By Nic Ryder
4 thoughts on “Brands on Hawkeyes two titles, 2018 Midlands Championship”
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I’ll be curious to see if the Iowa administration finally hands down some reprimands to the Brands’ for another weekend filled with their escapades.
For this week’s installment, we saw Terry challenge a parent of a wrestler to meet him in the parking lot, while Tom yelled at a ref that he sucked.
I can’t think of any other college position that one could hold and do those things and NOT receive serious reprimand for it.
1. Terry’s actions were completely, 100% justified in my mind. If anything, Barta should ask Northwestern/the Sears Centre how the fan was allowed to return to the arena after being thrown out the first time. Mr. Gunning was WAY over the line and it took a large amount of sell control from Stoll, Telford, and Terry Brands in that situation to keep Stoll focused on the match.
Now there were other times when Terry did crazy things, sometimes just because he can, that might need addressed, but not for his reaction to Mr. Gunning.
2. While I don’t agree with Tom Brands’ going after the official like that, he didn’t do anything that Fran or Ferentz hasn’t done (ESPECIALLY Fran), and while Fran was suspended for a game a couple years ago, it took a long time and a lot worse actions (in my opinion) to get that.
Anyway, we’ve seen “worse” actions from Tom, Terry, and various assistants over the years, and haven’t seen any public reprimand, and any private reprimand doesn’t seem to have had any effect.
Maybe they have, but have Ferentz and McCafferty ever told a ref that they suck? That, to me, put it over the line, and I’m not sure that I’ve ever seen those two take their condemnation of a ref to that level.
I also never find a reason for a coach to ask someone to meet him in the parking lot. Just completely unacceptable, and not a first for Terry Brands. Many years ago when he was coaching at UT Chattanooga they dualed with UNI in the West gym. One of our fans was doing a little heckling of Brands and he was openly waving the fan to come onto the floor and do it to his face. Once again, over the line for a university representative.
Fan and Ferentz, if not routinely than often, use the MF combo on the court/field, at officials. Fran gets literally inches away from officials SCREAMING in their faces, does the same to his own players, kicks tables, chairs, and slams chairs and stools. Fran had to have a police escort when he wouldn’t leave the court after being ejected. Fran’s antics on the sideline are the worst I’ve ever seen from any coach, at any level, anywhere (I’m a little too young to remember Knight). Bo Pelini is a close second and Brian Kelly before he got told he had to tone it down are right there too.
I’ve never seen a wrestling coach get ejected from a college bout, and I’m not even sure it CAN happen. There are definitely times when coaches cross that line, but their team is just assessed a point deduction, and we move on. Wrestling is a little…lax…about things like that, for better or worse.
I should probably clarify my thoughts a little on Terry Brands. There are times when he definitely goes over the line. Often times he just yells at people about things because he can, and he knows it gets them going (it happened at least once on Saturday alone). I have said after some of his crazy instances that something needs to be done about it. But this instance that we’re talking about, with Andrew Gunning’s dad, is not one of them. He’s defending his athlete from someone who went absolutely crazy, who ran halfway down an arena to get as close to he could to the floor to yell at a 22ish college wrestler that “You should have shot yourself in the face.” There’s very little that Terry could have done that I wouldn’t make excuses for.