Snacks

This week's Snacks come from Jason Reitmeier: 2X Minnesota State Champion, 2X Junior National Champion (Freestyle), and 1992 Asics Tiger High School 1st Team All-American. In college, he wrestled at Augustana University, where he became a 2X NCAA Division II All-American and the 1997 NCAA Division II National Champion.

He is currently in his 23rd season as the Head Coach of Augustana and is the winningest coach in program history. His 2025 team finished as the NCAA Division II National Runner-up.

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: Sometimes a change of scenery might be what an athlete needs. For Jason, transferring to Augustana gave him space to reset, take the pressure off, and rediscover why he loved wrestling. A fresh environment can reignite passion and open the door to success.

"I grew up in Bigelow, Minnesota. It's a town of two hundred and fifty people—tiny.

I went to high school in Worthington, which had about 10,000 people. I thought I was going to be the next Michael Jordan. I played basketball, but my mom—who’s about 4 foot 10—told me one day I wasn’t going to get any taller. So she got me into wrestling in fifth grade.

I don’t know what it was, but probably within the first two practices I absolutely loved it. I was a pretty shy kid, not real outgoing. I don’t know if wrestling just brought more out of me or what, but I loved it right away.

I did find success early. I wasn’t beating the best kids, but I was winning, and that kept me hooked. I enjoyed the one-on-one aspect. Because I was shy, it was easier for me to go out there by myself rather than rely on teammates and have to talk through plays like in basketball or football. Wrestling just pulled me in.

Things went well into high school. I won a couple of Junior National titles and made a world team in Greco. I didn’t enjoy Greco, but I wrestled it because it made me better at what I wanted to do.

I went to Lincoln, Nebraska, for three years. I didn’t have much success there. I was behind a couple of All-Americans my first two years, and when I finally got the chance to start, I did okay. But I ended up getting beat out at the end of the year. I just wasn’t enjoying wrestling anymore.

So I transferred and somehow ended up at Augustana, a tiny school in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. The coach didn’t put a lot of pressure on me to win—he just told me to have fun. And man, I had fun.

We wrestled some Division I schools and went to the Midwest Classic, where I competed against the same guy who had beat me out before—and I won the tournament. That gave me a lot of confidence, and things really took off. I got third that year in Division II.

The next year I came back and won a national title at 142. After that, the coach here, Kraig Presler, asked me to stay on and help coach. I’ve been here ever since—since 1997.

Parent Tip: Support your child through communication, not control. Let them speak for themselves, listen to their perspective, and guide them without taking over. Celebrate their effort and progress—win or lose—and focus on helping them enjoy the sport, not just chasing results.

"Well, I think communication is key. You’ve got to have a lot of communication with your kids through anything, right? But especially when they’re starting to feel pressure about whether they want to do something or not.

I think communicating with them about the pros and cons of things and being supportive whichever way they go is important. At the same time, I see it so often now where kids come in for visits, and I try to talk to them, but the parents talk over them. It’s almost like they’re trying to live the life they didn’t have. Parents need to realize—it’s not your life, it’s theirs.

Yes, you want to be supportive. You want them to do the right things. You want them to be the best in the world at something, whether it’s wrestling or whatever—but it’s still their life. So again, it comes back to guiding them through communication, not forcing them into something they don’t want to do.

When I watch little kids wrestle now, you can see the ones who are really having fun out there. And you can see the parents who are letting it happen. But it can be scary going to some of these tournaments and watching parents coach their kids from the corner. It’s very negative sometimes instead of positive.

I’m the opposite. I want to stay positive with my athletes. Yes, there are times when I have to get after them, but I try to be overly positive about everything. Win a match—you come off the mat, and we talk about what you did well, then what you can improve on. Lose a match—we do the same thing. Talk about what went well first, then what needs to improve.

It’s about reframing it all as positive. You just learned how to lose, now we’ve got to get better. But I think nowadays, it’s more yelling than communicating. It should be, “Hey, you did a great job, we’ll get better tomorrow. You always have the next day.”

I had a really good kid a couple years ago. We pulled his redshirt, and he lost his first match. It looked like it broke him—he was devastated. That night I couldn’t sleep, so I called him the next morning. He was still upset. I asked why, and he said, “Well, I lost.”

I told him, “Yeah, you can be upset, but today’s another day. Have you been outside yet?” He said no, so I told him, “Go outside. Is the sun up?” He said yeah. I said, “Another day, right?” And that’s how he looks at it now. If he has a bad practice, he wakes up and says, “I’ve got another day to prove myself.”

So again, I think we put too much emphasis on winning and not enough on just enjoying the sport and getting better. Parents need to make sure their kids enjoy it. Let them know, “Hey, let’s just keep getting better and not worry so much about winning and losing all the time.”

Coaching Tip: Keep Practices Fun and Build Confidence. With younger athletes, keep practices short, engaging, and fun—use games, gymnastics, and play wrestling to build body control and enjoyment of the sport. As kids get older, don’t lose that element of fun; weave it into middle school and high school practices too. At the end of each session, remind wrestlers they’ve accomplished something difficult that most people can’t do: survive a wrestling practice. That daily reinforcement builds pride, resilience, and a positive relationship with the grind of training.

"We put on a lot of camps and when we bring in these kids, especially kindergarten through fifth grade, we make those practices an hour and 10 to an hour and 20 minutes. The reason we do that is because the attention span of kids is a little bit smaller. When we keep them within that window, we hold their attention much better.

The other thing we really try to do with those younger kids is make it fun. We do a lot of gymnastics, body-control drills, and games where they can compete against each other while learning how to control their bodies. Then we add a little bit of technique in there. When I was a kid, play wrestling wasn’t even a thing, but now we do a lot of it—kids grab each other, roll around, and just learn positions. Once they fall in love with it, you can start cranking up the intensity and technique.

I think a lot of high school kids today didn’t have that kind of foundation when they were younger. So you almost have to implement it at the middle school and high school levels too—adding in fun, athletic movements like flips and body-control work. Let them showcase their skills before diving straight into wrestling technique. Wrestling is about being an athlete, not just a wrestler. Too often, we push the wrestling part so hard that kids forget it’s supposed to be fun.

Practices are tough, they’re a grind. That’s why I tell coaches: implement fun, add athletic elements, and at the end of practice remind athletes they just did something most people can’t do—get through a wrestling practice. Hold your head high, roll your shoulders back, and walk out with pride knowing you accomplished something very few people can.

Not many other sports push athletes the way wrestling does. When kids walk out drenched in sweat, shoes soaked, they’ve done something special. I remind my guys, from little kids to seniors: you just did something nobody else can do. That’s incredible. Be proud of yourself. Parents should be proud too. Every day we talk about it—“You just did something nobody else can do.” That’s awesome."

Athlete Tip: Build a Routine and Stay Present. Success comes from consistency. Develop daily habits that keep you organized—nutrition, workouts, recovery, and sleep—and stick to them. When you walk into practice or the weight room, leave distractions behind and give full effort to the task in front of you. A steady routine keeps life from feeling overwhelming and helps you maximize every moment. Focus on where your feet are, and you’ll grow not only as an athlete but also as a person.

"Well, for myself and my athletes, it’s routine. Getting into that rhythm of waking up, eating the right things before a workout, and then being where your feet are. When I walk into the weight room, I need to be in that moment. I have to give that 45 minutes to an hour everything I’ve got to get better at what I want to do.

The problem is a lot of kids walk into the weight room and their minds are somewhere else—thinking about their next class, their girlfriend, their parents. That’s when you have to put your feet where they are and separate all that stuff to get a great workout in. Then it’s about sticking to routine: finishing the lift, then studying, eating lunch, or going to individuals. When athletes have routine, life runs easier. They don’t get overwhelmed, which is huge, especially in college.

Even in high school it matters, with all the pressures of social media, coaches, teachers, parents—it’s easy to get overwhelmed. But if you run your day with structure—going to bed at the right time, organizing what needs to be done—you can maximize your potential. And when you step into the wrestling room, it’s not about how bad your lift was or how bad a test went earlier. It’s about being in that moment and asking, “What do I need to get done today? How am I going to get better at wrestling in the next hour and a half of practice?”

That’s what we really stress with our guys: being in the moment, being where your feet are, not overthinking. Build organization and routine so you’re never overwhelmed. And when you do feel overwhelmed, sit down and go through your day step by step. That process makes life easier, not just for athletes but for anyone—salesmen, businessmen, whoever. Being organized every day sets you up for success.

I’m a big note-taker. I write down everything I need to get done that day so I don’t forget. From morning to night, I run my day by routine. And when I get off that routine, it even messes up my sleep because I’m thinking about what I missed. Athletes are the same way—they’ve got so much going on that without structure, they can’t organize it all. That’s why we keep stressing: build a routine, stick to it, and be where your feet are. That’s what makes them successful."

Negative Impact Tip: The people around you shape how you perceive the sport, how you respond to losses, and how you keep moving forward. Surround yourself with those who encourage, support, and help you learn, rather than voices that crush confidence or add negativity.

"In the sport of wrestling, it’s like: get in the wrestling room and learn this technique, right? Then it’s get conditioned a certain way, and then lift this way. You’re doing all these things to train your body. But what are you doing to train your mind?

I think that’s the biggest thing—we forget about training the mind. That means sitting down every day, being positive, and thinking through how great wrestling is for you. Pounding out those negative thoughts, like when I lose it’s the worst thing in the world. The problem is, a lot of times you don’t have the support group to tell you it’s not the end of the world and that it’s going to be okay.

So again, I think the biggest factor is the people you put around you. You need to make sure you’re in a positive environment. You want your team to be positive when you lose. You want your family to be positive. Nobody enjoys losing—it stinks—but how do we let that kid know it’s not the end of the world? You’ll have another chance, whether it’s tomorrow or two weeks from now.

Wrestling is awesome. It’s an incredible sport. It’s going to teach you so many lessons, including how to handle losses and wins, the ups and the downs. But are you going to let it crumble you when it’s not great? The people around you matter most—they keep you level-headed, positive, moving forward, and not taking steps backward.

If you don’t have that, the negative mindset can affect more than just wrestling—it can carry into your social life, school, business, whatever comes down the road. I’ve felt that myself. Back in college, before I came to Augie, Division I was like: win, win, win, or else you’re nothing. That pressure can crush you.

And when you lose, instead of hearing, “You wrestled a great match, here’s what we’ll work on,” sometimes it’s, “That’s going to mess up your seeding.” It just gets real negative. That’s why the people you surround yourself with are so important.

When I see dads screaming at kids on the mat, I can’t help but wonder: what are they going to say when their kid comes off the mat? That’s when you need a coach, a parent, or even another parent nearby to step in and say, “Hey, let’s be more positive. This kid wrestled hard, he had fun. If he didn’t win, are we really going to crush him for it?”

The people around you shape how you perceive the sport, how you respond to losses, and how you keep moving forward."

Wrestling Growth Tip: Help kids build connections and friendships within the sport. No friends means no reason to come back. When young athletes feel connected to teammates, coaches, and parents, they enjoy it more, stick it out through tough times, and are more likely to stay in the sport long-term.

"First of all, getting kids out at a young age is hard. Basketball, football, soccer, and even hockey are so big around the United States now that it’s drawing a lot of kids.

But if we can get them out, how do we keep them out? I think that’s the biggest challenge in elementary—K through 5, or even up to 8th grade—keeping them involved.

How do we do it? I don’t know if I have all the answers, other than relationships. Really building a relationship with those kids. When they’re out there rolling around, you walk over, have fun with them, talk to them about their wrestling, and build that connection.

Also, making it fun. Just making it really fun at the time, because it’s hard to make wrestling fun all the time. People say you’ve got to promote your duals more and that’s how you grow wrestling. But I think it starts with the little kids.

The more little kids you have, as they grow up, the more they influence the kids below them. When they have kids of their own, they’ll get them into wrestling. Right now, I don’t think we always have that positive reputation with parents and little kids.

I think it’s getting better, don’t get me wrong, but who wants to see their little kid get beat up? Parents see their kid take a tough loss and think, “Oh my gosh, he just got the crap beat out of him.” But he actually did something really great—he went out there and wrestled someone who might have been way better than him.

Now we just have to keep him involved, make it fun, and help him get better at wrestling so he enjoys it and tells other kids. That’s how it grows.

When I think back to when my son was younger, he wrestled from kindergarten to third grade, then decided he didn’t want to anymore. I didn’t push him, which I regret a little bit because I think he would have been really good.

But he didn’t have any friends that wrestled. Not a single one. 

He went in the wrestling room and didn’t know a single kid there. When he left and went to play baseball that night, he knew every kid—because they were always his friends.

So I truly believe that if you can build these connections—whether it’s with another kid, a friend, the coaches, or even the parents who are helping or volunteering—the connection is huge. If kids enjoy those relationships, they’re more likely to stick with wrestling.

It doesn’t matter if it’s the person running practice, the other kids in the room, or the families involved. If there’s a sense of belonging, they’ll keep coming back. That’s what makes the difference.

I don’t know exactly how to create it every time, but I believe that’s what will grow wrestling: the connections."

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