Brands Ready To Build Toward Next Year
Tom Brands knows he has some battles he wants to take on after the cancellation of the NCAA wrestling championships cost Iowa a chance at the national championship, and cost his wrestlers a chance to get some finality to this season.
But those fights, the Hawkeyes’ coach said on a Tuesday teleconference, will have to wait.
For Brands, it’s about getting through the current national crisis with the COVID-19 coronavirus, and it’s something he knows well.
Brands has been in self-quarantine after coming into contact with someone who had the coronavirus. He has not shown any symptoms, and insisted, “I am fine. I am fine.”
“I am very serious about this,” said Brands, who has one more day to go on his self-quarantine. “I go outside my house. I run. My doorbell just rang, so there you are, working from home.
“You are serious about it. You do not take this lightly. You do not say, ‘This can’t happen to me.’ You do not say that I am feeling OK so because I’m feeling OK I can ignore what the CDC and the government is telling us to do. And I followed it.”
The Hawkeyes were ranked No. 1 and were undefeated heading into NCAA championships in Minneapolis. With three No. 1 seeds, Iowa was a heavy favorite for the team title.
But that opportunity went away when the NCAA canceled all of its winter and spring championships.
“We kind of knew it was coming,” Brands said. “How do you give them that news? Well, you’re honest. You’re honest and you’re sympathetic or empathetic or whatever the word is. The message has to be about going forward. It sucks.”
Iowa 125-pounder Spencer Lee was going for his third individual national title. Lee was one of the top seeds, along with 149-pounder Pat Lugo and 165-pounder Alex Marinelli.
“This team was robbed of history,” Brands said. “Spencer Lee was robbed of history. Pat Lugo, a senior, was robbed of history. We had three No. 1 seeds, nine guys in the top eight. They were robbed of history. They were robbed of opportunity.
“There’s going to be a lot ahead that you don’t know what’s coming up around the corner, so you have to keep your perspective. The consistent message is this coaching staff is working on the future.”
Brands said he has spoken by phone or with text messages to his wrestlers. His concern right now is making sure they stay healthy and continue with their academic work, since the remaining classes of the spring semester will be done online.
He knows his team would rather be working toward next year.
“There are a lot of ways to keep an edge, or build an edge, and keep moving forward the right way, and to be safe, and you can still be safe and socially responsible,” Brands said. “It’s not ideal, because it’s not familiar. It’s not ideal, because it’s not what they necessarily want. They want to be in their domain, in their sanctuary, in their comfort zone, what they’re used to.
“The way they have handled this with maturity is a compliment to them. They are patient. They are open-minded. They are thinking outside the box. And because of that, I can speak for them and say they’re going to be ready for the next mission, the next challenge. But right now, we talk about their academics, we talk about them staying healthy. You still got to be busy — in your head, in your spirit, and physically. You have to do things to keep your edge.”
Lugo and Michael Kemerer were the only seniors in Iowa’s lineup that was going to the NCAA championships, but Kemerer likely will get a medical redshirt season.
Next year, Brands said, is already here, with some perspective.
“Bad things happen to good people,” he said. “We’ve got a roster that’s 100 percent healthy. We have a coaching staff that’s 100 percent healthy. We have staff in our wrestling program that’s 100 percent healthy. As far as I know, in our athletic department, everyone is healthy. So, that’s good. And you keep that perspective. And if you keep that perspective, and work on the things that you need to work on every day in your life that are important, you’re going to look back on it and it’s going to be a very good lesson that you can draw on forever.
“We don’t panic. We still are working on the future. We got a commitment, not too long ago. And Iowa wrestling is still strong. We just got clobbered upside the head by something that we can’t control. This thing we can’t control has altered our course, and so we take the steps that we can control now. That’s how you do it. It really is that frank, it really is that simple. You lay it out, what’s next, as it comes up.”