No news is bad news

[kfritz]

i agree 100%

You are right, there is very little info provided to the serious fan.

[Conquistadors]

I'm just about to drive to the norther Chicago area for tomorrow's Midlands Tournament and lo and behold is there any information or preview on the Illustrious University of Illinois wrestling web page? Of course not. Iowa has a short write-up; Northern Illinois has a write-up; Indiana has a very nice write up and a list of the twelve Hoosiers who are attending. Missouri has a write up on the Tigers going to the Southern Scuffle. But on the Illinois web page there is no mention of tomorrow's tournament. Pretty pathetic.

Well, here I go to root for the Illini and hopefully watch great wrestling.

[Achilles]

The illini dont have very much scheduled before christmas. They have a few duals against crapy teams and vegas. Thats it. Coverage of CSMU or w.e isn't important, and the two guys winning that tourney isn't a big deal

[Conquistadors]

It's Friday afternoon... do you know what your Illini are doing this weekend? Probably not. On the vaunted University of Illinois wrestling webpage ( http://fightingillini.collegesports....estl-body.html ) there is no information regarding this weekend's duals. Nothing. Nada. Pretty pathetic coverage of a top-10 (hopefully top-5) wrestling team.

If you've read the write-ups on the web page this season, you can easily see that the writer has not watched the matches. His/her write-ups are slightly animated discussions of his/her reading the results. I've read the results and could easily supply more insight than whomever the University has writing these, because I follow the sport. I'm guessing that the person responsible (a University Sports Information person?) is also responsible for five other minor sports, none of which he/she attends.

This webpage has never mentioned that Alex Tirapelle and Pete Friedl both wrestled at the the CMSU Open in mid-November. There has not been (to my knowledge, a report on Alex's 100th career victory). This, along with the silence on this weekend, begs the question:

If the Illini wrestled in the forest and no one was there to watch, did actually happen?

[Conquistadors]

I really want to root for the University of Illinois. I have some connections with Champaign, the University, and the team and genuinely like the professionalism of the coaches. So I commonly look at the official University of Illinois wrestling webpage: http://fightingillini.collegesports....estl-body.html And most of the time there is nothing new.

Now I don't want to be ungrateful. At times there is news, write-ups about individuals wretlers, reports of signings, or coaches' comments, and the dual and tournament results generally have been posted promptly in the past. So this isn't a blanket criticism. As this season gets going, however, there has been considerable silence. Most of what I've heard was presented in the Illinoismatmen interview with Coach Johnson-- but this has nothing to do with the University webpage.

The wrestle-offs were announced in a brief blurb and the results listed. No preview, no discussion, no exclamation of how wrestlers are selected to compete at the public wrestle-off, etc.

Last weekend, Alex Tirapelle and Pete Friedl competed at the CMSU Open (probably because the scheduled Missouri Open is the day before the All-Star match). The CMSU Open was not on the schedule. There was no announcement that Alex and Pete would compete at CMSU. In fact, the web page has not even mentioned that both guys wrestled, both guys won the tournament, and both guys each had at least one close match! Total Silence. (If I'm not mistaken, Alex probably won his 100th match at CMSU-- yet, no announcement.)

The Scheduled Missouri Open is Sunday. It is currently 1:20 Friday afternoon and the Illinois webpage has announced nothing. No announcement, no reporting that Alex and Pete will not wrestle (I'm guessing that is the case), that Kyle will not compete (I'm guessing that is the case), that this will be the first college competitions for blue-chip recruits Patrick Bond and Nick Guida. A total lack of communication.

College wrestling fans, coaches, and participants commonly bemoan the fact that wrestling receives little attention in America. Well, if we aren't going to communicate, then we only have ourselves to blame.

(I'm guessing that as soon as I post this commentary that the webpage will post a detailed article. If that is the case, I'll be happy to have egg on my face.)

I plan on being at the Missouri Open-- feel free to come by and tell me I'm wrong about all this. Contact at conquistadors@hotmail.com