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COUNCIL BLUFFS — Underwood sophomore wrestler Mike Novotny already knows many of the right moves: He qualified for the Iowa state wrestling tournament in February as a freshman at 119 pounds.
This week, he had a chance to add some more moves to his arsenal.
The inaugural World Class Team Wrestling Camp, which ran Sunday through Wednesday at Council Bluffs Thomas Jefferson, offered amateur wrestlers hands-on insight from some of the best names in the sport.
Among them was Terry Brands, a bronze medalist at the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games and an assistant coach on the 2009 NCAA champion Iowa Hawkeyes.
Brands spent Wednesday instructing wrestlers of all ages at the clinic. He partnered with Novotny to demonstrate a number of moves and situational techniques to campers, who ranged from third through 12th grade.
“It’s exciting,” Novotny said. “I’m going to be a lot better next year.”
Brands was a three-time NCAA All-American and an NCAA champion for the Hawkeyes in 1990 and ’92.
He said he and other Iowa coaches enjoy spending the offseason at wrestling camps not only to instruct but also sometimes to build for the Hawkeyes’ future.
“We spend a fair amount of time criss-crossing (Iowa) and the country just to expose our styles and philosophies and our meaning of life messages to the people we come in contact with,” Brands said. “It helps build humanity, and the other part of that is it helps with recruiting. Every now and then you’ll find a good coach or a good program that will help feed into your system.”
Cobra Wrestling co-founders August Manz and Jeff Ziegler arranged the event. Cobra Wrestling is a youth club in Council Bluffs that feeds wrestlers to Council Bluffs Thomas Jefferson, and it was Ziegler and Manz’s goal to help Council Bluffs wrestling.
“These camps are all over the country, and it costs thousands of dollars to take a team to,” Ziegler said. “We thought, ‘You know what? Let’s bring one to Council Bluffs so that people don’t have to leave the metro.’”
Manz, also Thomas Jefferson’s wrestling coach, said he and Ziegler wanted to put together a top-notch wrestling clinic in Council Bluffs that benefited area wrestlers. The camp featured wrestlers from Iowa, Nebraska, Illinois, Kansas and South Dakota.
. “We’ve got a dual format where kids are getting live matches,” Manz said. “They’re getting between 12-18 matches here of live competition.”
Each camper participated in roughly three or four matches daily. Watching were both college and World Class clinicians, meaning major post-match feedback for each participant.
The clinic featured some other big names in wrestling besides Brands. Monday, former Nebraska All-American Tolly Thompson attended. Thompson won a national championship as a sophomore in 1995 and was a world team member in 2005 and 2006.
Erik Akin, a four-time All-American at Iowa State and a 2001 United States national champion, was at the clinic every day.
“These kids come here and get their learning and technique in the morning,” Akin said. “You can only learn for so many hours a day, so by afternoon, we’re going in duals, and the main concept behind that is they get 15 matches in this week. That’s half a season in four days.”
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