USA Wrestler Photo Contest
Top left: Greg Purdy of the New York Ironmen Club from Arlington, New York controlling an opponent at a tournament in Albany, New York. Robin Hawks photo. Top right: Chase Taylor of Milford High School in Delaware competes at 160 pounds in a dual meet against Cape Henlopen High School in Lewes, Del. Michele Taylor photo. Bottom left: Butch Hildebrand snaps down Jacob Honeycutt in the 176 pound Senior finals at the Beach Nationals in Carolina Beach, N.C. Ken Greenwood photo. USA Wrestler is seeking your best wrestling photography for publication in a future issue of the magazine. Other photos may be posted on
TheMat.com or on USA Wrestling Weekly. USA Wrestling reserves the right to publish all materials submitted for the Photo Contest with no restrictions! Mail photos to: Gary Abbott, USA Wrestling, 6155 Lehman Dr., Colorado Springs, CO 80918. E-mail photos to:
gabbott@usawrestling.org.
MATSIDE CHAT, Continued from page 27 more effective.
USA Wrestler: You are known as a great motivator. What kind of things do you try to do to help inspire the wrestlers and motivate them? Petkovic: I know one thing. I am honest with them all the time. When you hear a complaint that practice it too hard, I say to them that this is joy, this is fun what you are doing now. Life is tough. When you have to walk out of here and start pummel- ing for your life, that is tough. You should be doing this with a smile. I try to describe to them the whole process, if somebody is stressing out, getting frustrated. The bottom line is if you do this for years, the best time of your life is every day in the wrestling room. Why do you have to stress about it? You will have ups and downs, you will lose matches. You have to love it same way, if you are on top or on the bottom. Then we can make progress. After matches, I don’t walk up to them right away. But every time, my first talk is about the great side, what was good about this, how much we improved in the match, then what kind of adjustments we must still make.
USA Wrestler: When you talk with young wrestlers, what rea- sons do you give them for trying Greco-Roman and pursuing this style of wrestling? Petkovic: I think with the rule changes, if they continue to fix the rules and make them better, it will make a difference. I tell them it is a beautiful sport and a challenging sport. They have an opportunity to represent their country at the highest level.
The kids coming from a folkstyle background have good basics, and many of them like to use upperbody wrestling. Why not challenge yourself to be a World or Olympic champion in Greco- Roman wrestling? Let’s find these kids, put our best kids out there and bring the medals back to the United States. Deep in my heart, I am seeing so many kids with the potential to be a great Olympic champion. They are out there. Maybe, by not making it in Div. I or Div. II wrestling, they want to have more. Why not chase your dream in Greco-Roman? We have great athletes and great coaches in our room, with many Olympic and World medals. They have a great opportunity to bring back the gold for themselves, their family and their country.
USA Wrestler: The U.S. has won a World Team title in Greco-Roman. What will it take to get to the top again? Petkovic: I deeply believe we can win the team title again. Can we do it with this team? I don’t know. If things go right and we are prepared, we can surprise everybody with our team. I deeply believe that down the line, if we bring in the youngsters from the beginning of their lives, we can win again. We can have a top line team at the world level that can win or challenge every year. We have to find a way to bring them in and guide them. I feel like our Trials event at Cornell was a great thing for Greco-Roman.
The people there are now so much closer to Greco. They are asking questions, seeing our athletes. This is the direction we have to go to present ourselves to the folkstyle community. We had a great Jack Pinto Cup event this year, where we had the whole town talking about it. That is how we can get where we want to go.
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