Paris was a disaster, not for the ladies, but certainly the men . . . in both styles. 12 opportunities for Gold; zero materialized.
How could we have fallen so far, so fast? It wasn’t that long ago when we were the best in the world.
At issue . . . a failing of senior leadership in Colorado Springs.
If you remember, USAWrestling fired their Chief Operations Officer over a year ago, and didn’t feel it was necessary, or important enough, to find a replacement. We’ve seen things like that come from Colorado Springs over the years. Why do they always seem to be ambivalent to the term success.
And no, the women had it covered without their help. Credit Terry Steiner.
If I’m wrong, riddle me this. Does USAWrestling have any national sponsorships? Nope. Television contracts? Nope. A functioning market department? Nope. A viable Greco program. Nope. An I’m in charge brashness? Yep.
I think most would agree that operations in any industry is the oil that keeps machinery running, and relative to this article, the doors attached.
Currently Colorado Springs has, it seems, a CEO who spends more time focusing on the political side of leadership. Maybe that’s the job of a CEO, but once the foundation of the company is falling apart beneath his feet, especially with his flagship program, maybe it’s time to start looking down.
So, how did this shortage of a COO effect our performance in Paris? It caused a lack of introspection, something that is critically important, especially when you’re mining for Gold.
Introspection is taking the time to recognize weaknesses; both yours, and that of your opponent. Everyone knows how to study their opponents, but the difference between first and fourth place is often critiquing the person they see in the mirror each morning.
Without a COO overseeing, or at least directing traffic in this area, that’s why we struggled in Paris, and that was without Russia or Belarus weighing in or it could have been worse. No one was pointing out how losses might occur, or even thought that to be possible.
A lot of this had to do with the number of years our athletes have been on the world stage. With that comes dozens of videos that the opposition has collected for the purpose of studying, critiquing, and dissecting.
I’m not saying we were outgunned, and certainly not less talented. But it appears we were short on preparation.
Did anyone ask our athletes how’d they wrestle themselves in a match? What about their stance? Has it changed, should it, or is it the same?
How do they set up their go-to takedown? Do they have a back-up takedown ready, or a different set-up in case the opposition did their homework?
Being forced to evaluate how you wrestle is a humbling experience but one that needs to happen. And always asking the question, if I’m going to lose, how?
It seems that’s what the opposition did.
In Paris, we weren’t outgunned, we weren’t less talented, but we were out prepared which led to being out preformed.
If we’re to fly again, we need to tighten down a few bolts.
Will we do it, my money is on America. And then of course, on our athletes.
I’m not so sure about Colorado Springs.
