Snacks

This week's Snacks come from Matt Azevedo: Wrestled at Arizona State and Iowa State, and was a 3X NCAA National Qualifier. In freestyle at the senior level, he was a 7X U.S. Open All-American and won the 2009 U.S. Open. He was also a 2X U.S. National Team member, placed 4th at the U.S. Olympic Trials in 2004 and 2008, and was an alternate for the World Team in 2007. He’s currently in his 14th season as the Head Coach of Drexel University.

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: Don’t underestimate the power of exposure and opportunity. A simple lunchroom signup opened the door to a new sport that changed his life. Even if kids are committed to another sport, giving them a chance to try wrestling (or any new activity) can uncover hidden passions and talents.

"I started wrestling in seventh grade. I was a baseball player and played baseball year-round up until that point. When I was in seventh grade, the kids club I ended up wrestling for had signups at lunch one day, so I signed myself up, partly because I was familiar with the sport.

My uncle John Azevedo was an NCAA champ at Bakersfield and made the 1980 Olympic team, so I was aware of wrestling. I had watched some wrestling but never done it or been encouraged to do it. My dad wrestled in high school, but I was really into baseball, so that’s what we did. Then they had signups one day, so I decided I was going to do it, and the rest is history.

I struggled early on like most wrestlers do, but I had success pretty quickly. I was a Nevada state champion my freshman year in high school, so by my third year of wrestling I picked it up quickly. I had good influences—my dad had a wrestling background from high school, and my uncle was a world-class wrestler and coach. For me, it was just a very natural fit.

As I got into high school and stopped growing while my baseball teammates got bigger, it became obvious to make the shift to wrestling. I wanted to go to college and realized I could probably play a sport in college as well. Sports were my life, so after my sophomore year I stopped playing baseball and started focusing on wrestling full-time.

I probably still considered myself a baseball player in a lot of ways up until then, but then I started wrestling year-round and putting more time and effort into it—going to camps, wrestling freestyle—and I started getting good at it. That led to new opportunities. I ended up moving to California my senior year and wrestling for my uncle's high school, Calvary Chapel High School.

That led to college opportunities. Wrestling is just a great sport, and I’m happy I was able to get into it when I did. I always thought I wished I had gotten into it sooner, but maybe starting later was exactly what I needed.

I would wrestle kids in my early years of high school who had been wrestling since they were 5, 6, or 7 years old, and I didn’t start until I was 13. I always thought, "Man, if I had a couple more years, I could be beating these guys." I always felt like I was just a little step behind the top guys.

But wrestling was always a great challenge. Was it hard at times? Oh, yeah. Did I hate practice at times? Oh, yeah."

Parent Tip: Manage your emotions and focus on core values. When your child loses, the last thing they need is anger or disappointment from you. Be there to pick them up, remind them it's okay, and help them learn from the experience. Wins and losses will come and go, but your support and encouragement will last.

"I think we've already touched on it a little bit, but it's like focusing on effort, focusing on core values or characteristics that you want your kids to portray or even learn and develop through their competition.

Don't get me wrong. Success is important. The reality is, if you're losing all the time, it will be hard to feel like you're making progress. So I think it's about finding that nice balance of success and failure. Where I see parents go wrong in some ways is they take it too personal.

I believe that's where a lot of those emotions come out. Most of these parents mean well. I don't think they are jerks. Sometimes their behavior can come off that way, but I don't think they really are those types of people.

This sport brings it out of you. It brings out raw emotion. When you see your kid out there physically struggling, you want them to get on top. That's human nature, and when they don't, it can be hard. I think it's learning to manage that.

Parents need to manage their own emotions. When a kid loses, the last thing they need is for somebody to be mad at them, disappointed in them, or anything negative. You have to be there to pick them up.

You have to let them know it's okay. You lost, it's over. Now, how are you going to learn from it? I think that's the biggest thing—how do you learn and grow from each experience?

I've even struggled with it as a coach. As an assistant coach, I think it was easier, but as a head coach, it's been harder. I rode that wave for a long time: you win, you're happy; you lose, you're mad.

Then you start taking it out on the kids, like they're doing it on purpose. "What are you doing? You've got to do this, you've got to do that." That type of tone and attitude is not going to breed growth and improvement.

You just have to acknowledge that. I think it's okay if you have some of those feelings, but you've got to temper them. You've got to encourage the kids and be supportive and focus on core values.

That's where we've really evolved as a program—just focusing on core values."

Coaching Tip: Clearly define your team’s core values and build everything around them. When athletes know exactly what you stand for—and you model, teach, and celebrate those values daily—it creates a strong culture that drives both performance and character growth beyond just winning and losing.

"I'll just piggyback off what I just talked about because, for me, it's been one of the most powerful things as a coach. Clearly defining who we want to be as young men, wrestlers, and as a program—who we want to be as people—is huge.

For us, we talk about bringing heat. We're the Drexel Dragons, and our team’s motto is “Bring Heat.” Heat is an acronym for heart, effort, attitude, and team. Those are our four core values, and we’ve decided that’s who we want to be as a team, as wrestlers, as students, as sons, fathers, brothers—whatever.

We define those core values in more detail, but every day that's what we're striving for. We're striving to sell out in all four of those categories. When we’ve been able to clearly define that and then coaches are modeling it, talking about it, and celebrating it when we see it—this guy showed a lot of heart, this guy had great effort, this guy has an awesome attitude—when we see it, we celebrate it.

Our program has started to make strides and progress towards our goals. Look, we do want to win. Winning is important. That’s why we do this—to win. But really, it’s the mechanism that allows us to practice having heart, effort, a positive attitude, and being a good team member.

That’s what we’ve stripped it down to, and I would suggest parents and coaches do that too. Come up with core values within your family, or even just within wrestling. Within your wrestling family or wrestling relationship, clearly define what’s important.

It can’t be only winning. It just can’t. That only lasts so long."

Athlete Tip: Focus on building your skills, not cutting weight. Master a system of techniques instead of chasing random moves. Compete often. The more you compete, the more comfortable you’ll be with both winning and losing—and that’s how you can really grow in this sport.

"Don't focus on cutting weight. Focus on techniques, but even more so, systems—systems of technique. I think there are a lot of coaches out there that do a great job of teaching systems that build upon each other.

But then there are a lot of clubs and coaches just teaching random moves. I think learning a system and getting in with coaches or a club that teach a system is super important. Focus on effort and not cutting weight.

Yeah, I mean, that's probably not a great answer. I don't think there's any magic piece of advice, except I think I love competition. Getting out and competing a lot is important because it also gets rid of the stigma of winning and losing.

Go out and compete. Go out and find the best competition you can. If you're not at the competition level yet, I think you can focus on just practicing and getting better at wrestling.

I don't have my son really competing that much. I want him to love the sport. I want him to enjoy going to practice, learning moves, and finding value in that—giving his best effort.

We can compete more later on down the road. But when you are in that competition mode, I think you want to get competition. I think it's really important."

Negative Impact Tip: Tying a child’s value to wins and losses creates performance anxiety and damages the parent-athlete relationship. When kids feel like their worth depends on results, they compete with fear instead of freedom, which holds them back from reaching their full potential.

"I think the thing that I continue to run into as a college coach is the relationship between the parents and the kids. A lot of these kids feel like their value comes from winning and losing. I think they know and believe that their parents love them, and I believe that and see that as well.

But there is this unhealthy dynamic around wrestling, and all it ends up doing is causing performance anxiety. Then the athlete is not reaching full potential. That is probably one of the biggest things I see, and it's everywhere.

You see it a lot here in the Northeast. It's so dense here, and there is so much wrestling, so much tradition and culture. Behaviors get repeated. Cultures get repeated.

I would say that's probably one of the biggest things I wish I could help parents with more—just trying to be less of their coach and more of their biggest cheerleader. I know sometimes those lines get blurred, but parents have to remember these kids are trying.

They're trying as hard as they can. Coaches need to remember that too. They're not losing on purpose, and they're not losing because they're wimps either. You know what I mean?

There's some of that: "You're not tough enough. You're not going hard enough." No, it's hard. It's really hard, and we've all been there.

What I always try to do is remember what it was like when I was in a similar situation. How did I act as an athlete? How was I? I probably wasn't as tough as I think I thought I was.

I wasn't as heroic as I like to believe in my memories. You have to remember when it was hard for you and keep it in perspective.

I think parents and kids and wrestlers have to keep that relationship as healthy as possible. You have to always be working at it and analyzing it."

Wrestling Growth Tip: Big events drive big interest. Whether it’s a marquee dual meet or a unique matchup everyone wants to see, creating well-promoted events gives fans a reason to show up and stay engaged. The sport grows when the storylines are clear, exciting, and easy to follow.

"I always think collegiately, at the collegiate level, my first thought process is having big events—well-promoted events that people can get excited about. That’s really important, at least at the collegiate level.

We just announced yesterday that we’re going to host Penn State at home, and people are so excited about it. We know what we’re up against, wrestling the number one team in the country. Even our fans don’t care; they’re just like, “Wow, you got Penn State to come. This is incredible.”

We’ll sell out our gym for the first time ever for a wrestling match because we have Penn State. I’ve got neighbors that are going to come because they went to Penn State and don’t even know wrestling. Wrestling needs to continue to attach itself to things that are bigger than just the sport of wrestling.

Having big events attached to other things that people can associate with brings more eyeballs to the sport. At the collegiate level, that’s what I would say—having these big events.

I think having a dual meet championship would do that as well. The average person would have more interest in a dual meet championship versus the individual tournament. The individual tournament is great, and you don’t want to mess with it, but the excitement around it shifts based on individual matchups.

This year we had an incredible finals match between the heavyweights, but we don’t have that every year. If we had that every year, the NCAA championship would grow in attendance and viewership. You can’t have that once every 10 years.

When was the last time we had a big matchup like that? When it was David Taylor and Kyle Dake. You can’t go 10 years. What do people like? They like matchups—team matchups, individual matchups. These storylines need to be easy to follow.

At the youth level, wrestling is growing. Women’s wrestling is growing at a tremendous rate. We’re going to have an NCAA women’s championship. More girls are wrestling now than ever before. It’s arguably the fastest growing women’s sport in the country.

Youth wrestling also seems to be flourishing at a really high level. It’s having that bigger thing to shoot for. Why are football, baseball, and basketball so popular? Because there’s pro, and there’s this big thing out there that people get excited about, grow up watching, and then aspire to be.

We need to continue to have that for wrestling, and I believe it’s college wrestling. I don’t think USA Wrestling has the same attention that college wrestling has. Maybe this pro wrestling league could be that. I hope it does.

But I think right now, college wrestling is it. That’s the pros. We’ve got world champions and Olympians from Japan coming and wanting to wrestle at Penn State, Iowa, and Oklahoma State.

Why? Because that’s the pros. To me, that’s pro wrestling right now. And now everyone’s getting paid, so it really is pro."

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