Williams needs to be full sized, or best guy goes between VV and him at 49. Unknowns in Melcher and Mower. Can Mower go 65 and develop. Still a chance for a better 65 to transfer in . Pipe dream would be Cam Steed tell Gary Wayne to get on that! He should have been a Cowboy anyway
HS Recruiting News
- Thread starter DEWrestlingFan
- Start date
Who's Mower, the new transfer? Yeah it would be great if they could get Steed, don't know if that's a possibility or not
I've been wondering about Olejnik, haven't heard of anybody has really been after him. Sure would be nice to get him.
It has been tough for the gophers this off season. I feel for them, that being said I'm glad Spratley is coming in
It has been tough for the gophers this off season. I feel for them, that being said I'm glad Spratley is coming in
doubt he could get down to 65 but who knows. he was about the 3rd best 174 in the room last year. Maybe he has grown into 84 by now. idk
Olejink has already been to North Carolina State, Arizona State, Purdue, North Dakota StateI've been wondering about Olejnik, haven't heard of anybody has really been after him. Sure would be nice to get him.
It has been tough for the gophers this off season. I feel for them, that being said I'm glad Spratley is coming in
Boy he's really getting around. North Dakota St visit is interesting, either him or Caliendo must plan on moving weights.
He’s one reason I know it’s bad, real bad.
He hasn’t really been on here defending this trash. Which means he knows it’s trash.
I just wish @leecothran had the balls to call John Smith out.
Similar to Gundy in many ways.
It sure would be nice to have JS do some proactive things to show he is trying, which is NOT similar to Gundy.
@leecothran knows what the fanbase is looking for and many of the things that would help us return to prominence. It would be outstanding if he could do a podcast calling the situation on the carpet? Possibly get some action and information moving.
We've already had a staple of the fanbase (in my eyes) state that he is moving on from following and spending resources on Wrestling. That is a bad sign to me.
Likely similar to the Mike Gundy and Robert Allen relationship.Robert is a homer and will not state the obvious bc he won’t bite the hand that feeds him.He is scared of losing access to the program and his job.Could be a similar deal with wrestling.
This is the problem on here with 99% of the posters they think they know everything about Wrestling you guys really think John Smith owes it to respond to you People like Harley wrestler 17 and Okie Pat 99% of their posts are negative or they think they have the answer. I would like to know if any of them have ever wrestled a college match in their life or have donated any money to resolve the issues they say we need to fix in the program
Most recent episode is pretty critical.
This isn't my job. I have never made any money off of the podcast. I don't have much access. I'm just a positive person and look at the bright side.
Being a pessimist and only looking at the negative is easy. I'm not into that. If you prefer that, start your own podcast.
-I can tell you with 100% fact that I don't know everything about Wrestling.
-Wrestled a college match, nope. But, what a nice way to further dwindle a fanbase. I hope people in our sports marketing teams have a different view here. I know its the 2020's but I guess I should exempt myself from following softball and girls track?
-Donated money, yes, but I won't again until I feel I can see an ROI.
-I am not a negative poster. I am a realist though.
To further examine your extreme sanctimonious post, YES, John Smith DOES owe it to the fanbase to publicly address the issues and outlook of the Program we take pride in. He has underperformed for a significant period of time and there needs to be some changes or the Program will die on the vine. If he expects people to show up and support (which helps in more than just money) he better trot out something worth supporting. His reluctance to openly discuss that he intends to do that will have negative growth in his budget and less Orange at his events.
So here we are now: chicken or the egg. JS can say, "donate money and we will get better" and it will fall on lots of deaf ears. So can we turn it around without money? He won't be getting any of mine without me knowing what the approach is AND I see some movement in the opposite direction of what we are seeing now. He has shown for too long that expectations of a National Title with him at the helm is laughable.
*not that I have enough money to make a difference, but I might someday?
Our recent perfomances have sure made participating in NIL hard. Changes need to happen.
Wait, did you Wrestle in college? If not, you can see yourself out!
Ahh, called out by an account created a week ago. Ok, I'll go along...
- 99% of posts are negative or have all the answers. Neither actually. But I'm not a blue sky optimist either. If it's raining outside, it's raining. Doesn't matter if people say it's sunny. I don't have all the answers, but I know when something isn't working.
- wrestled in HS, played baseball in college
- donate to the University, but not specifically to the wrestling program. Had this discussion with Lee before. Contacted the wrestling office 4 years ago to set up recurring donations to the RTC. Multiple voicemails & email exchanges later - no one got back to me. Don't plan on donating until John lays out his vision for the program.
Ok...
- Which criticisms do you think are unfair?
- Do you think it's unreasonable to expect John to hold an end of season presser? Or engage the fan base?
- What are your expectations for the program in terms of team and individual success?
I agree it’s been painfully hard to donate to the RTC Club around that time and OSU has dropped the ball big time on it.
As the earlier new account posted do you donate money to OSU wrestling it got me thinking about that and yes I do donate so I text me good buddy who is my cpa and I said Please look and tell me how much have I donated since 2007 ( that’s when we were finally able to give back and my wife’s and my student loans were finally paid off to get these said OSU degrees ) now I know our money is small compared to many others but the number I was given back was in total to baseball , football and wrestling it was just over 117k in donations thru 2022 fiscal year . Now I will also admit I stopped giving money to OSU football in 2021 as I don’t believe in Gundy and his 7-5 is alright approach and after this season of another **** show in wrestling I will not be giving my money to John either for 2023 I just can not support something I don’t believe in anymore. I don’t give two ***** about basketball so I don’t give them a penny but I will say softball will probably get my wrestling donation now cause they want to win and Kenny G is a killer !! So yeah I feel like John owes me a damn press conference cause I have invested in his 18th place finish season and I need some Roi feedback . Again I’m a small fry on donations but I do give what we can afford
1). Above average high school wrestler
2). Not close to a D1 wrestler. Combination of a lack of athleticism, resources, discipline, etc.. Rolling around with a few D1 guys made me quickly realize just how far I was away from that level.
Do I believe John has a duty to answer every question…of course not. Do I believe John has an obligation to address our recent struggles and articulate his vision to fix our current issues included RTC and NIL….yes
Last edited:
I like to think my posts are an even balance of both negative and positive bs. I guess my name got thrown in the hat because I’m not afraid to speak the truth? Well I’m sorry if you don’t want to hear it but the truth is the program isn’t really doing a whole lot of positive things right now to give the fan base hope that a title is potentially around the corner in the coming years. It doesn’t take a college wrestler or a millionaire donor to see that 18th place isn’t exactly a positive spot to finish.
I have always been a big cheerleader for this program since I was a kid and my loyalty might go down with them but the biggest mistake any of us can do is pretend like everything is just perfectly fine and make up excuse after excuse. If you want some positivity here’s some. I really like the Troy Spartley move. He has a lot of potential. I’m sure he will make an immediate impact.
I have always been a big cheerleader for this program since I was a kid and my loyalty might go down with them but the biggest mistake any of us can do is pretend like everything is just perfectly fine and make up excuse after excuse. If you want some positivity here’s some. I really like the Troy Spartley move. He has a lot of potential. I’m sure he will make an immediate impact.
I understand your pain like everyone else.There is some things that need to change no dought. but what the majority of you don’t understand college sports and wrestling now will be money driven so we will either be in the game paying athletes. Or out of the game and not paying athletes and be happy with finishing 10th at best so for Oklahoma State wrestling to play the game it will need people and fans to donate to the cowboy regional training center That I hear everybody on here talking about that’s what we need. That’s also where the NIL money will go. So for a lot of these changes to be made pony up.
I didn’t wrestle in college so I’ll refrain from wrestling talk.
You clearly haven’t practiced marketing or sociology and your reading comprehension is more than poor. So you might refrain from that?
Until John Smith decides to address it publicly...his past decisions and his current performance...you have a poor stance. JS isn’t getting money until he answers: at least from the mainstay crowd.
So 18th it is...
Until John decides to get out in front of the RTC I suspect we will continue to struggle to piece together a world class operation. There is one person on campus who has the name and cache to raise the funds needed to allow our RTC to compete with some of the best in the country…and his name is John Smith.
I answered your questions, but I noticed you didn't bother to answer mine.
So you create an account and call out multiple people with your 2nd post. Then say the majority of us don't understand wrestling is driven by $ - even though we have said that for years - first with RTCs & now with NIL.
You apparently didn't care for John being criticized. Well here's some more - he leads from behind when he should be out in front. We learned from Adam Engel's article - and the Clay Hutson interview on Rokfin - that it was Clay who went to John and said we need to start fundraising for the RTC. John's reply?... go ahead but you won't make any $.
Last point...on the Rutgers board, there's a post by a long-time supporter. He said I just got off the phone with coach Goodall and he has a plan for a new NIL fundraising initiative. It's designed to attract transfers and retain current athletes. It's separate from the RTC fundraising efforts and the Rutgers NIL collective. It's dedicated solely to NIL $ for Rutgers wrestling. So far they've picked up the Harvard heavyweight and are in the running for Griffith and Cannon. That's leading from the front.
Great post!! John is failing in several areas with the program and it’s frustrating. Zero urgency being displayed by John and our weak sacred of conflict Ad.
So, do you think if we 4 email the AD we will get answers?
I don’t think JS would even read an email from a concerned fan?
I don’t think JS would even read an email from a concerned fan?
It’s worth a shot. Believe me I wish I could donate enough to help out. Yes I know some helps but what I can afford to donate really wouldn’t amount to squat.
But I did wrestle for 12 years, currently a wrestling coach in Tulsa and absolutely love Oklahoma state.
It’s extremely frustrating watching the program I love and watch ever home dual in person and away dual on TV (if it’s on ESPN plus) continue to fall even further behind. Plenty of big names have hit the portal that could have helped us, yet somehow the greatest wrestling program of all time can’t land anyone, why is that? NIL and RTC are the two only reasons we are not landing them and it’s the cold hard truth.
Any OSU Wrestling fan has the right to be annoyed at the state of the program but complaining in this little echo chamber doesn't do much good. If every negative/WTF post on this board went to the Athletic Department as a separate email and they start getting 1-10 emails a day, then they at least know that fans are upset. Because I'm hard pressed to see the Athletic Department cruising this board for opinions AND taking action based on what they read here.
Last edited:
I still have hope because
1. Folks are better at running sport programs than me
2. High School pipeline is going
3. Success is cyclical
4. NIL collective at OSU formed last year
5. We knew 2022-2023 was going to be a struggle year after Ferraris blew up our lineup
6. Couple underperforming legacy dudes are gone
7. 2022-2023 dual season was still pretty dang good (14-3)
8. We are working the portal now
Plenty of reasons to be grumpy too but as I said above I think if one wants to move the needle then one should make complaints known to the decision makers rather than the small subset of fans that choose to visit this board regularly.
1. Folks are better at running sport programs than me
2. High School pipeline is going
3. Success is cyclical
4. NIL collective at OSU formed last year
5. We knew 2022-2023 was going to be a struggle year after Ferraris blew up our lineup
6. Couple underperforming legacy dudes are gone
7. 2022-2023 dual season was still pretty dang good (14-3)
8. We are working the portal now
Plenty of reasons to be grumpy too but as I said above I think if one wants to move the needle then one should make complaints known to the decision makers rather than the small subset of fans that choose to visit this board regularly.
Last edited:
I doubt a handful of emails from peeons like me will help move any needles?
Also, I love John Smith and I idolized him as a youth Wrestler. I respect John Smith in every facet I can think of. So it may just be hurt feelings on my part that I feel he owes an explanation and plan moving forward?
I just feel it is damaging to just sit and hope. Action and reaction is key right now and I can't see where we are doing much of it.
Call John. His number is in the directory. (Not this week, pretty sure he is getting ready for open) Or, go see him at the office.
he loves to talk wrestling.