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The Vision Quest Podcast
A podcast about life, sports, and life in sports! Enjoy!
The Vision Quest Podcast
#93 The Vision Quest Podcast - Par Terre With Greco Minds Lucas Steldt And Bill Kahle
What happens when you break away from traditional high school sports programs to follow a unique path? Join us as we uncover the inspiring journey of Peyton Jacobson, a young athlete who recently made it on to the Greco Roman Wrestling Olympic team, and the pivotal role that early specialization in Greco-Roman wrestling played in his success. Lucas and Bill Kahle from Combat Wrestling and Ringers Wrestling Club, share their story.
Tune in to understand the choices, challenges, and triumphs that come with pushing the boundaries of wrestling!
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Thank you, guitar solo.
Speaker 2:Thank you so so we're live, we're, we're rolling here, fellas. So we are here. On another man, it's been a long time, uh, I don't want to say a couple months since april I believe. Uh, since I've done an episode, uh, had a little work done not on myself, I'm still fat, uh but on the house we had a whole addition done on the main floor, then upstairs we had a brand new bathroom put in. So Liam's been down in the basement for about two months and all the podcast stuff's been kind of crammed off to the side and it's been nuts, and so I wanted to jump the season off here with the off-season kind of stuff. Now that we're back on, I want to talk to Lucas. We got Lucas on board here and then his cohort, none other than the man, the builder. He's not doing my house. I should have had you do my house, guys. But that bill Collie of ringers, not only are you with ringers, but you work hand in hand with Lucas, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah work hand in hand with lucas, right, yeah, I do, yeah, yep, yeah, yeah. So you guys, you guys, uh, have a, I guess, a connection here with someone that just uh made an olympic team, um, and his name is peyton jacobson, which is pretty sweet. Now I remember watching him kind of growing up.
Speaker 2:He's been through the system, right, lucas yeah, yeah so we've talked about that quite a, quite a bit on on here, as far as you know, not only just kind of specializing, but specializing early. And not only specializing but getting away from the high school programs Right, and if you have certain goals that not every kid has, you have to jump off and you have to do your own thing. So, with that being said, peyton, when did Peyton start with your program? How old was he?
Speaker 3:With combat. How old was he? He was young.
Speaker 4:HPG we didn't start till probably seventh or eighth grade.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 4:I mean, I think he was.
Speaker 3:I think Peyton was on the original first year of it, Was he?
Speaker 4:We came over a couple couple times for some camps, but we didn't like officially sign up until about eighth grade, okay, and and then, yeah, we, we were locked in ever since we just, I just wanted to make it a part of, like the whatever curriculum I was doing. I wanted to make that part of the curriculum.
Speaker 2:You know, I look because I like what lucas was doing so let's talk about that a little bit because, bill, I know that you had something going on in the past and this was. It was at a school. What school was that? At that?
Speaker 4:you guys started this at the greco program itself well, we were, um, we were doing greco kind of as much as we could. And then, um, all the, all the guys would always say things like man, I wish I could do this, I wish I could only do greco, I wish I could not do freestyle anymore. I hear it all time, all time. And then, um, uh, one parent, uh, henry amborn's parents. They said, hey, we could go to Burlington Catholic Central and they, they would let you go to, you know, have the kids go to school there. They'd be lenient with traveling. And so I'm like, all right, let's try this and we, you know, develop that. And we were traveling, I made Lucas, I made it so that we were, lucas and I were working together on, like how we were going to form this, talking to Matt Linlin, like, hey, what do you think I should be doing here? And so I I mean I might have been the head of that, but I was really taking advice from everyone because it was a, you know, it was one of the first things that kind of to go down. But then, unfortunately, the pandemic happened. There was a few high level people that were, you know, that were planning on going, and then the pandemic happened. I mean, we were in Moldova when I got a call from Peyton's dad saying hey, president Trump said he's closing down. It's like May 13th. He's like president Trump's closing the country down. You're going to get back soon. So it's 3am and I'm scrambling to get change tickets, and here I'm in the airport, and only airport we could fly into was um istanbul or whatever, and so, yeah, it was so.
Speaker 4:So after that, though, it that portion of the program with that school kind of faded, just because they were sure they were really prepared for a pandemic? No, there was. There was many other people, but then we just did it through the club, those guys kind of homeschooled. And then Peyton's senior year was kind of a homeschool thing, same with my son, cale, and then they just trained through ringers and with Lucas, we just kind of we would always find different places. Matt Lynn would let us come to training camps with the seniors, and with lucas, we just kind of we would always find different places. Uh, matt lynn would would let us come to um training camps with the seniors, while these kids are like they're kids, you know yeah, yeah, so, um so so, but, lucas, you were doing something already before that.
Speaker 2:This was just something to be able to try and branch off right to be able to have availability elsewhere yeah, I mean we were doing the greco thing on blue river and then, um, yep, bill had reached out.
Speaker 3:I didn't know bill was up, honestly, that I mean I think I just met him, you know, to see him at tournaments, but yeah, I really know him that good, like we do right now, and he was always reaching out, being real proactive and get the guys together. And then, um, we were doing our thing and then, uh, he was like, hey, you might do this, toppers. It was ending up being toppers, right, and we actually had a few guys that were interested in even going over there from our area, that were part of our club, saying, well, we might want to stay. A lot of the guys didn't want to do homeschooling, a lot of guys didn't want to do that. He wanted to go like brick and mortar.
Speaker 3:So that was kind of the nice thing with the toppers. So that was kind of the nice thing with the toppers, whatever that place was called, and anyways, yeah, so that would have been, but it wasn't very long. I mean, it was pretty much like we started and then Bill called up and then we kind of, you know, and he did his thing. It was pretty like within a couple years of each other. It wasn't like it was very far apart.
Speaker 2:Was Peyton a part of that system at all over by you Bill, or was he strictly over by Lucas? No, in a part of that that system at all over by you bill or was he strictly over by lucas?
Speaker 4:no, he was always with me. Yeah, yeah, because he lives on this side of the state, so, like, he was always always with me. Okay, high school, right, yeah, his high school. And so then, um, yeah, he he was, he was with me at the school and then, yeah, and we were just, yeah, we were just trying to figure out a way, you know, to do greco full-time and not do folk style was interesting, because you before it was always, you know, you did it in spring, you had a few practices a week, but now we had to adjust, like a whole curriculum, to be full-time, you know, yeah, and to have your core drills and not just you get to a point where you're not learning a ton of new moves anymore, you're just, you're developing like a system.
Speaker 4:And so I'm pretty, I felt like I'm pretty well in line with what lucas was doing and I like what lucas is doing, I mean, and I feel like technically, he brought my level up, you know. Yeah, you know, because I would ask him things, we would talk about things, we would go on overseas trips, so, like you know, that kind of push was leveling up our coaching as well well, what happened?
Speaker 3:there is like the HPG thing, like the once a month hpg was like a once a month training, like the public coming to train with us. That started off first and, like we I think payton was around, that was a part of that first year of it but it was only like 13. Well, it was 12 guys and one extra guy back then was uh, was drexler's we had all three drugs are boys there and an extra extra bite was the, I think gavin. I think Gavin, the youngest one, I think he'd be the biggest one, and Peyton was about. I mean, peyton was tiny, I mean shit. You know what did he weigh back then? Like 49 kilos. Yeah, yeah, I mean in Peyton.
Speaker 3:You know, I remember vividly that we had, we were at World Team Trials and that's when Cadets were in. That's when it was Cadets, not U U-17, but anyways, it was in Akron and Payton was in the semis against the twin brother of the guy. Cale Anderson was in the semis with literally across each mat and I think Payton was well in the lead and something went awry. And then Cale took care of his guy and went to the. Maybe it was his brother, he sent him, I don't know something like that they're the California kids and anyways, cale ended up getting a spot. I was like holy crap, these guys are going to meet in the finals. It was a good problem to have, but yeah, we did that. And then, I think the very next year, bill started a topper full-time program and pulled him out of high school. I remember being at high school state wrestling watching Peyton at maybe 106?
Speaker 4:Wow 113.
Speaker 3:He was doing well. Something happened. He lost and then got to the fifth place match, third place match or something. He got to overtime, had the win in hand and something went awry. I kind of remember it haphazardly, but it was like a tough loss and he had it, I thought, in a bag. Then he was like man. Then next year he went full-time greco and bill started the top wrestling program so it's.
Speaker 2:It's interesting to see the progression that he made, because it was. It wasn't an easy climb for him when he first started out, right because he the new schedule, having to adjust to what he was doing because he wasn't used to full-time greco. But then, watching as he, he was actually not even peaking yet. And as he got older and older, it was watching him just beating these guys that he was constantly like kind of I wouldn't say struggling with, but he was having a hard time with. And then they, some of those guys, went away and new guys came back in and he seemed to excel with each new guy that he ran into and you saw him getting better and better. Were you guys to a certain point when you were coaching him, where you kind of wondered, well you know, is this going to happen? Did you, did you guys ever have any questions? Did the parents say is this worth it? How was that? How was that road for him that you guys went through as far as coaches? Was it a simple one for him? How did that go?
Speaker 4:Well, I can start first. Um, they, uh, when we first were going full time, I think our first trip was in in Sweden and Luke and I were together on that one and he wrestled his first senior tournament and he was like 16 and he ended up taking second in a and it wasn't a big senior tournament, but it was a senior level and and he won his first little handful of money, you know Um, and so he was like you know it, it clicked. He's like oh, I like this way more and it I like this way more. It's not like you're getting ripped on this at all.
Speaker 2:No right, no, no, no, but still.
Speaker 4:Yeah, but once he stopped doing folk style, he just kept continually going up, like continually, he, continually going up. And then that following year he won his first stop sign at the US Open when he was in Nebraska right during the pandemic. I have pictures with me coaching with a mask. He won his first stop sign and he kept excelling. The only time he plateaued in this time was his sophomore year and it was because his school schedule was pretty heavy and he wasn't able to go overseas. There was a real missing component in his training where this year it was much different. You know, between all his coaches, all of us talking to him setting up his schedule, and you know, encouraging his overseas trips, he um, he set himself up a good schedule to be, to be overseas quite a bit and he's killing it and that set, I believe, that set him apart in, in, in how he performed at the Olympic trials.
Speaker 2:So these guys had to train because, lucas, we talked about it, technique is important and going through the um, the regimen of of getting things right, especially on an international level and you talk about how different things are, what does and, bill, you can attest to this too what does a workout look like for someone like that, as far as not only the wrestling workout, but what does he do for workout like going in a weight room? Does he do any of that?
Speaker 4:Oh, yeah, oh, yeah, okay.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 4:I mean for him. He had a hip issue when he was probably about eight where his socket in his hip deteriorated and then over the next year it finally started growing back. So he's he's always constantly doing stretching and taking care of his body.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 4:So he's stretching all the time. He gets himself a pre warm up, you know, stretches himself out beforehand. But he he's huge on his, his strength training and he still works with um, this cory engelberg out of um he trained some vikings, uh, football players, and it's out of the lake area for for a while he still uses him as a source for his, his, whatever his training is.
Speaker 4:So he's very religious with his strength training, okay, which is why when he jumped up 10 kilos, um, he, he didn't jump up 10 kilos, he didn't really. You know, he was, he was walking around at 87, he just didn't cut weight.
Speaker 3:Yeah but he was strong enough.
Speaker 4:You know he was strong enough to compete with some of our strongest americans. You know really strong individuals and he was right there.
Speaker 2:He was fighting with everyone so I mean just looking at the size of him when. That's why I asked, because it seemed like it, because it's a different style, it's a whole different world. Like you're saying, lucas, the, the, the amount of energy that you're putting in one part of the body is completely different from greco to freestyle, you know.
Speaker 3:So yeah, I would say, like you go back and I think, as we asked him and bill was talking about his training, I would think I mean you know, all athletes train to be bigger, faster, stronger, but, um, I think the biggest between a huge difference, I hate to say the huge difference, a big difference between International training. Let's talk about, like I'll give you two examples so just in Greco-Roman wrestling, compared to freestyle and folkstyle wrestling, that Training, like when you go to a freestyle and folkstyle practice In the United States, or even Greco-Roman practice In the United States, it's a lot of wrestling, it's just wrestling and wrestling around. I mean they're doing some gymnastics and they're trying to act the part. But when you're doing real training, I would say I would say over 50, I mean just just just a tad bit, over 50% of your training is really.
Speaker 3:I mean you're talking strength training and power training and you're taking like one like built and built touchdown with Peyton was, uh, keeping your body healthy and so, like we're talking a lot of stuff, we're doing a train. If we have an hour and a half to our session, half of that session is dedicated to body health, um, flexibility, you know, recovery work, pre-maintenance work and strength and all that off the map is strength training. I mean Greco Roman wrestling, you're, I mean, I'm not, I'm just being factual. You're like, for six minutes you're in contact, you're, you're in contact, it's like it's like a. It's like it's like being an nfl lineman for six minutes straight, non-stop, just yeah, think about that.
Speaker 3:I mean, you saw in folks down freestyle there's a lot of time you're not touching anybody. There's a lot of time you're not touching anybody. There's a lot of time on the clock. The instant there's no contact, in Greco they stop the clock. So you know. So I mean, if you go out of bounds, stop the clock. If they put you in partner, stop the clock. In freestyle you can dance around 30 away. Clock's running. You do that in Greco. That's caution two, fleeing the hold. So maybe caution one. Now they changed the rule. It'll be freaking ten days. It seems like.
Speaker 3:But with that said, is the Greco-Roman training? A lot of the training Isn't really wrestling per se. It is. It is to make yourself A much better athlete To be able to wrestle Greco-Roman wrestling. Now you go international compound that. Multiply that by 10 or 20 times.
Speaker 3:In the United States I've been around enough RTCs and big camps and I will say zero of them times do they train to the level that you need to train at to be productive at an international level as a better athlete. Now, a lot of times they're camps, so you're there for three, four, five days, whatever, but I've never been to a place where I thought it was a good international training exposure for Freezer or Greco. They're just wrestling. They're just wrestling With Greco-Roman training. With Peyton, he goes from 49 kilos, which is 99 hundred pounds, to 87 kilos, a mixed Olympic team. Like Bill said, the line goes like this it goes on a nice thick curvature up, and so you know a lot of his training. I would say a huge part of his training is about his body. I mean, just don't talk about that, we're not talking about wrestling moves or any wrestling.
Speaker 3:We're talking about his body.
Speaker 3:And I think I mean, what separates Peyton Jacobson out from the other guys right now wrestling, it's not some fancy technique or some secret moves, it's the dedication to his body and make himself the best Greco-Roman athlete. Before he gets on the mat, you know, just before he goes on a book on technique. So that's the hugest difference when it comes to like, well guys, when you ask a question like okay, what are we doing in Greco that's different than freestyle and folk style, then what are you doing? Different at the international level Is that they're just much better athletes because they make them, they build their, they're constantly building their bodies, they're constantly taking care of their bodies. You know, um, bill can attest to Moldova. I mean to Bill, I mean, I think, was it Moldova you went to, or I don't know if you went to it, like man, they spent a lot of time doing all this pre-training, pre-practice. You know bad practice, but you know pre-heat, warm-up, taking care of the bodies. You know.
Speaker 2:Well, in stretching, especially now with Liam you know, liam talking about hips, I had hip flexor issues, I mean playing soccer and stuff like that. So I mean he's starting to get a little strain and stress on him too, and you know I told him a lot of times you need to go off, you know, five, 10, 15, 20 minutes to not stretch, doing butterfly stretches, but specific stretches that you have to do on your own to be able to, because you're talking about body health and just making sure that everything's you got to be I call it loose, juiced and ready to goose, you know, just ready to go, because if you're not loosened up, you're going to hurt something. So, with that being said, though, too, you're talking about body health with nutrition, right. So these guys are making sure that their body is not only just taking care of and stretch, you're talking about fueling it properly, because without fueling it properly, you're also doing damage, you know so I just want to jump in and look at that yeah go look at the average.
Speaker 3:I don't care what country, I don't care if it's freestyle greco, I don't care if it's men or female, doesn't matter.
Speaker 3:Look at the average body type of the foreigner compared to an american oh yeah, american carries an enormous amount of useless muscle a lot of times, or like more of a bodybuilder. So now the guys are more lean, bill, kind of leaned out, long and lanky, but I've relaxed athletic, like efficient athletes do the best. I know Peyton is stature wise, isn't 30 feet tall, but he's also not a bodybuilder. He is hit when you grab. Peyton is like every ounce of his body is 100% functional, you know. And so if you look at that foreigner, they're a hundred percent functional. An american not every american we see a lot of american athletes. They go out there and they don't look, they just have a different body style and it's our daily diet. I mean, it's really. I think it's our training a lot of it, but I think it's our daily diet and our lifestyle I think it's a.
Speaker 2:We're surrounded by fat, by sugar, you know all that stuff and just growing up as kids, before these guys start out, it's not like they're taught you know anything healthy about nutrition, so you almost have to start over once they get to a certain point.
Speaker 3:Well, here let's go back on that. What Peyton's English is built, mentioned on the trajectory deal.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:So Peyton is wrestling folk style, freestyle wrestling I mean success that we're measuring back in those days at a local success is doing just fine, yeah, but he's right. He's wrestling 99 or not. He's wrestling 40, 45 kilos. He's wrestling 106 in high school, yeah, but he's not. But again, he's not 30 feet tall, he's not going, he's just right. Right, but he's also not thinking about growing into it. He's also not thinking of growing into 190 pound mass of muscle. That do backflips.
Speaker 3:His brain is focused on being the loco yoco hero wearing a leather jacket for his high school at 103 or 113, whatever it was, whatever, I don't know, yeah.
Speaker 3:But if you grow up in hungary or any other country in the world, they're like what are you going to wrestle when you're 28 years old? And then talk to me that their whole life is geared towards getting to their adult weight class as fast as possible. They're not talking about U15s or U17s. They don't even send kids to STEM. They didn't want to piss away the money on them. Nobody cares about it. So look at our Americans their whole life is cutting weight yeah correct.
Speaker 3:Their whole life is starvation, malnutrition. Yep, let me tell you well, that's so, it's.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you talk about that, especially at the youth level, with the kids, you know, because their parents want them to win championships and they got to win this national and they got to win that national and even even at the level of folk style and freestyle it's at, you know they're, they're still preaching, you know do less, just practice more. Do do less competition.
Speaker 3:I think it's more just a mentality towards the American mentality Right In general period.
Speaker 2:Correct, correct. And then once they, once they spring off and the kids decide they don't want to do it anymore, then the parents are, you know, obviously left in the dust. But with, with kids, with kids, today and and to be able. As far as athleticism, when you're talking about peyton jacobson being at the, at 106 did he jump like a huge level all of a sudden, was it? One summer he went like the 150. How how is his progression in weight gain?
Speaker 4:He kept slowly progressing 45, 60, 63.
Speaker 3:I mean really, but Brad's got it right A lot of times. His dudes jump like 30 kilos.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:But he literally went from weight class to weight class.
Speaker 2:In a decent progression.
Speaker 4:Just kept jumping to weight class and when he was younger, younger, he did cut weight, um, but then as he got older, I mean, he was still cutting weight, don't get me wrong, he was still cutting weight. But, um, you know, finally, like this, this last jump, you know, I mean what his best friend is at 77 kilos, you know, you know, and he'd have to, you know, blaze through benji to to get there and I think for him he would have liked to see. You know, benji told a story at his banquet. He said, probably about um, two weeks before the trials uh, peyton calls him at eight o'clock on a saturday and is like, hey, let's go run hills. And and he's like, well, it's raining right now. He's like I don't care, I'm coming over.
Speaker 4:And he comes, wakes up, benji, they go run hills together and he's like they did about six of them and they got to the top. And he's like, isn't it going to be awesome, both of us are going to be Olympians. You know what I mean. So in Peyton's mind it was better for him to go up and, you know, take a tougher route. But sometimes you know, mentally, when you do stuff like that, and he's got a good spiritual life, mentally when you go take a challenge, you know, it kind of puts you up on another level sometimes, and I think that's what it did for Peyton and yeah, this is the first time and I can remember that he never had to cut weight, you know.
Speaker 2:And I mean that's awesome. Yeah, Go ahead.
Speaker 3:Well, I mean, I mean every athlete goes through that. You gotta make weight, you gotta make weight. But but I think you know when, when you take it, like when you go from, say, you go from the high school setting of athletic, so just a quick, just a quick little jump off your land, jump off. But like, let's say, high school wrestling was folk style, I'm saying freestyle and record we still. I still wouldn't promote, I still wouldn't be involved. I mean I would have athletes probably doing it but I would still say no, you're out, you're out, you know. I don't think. I think that. I think folks tell athletes to spend a year or two and I just going to be done with it. It might go kind of level the red. I just think it's a, it's a temporary environment. We could talk about some stuff up about high school wrestling, year two. That's of significance lately. But with that said, it'll prove. My point is that even if it was Greco Robin wrestling, we wouldn't want In high school wrestling Because the mentality Towards cutting weight and winning right now Isn't the world level Of training and progression. So as soon as we take Peyton Jacobson and other like athletes Out of the Just that system, the style is one Is the situation Say, okay, now what we're going to do with you Is we're going to get you To where we think You're going to be At 24, 25. You know, your Olympic, your Olympic weight class, you know, you know, and we, first of all Bill's probably.
Speaker 3:On Bill, I was thinking like 63, 67, 70, you know 70, you know he just kept on eating pop tarts and growing. I mean that kid but but but when he, when he grow in? But but when he, you know he did those. He went and hired somebody. Hey, bill's right. Meanwhile, this thing called a hundred percent list's, a list of checkboxes. One of mine is he went and hired a professional to teach him or guide him in lifting. He used to go in there and do bench press every day. He has his diet plan, stuff like that nutritional deal. He's got obvious coaching and training internationally and planning competition. Then he came to Bill. You can talk about this real quick, but his spiritual part he came to Bill about. He came to bill about the kingdom building. He asked like, hey, what do I got to be doing next? Like what's the what's my what a year or two ago, to come to you, bill, and say, hey, there's something I gotta be doing, something else, something like that.
Speaker 4:Or he. He actually came up, he came upon it kind of organically. Um and and we've talked about this too Like that's a factor in many high level athletes, whether you, whether you, you believe in a higher power, god, whatever it is Um, many athletes have, you know, a spiritual life to them. You know, because once you get up, I kind of it's kind of like a pyramid You're, you're with this big group of guys and now you have to do all this extra stuff to get higher up the ladder. And now, as you're getting higher and higher, you have no one to practice with. You have, you know, like you're going overseas by yourself, because not everyone wants to do what you're doing at this point.
Speaker 4:So sometimes the only person you have is God. You know, I mean, in a spiritual sense, you're like they. You know some of these kids, you have no one else. So for Peyton he was like man, am I gifted, I'm able to go overseas, I'm winning these tournaments, and he's like I just think there's something more, and I believe that really helped them mentally with just some of the daily grind of stuff. I mean, you're by yourself in a foreign country, your family's here, you're in a different time zone. It's not like you can call all the time either, you know.
Speaker 2:It's interesting you bring up that fact. Now, I'm not overly religious. I grew up around Irish Catholics so my parents were. I had plenty of it. I had CCD and all that stuff, so I'm not against it, right, so I get it. I I don't think that it's necessarily, um, uh, something to be against. You know, religion I don't think is. Unless you're against you know people being alive, then that's a problem. But as far as just religion, how does a kid who doesn't gravitate towards that and you're talking about how it helped him kind of up a level you say higher power, does it have to be god they believe in, like what? What is a kid as far as just kind of belief system other than believing in themselves? What do they get? What do they gravitate towards them?
Speaker 3:well, that's that's. I think it's an easy. I mean, I have an easy answer. But but. I think the answer is you need, you have to have something or someone, and I don't, I don't. I'm not talking about a, a family member. It can't be a girlfriend or a wife. It's going to have to be something like a sports psychologist or Bill. Bill and I actually have an athlete going to be reaching out to Bill. Look about this as soon as we have a hypnotherapist what's her? I can't think of her name right now.
Speaker 4:Karen Bird, karen Bird, yeah.
Speaker 3:And so you have some. And I remember back when I was in high school, dudes were listening to cassette tapes and Walkmans back in our day before matches. Back then they were doing that. And so you have to have something, because the number one problem I'll say this, it's any. When you're coaching athletes, getting to 15 to 16 isn't very difficult. When you start to get 18, 19, it gets a little tougher. 2023, as you get older, it gets tougher, because in america there's so much uh stimulus, there's so much distraction and the way our lives are and so like. When you get like bill seven, you got you. When you get to a certain level and now you're, you're like we talk about worlds, there's levels, but then there comes a time you're in a different dimension, you're in a different world. Your whole world is. It's just not even the same level and it's not even levels anymore.
Speaker 3:And so when you get to that part, when you're in a different world and the languages are different, your life is different, like the seasons are different, everything is different about your life. You need to have something, because it's only going to be a handful of people in the country, much less world, that are in your world, with you, and a lot of times you can't use those people because they're kind of, you know, beat you to. The turn was just as well or they're the same boy you are.
Speaker 3:So you need to have a spiritual life, or you need it. You don't have a spiritual life, you're gonna have to have Some type of Mental person.
Speaker 4:Some type of anchor In your life.
Speaker 3:You ain't going to make it. You will not make it, guaranteed not to make it. Not at a high level. You'll make it locally. I'm not talking US Open, national stuff, nca stuff. That's local stuff. Even the NCA Division 1 guys, I bet's local stuff, you'll do that. Even the NCAA division one, guys, I bet you. I bet you surveyed a top 10 of those dudes. They're probably doing something at a very intimate personal level.
Speaker 2:You see it daily, weekly, tournamently, every time when they win. I mean you, you hear it. So it's again it's not a, it's not a knock, it's not a diss, diss on anybody. I just find it that some kids don't believe in in certain things and but they have still have faith in themselves enough to get something done. So I kind of wonder, and to not make fun of it's like, is it a stuffed animal if they don't want to believe in god or or a lie, or whatever it is they want to believe in?
Speaker 2:I think something to go to.
Speaker 3:Just to keep their sanity, they got to have some type of Right. Maybe it's just a sports psychologist person. They've got to have somebody to talk to. It's interesting.
Speaker 4:When we're talking about this, peyton is now at that top 10 in the world level, you know, yes. So when we talk about like kids around here, like hey, what can we do about this kid? It's hard for him to relate with that what the mental mind frame is going on with them. When you see other guys from other countries at that top 10 ish, those guys, I mean many of them. It might be Muslims or they might be Orthodox Russian. You know what I mean Like. So they have something. They, they all do. There's it's very rare that anecdotally we've went through this, like me, lucas and and Linland and even others, and we'll talk about it. That that's a factor.
Speaker 3:It's look at look at the best wrestlers and then look at the countries so Germany, france, sweden at the best wrestlers, and then look at the countries so germany, france, sweden. Then you look at russia, iran, turkey, sweden, serbia, hungary. So you got the countries that are doing really good. You got the country I just talked, the first set of countries that ain't doing so hot in anything I mean they're doing, they're winning here and there.
Speaker 3:But then you got the countries that are just very solid, traditionally and through all three styles. Those countries are a lot more faith-based countries. I mean, no matter how you cut it Now not that maybe all the athletes are, but you got to have to have something because I can't express and I'm not a novice, none of us are in that level but we're in that level of life because of the athletes and you're trying to figure out every nook and cranny. So if you have this 100% checklist, everybody lifts weights, everybody eats right, everybody wrestles in the wrestling mat, everybody. There's a sleeping pattern. We talk about sleep pattern too.
Speaker 3:But if you're checking them all off, it's like, okay, what's the one thing that I'm missing? And that's mental health and got mindset. You know you get the mindset guys in the united states, but that's true and those guys are big faith-based guys. So I'm not saying faith, you have to go to a church, you have to. I'm not saying that, I'm just saying mentally you're gonna have that strong mental program and it has to be, and that's and that's how I'm asking is just for you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm a kid that may not believe in something. You know what is that thing that they go to Right?
Speaker 3:right. Yeah, you got to do some mental training because it's too easy. You know, john Smith has this thing I think John Smith said it, he said a while back, it's something he quoted out. He's like wrestlers are really good at doing the hard things. Doing the hard things hard, like you know, like, say, climbing rope, you know they'll climb rope and lift weights and run. But they're really bad at doing the easy things hard, like you know, like getting their grades up, not going drinking, just sleeping in better sleep patterns, eating healthy, you know, just being good people. Wrestlers are really bad at doing the easy things good, you know, or hard, and so it was a really good statement of that.
Speaker 3:He's right, you know wrestlers, you say, hey, we're going to go drill for an hour Like, oh man, can we just live? You know, you hear that At that simplest example there. You know, wrestlers are really good at digging holes. They're really bad at, you know, at manicuring the lawn, you know. So that's. It's an an important thing. That athletes, you know, as they're going through and they're sitting there saying, well, why did this athlete make and that athlete not, why'd they quit? And we could talk about all that forever. But it's a mental thing.
Speaker 4:It's a mental thing, and one thing that Peyton was always really disciplined with was that he stayed on course. You know like we set up a plan for him. You know we're. You know like like we, we set up a plan for them. You know we were. You know like we all work together and we're like okay, this is, this is what you're going to do. You know you're going to travel here. You're going to try and travel this many times. You're going to let all this, and we found that there's athletes that are like I don't think I'm going to go overseas this time, I think I'm going to go do this, and you're like mother you know just listen.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 4:Yeah, always did. He's like what should I be doing now? Okay, you know, focus more on your, on your bottom game. Hey, when you're, when you're over there in Croatia, see if you can work with Momir a little more. Okay, you know, there's just, there's just like.
Speaker 2:Capitalize on the situation.
Speaker 4:He just followed plans and you know parents can F that up too, where they'll be. Like you know what? You probably shouldn't go over there. We're spending all this money and you're like, well, don't tell me that you don't know why they're not an Olympic champ. You know, like we're making, we're doing the path, we're laying it out. You know we're making it as cheap as we can. We don't. We have, we have full-time jobs. We're not making money on this, you know yeah.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, we talk about it a lot.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah. I'm a carpenter, come on. And so we want to see these kids succeed, and I don't know if it's our ego that wants to see it or not, but Peyton stayed on a path and didn't go his own way. Even with his strength training and his diet, he stays to a plan.
Speaker 3:Well. I'll say this you see athletes right at 10, 12 years old. They're just. They do whatever you say, because you know everything is big to them 15, 16, they're pretty good, they get a driver's license.
Speaker 3:You lose some athletes Now. They think they got to get a job and have a cool car truck, whatever. Then, 18, 19, they get down to high school. They're like, oh, I'm 18 years old and then you know, then they're lost. I mean even guys that go to college. I mean, look at all these guys that go to college. Just say, just focus out. And then you get on college like I'm done wrestling. I was like done wrestling at 23 years old man, what do you do for the next eight years? What do you do it? So you see that?
Speaker 3:So when athletes start thinking for themselves and then listening only to themselves and making their own decisions, that's the start of their end of career. 100% of the athletes that I know, that I'm not even associated with you go watch their career as soon as you're like, well, I'm going to do this and that, okay, they might have. You know, the successful ones are saying that, but they also have got other people coaching them and guiding them to flip the other. But the ones like I'm doing on my own, I know my own body, blah, blah, blah 100 of them. I've all faded up into the sunset.
Speaker 3:As soon as an athlete I don't care if he's 100 years old starts relying on themselves and their own thoughts and ideas, they start running into problems. They need even have to write, though. I mean, let's say the athlete comes to you and says the guy like Peyton and a huge reason why he's so much success. Bill writes the plan up, he calls me, we all talk to Andy Besick, we're all talking about what's shaking. And then, even if we don't agree on something 100%, we talk to Peyton okay, let's mold it into this. Okay, yes, we figure it all out together. And so it's like yes, and then payton and payton lc. Payton's got to say, yes, he's a man, he's got to sit there and say, okay, I'm gonna do this. But payton stays coachable. He doesn't get uh, obnoxious, arrogant or what's the word I'm looking for. Like you know, whatever he listens, he calls, he's calling up now about stuff that's like the little things you know which that's the secret though Keeping those athletes coachable.
Speaker 3:Peyton stays in that zone of a coachable growing athlete and following the plan, even if he doesn't agree with the plan. He'll talk, he's not, he's not, he's not. You know me, me mouth. He'll talk, he's very professional and we'll all figure out. And, bill, we'll figure it all out. And it's like, you know, that's something like well, what'd Bill say? He's like well, yeah, I think Bill's right, he's like. He's like okay, I'll, you know, I'll do this, I'll do that. But with that said, the reason why Peyton's at where he's at, he's never wavered from day one. When he made the choice from leaving the folk style scene, high school scene, to go to Greco, it's like man, you can't come. I mean, you could go back but don't be able to do that. But once he got in, you know what he was. First of all, peyton is highly great Bill. He's like really good in grades. He's like straight A's, right, bill. Yeah, I mean.
Speaker 3:so he's a very smart, intelligent, deductive reasoning skilled kind of person. So he even from like anything, from day one till now. He follows the plan written out and he has a plan. He's not just winging it on monday, his life if you take his life, there are zero negative hours sleep pattern, eating pattern, lifting pattern, mat training, time, tours, overseas, his planned off time to plan time to have breaks. He doesn't have a personal relationship. This step right now, which is a huge one and people get with that's like it's not too much, but there's no personal relationship of course you know you get school time on the toilet, he's gonna take a dump eventually, you know.
Speaker 2:Give a kid a break negative hours in his life.
Speaker 3:now we have other athletes that are really amazing, but the negative hours. So if there's a zero and then there's a plus 10 and a plus negative 10 pains that plus plus 10 because every hour is positive, there's not zero, and then there's a plus 10 and a plus nine gets him pains at plus plus 10, because every hour is not one negative hour in his life. We have our athletes are positive, five, negative, three, positive, six, negative, seven. We have athletes, we all have those athletes, and then those are the athletes that are struggling.
Speaker 2:So do you see, do you see a change ever since you know, like with the progression of Peyton, do you see a change in the mentality? And I'll ask you, bill first, because you see a lot of these kids that are younger, you know you have a requirement, lucas, by the time they get to you they have to have certain requirements. Bill, you still kind of work with ringers a little bit so you get to see some younger kids coming up. Do you see a change now, the with a little bit of Peyton Jacobson success? Are there parents asking more about these, this program, this type of situation to be able to get their kids into it?
Speaker 4:Well, there's a couple that are are interested, for sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a jump to me.
Speaker 4:Yeah, there there's a couple that are interested. They were, I feel like they. Maybe they were on the fence, but now they're like all right, I brought one of them over with me to Alaska who we'd like to be with Lucas a little more. It worked good because Peyton was on the trip to Alaska. Oh nice, yeah, so it worked in that fashion. But we don't usually limit it. We don't limit it to people in the state. I mean, we're kind of searching all the time all over for these kids. Well yeah, Lucas is through for that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean I'll be honest with you and I'll say this and I keep saying this and it makes absolutely no sense, but the more success you have I think the secret is success at a certain position or level or world, the more success you have. It's almost a negative, because what ends up happening is back in the day. I'll just run it down.
Speaker 3:When we had lots and lots and lots of athletes in clubs in general, I was saying folk style and freestyle, having a good time, and the biggest requirement was to qualify for state, win a high school state championship, make a Fargo team come up. We did all that kind of stuff national champions, and everybody could taste it, they could smell it, it was localized, they really could grasp it. But as soon as we said we're taking all these posters down, we took down all of our state champion posters and we said we're only going to put up posters Of world team members or Pan American medals or world medals and obviously Olympic stuff. So we did that and people were like what? What? People that weren't at, people that graduated, hadn't been to club for years, were mad. And so we're like well, you know, like the local athletes and stuff.
Speaker 2:That's the goals of the club.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and so it was just things change over time. You got to up the ante, so then that really so. Then we had some world team members. Well, people are like, oh, I can see that. So that helped get athletes and some more Fargo stuff. But then, as soon as we started getting a world medal, that didn't help anything. Now Peyton can win a world Olympic team. There's more people talking about it.
Speaker 2:But as soon as you say, okay, this is what we need to do, they okay. Well, man, I don't want to do that. Well, because it doesn't fit the normal narrative, even though all you know all the things around them, then they see the proof it doesn't fit the normal narrative and they're like ah I think it's very relatable at the high school level.
Speaker 3:You see, these teams like, oh, I want to be team state champions, I want to be high school state champions. Like individual and like what do I got to do coach? Like, well, so and so trains fortified as a week in high school here and he goes to a club year round and he goes to fargo and he does all these trips and goes to super. They do oh well, I still want to play baseball and football. I still want to hang with my buddies. Can I just stay for practice for 15 minutes and be like that? So they still want you can build, talk about this in our personal life. They want a thousand dollar job for two thousand bucks oh yeah you know that's they want.
Speaker 3:It's the same clientele basis. You know Bill's like oh, I want a deck for beautiful deck for 20 grand. Bill goes well, it's 20,000 bucks. And Bill goes well, I have 10,000. Bill's like, well, yeah, we can build you a $10,000 deck, but we can't build you a 20,000 deck. Half of that, yeah, yeah and so.
Speaker 3:But wills like their brain is still seeing that twenty thousand on deck at ten thousand bucks bills, like that's going to happen. And in wrestling world they're still seeing the state championship playing pression three days a week, no matter how, when do we? No matter, we tell them it has to be done. And that's what's happening here with the peyton jacobson thing. There's more, there's more of people talking about it. But you would think, with the success that we've had, yeah, just an athletes within what we're doing, both sides, you know there would be people beaten down the door Like, oh, my God, so we have to do. But they're like, and you know my coach told me, blah, blah, blah. You know I mean it's a whole nother story. But yeah, I mean, hold our venue of conversation.
Speaker 2:But no, it the club with athletes wanting to become full-time international wrestlers. I'm not looking at it as an aspect of like well, now you can get 50 guys in the room, Not that kind of thing. It really is just about a spike in viewership, I guess.
Speaker 3:I would say that's happening. Bill's right, though it's taking the people on the fence and they're all in them people, but I think we're gonna get those people, probably no matter what. Yeah, and it's made it tangible.
Speaker 4:It's made it real tangible. Yes, for for some of these kids now they're like oh my gosh, peyton coached me when we were doing the the full-time greco thing when they were in high school. It's you know during they were.
Speaker 4:We were doing these, um, you know, greco practices all year round. And little guys like Mike Delightin, who's going to be an up-and-comer in the Greco scene he was in there in like fourth grade. Peyton was coaching him. So some of these kids it's really tangible Like oh my gosh, I seen what he did, he left early. Or some of these kids who were in folk style they were in the the kid, the youth practice and off on the side would be Peyton and Kale during the folk style season doing Greco.
Speaker 4:You know like, yeah, we're, we're over there doing awesome and they always used to look and be like what are they doing? You know, and some of the coaches, and some of the coaches like ollie actually contacted me.
Speaker 4:He's like, he's like it worked, he's like it works man and and that was the first thing that I said to benji after the seconds turned zero and peyton's finals match was like it fucking worked. You know, like, because it worked. You know this plan that we talked about, you know, anecdotally, we've seen it overseas. We've seen these kids pulled from their homes and brought into a gym and living away from their parents because they wanted a better life, and they just ate, slept, wrestling and greco and we're like how are we going to compete with that? Like how are we going to compete with that by doing it four months of the year?
Speaker 2:like yeah, yeah joe what?
Speaker 4:and so this was the only way, and we're like man, we're okay, we've climbed a step.
Speaker 2:We're not there, but we're climbing a step and I think we're getting away from that fact and, lucas, you and I have talked about it a lot before that it's. It really isn't just greco-roman that needs people to specialize, it's every sport now. It's just the way that sports are.
Speaker 3:It's the way that sports are I'm not the one drawing up the rules here. I'm not the one making this world, but just the way I mean, there's a lot of people that'll have a lot more money than us making these things happen I mean look at baseball, for guys, yeah, I mean I don't.
Speaker 4:I don't go to be a carpenter and like, and you know, I want to be the best carpenter, but I'm going to do plumbing three days a week and I'm going to do electrical one day a week and and then you know, carpentry I'll, I'll go in there and I, but I still want to be the best carpenter. I want to, you know. Well, yeah, that doesn't make sense it doesn't make sense.
Speaker 3:No, it's the same. It's the same thing. In my trade Nobody's building transmissions and paying cars.
Speaker 2:No, Well then you break it down to football Football. It's like my nephew was just in town. They're from LA. He's a quarterback. He doesn't go and then go ahead and run routes later on during the game. He goes to quarterback camps. He plays as a quarterback. He only focuses on the quarterback position. He only cares about what the quarterback does. He doesn't care about what the outside linebacker does, except keep a guy out of his face or whatever position it is.
Speaker 3:It's just evolution. I'll give you an example Bill talked about this a lot why we think our trades are a really powerful, useful thing for the position we're at in greco-roman wrestling, and one of them is this and I talk about this in greco is the number thing, the number one thing hurting. This is the number one thing in greco-roman wrestling. It's not folk style, high school wrestling, it's not freestyle, it's not coaches. I mean those things are all not helping us because of those things, but the number one thing hurting us is greco-roman people in greco-roman or that were in Greco-Roman, and they're telling people that you can do these things. They're stuck. We have people that are very, that were very, whatever successful, or coaches or athletes or people in Greco, and they're not.
Speaker 3:they're not doing an attention, they really believe these things are saying but it's the same people I talked to my daytime trade to come to the shop and say hey, hey, I used to build transmissions in 1985, in 1995, in 2005. I used to build transmissions when there were one, two, three, four, five speed transmissions before they had computers. I used to go transmission for the computers. As soon as they got computers I said I ain't doing that shit no more. And you know, they did it, those.
Speaker 3:I go through this every single week. So they come into the shop and I sit there and say, yeah, you have this, blah, blah, blah. How much I, how much can I get? I got $68,000. Depends what you want to do. Maybe it's a high performance, but maybe $20,000, $30,000. I don't know. What do you want to do with this thing? And they're like oh my God, he goes back when I built Transmissions. They're like, well, well, one time my buddy built this transmission and put in the car and it was great. One time that worked great. And the same thing at greco-roman. Well, one time we had a guy at high school, college and all this and what it happened. One time it happened maybe five times of 100 fucking years called an anomaly in the real world.
Speaker 3:What we have to do, we all do real world. You have to constantly invest in education, retooling and use deductive reasoning skills, otherwise you are going to get phased out. I mean especially in our I mean Bill's trade. Bill just can't keep using codes from 1902. He's got to reuse all this stuff nowadays.
Speaker 3:And in my trade, my trade is just constantly trading. I'll say this my trade is every five years I am spending a constant amount of money. The number one thing I spend money on is information and I have to pay the sense. I don't have to do things. I have to have information and I just can't use the process and I can't use the mentality and the tools of yesterday. Them days are over, they've been over, and that's what the problem with greco wrestling. We're using tools, information and process of a time of those vehicles aren't made anymore. Now, if you want to go restore something, go back and do that.
Speaker 3:And so in my trade right now, I got guys trying to tell me in the united states oh, this way to do it, yeah, if I had, if I was, sucking a 1085 and building 85 car, that's what we do, unfortunately. We have athletes in 2024, we have to train, and this is where this is where people get it wrong. We don't train against 2024, we have to train against 2028 and 2032 and the problem in greco-roman. We have people have a mentality like man, I just watched this shit we're doing and they did this. Yeah, they did that yesterday. We have to think forward, and so that's the problem we have right now. We have people stuck in eras stuck in shit that they did.
Speaker 3:We seen, we seen folk style guy comes to a camp, show us the shit that he did and he was good. You seen coaching and all kinds like oh uh, this guy was a great athlete. He comes in, shows the stuff they were great at. They don't, they don't train, you're not, you know, they don't re-educate. So right now, that's what we have going on, right. And I said what do you see, when that's it? Well, you know so and so did this and that. The other thing we just don't. We don't have people willing to re-educate, um, retool, invest. And when I say invest, I'm talking about money.
Speaker 2:You got to spend money yeah, yeah, and we're finding that a lot too, as far as just I mean, even on the side of where we're at, not even greco look at folk style.
Speaker 3:Look at folks watch Folkstyle match from our day back in high school. The Folkstyle game is constantly evolving, always.
Speaker 4:Someone asked me recently Bill, could you, hey, we should coach together. We'll do this Folkstyle thing. I'm like, listen, I've coached Greco now only for about six to seven years and I'm like I don't feel like I'd be doing anyone in folk style of service by by working with them. I'm out of it. I'm out of it like I only like my. My eyes are trained for that. I like study. That that's all I study.
Speaker 3:So like I was like yeah, and there's something to be said for like a 916 wrench is a 916 wrench right, and bill's high crash is probably suffice to be taught to this day and all that kind of stuff like that. But we're talking about getting athletes to a senior level of credibility is the problem, and so many in the United States are stuck with shade tree mechanical work their buddy builds a deck on a weekend for a six pack kind of people and that's what they think record Roman wrestling is. Right now they're like well, u15's doing good. We've always been good at U15s U17s. We're wrestling children from another country that aren't cutting weight, that have wrestled maybe two matches in their life, and we got Tulsa, mr World Champion, coming down here cutting 30 pounds to wrestle 106.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we're going to kick their ass. It wouldn't matter what style of wrestling it would be. You could take any hot, moderately high level folk style athlete. Teach them zero Greco, roman wrestling, send them on the Pan Ams or U15 Worlds or even U17 Worlds and be like hey, hey, just don't grab the links and they'll do pretty good.
Speaker 2:We got kids retiring from Brecco, though.
Speaker 3:We think in the United States that we're like oh, u15's doing good. We've always done good there. We've always done U15, u17. But juniors less U23s seniors.
Speaker 2:That's why Keegan Bassett retired, because he said, nope, I accomplished it all. I'm good, I got what I needed.
Speaker 3:He was going out college coaches and he knows and smart athletes know. Like Bassett, a super, highly intelligent athlete knows it most.
Speaker 2:Oh for sure.
Speaker 3:Yeah, he's probably like you know what I really want to be the NCAA guy and the freestyle guy. And I know I'm want to be the NCAA guy and the freestyle guy and I know I'm going to have to take those hours At Greco now and put them in their freestyle and folk style. I'm not going to build the adversity because I'm not Going to drop freestyle and folk style To put more hours in Greco to be a high level Folk style Greco guy is 18, 19, 25 and 28 years old.
Speaker 2:So why?
Speaker 3:are you going to play that game? Only stupid people Keep trying to play that game.
Speaker 2:We did that with Liam at the same age. We were like Greco's done it's time to do this. Yeah, and we're fine with that.
Speaker 3:We're telling people straight up. Hey, if you drop Greco to focus on whatever, if you have a good coach in freestyle, he should be teaching you enough Greco-Roman crossover ideas with two-on-one playing, that should be sufficient, right.
Speaker 2:I think everyone else is like that.
Speaker 3:But your folks out there should be show up with that stuff that you need and don't need, you know, because you start getting to a certain level. You know what I mean. It's like T-ball. It's like coach pitch to T-ball. You know what I'm saying. You got coach pitch Greco. You got coach pitch Greco. You got T-ball Greco. And now we're going to have some, like you know, some little league team Greco. And now it works for me and Bill fast pitch steroid era Greco.
Speaker 2:Mark McGuire.
Speaker 3:Sammy Sosa baseball, when they're cranking or blowing, killing people with the ball, they hit the ball, they kill a kid. Nowadays, you see little baseball players. That's the difference, you know. I get it. I see little baseball players. That's that's the difference, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah no, I get it. I get it, I and I understand. That's why, like even even knowing that liam isn't going to be good at your like you know competing greco, it's like it's still a basis of all wrestling, like all wrestling like your folk style.
Speaker 3:Freestyle coaches should be working on whatever they need from greco.
Speaker 3:Anyways, I mean yeah and they're what I'm saying a 2-on-1 underhook or whatever, a throw, whatever you think a Greco thing would be in folk style. They should be doing that. He doesn't even need Greco anymore. They ain't going to help him, none. In fact, Greco is going to if he went to a real Greco Romero press, like if Liam or any folk style athlete that doesn a reasonable time frame or reasonable thing goes came to our practice and two things don't happen be completely used up to sit out or to get hurt. Then you get fucked up. You know, you want to, you want to change. We've been there. Hey, I'm gonna get. Let me get.
Speaker 3:Let me change channels for one second oh high school wrestling right yeah women's wrestling oh I hear. I was at this thing the other night and his parents were like who are you? I'm like, well, my daughter's a baby. Blah, blah, blah. And they're like, oh, I heard they're gonna change high school to freestyle wrestling. I'm like, yeah, we're still not competing. And they're like, really Well, what they shouldn't allow freestyle in high school. Yeah, they might.
Speaker 2:I know why you're saying that, but it's like really, here I'll give you two reasons why they shouldn't here.
Speaker 3:I'll give you the rule If they make high school wrestling freestyle, they should ban all private, truly trained freestyle athletes.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 3:Because they do it in gymnastics. I think they stole that rule in gymnastics. If you're a high school gymnast, you can't train brightly, could? You imagine a full-time freestyle athlete coming in to wrestle?
Speaker 2:a first-year wrestler in freestyle. Yeah, yeah, because they're not going to have coaches. I mean there's not enough coaches, could?
Speaker 3:you imagine the last 10 seconds, or somebody to get mangled?
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, no, I get it I totally get it.
Speaker 3:Folk style is the best style of wrestling for public school at the nation's state football.
Speaker 4:If you want to wrestle freestyle, quit it Right. Liability it makes sense for the liability purposes. You know, like you can't I mean my wife still cringes when we're watching Peyton Kale, all, all them you know so that, yeah, they couldn't, they can't handle that, they can't not in the united states, not in the united states.
Speaker 3:They can't handle that I know, I know well, okay, so yeah, but like a peyton thing, it's just um, yeah, you know, I think I think the biggest thing I want to talk about here is like he's a perfect example of an athlete that and I say this a lot one of my punchlines is he took a chance on himself and when he took a chance on himself, he put his trust in his weightlifting coach, his dieting coach a lot. You know Bill Colley, andy Besick and we're in there helping out.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I don't want to forget Andy and those guys at NME.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the reason why Peyton has success is he's checking all the boxes and he keeps checking all the boxes. He's not leaving boxes open.
Speaker 4:He's asking like am I missing something? You know. Like he's doing that he's not crying. Like I don't know what's happening to me. I feel like I'm losing all you know and you're like yeah. I've never heard that from him.
Speaker 2:He's just like no despair.
Speaker 4:What do we need to do? What do we need to do? What do we need to do and as a coach, I've said that too like hey, peyton lost what. What did I miss? What did I miss? Yeah, and I think some coaches are kind of like, well, I didn't miss anything, he missed it, you know. And I'm yeah in my mind I would think like gosh, what did, what do?
Speaker 2:I need to do. What am I missing you?
Speaker 3:know, yeah, yeah, that makes sense I think and I think if we talk about the big, I mean there's others I'm going to talk about in the podcast, but I want to keep it on, peyton is that, you know, is the fact that you know. The important part about the journey, no matter if you're in Folkstar, freestyle, greco or anything, is that you keep checking all the boxes and in your a hundred percent list stays full like and um. You know, like I said, those hours a day, there's no negative hours. You know, right, um. So I think that's the biggest thing here.
Speaker 3:And a guy goes well. Here you got a guy that you know that did what he's doing and hopefully we would still obviously not done yet it's, it's, it's. It's the perfect example of an athlete. He's coachable, he's not falling off the wagon and doing stupid stuff, he stays relying on all of his coaching staffs for the rest of his life and he keeps his life in check. 24 hours of the day, Like just 24 hours of the day, are positive hours, right down to the last hour of sleep, and that's the secret to Peyton Jacobson.
Speaker 2:So here's where I get tripped up on the doing all the right things, because there are guys who do all the right things and don't succeed. So is it just? I'm not a guy that says, oh, luck plays a lot of it, because these guys put a lot of work and time into what they do right. So it's not like they're just kind of like.
Speaker 4:I mean you have to have some genetics. You know what I?
Speaker 2:mean oh for sure.
Speaker 4:You got to have some genetics. Genetics, I mean, you know what I mean. For sure, you got to have some genetics. You have to have some athletic ability, you know.
Speaker 2:But no, we're what we're talking about. Guys that are all specimens, you know. Like, I mean, every guy that he wrestled is a is a specimen, right? So you talk about all the right things and and putting you know, your, your specific thing together, because that's what this is about, your training helped get in there. So it's it, it's a testament again that's why it's helping yeah right, that's why.
Speaker 4:That's why painting is one of the andy's, one of the best at that level right now. Um, lucas certainly is one of the top guys. Uh yeah, at the age level right now. I mean it's it there's so that's where it.
Speaker 2:Why wouldn't you? So now I'm going to bring this into a bigger question than lucas, because I know that you had. You know we just got done talking about how you, you know, pay the bills by doing transmissions bill you're a carpenter things like that. So what is stopping the conglomerate of guys that you guys, you know, cause you got Dominguez in Nebraska? Um, you guys have a network of guys. Why aren't you trying to create something bigger and not even worrying about the Olympic training center, putting the program that you have together on a different scale? You know to, to grow that more, to make that? Our guys, our guys iffy, because I know we talked about money, so I don't want to hear about money. I know about the money thing. How come you guys haven't banded together to try to create something like that?
Speaker 3:well, I think we have all those guys yeah yeah go ahead, I was gonna say we, we work with.
Speaker 4:All those guys like lucas and zach are pretty close.
Speaker 4:I mean mean, I get along well with Zach, but Lucas and Zach have a good relationship. We have a friend in Alaska, this Wes Bockert, who really is kind of up and coming with his guys in the Greco scene, because Alaska has a folk style season that ends in early December. It's not even a factor, they're training. They don't even train folk style, they just train Greco and then compete at the folk style in their own like little um school and they have their own little school so it's an h alaska hpg kind of, and so we've we've done things back and forth.
Speaker 4:They've come down, uh, done stuff with lucas and I when we had some of those showcases. We've went up there and trained, and so we're trying to implement this and and and work well collaboratively you know, so there's ebbs and flows on everything you know.
Speaker 3:But I think right now we're kind of at a high point. There'll probably be a drop-off, I'm guessing, in this next couple years. Maybe, hopefully not. But but the thing is is, like you know, you know it's, you know it's hard, you know you're taking you're talking about a very obscure sport, you know and so people say they want to do something and then you tell them what they need to do to do it and then they're like you know, there's a lot of working, a lot of moving parts. Like you know, you got to be online, you got to be traveling internationally. You, internationally, you gotta do all the stuff. There's a certain amount of people that can make it all happen. Now we can.
Speaker 3:I could be, I could run all those. I could put, put all the posts in the world about, hey, if you love your kid yeah, I always get them one-liners like the best way to tell you don't love them is some can't afford it kind of thing and stuff like that, you know. But it's just like there are realities, you know there are realities. You know there are realities that you know. A lot of people, a lot of people, think they can't do it and they can do it. They just think they can't. But it's hard. It's hard for people to change their world. When I'm talking, when I'm talking to athletes, you know I'll tell you what.
Speaker 3:I'm talking to these girls what high school these parents were high school wrestling, and I'm like man, they have no idea what. They're just in a different world and it's not even levels, it's just a different world. They're concerned about different things and different time frames, just different worlds. This is. You came in, you came, you came to like say, okay, was this transitional piece? It's just totally two different worlds. And when it comes to graco, you're talking about taking an athlete and their family and pulling them into a world that you know. There are a lot of people in gymnastics and polo and water polo, and you talk about all kinds of soccer. All these other sports are in, they're in this world, but people that are in the world of having their local paper, you know, talk about them and having pep rallies and there's a whole nother world.
Speaker 3:And to get rid of that. I mean God, that's that's, that's very. It's not even Greco. It's just leaving the world that they're in to do a different world.
Speaker 4:There's no glory for the parents. It's difficult. It is, as a parent to to not go in and be part of your community. You know what I mean Like you're you're part of your community.
Speaker 2:you know what I mean like you're, you're part of your community, and that's not a bad thing to be part of right, right, right, yeah, but you, you end up being you.
Speaker 4:You leave your community and let's face it, sometimes when these kids do, their coaches are mad at them. Other people in the community are kind of mad at them. You have to have some thick skin, you know there's people now who are finally saying like oh, my gosh, gosh, it worked. You know, I, I, I totally doubt it.
Speaker 3:Well, here's the thing. Here's the thing. Here's what I'm going to tell you. Peyton, making Olympics was great.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And it might've, and it may be pushing people on the fence to our side, but he didn't attract anybody new. Because now what it is is, if I go full-time Greco, I have to make the Olympics. So the problem is, it's kind of a problem, because before it was like go full-time Greco, because you just love Greco.
Speaker 2:So the bar's too high.
Speaker 3:Well, the bar's too high and the bar's just, it's like a dog that can't see past his field. It's like a young dog can't see too far Are you that fucking lazy in this country, is that?
Speaker 2:what we're getting at here Is that we don't drive.
Speaker 3:Look at high school wrestling you get to here in high school wrestling you wrestle how many matches a year? 50, 60 matches a year. You wrestle three times a week. So you fuck up on Tuesday, you can redo it on Friday. It's the whole. You do baseball. You play 100 million games. It's all about, it's all about, it's all about. It's all about. It's all about you know, um competition and and well, here's what it is. It's stimulus to um account of that kind of ability.
Speaker 3:I think I know right now, but, like you know, for you being checked off, you know, check out the box, you're doing good. They're measuring, they're measuring success with um. You know they're measuring progression with success. And it's like every, it's like. You know, it's like a drug. It's like a drug. And so you take them to a world where they're not going to be exposed to constant competition and they're not going to be exposed to all these people knowing what they're, how good they are, and I can't see her. You know, it's just. You know, if you can't stay in the shadows and you, there's very few people that can handle being at trying. It is highly likely, it is more likely than not. It is almost, not almost guaranteed you will not succeed. Right Make an Olympics, it's pretty tough when on the top, making a world team pretty tough.
Speaker 2:The number of the measures. Starting lineup is tough Like 0. I mean right.
Speaker 3:So it was pretty tough and so, but in it for Graco there's no like even when Fargo that's like what two people know about it in your hometown. I mean really. Yeah right.
Speaker 3:You're like where did Fargo go? You know where World Team Trail is at, so you could be the best in the United States. You're like oh, that's cool, how'd you do in high school? And they're like high school, I'm the best in the goddamn world program. It's a different world. Yeah, it's like this. I told bill this you ever seen those videos? And they're like oh man, we discovered this tribe on some hidden island. They haven't seen any. You know, I'm saying that they haven't seen any technology in their whole entire life but, they're killing, they're eating people or other animals, wherever.
Speaker 3:It's like it's another world. They can't, can't, they can't, can't, they can't conceive what we're doing in this world. It's like like going to the Amish community. It's different worlds and people, so we're trying to take somebody out of their world and put them in a totally different. It's not the Greco Roman wrestling, it's the lifestyle and perceived, all the things that go with it in that lifestyle. And that's what. That's what it is.
Speaker 2:So do you, do you have a, like a PR group that you guys work with to like put out the good word about greco? Because, lucas, I tell you, what, if I were a parent and I and I know you, so I know you well but as far as just wanting to get my kid into greco, like there's, you don't see anybody putting it out there. You know what I'm saying. Like, we do our thing here and, you see, once in a while you'll see something put out there. You know, by whoever flow puts something out there, great, you know, once every three months who is. Because, again, we're talking about money. Pr takes money and then putting stuff out there takes money. What? What is out there that's trying to gravitate more not even more people, but just the right people towards greco, or is it just us throw some bait out and hang out and wait? You know I'm saying like to get the numbers. So we are up there, is it?
Speaker 4:but you're talking about, uh, um, the parents, you know again, and the parents are well a factor in everything you do I mean here's, here's a big factor is that, um, as many coaches are, are pretty selfish in with their athletes and when you see an athlete that has some, some potential in in, like, you have to be selfless enough to say you know where you belong. You know, and one of my good friends who was my roommate in college, he's the head coach at McGowan ago. John, where's Becky he? He went to Peyton's little banquet, you know, and it kind of to support me. But but because he's a local guy too and he's a good coach, you know, and it kind of to support me.
Speaker 4:But but because he's a local guy too and he's a good coach, you know, he's just a good dude, you know, yeah, he's like, he's like Bill, I didn't, I didn't get it. He's like I didn't, I didn't get it. I didn't understand why you were doing this, you know, and I'm like I tried getting two or three of your athletes and I know you did not want them to leave, but they would have been better off if they would have been with me on the on that path. You know what I mean.
Speaker 4:Like they were guys, they were really good but they're good athletes and they're going to succeed in the direction they're going. But, um, some of the coaches, it's, it's hard to give up your athletes, it really is. I understand it. But there's going to be a time where you got to be able to say, you know, like man, you know where I know you'd be best and you can make an Olympic team go over by those guys, man, you, you know, selflessly giving them their time to this because we're going to get money. How are you going to fund yourself?
Speaker 2:you know and right I get it, and at the same point, though, too, it's just a. It's one of those things where, a lot of times, you can't tell what greco wants, though you know what I'm saying, like, if you don't, you guys, you don't want to rush into it, but at the the same point, though, too, you need more to prove a point. You know, you need more to be able to put the numbers out there to be able to prove a point.
Speaker 3:So what do you mean?
Speaker 2:Oh, I mean you guys so like. Okay For you like more paid, yes, okay.
Speaker 3:It was an easy one to answer right. So you sit there and say you sit there and say Ferrari Four goes, how are we going to beat Ferrari and watch that movie? They don't. You've got to reinvent the wheel, you know. So we don't reinvent the wheel At home. What we do is we go overseas and take what they're doing. We can reinvent our wheel. So it's super simple to prove. Everybody else in the world Is way better than us and we're just copying what they're doing gymnastics is best in the world and we're copying what they're doing.
Speaker 3:So it's like how do you solve a problem? I call their. Guys in the transition trade spend lots of money to join these clubs. They sit there. Hey, I got this problem. How did you fix it? I might try fixing myself, but eventually end up calling people and they tell me how they fix it and show me. You know that. So in grad school that's what we did. And so guys, so prove me your system works. Well, I can prove, prove, do. What we are doing doesn't work. So number one I can prove inequivably what we're doing in that case does not work whatsoever.
Speaker 3:You can point to four jobs at work. If I was in my transmission trade and I can point to four jobs that worked over the last 100 years, or 10 guys that made medals the last 100 years, I would be out of business. Wouldn't that be kind of a bad step? I mean, if it was freestyle, they'd be killing people, they'd be, they'd be firing people up the right in my transmission shop. If I only had 10 successful jobs over the last 100 years, it wouldn't be so successful. So it's proven that our system isn't working. It's out of date. So that's one.
Speaker 3:Two is we just look at everybody else's system in the world. What are they doing? They're studying kids in greco super, super young and all they ever do is greco period and there's a lot of things working parts with gymnastics and blah, blah, blah, blah. But with that said, how much they're competing and all that kind of crap. But simple, as said, the best guys in the world and everybody else in the world is doing what we're doing and they're doing it more than we are. They're bringing them in at 10 years old, living in schools where you'll see your parents bring you four times a year. There's a lot more crazy stuff they're doing than we're doing. We're doing a real Americanized version, starting them at 15. I'm telling them I need them at 14, but I know in the United States it's probably not safe to do that, so we better bring them in at 16 when they got driver's licenses. It's more actual, real world doable, you know, yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, it's a point to be said, though, too, that you said that once they get their driver's license, you really find out who wants it better.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's a waste of time. Why bring a 14 year old that can't see past his nose? You might bring him at 16 yeah, I mean obviously we're not gonna.
Speaker 2:We're not gonna miss that much development is there what's coming up in the future?
Speaker 4:I'm always I'm on the other side where I'm like I'm like gosh, we got to get him in earlier, but I do understand, like you, there's a lot of logistics in the age level and how do you? Yeah, you know, but I'm always like man, if we could just keep getting them earlier and early be better.
Speaker 3:It's just, it's just. Is that what I mean?
Speaker 2:And I think that balance of work right Cause, like I said, you know, bill, with you, with the ringers program, you know, over there, where you can get ahold of someone early enough and not make them specialize, but at least kind of oh yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, specialize, but at least kind of oh yeah, yeah, you know well, that's the problem go over here well, here's another thing we don't want to bring a guy into greco that doesn't want to do greco. You know how many kids you know like oh, I want a puppy, oh, I want a cat, oh, all right right you know.
Speaker 3:So yeah, so it's just, it's just cruisy, did greco four times, love greco. No, we need a guy who's been doing freestyle, folk style greco for quite a bit of time, competing at a real mental level, and then decide and it's usually people 15, 14 years old, they've kind of done all three styles, been training nationally, doing that kind of dual stuff, and it's like, okay, who's got a really nice record and I don't care how good they are. It's the person that loves it, then we go from there.
Speaker 2:But what that said is yeah, it's the United States.
Speaker 3:We have to make sure we pick our guys right.
Speaker 2:I want everything now. I want it now, right now. I want to win now. I want to medal now. I want a ribbon now. Whatever I want now, what's coming up in the future? You got anything you want to add here. We'll wrap things up.
Speaker 3:I just got a camp coming up next week. That's it. A small camp, a real small camp, a little intimate camp we?
Speaker 4:We have a little small camp a little intimate camp for the program.
Speaker 3:Yeah, there goes the lead from here. We have the cheese. We're doing that big cheese thing, a couple guys doing the big cheese.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, on Sunday Then you go from there up to the NMU camp, come back from NMU camp and then we have a little holiday with folks in July and then we get ready for Fargo.
Speaker 2:Is that camp? Coming up coming up next week. We have a camp coming up Thursday, friday, saturday, if anyone wants to get a hold of me.
Speaker 3:We have a camp coming up. They can jump on in there. It's pretty reasonable price. And then we have Fargo, the Olympics. We have Colton Wyler on the world team for cadets.
Speaker 2:Yes, that's right.
Speaker 3:I think he wrestles for Folkstyle over there. He comes to our medical and nobody made the junior teams for a long time, but we had a good showing, so yeah.
Speaker 2:What do?
Speaker 4:you got going on Bill, same stuff. Yeah, I'm just looking forward to the Olympics. You know just kind of keeping in touch with Peyton and you know kind of worried, you know not worried but like always concerned about like hey, how's his mental game? You know.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, for sure.
Speaker 4:How's your stability? You know what I mean and because I know Andy's got a good grip up up on him at um, nmu, and then you know he's going to be at the Olympic training center for a while. He's got a pretty busy schedule, but Well, let them know.
Speaker 2:We want to get them on the show because we want to hear that story of that, we want to hear the I. I decided to shut off everything and just go greco. So we want to. We want to elaborate on that more, and now we have a dude. We have a dude and plus benji.
Speaker 2:You know we had, we have, pecan, but now we got peyton, you know, making the olympic team, things like that. So I think it's important to get him out there. So, bill, you tell him we got to get him on. I'll see if I can message him, too, out there and he?
Speaker 4:he would have, but, like I said today, he was traveling to um yeah, he's gone yeah yeah, training center today.
Speaker 2:So yeah, whenever he's got, he's available. Dude, he's got the olympics to worry about. That's coming up first. Well, yeah, I don't try to get in the guy's heads with that, he's right there, he's right there with the competition.
Speaker 4:It's not like hey, yeah, we, we qualified. Hey, this is great, you know it's like. It's like okay, this is one step on the ladder. I'm not doing this for nothing, you know. We've always yeah we've always said you're, you can talk to him too. I was, since he was, since he was like nine or 10, I'm said you're going to be Olympian, you're going to be an Olympian, you're going to be an Olympian. And I tell that to a lot of guys, but Peyton believed it, he fucking believed it.
Speaker 2:And you can see those kids when that light bulb goes off, like okay, I'm doing this, and then they just stick with it totally.
Speaker 4:You're going to win world medals, you're going to be an Olympic champ. You tell, and I guarantee there's minimal high school coaches that say you're going to be an olympian. I know that right. They're always like, yeah, there's a chance yeah, and it's not knocking them it's just not in their, it's not in their goal progression.
Speaker 2:You know so we're, we're gonna, we're gonna definitely have a have a watch party when it's going down and and, uh, watch here. We. Maybe we'll even put something live up when, when payton's up wrestling and stuff because I'm sure they'll show Luke and I in the stands.
Speaker 4:Luke wants me to shave my head and take my shirt off, but I'm not going to do that.
Speaker 2:That's what he should do. If he will I won't he should put the combat star on his chest when he takes his shirt off and then have his head shaved and stuff. That'd be great. He's got that tattooed great on his chest, so he's already there. You know this is gonna be awesome, all right, well, hey, dude, I appreciate you guys joining me again. Lucas, as always. What fourth, fifth time? I think.
Speaker 2:No, I think it's somewhere around there he's a veteran, for sure you've got a record going so far, so we gotta you know, obviously we'll. We'll always have something greco going. So if lucas goes somewhere, we'll call bill and then after that we'll start calling other guys. But you're the dude, you're the greco dude, you know shit what's going on. And you're creating, you and bill, creating olympic athletes.
Speaker 4:Man, all right well, we're gonna wrap this up, the whole team.
Speaker 2:You just got a slice of the pie here yeah, well, and it's, it's a great slice of the pie, because it's exciting, it's good to hear about someone coming from the get-go and making it all the way through. So, um, I'm gonna throw in the intro, I'm gonna talk to you guys for a second luke, kind of like we always do at the end here um, 30, 45 seconds, very quick, and then we'll be back. But, everybody, thank you for joining us again. Uh, whoever listened, I appreciate it. It's been a long time. I don't know if people are like, does this show exist anymore? Um, it does.
Speaker 2:So we're back with uh, bill and lucas, and then I want to put this out here you guys, a little spartan blood, uh, pre-workout from anabolic army. Yeah, you should put some of that down your throat. One scoop though easy killers, otherwise we don't need people, you know, taking the stuff the wrong way. One scoop is fine, but that's the new, uh, the new flavor that's out. So good stuff. Again, guys, thanks for joining. We'll talk to you in just a second, but, uh, this has been the vision quest podcast. Peace. Thank you.
