Thanks for posting. I haven't listened to the whole thing yet, but I like listening to these old stories.
For those who don't know, the topic is former ISU wrestler and long-time assistant Les Anderson. But the discussion is pretty wide ranging given Les's long tenure with the program.
I only went to ISU wrestling camp one year, but my buddy and I were assigned to the group in the old ISU wrestling room in Beyer Hall (not out on the basketball courts). Les, and by then (already) ISU legend and current Cyclone, Frank Santana, were two of the leaders of our group. (There were others, but I think they maybe were "the" leaders; 1 coach and 1 wrestler.)
Santana was pretty hilarious and knew how to relate to high school kids.
I remembered Les before listening to this podcast, but not as much in detail as I did after. Probably because I now recall -- how he broke things down and made things simple. Its amazing that he still has a pay wrestling site online, even after he has gone to the great beyond.
https://www.thewrestlingsite.com/
Kelly Ward, who is on early in the podcast, was like Santana when I was in high school, right at the top of his weight class, with I think 2 second place finishes and 1 national championship. It's interesting that after his career with the Secret Service, he now protects the chair of the Federal Reserve, Janet Yellen, and before that did the same for previous chair Ben Bernanke.
At Kelly Ward's wrestling camp in Virginia, it is also interesting to see Joe Gibbons and former UI great Randy Lewis on staff:
http://www.kellywardcamp.com/coaching_staff.html
Also on staff is Kelly's buddy Al Freeman, who wrestled very successfully at Nebraska in college, and at Griswold, Iowa, in high school. Griswold had a great coach and team when Al was there, with Freeman finishing with a state title and the team finishing 2nd in 2A in 1978. They would later win the team title in 1984. The coach at highly successful Omaha Skutt also wrestled at Griswold, who I see just retired this year:
http://www.kmaland.com/sports/grisw...cle_67593576-e4f5-11e4-9ee8-d78a1cfe59b6.html
I knew Kelly was a Maryland native, but I didn't know before that he lived in Ames before college, as his father was an assistant Cyclone football coach on two different occasions.
Also on the podcast, Gibbons not only has the old stories but as always great analysis of the current scene. Nacin is a little before my time, but a name of one of the greatest Cyclones of all time, so it is interesting to hear the stories in that respect. Bono is coming at the subject from a whole different era, plus comments about the current scene. Kris Whelan was also interesting; I had no idea before about Les's time in Great Britain.
It is an interesting question how successful Les might have been had he ever become the Cyclone head coach. He seems unquestionably a huge part the team's success during his time as an assistant.
They repeat on the podcast how Les was basically
the person who started wrestling camps. Here's hoping that Cyclone wrestling will again one day print camp T-shirts as amazing as the year I went, with all the prior season's dual and tournament results listed on the back as I recall (if not undefeated, close to it).
