Snacks

This week's Snacks come from Patrick Kennedy: 4X Minnesota High School State Champion, Fargo National Champion, and Super 32 Champion. Wrestles for the University of Iowa, where he was a 2025 NCAA All-American and a 2X Academic All-Big Ten selection. In freestyle, he is a 2X U23 National Champion and was on the U23 World Team in 2024.

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: Creating fun and unique wrestling experiences can leave a big impact on kids. Wrestling outside at a town festival, feeling the sun on the mat and the breeze through the trees, turned wrestling into a memorable and enjoyable part of his childhood. Making wrestling fun like that can keep kids interested and engaged with the sport.

"I started pretty young. I actually did pre-K twice, so I was off by a grade. Not for sports—I did pre-K twice because I wouldn’t talk to anyone, and I wouldn’t leave my dad’s side.

I just got into wrestling because my dad, he wrestled in high school and he was okay. He just started bringing me around wrestling and things like that.

When I was really young, they had this jamboree tournament at the end of the year in a small town. You get to wrestle a couple of kids, it was at the end of the youth season, and I won that a couple times.

When I was young, I wrestled maybe 15-20 matches from pre-K to second grade. It wasn’t that much. I loved wrestling right from the start, but I would only wrestle when it was wrestling season. Then I played football and baseball.

One of my first memories of wrestling outside the season, in the town I grew up in, Pine Island, they had a town festival called Cheese Fest. They had a takedown tournament in the park, and my dad took me to that.

It was cool because I was wrestling on mats on the grass, under trees and stuff like that. I remember the mat being hot at one part because the sun was peeking through the leaves.

So, a small thing like that—that was kind of how I got rolling in the sport of wrestling...

I always had a good relationship with wrestling. It was always positive. I got beat up, you know, by kids at a certain point, but I never didn’t like the sport. I always wanted to keep wrestling.

As I got older I started going to this more like a state tournament, NYWA in Minnesota. I placed third and fourth for a couple years. Then my fourth-grade year, I won it.

That was the first year I actually kept track of my record. That was something I could build off of. My fifth-grade year, I kept track of my record again.

I went to one national tournament. I went to Liberty Nationals that year. No, that would have been my fourth-grade year. Went to Liberty Nationals, and then my fifth-grade year, my only national tournament was Heartland Duals."

Parent Tip: Support your kids without a forceful push. His dad never forced him to go to practice but always encouraged him to work harder when he was there. It wasn’t about yelling or tearing him down; it was about calmly showing him there was more inside of him.

"When I was growing up and when I was younger, my parents didn’t push me into things. But when I chose to do it, they helped me, and I learned from them how to compete hard and work hard. My dad never pushed me to go to practice when I was young.

I always remember my dad at practices—when we would wrestle and practice drills, then start wrestling live, and at the end usually followed by sprints—he would just sit there. When we ran sprints, he would twirl his finger in a circle, like, pick it up, harder, harder. Maybe I was a young kid and didn’t run that hard.

He wouldn’t yell at me or get on me. He would just say, hey, there’s more there, you can work harder. It was never like he was tearing me down. I think my parents were relaxed with me as a kid and just taught me how to work hard. That helped a lot.

That’s the good thing I really benefited from being young—they didn’t push me to things. They supported me. A funny memory I have about having to make weight was in second grade. We had a dual tournament as a team, and the coach asked my dad, hey, can Patrick make 70 pounds?

I wrestled 75, and I weighed like 71. My dad, without telling me, said, yeah, we can get him to make that. The thing I remember is it was dinner, and I had dinner, then I was gonna eat again, and my dad was like, no, hey, let’s just have half a sandwich tonight.

I remember that night, I was almost crying about it, and my dad was like, hey, you’re gonna be okay. You’ll be fine. He explained to me that there are people in the world with less than us and whatnot. I made weight the next day, it was fine.

But my dad just took the time and sat me down and explained it to me. I wasn’t very happy, but it was fine. It was a thing that I learned to get tough, and it was good."

Coaching Tip: Winning isn’t as important as guiding kids toward accomplishing their own personal goals—whatever those may be. Getting to know each athlete individually and understanding what goals they’ve set for themselves allows you to help them achieve those goals in a meaningful way. Sharing in the emotions and feelings that come with accomplishing something through hard work and perseverance creates memories and personal connections that can last a lifetime.

"Growing up through youth, high school, and now in college, I've been pretty fortunate to have coaches that cared about you in a lot of different ways, on and off the mat.

When I was in youth, I open enrolled to Kasson-Mantorville when I was in second grade. The youth coach there was really, really good. We won the NYWA dual state tournament like seven times in a row.

It was just a bunch of dads wanting their kids to win and be successful, so they put a lot of energy and effort into them. That was very positive because they created a good, vibrant environment about working hard. We worked hard. Our youth practices were pretty freaking hard.

But it wasn’t stressful hard. It was like, hey, you're gonna learn to work hard today. I learned a lot from that.

Moving up to my high school coach, Jamie Heidt, he was an All-American here at Iowa, then moved to Minnesota and was my coach from 7th to 12th grade. He's one of the people in this world I would truly jump on a grenade for and I wouldn't think about it.

You don't say that about people or coaches just from them helping you in a sport. They care about you a lot.

For coaches, I think it doesn't really matter the style they coach as long as they care about you and truly want the best for you. It's the same thing with Brands here at the University of Iowa.

You're not their blood son, but you come so close to that. They love you as close as they can love you unconditionally for not being their born son.

It helps a guy rest easier knowing people actually care and want the best, and they take the time to help you with things and explain things to you.

Whatever the coaching style is, it will figure itself out when you know they care about you and want the best for you on and off the mat.

I remember my high school coach. Later in my high school career, me and Jamie had a great relationship, just different than he had with most of the kids he coached.

Jamie never got upset at people if they lost. If you wrestled hard and tried to win and compete hard, he was never upset or disappointed.

He would say he was disappointed that a kid didn't get to feel what it was like to win a match or a state tournament because he wanted them to feel that feeling of achieving something they set out to do and worked hard for.

That was one thing I heard from him that stuck out to me. He was just disappointed the kid didn’t get to feel that emotion or achieve that thing they wanted to achieve."

Athlete Tip: Become a student of our sport. Dive into wrestling’s history, study world champions, and learn how different styles and trends have evolved. When you understand the greats who came before you and what made them successful, it can fuel your passion, deepen your wrestling IQ, and give you an edge in your own development.

"I would say, off the mat, understand or learn the history of wrestling. Learn who the guys are that have won multiple World and Olympic titles or multiple NCAA titles. Learn about the guys who have won, lost, and come back and won.

Then you learn about the Olympic Games, where they are held and who's competing at the Games and what countries are winning. You just become a fanatic of the sport, you know. For me, that's helped me when I started to learn more about the sport.

Then you start to learn who the best wrestlers in the world are. The next thing you know, you're watching their matches, you're watching them win gold medals, and you're learning how these guys compete on the mat.

That’s kind of what pushed myself into understanding the sport better and learning, not just about Americans. But you've got the whole world, and you start to learn who's winning and how they're doing it.

You see at times there's different trends in wrestling. Like last summer, the trend was the Ono snap single leg. Everybody was watching that over and over again, hitting it in practice...

So anything you can learn about the sport of wrestling, learn it off the mat wise, and then it's just going to help you on the mat better."

Negative Impact Tip: When parents or coaches want success more than the kid does, it can create a negative environment that makes the athlete resent the sport. Pushing too hard, yelling, or disciplining in ways that don’t promote growth can take away a kid’s love for wrestling. Instead, remember that wanting it for them is different than wanting it more than them. Let their motivation lead, not yours.

"It's a tough question because I feel like it could be in any sport or any aspect of life. To me, I see kids that get in hard situations. I just helped with our 12-day camp. You have a group of kids, and they're with you the whole time.

You're with these kids for 12 days, and you learn a lot about them. I had to talk with this kid for about 45 minutes because he asked me to. The situation I see that's really hard for kids is when the parent wants it more than the kid.

Or when the coach wants it more than the kid, in a bad sense. Obviously, you want your kid to win every match. We all do. As a coach, a parent, a teammate, you want everybody to win their match.

But sometimes how parents handle it makes it hard for a kid to enjoy the sport moving forward. Parents can be hard on them in a way that doesn't make sense for growth. I understand, as a kid, I was disciplined, but it didn't lead to negative things like that.

You hear stories of dads that flip out at Tulsa and push their kids against the wall. Stories from teammates too. As a wrestler who's been around a lot of wrestling, there's not many people that make it this far or even start to win a lot matches in high school."

Wrestling Growth Tip: Wrestling often gets a bad reputation for weight cutting, which can scare off new parents and kids from trying the sport. As a youth coach, it’s important to make sure new parents and athletes know that cutting weight is not mandatory. Kids should be encouraged to compete at weight classes closest to their natural weight.

"I think the cutting weight aspect is getting better overall. Like, my grandparents or the way my dad cut weight in high school, you hear the stories of high school wrestlers hanging out in the boiler room of the school trying to cut weight.

I think a lot of that doesn't happen that much anymore. More kids try to understand nutrition. I've understood, and even myself, I got to understand nutrition better and cutting weight better, where it's not miserable if you take the time.

I think wrestling gets a bad rap with cutting weight. If you don't cut weight and just wrestle, that's fine too. You don't have to cut weight to be good. Even right now in college, I wrestle 174 and most times I weigh 180, so it's not really me cutting weight. You just get down the last couple pounds. 

Obviously, that's different in college because you're more mature, so you can pull a little more weight. But youth kids that have been held back cutting weight as 9, 10, 11-year-olds, that's not fun stuff.

That does make you hate the sport. The better we can get about nutrition, or just wrestle your weight and have fun at a young age, the better. Learn to compete, learn how to fight, and learn positioning.

As your body matures and you go through puberty and your body wants to sweat, then you learn how to cut weight the right way. If you're gonna try to grow the sport, I would start with that.

Break it down for kids. You don't have to cut weight. Just compete, learn how to fight. I think the biggest thing for young kids is learning how to compete."

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