Athletor Podcast with Mike Mal

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

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Nelson Brands wrestled at Iowa for his dad and his uncle, and says neither coached him until college. Now on staff at Cal Poly, he makes a specific case that beginners should learn to hand fight before they ever take a penetration step. Guest: Nelson Brands, former Iowa Hawkeye, son of Terry Brands and nephew of Tom Brands, assistant coach at Cal Poly. Topics: hand fighting before the penetration step, wrestling as an infinite puzzle, being raised by the principles of wrestling, identity versus winning, wrestling parents, clubs that gatekeep, out-of-season contact rules, getting rid of headgear.

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Coleman Scott won an NCAA title, an Olympic medal, and ran a D1 program. He'd rather do what he's doing now. Inside the Farm in Stillwater, and a blunt read on what NIL money is doing to recruiting and development.

Guest: Coleman Scott, 2008 NCAA champion at Oklahoma State, 2012 Olympic bronze medalist, former head coach at North Carolina, owner of the Farm in Stillwater, Oklahoma.

Topics: running 77 straight days of camp, starting a state-accredited school, the three-pillar club model, what NIL did to development, chasing money versus chasing fit, the questions to ask a recruit, youth wrestling parents

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

Barry Davis has three NCAA titles, an Olympic silver, and 24 years as a Big Ten head coach. He just took a club job, and this is his case for why the RTC seat is the best one in wrestling. Head coach John Stutzman joins to explain the rebuild at Bloomsburg.

Guest: Barry Davis, 3x NCAA champion at Iowa, 1984 Olympic silver medalist, head coach at Wisconsin 1993-2017, now RTC and club coach at Bloomsburg. With John Stutzman, head coach at Bloomsburg.

Topics: the RTC role and the recruiting loophole, the April-of-junior-year contact rule, what to look for in a recruit and his family, fundraising a Division I program, building a town's wrestling culture, why the parents are the problem

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