By Mike Chapman, W.I.N. Founder & Columnist

Being aggressive is the key to an individual wrestler’s success, for a team’s success and for the sport’s success. If you want to achieve anything in life, you have to have a plan of execution, and then be aggressive; attack the plan and make it work through sheer force of will and decisive action.

Those who want to see the sport grow — including all the leaders at the various levels — know you can’t sit idly by and wait for good things to happen. You have to chart a plan of attack and then put it into action.

Based on my 40 years of association with the sport, it’s obvious to me that fans love good, hard, fast-paced action and will support such action with their attendance. They want an aggressive style of wrestling. They love athletes like Ben Askren, Jake Herbert and Cole Konrad because they are so aggressive. Those are wrestlers who force the action and create interest in the sport.

All indications are that we are heading into a collegiate season that will be full of heated action and aggressiveness, led by what many consider “The Big Four.” In the past 19 years, just three schools have won all of the 19 NCAA Division I team titles. Since 1989, Iowa owns nine titles, Oklahoma State has won seven and Minnesota three. Those three schools have dominated the Division I wrestling scene.

Iowa State has long been a championship contender, but its last title came in 1987. The Cyclones own a total of seven NCAA titles, but none in the last two decades. Still, with a total of seven NCAA team titles, the Cyclones are in “The Big Four.” (The University of Oklahoma is close, having won seven titles, but none since 1974, when Stan Abel was the coach.)

Now, the Cyclones are on the move once again. Last year, under first-year coach Cael Sanderson, they surged into second place, only nine and half points behind the champion Gophers. They did it with an aggressive style of wrestling that Sanderson, the most successful college wrestler of all time, demanded from his athletes.

On Oct. 18, I was in the crowd of 300-plus at the Cyclone Wrestling Club’s kickoff. When he got up to speak, Cael left no doubt where he stands when it comes to a wrestling philosophy. He said he believes totally in an all-out, aggressive style. He said that the ISU tradition demands no less — and that the fans deserve no less.

“Wrestle hard, all out, all the time,” is what Cael Sanderson said Iowa State stands for. He is preaching that wherever he goes, and the faithful know he means it. Cael Sanderson is not a man who plays word games.

Just a week earlier, I was in the Hawkeye wrestling room across the state and heard the exact same message from their coach. Tom Brands is, like Sanderson, entering season No. 2 and he is as driven as anyone I have ever known.

When addressing his team, Brands was about two feet from the wrestlers and was so intense that he had everyone in the room on the edge of their seats. It was one of the most inspirational talks I have ever heard from a coach. It must have been what it was like to hear Knute Rockne talking to his Notre Dame football teams in the 1920s, when they were winning national titles year after year and Rockne was building a reputation as the most fiery collegiate coach of all time.

Basically, Brands was telling his team this: You are extremely fortunate to be in a room with a tradition like Iowa’s — but what you make out of that good fortune is totally up to you. If you want to become a part of the tradition, you have to wrestle like the great champions who came before you wrestled, and that means being constantly on the attack!

And, he said, to be constantly on the attack, you have to be in sensational shape. It all comes back to how hard you are willing to work right now, in this room, before the season starts and then carry that commitment into the season.

What I like is that Sanderson and Brands also stressed how important aggressive wrestling is to attracting fans! They know that fans are an essential part of the sport, that no sport can be successful without working hard to expand its base. They get it.

I didn’t have the privilege of being in the practice rooms in Minneapolis or Stillwater, but I know J Robinson and John Smith well enough to know that they are also determined to coach and demand an attack style of wrestling. Not only does that style win matches, it pleases the fans and attracts the media.

From all I’ve heard so far, this could be one of the most exciting collegiate seasons in history. The coaches at the top of the heap are going to demand that the other coaches around the nation step up and teach the same type of wrestling — an all-out, aggressive style.

When I created the Dan Hodge Trophy 12 years ago, that’s what I wanted it to stand for, an aggressive style of wrestling. The Hodge Trophy has been called “the Heisman Trophy of wrestling” and continues to grow in stature. Pins are the best way to determine how aggressive and dominant a wrestler is, and pins will continue to be the main factor in assessing the top candidates for the Dan Hodge Trophy.

In order for collegiate wrestling to grow, I believe that aggressive wrestling is essential. I am among the advocates of that philosophy and I hope to see it expanding all across the nation.

(You can read the rest of this article by subscribing to W.I.N. Magazine. Either contact our office at 1-888-305-0606 or subscribe through this website by selecting the “Subscribe” section on our front page.)