Snacks

This week's Snacks come from Mark Branch: Wrestled at Oklahoma State, where he was a 4X NCAA All-American, 4X NCAA Finalist, and 2X NCAA National Champion. He was named the 1997 Big 12 Athlete of the Year, OSU Athlete of the Year, and was a 4X NWCA Academic All-American. He was part of five NCAA team championships as both a coach and student-athlete at OSU. As a college wrestler, Branch was a member of the Cowboys’ 1994 NCAA Championship team and later served on the coaching staff for OSU’s 2002, 2003, 2004, and 2005 NCAA titles.

He is currently entering his 18th year as Head Coach at the University of Wyoming. As a coach, he was named the 2018 Big 12 Coach of the Year and has guided the Pokes to six team conference championships.

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: Wrestling gives kids confidence that carries with them throughout their lives. Even small wins—like success in a local YMCA tournament—can make a young athlete feel like they’re “on top of the world.” Those early moments of success build belief in themselves, showing them they’re capable of competing, improving, and handling challenges.

"Yeah, my mom's brothers wrestled. My dad was a really good basketball and baseball player. He went on to Oklahoma State and played basketball there, but he didn’t have any wrestling background.

My older brother, who was three years older than me, got into wrestling—probably mostly because of my uncles. At the same time, we played all the youth sports in our town. Fortunately, we had a decent wrestling tradition at our small school, and that probably had a lot to do with it.

So my brother started wrestling when he was five or six. And you know the old story—you end up becoming his practice partner. When he came home from practice, he would demonstrate moves and show my parents what he learned on me.

I was definitely becoming a practice dummy at the age of three or four. Then I got to go to practices and start competing at five. At that age, I didn’t know anything other than waking up at 4 a.m. and my parents driving us to little tournaments in Morrison, Perry, Blackwell, or Ponca City—basically all within an hour.

We were in the YMCA program, and that was our thing. I did have success at that level early. Within three or four years of wrestling, I was winning the YMCA State championships. They weren’t really state championships—it was just my area—but they called it the YMCA State.

Man, I thought I was big stuff. It was so exciting because I was good at something. We had a few other kids around my age who were really competitive too, and we got into it. We loved it, we celebrated it, and my parents would drag us around to all these little tournaments.

We thought we were conquering the world."

Parent Tip: Support your child, but don’t do everything for them. Letting kids face adversity, handle their own responsibilities, and even make mistakes helps them develop accountability. Being supportive doesn’t mean supporting every decision—it means guiding them while giving them the space to grow into independent adults.

"I think just being supportive and letting them do it on their terms is important. One of the problems you see are parents that want it for themselves. They want those feelings of success.

Every parent enjoys that. When my kid hit his first home run in high school, those moments were exciting. You love celebrating them, but you have to stand back and let them do it. You have to let them face adversity, and adversity is okay.

You can't jump in and rescue your child every time they face adversity. That's not going to benefit them in this sport. Just be supportive, be there for them, and be in their ear. By the time they get to college, they’re an adult. They have to handle their own stuff.

The kids who are adjusted to that reality have more success than the ones still used to their parents doing everything. My son just graduated junior college and is transferring to a four-year. We got a packet in the mail with a checklist of things he needed to do.

My wife said, “We need to tell him to do this, and tell him to do that.” I said, “I’m just going to take a picture and send it to him. He needs to do it. He’s an adult.” If he needs something from my end, of course I’ll do it, but I’m not going to walk him through it.

He can read the paper, go through the list, and do it all. But there are kids who get to college and don’t know how to do things for themselves. From a parenting perspective, you have to let them grow up, step into responsibility, and take care of their business.

If they make a mistake, let them figure out how to make up for it or fix it. Always be supportive, but don’t be afraid to draw the line. Supporting your child doesn’t mean supporting every decision.

If your son is trying to be a college athlete but is out at the bars getting hammered, you don’t have to support that decision. Kids are getting pulled in different directions, tempted to do the wrong things, even transferring for the wrong reasons.

Parents will say, “I’m going to support him because he’s my son.” That’s good—you support the child. But you don’t have to support every decision. They’re still developing, and part of parenting is helping them by giving advice and guidance when it’s needed."

Coaching Tip: Build your program around a clear culture. Define what your team stands for, communicate it daily, and hold firm to those standards. Pair that structure with genuine care for every athlete, even the tough ones. Success in coaching isn’t only about results; it’s about mentoring kids and young adults, guiding them through adversity, and helping them grow so they can be successful in life.

"I mean, you have to draw a line. You have to have a culture, and you have to define what that culture is. You need pretty solid boundaries.

This is what entails being a part of this program. This is what this program represents. You have to communicate that constantly, not just once. You don’t say it at the beginning of the year—you have to constantly communicate what your program is about and what your standards are.

I’m not going to give coaching tips on what practices, discipline, or conditioning should look like. Every coach has to figure out what’s best for their team and their environment. What a high school program does in Pennsylvania may be different than what one does in Kansas.

But I think you have to define what your culture is and communicate it all the time. And you also have to love your kids—even the tough ones. You have to do everything you can to help them.

I constantly question myself. Some of the biggest mistakes I’ve made came from caring for kids so much that I made bad decisions for the program. Sometimes I feel like I hurt the program because I was trying to help a kid too much.

But then I look back and think about the handful of kids I didn’t give up on. Where they are now—they had success, they got their degree, they have families, businesses, and jobs. One case like that makes it worth it, and I’ve certainly had more than one.

I’ve had a lot of kids I had to swallow my pride for and not give up on, helping them figure things out. Those kids are worth the ones that didn’t work out, because not all of them will. Sometimes I look back and think I let one go too long, and it hurt the program.

To me, this job isn’t about wrestling. It isn’t about the sport. It’s about leadership and mentorship. It’s about helping boys grow into men, helping them through adversity, and teaching them how to deal with adversity.

Don’t be about the trophies and the championships. Be about the kids. Always be about the kids."

Athlete Tip: “Love the Fight.” Don’t just love the fun and the good stuff—love the hard stuff. Find the joy in what you’re doing. If you don’t love it—if you’re not passionate and emotional—you won’t thrive. Love the challenges. Love the adversity. Find the positive in the hard things, because those battles are what shape you, mold you, and make you better.

"You got to find the joy in what you're doing. If you don't love it, if you're not passionate and emotional, then I feel like you're not going to thrive. I can't say that for everybody, but I just feel like you have to find the joy and the love.

Like I said, I don't push my kids to cut weight because of the experience I went through. If you end up hating what you're doing, I don't know how you can be successful. You have to find the love and the joy. My brother-in-law is Brandon Paulson, and he runs Pinnacle in Minnesota. Their motto is “Love the Fight.”

What does that mean? To me, it means don’t just love the fun and the good stuff—love the hard stuff. Love the challenges, love the adversity. Those are the things that changed my life. A bad experience changed my trajectory, my career, my wrestling—everything.

In college, I learned a hard lesson that helped me win national championships. I didn’t learn that from good experiences. The things that gave me success were the hard things. You have to love the hard things too.

When you say you got to love the sport, it means find the joy, find the love, and keep it at the forefront of your mind. But when something's hard, don’t think it’s just something you should hate. You have to realize there’s a positive, even in struggle.

That’s your job: find the positive in the hard things. Love the fight. Love the battles, love the adversity. Those are the things shaping you, molding you, and making you better. If you let the negative eat you alive, if you can’t find joy in it, then it’s only a matter of time before the experience defeats you.

That’s when kids burn out or quit because they can’t handle the hard times with a positive attitude. You always have to work on this—it’s not easy, it’s not inherent in us as humans. I look at all the things I’ve been through since childhood, like losing both of my parents too young.

Those things obviously affected me, but I’ve been able to find positives in them. One of the best things that ever happened to me was dislocating my knee in the NCAA finals my junior year. It was one of the most horrible things that ever happened in my life, but also one of the most positive.

It took a long time for me to see that. It was physically painful—multiple surgeries, infections, pain that lasted a year. But it was one of the most positive things that ever happened to me. People ask how I dealt with it, and I tell them: it was the best thing that ever happened to me.

Obviously, I didn’t feel that way at the time. But now I look back, and I know it was a great experience that I needed in my life."

Negative Impact Tip: When high school wrestlers are pushed into year-round competition, they often arrive at college already worn down. By the time they reach the level they dreamed of, their bodies have taken so much mileage—surgeries, chronic injuries, fatigue—that they’re a shell of themselves. Over-competition can rob athletes of longevity and the chance to thrive when it matters most. The key is balance: build in recovery, protect their bodies, and make sure athletes have time away from constant competition and the grind of the mat.

"The one thing that we’ve seen over the past half a dozen years is it’s a race. It’s a race, and it’s only getting worse. Now high school kids recognize that not only can they go to a great program, a marquee program competing for national championships, but with roster cuts and most rosters going to 30, it’s even harder to wrestle Division I.

There’s that level of competition. Everybody’s competing for the same thing—to get to that next step—and they’re doing it at all costs. That’s what scares me a little bit. I had a good conversation with a parent several months ago, and from their perspective, they’re like, “We’re trying to get a scholarship and go to a good program. We know that in order to do that, you’ve got to compete well at these tournaments.”

But the problem is if you go into these big marquee high school tournaments and you’re not ready, and you don’t do well, it could hurt you. So what happens is: you do this tournament to get ready for that tournament, then another to get ready for the next one, and before you know it you’re wrestling year-round. One thing we’re seeing is high school kids with so many miles on their body, already beat up.

I don’t know the answer, because I get it. Parents are doing what they think is best for their kid to have a chance to wrestle at the highest level in college and hopefully get on the podium. But we get so many kids that come in already beat up, with multiple surgeries, and some of these things are reoccurring. It’s tough, because here they are at the moment they’ve all been fighting to get to, and they’re a shell of themselves.

You’ve got to listen to your body. You’ve got to let kids have time away from the sport. You’ve got to let them have some time off the mat. We’ve really implemented that at the college level. I’ve seen videos of other programs running structured summer practices, blowing the whistle, kids drenched in sweat. Maybe we could be doing that, but our season is long, and we need to keep our kids healthy.

Even at the high school level, it’s the same with weight cutting. Sometimes it’s necessary and there’s nothing wrong with discipline, but you’ve got to pay attention. A lot of kids have left the sport because of weight cutting. We scare a lot of kids and parents with the stigma of wrestlers starving or putting their health in danger. That stigma starts early.

When I was five or six, the night before a tournament me and my brother had a routine. We’d cut arms and a head out of a trash bag and sleep in it, thinking we’d make weight. My mom would take it off us in the middle of the night, and we’d be mad in the morning thinking we wouldn’t make weight because she took it off. How stupid is that? But that was the culture: you’re a wrestler, you’ve got to sleep in a trash bag.

Things are better now, but the truth remains—if you force kids into unhealthy habits, they’ll end up hating wrestling and quitting. And if you push kids beyond their physical limits, they may reach where they wanted to go, but they won’t have any tread left on the tires. Their bodies will be done. These are things you have to pay attention to as young athletes, and as parents of young athletes."

Wrestling Growth Tip: Dual meets are one of the best ways to grow wrestling. They bring energy, excitement, and a loyal fan base. When stands are full and rivalries are alive, people connect with the sport and have fun. At the college level, adjusting the season to run second semester—ending in April or May—would give wrestling more media attention and less competition from other sports. Without going head-to-head with March Madness, wrestling would have the space to stand out.

"I think they’re doing a really good job around the country with women’s wrestling. The growth of women’s wrestling and the opportunities at some smaller college programs have been very positive for our sport. 

From my perspective, and what I deal with daily, I think it’s become more and more apparent that we have to make duals important.

You see it at the high school level, but high school usually falls in line with us. There are several states that don’t even really wrestle duals—they only wrestle tournaments. But then you see programs that create an environment with high-level duals. For example, in California, Clovis and Buchanan create events that blow the roof off.

We’ve seen it in college too—big-time duals that set attendance records. That’s how we’re going to grow the sport. Number one, we have to figure out how to make duals important. Fans come to watch a dual, but too often the best wrestlers sit out because coaches are protecting seeds or rankings. That doesn’t help grow wrestling.

As a coach, your main job is to do what’s best for your student-athletes, but you also have to think about what’s best for the sport or we won’t have a sport. With NIL, the transfer portal, and everyone trying to gain an edge, what good will it do if ten years from now wrestling isn’t here? That’s why I believe Division 1 and college wrestling need to move the season.

Most coaches agree moving the season later would make it more marketable, reduce conflicts with other sports, and build more excitement. But we’re afraid to change. Rules have helped make wrestling more exciting and higher scoring, but we still struggle with change. I’d like to see wrestling end in April or May, not March, and I’d like to see the season shortened to one semester.

That would help protect athletes’ health. These kids are already beat up, and their bodies can’t always handle the physicality. We try to set our schedule to keep our kids healthy, but you can’t predict injuries. What we can do is create balance and shorten the grind.

If we make duals important, whether through a dual championship or a dual component to nationals, it will grow the fan base. And if you grow the fan base, the sport will be healthy. If no one watches, the sport is dead. That’s why growing duals and adjusting the season are critical."

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Growth Bite

This week's Growth Bite comes from my brother and, at the same time, from the GOAT of female ultra running, Courtney Dauwalter. Yesterday, my brother and I were texting about being in the mountains and pushing a hard pace. I said something, and his response was:

“The body is an amazing thing. It’s just pain. It’ll go away.”

Then today, I was reflecting on Courtney’s performance at last week’s UTMB 100-mile race. She’s won it before and is widely considered the greatest female ultra runner of all time. But this time, things didn’t go as planned. She battled throughout the race and finished 10th—a rare result that few expected.

I came across an image and quote from Courtney that tied directly into my brother’s words, and together they create a unique perspective on pain and endurance:

Community Treat

This week's Community Treat comes comes from an old clip of Chael Sonnen throwing Tito Ortiz in a headlock and pinning him during their college dual meet between the University of Oregon and Cal State Bakersfield.

Interest in the match has resurfaced because, during RAF01 last weekend, Tito called out Chael for a rematch—set to take place at RAF02: