Snacks

This week's Snacks come from Damion Hahn: Wrestled at the University of Minnesota, where he was a 3X Big Ten Champion, 4X NCAA All-American, and 2X NCAA National Champion. While at Minnesota, he was named the Jesse Owens Big Ten Male Athlete of the Year and helped the Gophers win three Big Ten team titles and back-to-back NCAA national team titles.

He’s currently in his 8th season as the Head Coach at South Dakota State, following more than a decade of success as a member of the coaching staff at Cornell.

Below are some excerpts from our conversation, along with key takeaways and tips that can be applied to improve yourself as a Coach, Athlete, or wrestling Parent.

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Origin Story Tip: Keep an open mind when starting something new. Sometimes an athlete’s journey begins with the wrong idea of what they’re signing up for—but just showing up can change everything. What starts as curiosity or even hesitation can turn into passion once they find their people and fall in love with the process.

"I’ve told this story many times, and my story is a little bit different in the sense that I thought wrestling was something else. I thought wrestling was the WWE, or WWF at that time. I had never seen a traditional wrestling match before, and I got a flyer. I was living in the town of Jackson at the time, and I was in second grade. They handed out a flyer for Jackson Recreation Wrestling, and I was like, “Oh, hell yeah, I’m in!”

I came home and told my mom and dad that I was pumped. I said, “I’m doing this! I’m gonna jump off the top ropes, dropkick people, and hit them with chairs.” My parents said, “Yeah, it’s not that kind of wrestling.” I told them, “I don’t care—I’m gonna punch people.” So on and so on.

I remember the night my mom took me to the high school. We walked in, and there were two mats on the ground. I looked at my mom and said, “Where are the ring and the ropes?” My mom said, “I told you, it’s not that kind of wrestling.” I told her, “Well, this is stupid. I don’t want to do this.” She said, “Well, we’re here, and we’re going to sign you up.”

I said, “Fine, whatever.” They signed me up that night, and I absolutely loved it. I played a lot of sports growing up—my dad wrestled two years in high school and was a football player. I played baseball, soccer, and football. But when I started wrestling, it was like, “All right, these are my people.” I fell in love with it right from the start.

I was a bigger kid in second grade—I was a bantam heavyweight, about 100 pounds. It was awesome. I had to wrestle with older kids because I was bigger, and in practice, I took my lumps. But I loved what the sport was about, and I stuck with it."

Parent Tip: Take a breath before you react. After a tough match or a disappointing performance, emotions run high—for both you and your kid. Give it time before saying something you might regret.

Wrestling is a journey meant to build strength, develop character, and prepare kids for life. Step back, be patient, and make sure your encouragement helps them love the sport for themselves—not for you.

"Well, I will say this—obviously I’m biased. I think wrestling is the greatest sport in the world. I would encourage every kid to try it. Parents, expose your kid to the sport of wrestling, even if you don’t know anything about it. People say sports build character, leadership, and all these kinds of things.

But I believe that the lessons they learn in this sport will transcend time. You will learn and experience situations and moments that literally carry over into your daily life because of wrestling. I don’t believe you get that in other sports. So I encourage all parents to just expose their kid to it.

Going back to what I said before—parents, know your kid. Don’t do it for you, do it for your kid. You’ve got to know him, or her for that matter. Know what is going to be negative and what is positive. Right?

You know, chewing your kid’s head off because of how they performed—if it’s warranted and your kid can take that feedback, fine. But are you just doing it to make yourself feel better? I think that’s where some of our parents today have blurred those barriers.

I learned that not just from my parents but from coaching. My last boss, Rob Koll at Cornell, taught me that. I remember early in my coaching career we lost a dual, and we looked bad. I don’t know what it was, but we had an intermission. We were walking to the locker room, and Rob was in front of me.

The team was in front of him. They walked into the locker room, the door shut, and Rob just stopped, turned around, and said, “I know what you’re thinking. You’re not going to say anything.” I said, “The hell I’m not!” And he goes, “No, no, no—you’re emotional. I want you to sleep on it.”

He said, “What you’re going to say right now is not going to do any good. Sleep on it. Tomorrow, if you feel the same way, then you can say it. But right now, emotions are high.” That was the first time it really hit me. I’m an emotional person—I say what I think—and he was 100% correct.

I felt different the next day because of other factors I hadn’t taken into account leading up to that moment. I’d give the same advice to parents: take a step back for a second. Are you really not going to love your child if they don’t win? Wrestling is not the end-all be-all for kids.

This is a process. This is a journey. We want to be there to support their journey. The more you know your kid, the more detail you can provide, the more insight you can get in when to push, prod, pull back, and move forward. Really get to know your kid.

That’s the most important thing. Remember, you want them to love the sport. If you’re the driving factor, how much do they actually love it? That’s the great question and the perspective that parents need to take. We want our kids to love what they do."

Coaching Tip: Have a clear plan for your program, be consistent, and make yourself available to your athletes. Stick to your fundamentals and don’t deviate when things get tough—stay grounded in your philosophy, but evolve with the sport.

When athletes see that you genuinely care about them as people, not just competitors, they’ll trust you more and respond better to coaching. That consistency and availability build stronger relationships—and that’s where extraordinary things can happen.

"I think the biggest thing is consistency—have a plan. I don’t think wrestling, or sports for that matter, are overly complicated when it comes to coaching. You’ve got to know your sport, the rules, and the core concepts. But at the end of the day, it’s not terribly hard.

The best coaches—whether youth, middle school, high school, college, or international—are the ones who can connect and relate to their athletes. They become part of these kids’ lives. Those are the coaches who inspire athletes to do extraordinary things.

Have a plan and don’t deviate from it. The sport evolves, so you have to evolve with it, but stick to your foundation and your principles. When we came to South Dakota State, we had a plan. The first year was super tough—we only won three duals. We stunk. But we didn’t change our plan.

Whether it was fundamentals or the foundation of our program, we stayed the course. We focused on relationships and being available to our athletes. College kids are still young adults—they need guidance and support. People are social creatures; we don’t want to be isolated.

That’s why being available is so important. If your athletes see that you genuinely care about them as people, they’ll be far more receptive to feedback—both constructive criticism and praise. Availability makes the biggest impact on their athletic careers and their lives.

It’s something I learned through my own journey. When I was competing, having people available to me made all the difference. So no matter what level you coach, be available. When athletes know you’re there for them, that’s when extraordinary things start to happen."

Athlete Tip: Find the areas of training you dislike the most—whether it’s lifting, drilling, bottom work, or conditioning—and make them your focus. We naturally avoid discomfort, but growth lives in the hard stuff. Force yourself to get better at what you don’t enjoy, because that’s where real progress happens. The more you lean into those uncomfortable areas, the more complete and well-rounded you’ll become as an athlete.

"I’d say the easiest thing is to find the thing that you despise the most. What is it? Is it lifting weights? Drilling? Doing cardio? Is it live wrestling? A certain position?

Find the thing you don’t like and make yourself do it. We’re creatures of habit, and human beings—like most animals—take the path of least resistance. When you do that, you leave stones unturned.

So, find the thing you don’t like to do and spend time in that area. Force yourself to be locked in for however long it takes to get better at it. Whether it’s in sports, academics, or life, the same rule applies.

When you go to practice, what happens? You warm up, then go into free drill—and what do most athletes do? They drill on their feet, because that’s the fun part. No, get your butt on the mat. Work on bottom. Work on top.

Those aren’t the glamorous positions, but we all need work there. You can only improve by putting yourself in uncomfortable spots. Work on your deficiencies, the things you don’t like doing, and you’ll see massive improvement.

If you hate lifting, that’s fine—but recognize the correlation between strength, recovery, and performance. Focus on those weaknesses, because ultimately, that’s what makes you more well-rounded and better overall.

So yeah, the easiest thing is this: find the things you don’t like to do—and that’s what you should focus on."

Negative Impact Tip: Hygiene often gets overlooked, but it’s one of the most important parts of maintaining a healthy wrestling culture. Wrestlers spend every day in close contact—sweating, grappling, and sharing mats—so cleanliness must be treated like part of training.

Keep yourself, your gear, and your environment clean. Shower after every practice, wash your clothes and equipment regularly, and never ignore skin issues. A few bad habits can spread quickly and hurt everyone on the team. Good hygiene protects not just you, but your teammates and the sport itself.

"Well, just from the surface, you look at a couple things. Weight cutting—you know, there was that tragedy back in the late 90s when a few wrestlers lost their lives cutting too much weight in saunas and things like that. You have some negative impacts from that, I believe, for wrestling as a whole.

I would say the majority of people have a little bit of a negative association when it comes to weight cutting and eating habits. So I think one of the biggest things is—I go back to my kids. I have two boys. My oldest is thirteen. I’m five-ten, maybe five-ten and a half on a good day, and he’s almost as tall as I am at 175 pounds.

Never once did I have him cut weight. Maybe he’s a little undersized at times when he competes, but I don’t want him to struggle later on with weight-related issues. I think there’s a negative connotation with it, and could it lead to other problems down the line? Maybe—I don’t know. But I want to avoid that.

Same thing with my ten-year-old. He’s wrestling this weekend. He weighed around 113 or 114, and he asked, “Dad, what weight should I go?” He’s ten years old. He said, “Should I go down to 106 or 107?” And I told him, “No, I’m not having you cut weight. You’ll wrestle at 116.”

He might wrestle some kids who cut down from 125, but that’s their choice. They can do that if they want. But you see it when kids get older and move into college—it starts to play a much bigger role. I just want my kids, and kids in general, to be healthy. I’m not saying to be overweight or underweight—just be healthy and train where you’re comfortable.

If it’s a couple pounds here and there, no big deal. As you get older, you start to manage your weight better, understand more, and learn to handle it the right way. That’s one of the big things—the weight issue.

Another thing is hygiene. Some parents are overly cautious, and some aren’t cautious enough. We’re in a physical sport—we’re sweating, grabbing other people, rolling on mats. Hygiene matters. Some people disregard it, but it’s important—not just for wrestling, but for people in general. We need to be clean.

Those are things that sometimes give wrestling a bad reputation, but we do it to ourselves. We need to be better stewards of the sport—not just in the wins and losses, but in how we handle everything else around it.

For example, if a kid has a skin issue—ringworm, herpes, whatever—you’ll see some programs let them wrestle and others that won’t. There has to be a standard. It’s not just about protecting one kid, but the people they’re wrestling too.

We can’t be ignorant or negligent. We care about people. Why would I want to do that to someone else? Those are some of the things I think about when talking about negatives in the sport—standards that need to be upheld."

Wrestling Growth Tip: Strengthen the team side of wrestling. Fans, families, and entire communities rally behind teams—they create identity, pride, and momentum that elevate the sport as a whole.

Dual meets, full rosters, and consistent competition build exposure and excitement. More matches mean more opportunities for athletes to grow, for programs to connect with fans, and for wrestling to expand its reach beyond individuals into something people can truly get behind.

"Well, I think that’s a very convoluted question because everyone might view things a little differently. In my mind, let’s take some of the most high-profile sports — basketball, football, baseball. Someone might come back and say, “Well, those are team sports.” Yes, I know.

Wrestling is awesome because you have both a team component and an individual component. I don’t have to worry if Tom Brady threw the ball to the right spot so I can catch it. You kind of control your own destiny in some way.

So, I believe the team component is vital for the overall growth of our sport. I’ll use the national tournament as an example. The year before last, we took 13th and had the highest points we’d ever scored. We had four All-Americans.

And let me tell you—people knew that South Dakota State did that. They couldn’t tell you who the All-Americans were, but they knew South Dakota State. When we wrestled Michigan that year, they were ranked sixth in the country—and we beat them.

People knew South Dakota State beat Michigan. They didn’t know that Tanner Sloan got a tech fall or who won which match, but they knew the team. People get behind teams, and I feel like we need to put more emphasis on that side of the sport.

We’re trying at times to do it, but it’s not consistent. At the Division I level, we have programs that forfeit weight classes. There are over seventy thousand graduating seniors a year that wrestle—and we’re still having forfeits.

I get it—sometimes guys are hurt or there’s a legitimate reason. But if we can’t fill our rosters, that’s an issue. We need to put more emphasis on the team component. We need to create more dual-meet atmospheres. We already have an amazing product.

The NCAA national championship is incredible—but to keep growing, we need to focus on the other side too. Dual meets matter because you’re only as strong as your weakest link. You could have two national champs and still be called a top-ten program, but is that really a team?

That’s just two individuals placing you in the standings. Was that truly a team effort? I think that’s a big one—dual meets matter. They’re important for universities and high schools. They’re great for fans because people want to support a team...

I’d also love to see wrestling go back to the days when guys were getting thirty or forty matches a year. That’s more exposure for our athletes. And in today’s world, where you can actually make money off your name, why not put yourself out there?

The more times you step on the mat, the more opportunities you have—not just to compete, but to build your brand and grow the sport."

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