You know something Will? I have tried, really tried to be understanding about these subjects and your zeal and passion for them. I can't honestly say I agree with you (which in your mind is the same as a personal attack) about most of them, but I have tried to understand, and support you right to express them.
But in light of recent events, both in Kansas and here in Iowa, your comments have become tiresome and annoying and truly show misguided priorities and total lack of perspective.
Two weeks ago, Chapman was more or less destroyed by a tornado. Manhattan was heavily damaged. Three weeks ago, Parkersburg, Iowa was leveled by tornadoes. Over the last two weeks, much of the eastern half of Iowa was destroyed by flooding.
As I write this, I am just coming back from helping remove some of the 100,000 contaminated sandbags that tried to protect our town of Vinton from flooding on the Cedar River that passed the all time record by over five feet. We lost our fire station, electrical plant, county law enforcement building and over 100 homes. The road going north out of town is heavily damaged and a 150-yard section of it is totally washed out. It will be years before it is repaired. Our town is on temporary generators because our power plant was wiped out.
Our head wrestling coach (a former assistant of mine) has had to resign. He's a farmer, and between our four feet of snow from winter and flood, he's already lost over 100 acres planted corn and has yet to be able to get his soybeans in. This farm has been in his family for four generations; his choice was between it and wrestling. The farm, as it should have, won. I may be coming back to the mat a year earlier than I thought I was (at least our superintendent is trying to draft me!).
Waterloo and Cedar Falls were hard hit by the flood. Downtown Waterloo flooding destroyed the new International Wrestling Museum. Some of the most valuable artifacts of our sport, including the entire Dan Gable collection, were destroyed. You know what Coach Gable said? "The museum is not important. Thousands have lost their homes."
Cedar Rapids, the second biggest city in Iowa, has lost 400 blocks of businesses and homes. The arena that held the Division II and III national championships was heavily damaged. Much of downtown is so damaged that it will have to be torn down. Nearly 30,000 people were evacuated and most of them lost everything they owned and will never move back into their homes.
Iowa City was damaged as well. Around 20 buildings at the University of Iowa were badly damaged; but don't worry, the important stuff like the arena and the wrestling room are safe. Whew!
Last Saturday, I went with our high school softball team to a tournament. On the way, we drove through Parkersburg, which like Chapman, lost its schools as well as half the houses in town. At least in football, Aplington-Parkersburg High School is like Smith Center; four current NFL players went to school there. Even after everything that had happened in Vinton and Cedar Rapids, driving through there was still a humbling and sad experience and moved many of our players and fans (and coaches for that matter) to tears. I'm sure Chapman is no less that way.
Will, in light of everything I've seen in the last few weeks, it's pretty hard to take you, your demands and your childish, threatening and insulting manner very seriously.
No one, including you, loves the sport of wrestling more than I do. Are the kids I coached on the mat right now? Not lately; they've been busy helping with flood relief. At the end of the day, wrestling is important, but compared to what else has been going on in the world, it's pretty trivial. It's a sport, it's not life and death.
If you want to make a positive difference in the lives of kids and the state of Kansas, load up the boys, 10 cases of bottled water and some equipment into the Family Truckster and drive out to Chapman and help Jeff Sheets rebuild his wrestling room. Come up here and help families who have lost everything -- not just the right to live by any rules they like -- start over again. That will teach your kids a better life lesson than any wrestling clinic could.
And one other thing. I know exactly how you meant the word "retarded." Your use of it and your justification answer were childish, just like your attacks on Greg Mann are. And anyone, including my five-year old with autism, can figure that out.
And yeah, it's me. See you in 2009.
Jeff Holmes
