1-on-1 with DP – 93.7 The Ticket KNTK - January 17th: 10am - Lincoln Northeast Wrestling Head Coach and wrestlers

Episode Date: January 17, 2022

Head Coach - Zach SchnellWrestlers - Camdyn Golden and Josh ShanerAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

to go one-on-one with DP. Coming at you live from the couple Chevrolet GMC Studios. Here is your host, Derek Pearson, presented by Beatrice Bakery on 93-7 The Ticket and the Ticketfm.com. Welcome to one-on-one on a Monday, Martin Luther King holiday. We are going to celebrate that throughout the course of the day here on this station. You can call or text 42464. 5, 6, 8, 8, 5. That's the Honda Lincoln Hotline and the Sartarhamming Text Line.

You can follow the live video stream, Facebook, YouTube, Twitch, see what's going on in the studio. We have guests, and we're going to break down. This is a room full of nerves right now. And whatever you get young people, Lloyd, so I'm going to ask you both to get real close to the microphone. Like, I like the fact that you came in rocking. One's got the leatherman jacket on. one's got the state champion wrestling championship hoodie on so they came locked and bared first let's start we've got we've got wrestlers in the building and i always get excited when the wrestlers are here

coaches here as well coach i would ask you to introduce yourself and your two young men to our listeners all right so my name's chnell i'm the head wrestling coach at lincoln northeast high school and then i brought with me two of my returning state qualifiers um one is josh shiner he's our 120 pound wrestler and the other one is canned and gold and he's our 126 pound wrestler so you've got the guys at the top of the lineup the guys that have to get you have to set the tone for your match right correct like for any of your meets these these guys have to put up or it's a long day yeah correct and yeah it's like nice they're kind of back-to-back weight classes so they can obviously push each other and they're in their back-to-back so kids get a watch two in a row so coach okay so you you have

the look of a guy who has spent many many hours on a mat Still in wrestling shape as you stand here. I feel a little guilty that I've let myself go. Talk to me. What's your wrestling history and why does this thing mean as much to you? Yes. I've been wrestling and coaching for, oh gosh, over 20 years. I wrestled at Lincoln Northeast High School myself.

And then I was the, then I wrestled went on and wrestled. I wrestled. And then I was a head coach at Lincoln South East High School for three years. I was assistant Lincoln High before that for a year. And then I was offered to come back and coached kind of my own moderate Lincoln Northeast. This is my fourth year, fourth year here now back. See, this is the thing you can tell he's still young. He has to count the number of years.

Like, because there's that line between being a wrestler, being a competitor. Yeah. And then actually coaching this thing. All right. So how much, how much of your job is sharing the lessons that you've already learned? Yeah, I think a lot of it. And that, you know, I take some from a high school coach and some from my college coaches and then, you know, some of my own stuff that I've done and get, you know, take things from

like my assistant coaches that I've had as well and then just kind of try to implement. And then based off obviously the group of kids you got and everything too. So it's, it's a, you have to work. I mean, you're constantly changing things up and kind of year to year, which is kind nice about it. So you can change things up. Every coach has his playbook of things that he says on a regular day. his coaching mantras that he that you that you live in coach by the things that you say most

often to your to your wrestlers what are those things oh let's see can you guys think of anything what do i what do i say a lot um basically same moves like singles doubles he's talking about motivation wise oh like what does he get us what do you say to get us hyped up before a match i don't know usually ervauer's the one who's like saying stuff there's a lot of the momentum though like yeah he wants you he wants one person to perform well because when one person yeah well to start it off it like builds off of each other and then like once the first person wins then next person's a mindset it's a mindset he says it's a mindset you need to have a winning mindset going into the match as as as two state qualifiers you guys have to lean on each other yeah like iron is it iron

iron sharpens iron right so you come in first and you've got to set the top Yeah. All right. You got to set the top. But during the week, you're the only person that can really help him get ready for his week. Right. So as you match up, what's he good at?

What's the thing that makes him a state level wrestler? Oh, he's a trickster. He likes to push and pull, and he's like, he's deceiving. Yeah. He likes to hide his moves. He doesn't show his cards. And Josh is just like a hard nose. Like, he wrestles like, me.

He's a mean. He's a mean wrestling. He likes to dig his forearm and the back of kids' heads and it always gets kids. It's a big part of wrestling is to figure out what weight space you need to be. Right. And you guys are right next to each other. So you really don't want to cross streams too much when it comes to weight class. Right. What's your walk around weight versus what you actually weigh? Well, I weigh like, if I was eating, like healthy, if I just came off Thanksgiving, I'll probably sit at 128, but I just cut back down to 120. That's not bad at all. No, I hate cutting weight. That's my least favorite part by wrestling. That's, I told the story.

Mark Manning comes in every show we talk about. I would have been a wrestler if I didn't have to cut weight. And I said basketball, I didn't have to cut weight. I'm like, you know what, I'll play basketball. This is, at least I get to eat and have to do this. So what do you walk around at? I'm cutting a lot of weight. I walk around at like 145 and I cut down to 126.

Like right now, I'm laying probably 140. And then on Wednesday I got to wrestle 129. So I got like 10 pounds to lose the next two days. What is that process for you? Usually I just go to the YMCA and I run for like 40 minutes in our bike. and then I go like sweat, sit in like the sauna and going in the pool, just like moving, sweating. That's a lot in two days. That's a lot in two days.

What's your weight loss, which is the week up? Like to what do you walk? What are you right now compared to 120 when you go? I maintain my weight. I sit at 123 right now. I don't eat like him. He goes crazy. I like to eat.

I'm a food connoisseur. Yeah. But you're like you're like you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, big for your weight class. Like you're tall for your weight class. I can out muscle a lot of the kids I wrestle. So it makes it easier winning matches and stuff. That drop down is crazy though.

Yeah. Coach, what, I mean, look, that's got to cause you some angst every week. Yeah, because that way is a monster. That's always,

you know, everybody's least favorite thing about wrestling is, is the weight loss thing. And, I mean, kind of like the sport and itself, it's kind of always a mindset thing. You know,

like what works best for you or how do you in your mind? it doesn't work like Josh French and said he doesn't like to do the weight loss stuff so he automatically keeps his weight down or Cam says that he likes to eat so kind of whatever makes you feel the best I mean that's wrestling is a mindset sport anyways and that's probably one of the things that I say the most of the kids go back to your last question is is always you have a positive mindset if you think you're going to lose you're going to lose doesn't mean you're going to win if you think you're going to win but you give yourself a shot yeah kind of the same thing with the weight loss stuff. I mean, if you're feeling confident that, oh, I can lose this five pounds and wrestle

this weight and wrestle this weight class. And it makes me more confident than, you know, not cutting weight and wrestling class up or vice versa. That's kind of a big part of the wrestling is you got to have that mindset of confidence. So the weight loss thing, if you think you're better going one weight class down, then yeah, sometimes you've got to do it, I guess. But I don't force it on any kids. They make that decision on their stuff. But once they decide that's their weight class, I hold them to it because that's kind of how we got to get our line upset. So, Yeah, I mean, so how many folks are on your, on your squad and then you get down to your, to your, what do you carry as a, as a normal roster? Our numbers are down this year.

We usually, we usually carry somewhere around like 35. I think we're at like, I think we're about 26 this year. Great. And then, you know, all the kind of depends. That's the problem with wrestling, too, is like in basketball or a lot of other sports, you know, your best, if it's your 10 guys, if you need 10 on the field, your best 10 are out there. wrestling there's 14 but then they also have to be at different weight classes so i mean you your best three weight wrestlers could all be the same weight class and now some are having to wrestle up some are having to wrestle down so that's where again wrestling is kind of different in that way you

you don't necessarily put your 14 best out there it's your 14 best spread out between 106 and 285 pounds do you do you ever find yourself alternating your your lineup based on your opponent like hey he's got a weak 120 pounder i might be able to manipulate Yeah, that's a big thing. I mean, and a lot of coaches won't show their cards, especially when it comes to duels, because duels is where it's, you know, one team against one team and moving weight classes around. Yeah, so duels that, that happens a lot, you know, to try to figure out, oh, you know, I could bump my, I could bump my 120 up to 126 and so on and so forth.

And then I could put my JV 120 pounder in. You know, some teams won't be able to fill a lineup so you can, you can put, you know, a JV guy in there, just go out and get his hand raised for free and then bump things up. So that's another thing that kind of goes. in wrestling that makes it a little fun, especially come duels. And that's for that. They're talking earlier, one win builds off the other. We call that the snowball effect.

So essentially what you try to create in a dual, create a snowball effect, and then it carries throughout the duel. So where are you guys within your season? So match, how many matches have you had so far? I think I've wrestled like, I'd say like 25 matches. Okay. But we're just coming off a tournament we didn't go to this weekend because, we got sick.

But I'd say we're probably going to wrestle about 15, 20 more and just in the next month. Because this next month of the season is really busy. This is where we get a lot of the matches in. When you think of Lincoln Northeast Wrestling, where do you guys put yourself within the state? Is this program where you want it to be? Is it where you expected to be? Well, I'd say, like, we have good coaches, but we just don't have the numbers. Like a lot of the kids just want to go play basketball or don't even want to do sports.

Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Uh, look, man, guilty. We just need more numbers. And it comes, a lot of that comes from, like, people going out, like, in the hallways when you're walking to classes, just, like, saying something about wrestling and trying to encourage people again to wrestling. But a lot of, another part about wrestling is that it's hard. A lot of people don't want to wrestle because it's, like, the practices are hard and gruesome. So people will quit. Like, I'd say practices begin. of the season, we're way bigger than now. Like, now, we only had, like, today we only had 10 kids at practice. Well, we started with, like, 40 wrestlers. Yeah, we started with 40.

It died off. Everybody was like, no, I can't do this. Well, you find out that, look, I wouldn't, I'm not going to start. Yeah. Like, I'm not going to start. So why am I going to go torture myself to be, like, somebody's practice done it? Yeah, and that's one of the things with wrestling. I mean, when we get, you know, any coaches, coach's wrestling, especially in the high

school knows it's like it's different from other sports and I say it's like if I'm a basketball coach in high school I'm not recruiting kids to come out for basketball if a kid doesn't know how to bounce a basketball he's not making my team but for wrestling you know I go out in the hallway the kids go in the hallways we get kids that have never even stood in wrestling stance before and we said we say come out because we don't do cuts so we take anyone to everybody so it just takes time to eventually get them to a you know level where they can they can compete especially the varsity level. Are you targeting, in most schools I've been in, we target like athletes. So football player. Yeah, football player. Right? To try to get, if the guy is a catcher on a baseball team,

that's a guy that I want as a wrestler. Yeah. Like, there's certain guys. You guys are in the space. Like, you know your friends. Are you saying that you're just tougher than your friends? Yeah. Literally. Definitely. My friends would not step on the mat with me. I had like three friends come out at the beginning of the year and they all quit they're all done so yeah it's a mental toughness dude you got to you got to want it if you don't want it there's just no point of being there you just go to practice to practice it's just not fun do you how much involvement is there or connection is there between the high schools and then the the wrestling clubs oh if you want to be good at wrestling like in season if you want to actually have a chance and like make it to state you've got

to do something the offseason. All off season. All off season if you want to actually be good at wrestling. We would drive up to Omaha like three times a week just to go to two hour practices and then drive back three like all summer long. But that's what you got to do to get better. It's worth it too. It's definitely worth it.

What's your connection to club coaches? Is it referral? Is it? Yes. We have our actual youth club is called a Rocky Wrestling Club and they practice two nights a week for about two and a half months. They actually are Wesleyan. So we have a running relationship with them,

and it's getting bigger now. So that's obviously the hopes is that they can send in, you know, a few kids, even if it's two or three kids a year, I mean, then eventually over four year time frame, you know,

because fresh and through senior, then you got, you know, eight to ten kids in your lineup that have had a club practice. So it is getting bigger. Youth wrestling in Lincoln General is getting bigger. And now they're adding, you know, girls wrestling here soon, hopefully in Lincoln that it'll get even bigger.

Like Josh actually came from our youth club. So he's kind of the ones that, I mean, if you want to have a successful program, you got to have those kids coming in, you know, with experience already, that they can wrestle at the varsity level as freshman, instead of bringing them in his freshman, never wrestling before,

and then eventually getting to that level by their senior year. So you guys, we're talking to the wrestling, you get the wrestling coach, two wrestlers from Lincoln Northeast. You guys have broken kind of the matrix, because you brought in two kids who are total badasses,

but they look like boy band members. Like, how is this? Josh, like, Josh, how is the hair? How is the hair that, like, wrestlers shouldn't have that kind of good hair, bro? Like, what are you? What is going on? D.P. You really don't understand Nebraska wrestling, man.

They all look good, man. That's a, well, look. Look, if you put, you put a microphone in front of them. It's a trick, man. They look good. Then they get on the mat. They flip you over it. They throw you down, all that they pin you,

and it's just like, wait, what just happened? No, that, you know, Justin, Timberlake over here. What is going on? He flicks his hair all the time. I noticed it drives me crazy. Right. Like that you have to watch and just go,

bro, cut the hair during season. So we don't have to worry about it. How much time do you spend on your hair? This is remarkable. Not that much. Like, it's a thing just to go out and do your thing.

Where is this program within Lincoln's wrestling program? Where would you put yourself? Right now, we're not very high up, but we don't have, like, we don't have numbers. Like, East wrestling, they have people flooding their team. Like, they got JV people and they stay. But Northeast, we, I wouldn't say our main sport is wrestling.

Like, it's definitely not wrestling. It's probably basketball. So we just don't got the numbers and, like, the club, but we need people from club to move up. Like, that's why I'm at the skill of where I am is because I've been wrestling for eight years, and I came from club, and we don't have a lot of people come from club, because a lot of kids will burn out when they're in youth, so they just,

they need to stick to the game. Just numbers. That's the big thing is we need to wrestlers. Is it, is it that mystique that's out there that, the fear, or is it messaging? Is it feet on the ground?

What is it that's going to get you guys up over the house? Yeah, I think it's just, I mean, kids to stick it out and give a time. I mean, the good thing about wrestling, I was talking about, is that you get out of it exactly what you put in.

I mean, I mean, it's good and bad. So some kids, the ones that stick through and fight, I mean, they build character from it. The thing about wrestling is if I'm not doing good, I can decide exactly how good I get. I just have to work harder, play harder. Now, if I'm on a team sport, and I'm really, I'm not the greatest, but my team's really, really good, I can feed off of that and still win a game. But wrestling, that scares some people away, but then it drives some people. So you kind of find which ones you don't want to stay and stay and fight,

and which ones would rather just, you know, not put in the time. and that kind of stuff. So, I mean, to build it, I think you really, again, the youth club is really where it's at. You got to get a few kids coming from there and then you still recruit kids, you know, through the hallways, kids that you think that'll stick it out because it's, with wrestling, it's not even just getting kids in general to come out. It's also, you've got to find the right kids. I mean, I can sometimes tell from a kid that, you know, this kid is just not mentally tough enough to stick it out. Have you ever been surprised? A couple times, actually a few times in my head, I think, man, I'm surprised this kid did stay out.

I mean, be honest with you. And then, yeah, there are kids that shock me. But, you know, usually being around this long enough, I can usually get the kids that I think will stick it out and be good. But, yeah, I mean, I have been surprised before. So that's just a big thing in wrestling. It's just the mindset because, like they mentioned, practice isn't always fun. I mean, we do try to have fun and play games here and there. But in reality, like, you're getting ready for a battle, a fight.

So you got a battle and fight in the wrestling room because if you don't do it there, you're not going to succeed when you go out on the mat. How can people help you with your program? I think a lot of it comes down to, you know, parents being okay with it because I have had a lot of kids not come out because, you know, mom and dad won't let them. I mean, just go and watch wrestling. If you watch a wrestling tournament, some of it looks dangerous, but I mean, in all honesty, there's not a whole lot of injuries when you watch the sport. I mean, usually it's more of a freak thing.

if you watch a, you know, a wrestling match. There's not a whole lot of injuries, really, and there's not a whole lot of concussions. Once the kids know what they're doing, really the ones that get hurt are the ones that don't know how to land. I mean, so I still kidding. It's important. Yeah, I mean, a wrestling practice,

kids take, you know, take each other down hundreds of times in a practice. So learning how to fall, it actually helps you probably not get hurt. But so the parents recognizing that and then just, yeah, society, you know, understanding, wrestling, because that's a lot of people that come and watch a wrestling meet, have no idea what's going on. on. Is Nebraska a wrestling state? It's becoming more and more of a wrestling state. I would say in the last probably five years for sure, it's gotten a lot bigger. Especially now that we're adopting the girls wrestling, I think it's getting, it's getting a lot bigger and bigger. So I think it'll grow in terms. And then

really, I think the youth clubs in Lincoln, once they get bigger, obviously that's going to feed every single high school. And also then football coach is pushing it out. I mean, if you're a football coach and your kids aren't playing, you know, they aren't swimming or doing basketball. The only other sport in the winter is wrestling, you know, they should be wrestling. I mean, a lot of football coaches will push their kids, you know, just focus on lifting the off season where, I mean, yeah, wrestling's going to help. Leverage and toughness. That's the easy tie in.

That's the easy tie in. Okay. So guys are going to ask you each your favorite move. What's what's the one that when you see it open up for you, you get that, that internal smirk that's i don't like the way josh is nodding and smile really i don't like and he looked right at you like that was right he looked right at hey hey i wrestle for two years yeah you not a not a thing like not a not a thing all right what's your what's your what's your what's your what's your go to um my go to is definitely a cradle i love cradles because i just got upper body strength and

most people just can't break my grip so it's over i like to double leg slam kids. I like to pick people up over my shoulder and get that picture taken or that highlight video and slam him on the mat. That's so satisfying to me. See, I'm... This kid's picking people up, putting him on his shoulder, walking around the mat, smiling.

That's because he's two weight classes up. Yeah. Yeah, I got your boy up here. You find his mom and his girlfriend. You just go. And that... This is what's going to happen? My best friend in high school, he was

supposed to be the best memory. He was overseas at the time. he loved cradling people, but he was also like 6-2 and wrestling. So his cradle, no matter where he was at with somebody, they'd be standing up and he just reaches around, locks it, and then just falls down.

I'm like, this is just not fair. Folks don't use a double bar arm anymore, and I'm just fascinated as to why. Yeah, I say a lot of it's getting more, again, like I said, this kind of built up the last five years. You've seen a lot more technical wrestling

than you did five, six years ago. Before it was a lot of time, especially when I wrestled, It was a lot of just tough, hard nose. Yeah. You just beat on kids. But now it's getting a lot more technical because I said it's growing around, especially the club wrestling around the area is growing a lot.

Like there was not year round wrestling, very little year round wrestling when, when I was going through high school. And now it's just more and more so. And that's kind of what I mentioned. If you want to be really, really good at sport, now you have to wrestle you around because everybody else is. It's there from our text line. Have you asked coach about his MMA days? Yeah. I didn't talk about it.

No, somebody put it on the text line. They actually asked the question. Yeah, no, I said, yeah, I did do that for about three or four years. Yeah, so I trained in M.A. and competed in that for a while, too. So, yeah. Yeah, we're friends with Derek Minner and Anthony Smith. Oh, okay.

So when they come in, they go to the grassroots. That is a dark, deep corner of Nebraska, because there are so many MMA fighters. Yeah. it's taken over the state. Yeah, actually back when I did it, well, it wasn't really even like sanctions. We had to go over to Iowa, we're over Iowa right in Mount Crescent. So it was just, it was real shady. It was just go there, weigh in, and we're going to match you up against somebody.

Somebody that's close to your weight class. Like, we don't know how many fights they've been in, but hey, we're going to do it anyway. Yeah, Nebraska made you do blood works. She said they went right over to Mount Chris and I, Chris, what was, or I can't remember what it was called. It's, Shoe Free was what it was called, the event center. I can't remember what part of Iowa, right by the airport. Yeah, it's there. Any interest, any curiosity? Is the bug dead in you or are you still? I've thought about it, but you've got to be in good shape. And I don't got that, I don't got that time on my hands with

kids and wrestling. Yeah. It's his AC joint. I did pop my AC joint a few months. That'll, that'll do it. That'll do it. Well, guys, listen, this is spectacular. Again, let them know how to follow your program and how to reach out to you guys. Yeah, we're on Twitter at Link L&E Wrestling. And then, We have Facebook page. It's just Lincoln Northeast Wrestling. And we do have a, if you're looking for something to do, Wednesday night, we are dueling Lincoln High and Lincoln East at Lincoln East. Yeah, at Lincoln East.

I think it starts at five. I will say this as a station as we progress into what we're going to be. In the near future, we will actually be calling wrestling matches. All right. Like we want to give you guys a space where your stories can be told. And you guys have full permission. Reach out. Let us know how you're doing so we can report on it.

We expect to follow you guys all the way to state. So we appreciate your time this morning. Appreciate you guys. Good luck. And I'm pretty sure you'll have some listeners there on Wednesday. All right. Thank you guys. All right.

Those are the folks from Lincoln Northeast. And look, Wednesday night, 5 o'clock, find your way over there. We'll be good for the soul. More one-on-one when we come back. Download our app by searching 93.7. in your app store. You're listening to one-on-one with DP on 93-7 the ticket and the ticketfm.com.