.”

I agree totally. And so does Wade Schalles, one of the greatest pinners to ever step on a mat. I have just seen a preview of his fascinating new DVD entitled “Legal Pain: Mastering the Art of Pinning.” The DVD incorporates film of Wade demonstrating pins 25 years ago with the Wade of today. The commentary is simple yet sparkling and the skill with which Schalles teaches is top of the line.

The man who once pinned his way through the famed Tbilisi Tournament in the old Soviet Union, decking three World champions in one day, understands the nuances of pinning like very few ever have. He walks the viewer through the steps in an easy-to-grasp style.

One phrase he uses constantly is “create discomfort.” By creating discomfort, a wrestler can force his foe to choose going to his back. “Legal Pain” is a great video for anyone who cares about the art of pinning!

WITH THE LATEST addition of Bill Koll, three of wrestling’s greatest pinners now have trophies named after them. Bill Koll has recently joined Dan Hodge and Wade Schalles in that elite circle. The Outstanding Wrestler Award at the NCAA Division I tournament this year was introduced as the Bill Koll Award, going to Derek Moore of Cal-Davis.

“We had an anonymous person who realizes that Bill touched the lives of so many wrestlers through the decades,” said Mike Moyer, executive director of the NWCA, which sponsors the award. “This anonymous donor provided the necessary funding to get it started. We were very honored to have Bill’s son, Rob, present the award this year.”

Bill Koll was a three-time NCAA champion for Iowa State Teachers College in the late 1940s. He never lost a match in college and was known for his aggressive style of wrestling and his obsession with the fall. He pinned his way through the 1948 NCAA tournament at 148 pounds, and was twice voted the Outstanding Wrestler of the meet.

Kudos to the anonymous donor and to the NWCA for recognizing the role that Bill Koll played in the development of the sport, both as a wrestler and as a coach at State College of Iowa and Penn State.
And kudos also to Matt Pell of Missouri, for winning the Gorrarian Award for most pins in the least time, by scoring four in his efforts to place third at 165 pounds.

All three pinners — Koll, Hodge and Schalles — are profiled in my book, “Legends of the Mat.” I am hard at work on the biography of Hodge, tentatively entitled “DYNAMITE DAN: The Dan Hodge Story.”
It will include many behind-the-scenes stories about Hodge’s legendary careers in amateur wrestling, professional wrestling, amateur boxing and professional boxing. Dan is the only man in history to win national titles in both boxing and wrestling and I have spent many interview hours with the Sooner legend over the past year.

By the way, Dan will receive the Lou Thesz Award, April 21, at the Cauliflower Alley Club (CAC) annual meeting in Las Vegas. The award is named in honor of the great pro champion Lou Thesz, a true shooter and hooker. In the pro jargon, “shooter” is a wrestler who can really wrestle when he has to or wants to, and a “hooker” is a wrestler adept in submission holds, such as joint locks.

Thesz, one of my close friends, died in 2002 at age 87 and the award is given to a wrestler who represents what Lou stood for, in and out of the ring.

Thesz and Hodge were close friends and shared an intense love of both sides of the sport, amateur and professional. They are expecting nearly 800 at the awards banquet, and I will be there to see Dan receive this tremendous tribute.

(Mike Chapman is the founder of W.I.N. and has written over 500 columns on the sport of wrestling. He is also the executive director of the Dan Gable International Wrestling Institute and Museum in Waterloo, Iowa. Mike and his wife, Beverly, were given W.I.N.’s IMPACT of the Year Award for 1999, while Mike was named Journalist of the Year by W.I.N. in 2006.)