Athletor Podcast with Mike Mal

Kai Orine was a two-time All-American at NC State. Now, one year into coaching at Little Rock, he says coaching is less stressful than competing. Mike goes through the Athletor IQ numbers on Stephen Little and Little Rock's recruiting with him, and asks how you get a kid from the middle of Arkansas to believe he can compete with anyone.

Guest: Kai Orine, Little Rock assistant coach, 2x NCAA All-American and 2x ACC champion at NC State

Topics: to coach is to serve, designing the singlets, Little Rock's facility, Stephen Little by the numbers, finding diamonds in the rough, the 2026-27 lineup, the myth of waiting, rapid fire with the Mount Rushmore of wrestling

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Two straight NCAA tournaments without giving up a takedown. Antrell Taylor, the Omaha kid who won the 2025 NCAA title for Nebraska, talks with Mike about the loss he still rewatches, being a savage in the practice room, and why college matches get won on top.

Guest: Antrell Taylor, 2025 NCAA Champion, 3X All American, Nebraska

Topics: progress over outcome, learning from losses, taking risks in practice, top wrestling, Greco and the body lock, hand fighting, walking forward, wrestling at home in Lincoln, the push-out rule

🔗 Recruitable: Your step-by-step playbook for today's recruiting process: athletorlive.com/product/recruitable

Phil Ross broke his back at 16, got told he was done, and came back to take 2nd in Greco at Eastern Nationals that summer. Fifty years later, surgeons send him their patients. He talks with Mike about fixing backs without surgery, the 90 Days of Suck, and the year that changed how he thinks about control.

Guest: Coach Phil Ross, 9th-degree black belt, master kettlebell instructor, college professor, author of Managing Back Pain For Dummies and Exercise Snacks

Topics: back pain and strength training, the least invasive fix first, the 90 Days of Suck, not scouting your opponent, 9/11 and letting go of control, Too Stupid to Quit, the push-out rule

🔗 Recruitable: Your step-by-step playbook for today's recruiting process: athletorlive.com/product/recruitable

Bo Bassett is chasing three world titles in one year, and he says he doesn't feel any pressure doing it. Mike goes through his Final X series against Real Woods with him, asks how a loss to one side of the body six years ago changed his attacks, and gets his take on what Virginia Tech needs to catch Penn State.

Guest: Bo Bassett, world champion and Virginia Tech freshman, 2026 U.S. Senior World Team member at 65 kg

Topics: the Real Woods film breakdown, training with Aaron Seidel and James Green, no fear of losing, learning from losses, Virginia Tech's lineup, rapid fire with the Mount Rushmore of wrestling

📊 Virginia Tech's full 2026-27 season preview: preview.athletorlive.com/teams/virginia-tech

🔗 Recruitable: Your step-by-step playbook for today's recruiting process: athletorlive.com/product/recruitable

Alex Marinelli is back, this time to talk Iowa. Mike runs him through the numbers behind the Hawkeyes' No. 6 preseason ranking, and Alex explains why he thinks the gap to a team title comes down to one takedown at a time. He also shares what he's learned coaching 140 kids who all say they want to be elite.

Guest: Alex Marinelli, Iowa four-time All-American and four-time Big Ten champion, founder and head coach of the Hawkeye Wrestling Academy

Topics: Iowa's 2026-27 lineup, Ryder Block and Nasir Bailey, riding time and reversals, the jump from fourth to a team title, first-period aggression, motivating youth wrestlers, the Mount Rushmore of Iowa wrestling

📊 Iowa's full 2026-27 season preview: preview.athletorlive.com/teams/iowa

🔗 Recruitable: Your step-by-step playbook for today's recruiting process: athletorlive.com/product/recruitable

Sebastian Rivera won an Olympic bronze medal and a World silver, and then walked away from his coaching job at Columbia to go back to being a full-time athlete. In this episode, he explains the "find peace in suffering" mindset that keeps him improving at 27, breaks down the front head and crackdown positions with Mike, and talks about what it took to bring Big Ten intensity to an Ivy League wrestling room.

Guest: Sebastian Rivera, 2024 Olympic bronze medalist (65kg, Puerto Rico), 2023 World silver medalist, 5x NCAA All-American (Northwestern/Rutgers)

Topics: stepping down from coaching to compete, find peace in suffering, Buxton and Pritzlaff as coaches, front head and crackdown technique, Columbia wrestling culture, folkstyle push-out rule

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American head coach Jason Borrelli sees his program's AthletorIQ development score for the first time, and he's not satisfied being #4. We dig into what the data says about who's really developing wrestlers, the 86% first-takedown win rate at NCAAs, and what Borrelli looks for in recruits that numbers can't capture.

Guest: Jason Borrelli, Head Coach at American University, formerly Stanford's all-time winningest coach

Topics: development scoring, data-driven recruiting, the 85-150 recruit band, overperformer mindset, first-takedown data, growing the sport

🔗 Recruitable: Your step-by-step playbook for today's recruiting process, from first contact to signing day: athletorlive.com/product/recruitable

J Sebolt went 207-1 in high school, won four Iowa state titles, and then built one of the best youth wrestling programs in the country from scratch — starting with 4 kids in a two-mat room. He talks with Mike Mal about what it's really like coaching your own daughter at the international level, the moment he realized he'd pushed a kid too far, and why his wrestling room has world team boards but no state championship board.

Guest: TJ Sebolt, 4x Iowa state champion, founder/head coach of Sebolt Wrestling Academy

Topics: dad coaching, youth wrestling culture, building an elite club, state vs. national goals, discipline vs. fun, iron fist vs. velvet glove coaching

🔗 Championship Fundraising Challenge - Raise your first $500 in 2 weeks or your money back: athletorlive.com/product/championship-fundraising-challenge

Jeff Buxton built Blair Academy into a 30-time consecutive National Prep champion, produced 10 NCAA individual champs, and earned the National Wrestling Hall of Fame's Lifetime Service award. Now coaching at Columbia under Donnie Pritzlaff, he talks about what it really takes to rebuild a program, why he split his own team to develop younger wrestlers, and what Bruce Burnett taught him about ankle laces.

Guest: Jeff Buxton, Columbia University Assistant Wrestling Coach, Hall of Fame honoree, 30x National Prep Champion coach

Topics: Columbia wrestling rebuild, Blair Academy dynasty, coaching philosophy, iron fist vs velvet glove, freestyle technical evolution, matside weigh-ins

🔗 Championship Fundraising Challenge - Raise your first $500 in 2 weeks or your money back: athletorlive.com/product/championship-fundraising-challenge

Mike wears two hats, dad and coach. Matt Ciampa texted him to say that's wrong, and then came on to explain why. Thirty-five years into coaching, he's never found the seam between the two, and he'll tell you exactly what the one hat actually is.

Guest: Matt Ciampa, head coach of Eclipse Wrestling Club (NJ), assistant men's wrestling coach at East Stroudsburg University, 2013 New Jersey Freestyle and Greco-Roman Coach of the Year

Topics: coaching your own kid, the dad hat vs. coach hat debate, controlling behavior instead of feelings, wrestling as a sport of affluence, the disappearing middle-of-the-pack wrestler, the 0-4 heavyweight who became NCAA champ David Zabriskie, New Jersey's Mount Rushmore

🔗 Championship Fundraising Challenge - raise your first $500 in 2 weeks or your money back: athletorlive.com/product/championship-fundraising-challenge