Snacks

This week's Snacks come from Zach Sanders: 5X Minnesota High School State Champion, Cadet & Junior Freestyle National Champion, High School National Champion, 2X ASICS First Team All-American, and Dave Schultz High School Excellence Award winner. In college he wrestled at The University of Minnesota where he was a 4X NCAA All-American (6th, 5th, 5th, 3rd) and an Academic All-BIG Ten Honoree. He’s currently an assistant coach at The University of Minnesota.

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: Athletes grow the most when they face the right mix of success and struggle. If competition is too easy and the win rate is nearly 100%, it can actually stall development. On the flip side, constant failure can crush motivation.

The sweet spot is about 80/20—enough wins to build confidence, enough losses to stay challenged. If your wrestler is way ahead of the competition, find tougher training partners, new tournaments, or higher-level goals. That balance keeps them engaged and progressing instead of getting bored and leveling off.

"So I started wrestling when I was about five. I started competing right away, but I don’t really remember starting. My dad was the high school coach in our town.

I was in a small town in Minnesota, and he ran every high school and elementary practice for 41 years. So I honestly don’t even remember my first time on the mat—I was always around it. When I started competing, I was pretty good right away. I won a lot of youth state titles and had success at tournaments like Northern Plains, so I was always pretty solid.

I don’t really remember starting, I just remember always being around wrestling. I went to varsity matches, rode the bus with my dad to dual meets, and followed the varsity guys pretty closely when I wasn’t at a tournament myself. I was around it from a really young age and had a lot of success in elementary and high school. Eventually I went to the University of Minnesota, wrestled there, and had some decent success as well. I’ve just been involved in wrestling my whole life... 

I always loved wrestling, but in High School there were times I was definitely bored, though. When I was just kicking everyone’s butt, I wanted more of a challenge.

Probably not supposed to do this, but when I was in sixth grade, I went to every varsity practice because my dad was the coach. After school I would just go to varsity practice, since I didn’t have anyone to wrestle with in the elementary practices. I needed something more.

There were times in my high school career, like my senior year, when the season felt really boring. I remember thinking, “I can’t wait to go to college and be pushed.”

Of course, there were tournaments at the end of the year, like Fargo and Senior Nationals, which was pretty popular back then. Those tournaments were tough.

But overall, I didn’t get too many good matches that year."

Parent Tip: Kids don’t always need more drills or structured training. Turning chores, exercise, or everyday tasks into games can build competitiveness, resilience, and emotional control without it feeling forced. By disguising hard work as play, kids can develop skills that carry over into wrestling (and life) while keeping them engaged and excited along the way.

"Yeah, I would say number one was just the opportunities and experiences they gave me and my siblings. I’m not just talking about wrestling—I mean family trips, like to the Boundary Waters where we’d canoe in 10 miles, camp for five days, and then canoe back out. Stuff like that.

It was always an adventure. We did a lot of things like that. On top of that, my dad was really good at disguising things. It wasn’t always about wrestling when I was a kid, but no matter what we were doing, it turned into some type of game or competition.

If we had to split firewood for the winter, it became a game. If we went to the grocery store, as soon as we got out of the vehicle it was, “Okay, last one in has to do something.” Me and my siblings would sprint to be the first ones inside. People were probably looking at us wondering what was going on, but my dad made everything like a game.

Instead of training, it felt more like play. We were very active, and he was good at disguising workouts as games. Looking back now, I realize how lucky I was. I think that helped my wrestling a lot—learning how to be competitive, manage emotions, and stay composed so you can perform at a high level without getting flustered and losing because of it."

Coaching Tip: Have a philosophy to guide you through your seasons. It’s the standard you return to when making decisions, running practices, or correcting details. Without one, athletes can receive mixed messages and lose direction. A simple, consistent philosophy—like “do the little things right”—gives wrestlers clarity and accountability. It becomes the anchor for how you coach and how your athletes train, compete, and carry themselves on and off the mat.

"I would say have a philosophy. I’m going to steal that from my college coach, Jay Robinson. He would say that to us sometimes—you gotta have a philosophy. Something you can always go back to.

My philosophy is definitely influenced by my dad: you have to do the little things right. I look at that as everything outside of wrestling, as well as wrestling itself. Another part of it is if you want to get good at something, you have to spend a lot of time doing it.

The best way to get better at wrestling is to wrestle. Teaching kids how to love the sport when they’re really young might be the best way to retain them later. At my level, the kids are already there, already pretty good, and have probably dreamed of being in this position their whole lives.

So now I’m just trying to figure out ways to get them better—improving percentages in positions and refining details. That’s what everyone’s trying to do. But the solid foundation of wrestling starts at a young age with good positioning and learning good habits. Those are the things that stay with you for as long as you wrestle."

Athlete Tip: The best wrestlers take accountability for their own development. Coaches and parents can support you, but growth ultimately comes from within. Focus on the little things, practice deliberately in the positions you need to improve, and learn how to make adjustments on your own.

"Be a student of the sport. Take accountability for your own wrestling. Obviously there will be people there to support you, like your parents and coaches, but it’s really up to you.

Focus on the little things and practice deliberately at what you want to develop. Work on positions and skills you need to improve. Wrestle because it’s what you enjoy doing. The best wrestlers are also their own best coaches, so learn how to make adjustments.

Always remember it has to come from within. If you think, “this is the magic thing over here,” that’s not it. The drive has to come from within too."

Negative Impact Tip: Too much structure all year can actually hold athletes back. When every practice, drill, and workout is controlled, kids may never learn how to warm up, think for themselves, or make their own adjustments. Giving kids space to play, experiment, and take ownership of their wrestling is an important part of their development.

"Yeah, all the things you just said are spot on. I think a lot of those things you were talking about are on the parents. Whether the kid’s cutting a lot of weight or whether the parents are yelling at their kid, that’s just not being a good parent.

That’s a parenting issue more than anything. At a young age, you have to look at everything holistically—how your kid is developing as a person. That’s on you. 

One thing I’d say that’s different than all that is sometimes I see too much structure.

There are all these elite clubs that go year-round, and sometimes I see kids get to college and they don’t even know how to warm up on their own. You give them time to warm up and they’re in the corner doing nothing. It blows my mind.

My goal as a coach is to make my guy not so dependent on me. That’s part of my job—not having athletes so dependent on me that they can’t function if I’m not there. Having a kid know how to warm up or coach himself to some degree is important.

On top of that, I think there should be more play. When I was a kid, I did a bunch of sports and I think that’s starting to go away. I wrestled year-round by going to camps, but I wasn’t competing most of the summer. Camps were more about learning and being with friends.

It was an element of play, but it was still wrestling. Now everything is so structured it can take away creativity and even the ability to think about your own wrestling. Like, “I’m good here, how can I get a better angle to that side of his body?”

As a coach, I want my guy to be prepared when he goes out there, but part of my goal is to teach him how to teach himself. I can’t wrestle for him. If I’m doing everything, he’s just robotic, and when I’m not there, he won’t know what to do."

Wrestling Growth Tip: Many older generations first learned wrestling in PE class. They didn’t start in a club or tournament—they got a taste of the sport at school, understood the scoring, and realized it was fun and intense. That early exposure hooked them for life.

To truly grow wrestling, the sport needs to find its way back into PE programs and basic school activities. The more kids who experience it, even casually, the more future wrestlers and lifelong fans the sport will have.

"Yeah, I've thought about this a decent amount over the years. I think every time we try to grow wrestling, it's always about making things shinier and putting on a better presentation and show.

Honestly, the people that are watching are gonna watch anyway. We're not trying to recruit people who are already watching, because they're already watching. They're already participating in the sport at some age. The people we’re trying to get are new people.

I've heard this from so many old timers over the years—they got into wrestling because they had it in PE class. They never wrestled before, learned the scoring, thought it was kind of cool, and decided to wrestle. Boom, they never looked back. That’s how my dad started. That’s how so many gopher fans I’ve talked to started. They had it in PE class.

The same thing goes for others. Maybe they don’t wrestle, but they kind of like it. Honestly, I don’t know if I’ve ever met people who don’t like wrestling. The only people who don’t like wrestling are the ones who don’t understand it.

If you can teach people to understand the sport, they’ll say, “Dang, that’s pretty cool. That’s intense. Oh, there’s 30 seconds left, that guy’s up by one, he’s gotta try and get behind him.” They understand it. That’s how you grow wrestling.

But now it’s not in any PE classes. I think that’s a really logical way to grow wrestling. I just don’t know how to incorporate it."

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Growth Bite

This week's Growth Bite comes from the legendary science fiction author Jules Verne:

At its core, growth means embracing trial and error—and recognizing that our mistakes are stepping stones, not setbacks. In wrestling (or anything worth pursuing), every failed attempt is an opportunity to learn, adapt, and get closer to the truth of what works.

Community Treat

This week's Community Treat comes from FOX News, where Real American Freestyle wrestlers Kyle Dake and Yianni Diakomihalis joined to discuss their upcoming event on August 30th, which will stream live on Fox Nation: