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Wrestling Blogs - Martin Floreani

Tons of Ideas

April 10, 2008

I got Ideas, you got Ideas...Everyone has ideas. Some Ideas are great....they are thought out, have an simple element to them, some are long term, and have many layers of success going for them. Some are faddy and ridiculous and thought out by people who are too smart for their own good or not educated enough.

Most ideas are hard to implement but easy to talk about. And some ideas are stolen like this one....so this is MY idea.

I was sitting at Reno World Championship Tournament booth this past weekend and I happen to be sitting next to Mike Krause and Roger of Cliff Keen. Those guys are pretty cool dudes but I could see they were getting tired of showing people this University of North Carolina Singlet. Time and time again. I think it was 832 times total over the course of that weekend. Furthermore the singlet was hidden but people were still searching it out. Every little kid wanted to be a tar heel, if only it was for sale and they had the cash...but this one wasnt for sale even though people tried to buy it numerous times through kick backs. I think Mike and Roger would have done it, if I wasnt observing so closely :)

Anyways I think that every major school should be selling their singlets to little kids. This of course takes Licensing from the colleges but I believe it will be worth while for Brute and Cliff Keen to accomplish. They will sell the singlets like hot cakes so Brute and Cliff Keen will win. The schools will win with the extra cash they generate. Wrestling wins with exposure and the branding that higher education and wrestling go hand in hand. The wrestlers will win by wearing sweet singlets and looking slick.

I would also like for someone to make a University of Texas singlet and start selling it. That would be sweet to see and I think through sales the University of Texas athletic department would raise an eyebrow for a sport they dont even have but should have. I cant wait to go to first class dual meets less than a mile away

It is great when we as a sport can find win-win scenarios that has layers of success going for it. That is what business is all about and I think this is one of those times. So if your at a college get on the phone with your sponsor Cliff Keen or Brute and make it happen!

Post a Comment

#2	Richard Rockwell April 17, 2008 at 10:21am Great idea. If other sports can do it, why not us? reply
#1	Steve Silver April 14, 2008 at 11:05pm also great idea with the singlets, thats why every pro teams sells their uniforms because it's a great idea. reply
#0	Steve Silver April 14, 2008 at 11:03pm I met with Deloss Dodds about a year ago with Shawn Charles and Mike Moyer about Texas adding wrestling. Mr. Dodds was very polite and said he was not against wrestling and would consider it if he could find a way. He told me he was once room mates with Joe Seay in college and he coached a wrestling class in college. So he knows wrestling and he likes it but needs some reasons and ways to add it. Seemed sincere to me and I think if John Smith and Oklahoma States AD would go down and meet with Mr. Dodds our odds would go up. reply
#-1	Joe Delia April 14, 2008 at 1:05pm Why do some of these AD's got something against wrestling? It doesnt cost a lot of money and is very flexiable. What gives? reply
#-2	M Budz April 11, 2008 at 11:13pm Good stuff, Martin. Props. reply
#-3	Ted Smith April 11, 2008 at 1:45pm One in a million - "So you're saying there's a chance" reply
#-4	Martin Floreani April 10, 2008 at 9:56pm John, There are many roads to the promised land, we got to find ONE, and if its not one in a million it is one in 2 million and Im going to try and find it! Im going to keep that part of my vision for this site. reply
#-5	Dom Mancini April 10, 2008 at 9:47pm that is great - you know I was driving down the road the other day an idea hit me like a ton of bricks - with college wrestling heading for extinction - lets face it the sport ain't coming back like it was in the 70's but high schoolers keep getting better and better and for many of them there is no place to go other than to be a back up at a D 1 college - so here it is - dual meets should consist of two wrestlers for each weight class wrestled on two mats - so 125 lb match starts one team sends their wrestlers out and the other team then matches thier wrestlers how ever they want - then it switches for the next weight class and so on - this would double the number of wrestles participating in a dual meet and give opportunities to kids that normally could not contribute to contribute to the team also this would make for more complex coaching decisions - match ups would become more important - the reason I think this would be good is that many colleges that sponsor wrestling are going to keep wrestling forever - but we need to use them as a vehicle to get more kids participating - i.e we just doubled the number of d1 college wrestlers. reply
#-6	John Frizz April 10, 2008 at 9:40pm Martin, I was the president of the University of Texas Wrestling Team for 3 years and helped Jim Giunta get the NCWA off the ground back in the late 90's. I pushed and pushed and pushed as hard as I could to get the university to even consider transitioning to a DI level as they were already in the Big 12, had ample competition, and plenty of financial resources to add wrestling. But UT is strictly a Title IX school and even cut men's soccer when I was there to add women's rowing. As a matter of fact, when I spoke to the AD Deloss Dodd about the possibility of adding a varsity men's wrestling team if I could find outside donor's to support the squad, he flat out said to me, "There's not a one in a million chance I would allow wrestling to become a varsity sport at this university." I lived in Austin for four years, came from Chicago and wrestled from the age of 8 and even coached HS wrestlers in Austin and in the Big Ten later in my life. You tell me, with words like that from the AD, what hope do we have of really starting a program at UT. What a shame! reply
#-7	TWT RULES April 10, 2008 at 7:20pm It would be great, not sure why it hasn't happened. Certainly not the first time I've heard someone wondering why they don't make them! reply