Story of a New Wrestling Fan

Matt Franzblau at work at the NCAA's - photo by Mike Denison

 For those who don't know the person behind the stories about Oregon State wrestling on the Oregon State website,  Matt Franzblau was here on a 10 month assignment, totally new to wrestling. In the last few months, he has become one of us, a rabid wrestling fan! FALL Board member and wrestling announcer, Andrew Stanfield, recently asked Matt if he had become a fan yet. What follows is Matt's response. Matt will soon be heading out into the world of sports writing. Hopefully, where ever he goes he will always remain a Beaver wrestling fan!!

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To say that I entered my initial season covering Oregon State wrestling for osubeavers.com with no working knowledge of the sport would be an understatement. Going in I said that I probably knew more about archery than wrestling, but as the season approached I sat down with the sports information director from the previous year and was explained the ins and outs of the sport. In a 20 minute span I had a loose understanding of it but was still confused on a few things.

As the intrasquad came and went I saw the sport in action and still had some questions but was kind of amazed at how quick it was. Fast forward through our first home dual meet against Boise State in January and I was pretty aware of the point structure, times, periods and what constituted which type of victory, but the sheer passion for the sport that others in it had, had not yet been planted in me. That planting process required a plane trip out east to my home area of Bethlehem, Pa., where OSU would wrestle Lehigh and then Cornell the following day. After a 2-0 weekend over the sports two very historic programs and a dramatic last second victory in Ithaca, I was eagerly awaiting the final few home duals as well as National Dual Regionals, which OSU was hosting.

I am somebody who enjoys numbers, streaks and tidbits and the last few Beaver home duals provided me with such, as I tallied a 9 dual meet win streak to close out the season as well as double-digit win streaks from two wrestlers. Couple that with the largest margin of victory (50) in three years and those initially planted wrestling seeds began to bloom. The maturation process would occur in the desert, when OSU won its second straight Pac-12 Championship in Tempe, Arizona. Seeing my wrestlers who I chatted with in practice and got to know as I traveled with them on the road became quite exciting. I even found myself anticipating certain moves and point totals that individual wrestlers on the team might achieve during a given bout during the single day tournament. My excitement and enthusiasm for a sport which I had no prior knowledge took me a bit by surprise as I had really none only a few months prior.

The cherry on the proverbial cake came in a cold Des Moines, Iowa in late March as the Beavers competed at the NCAA Championships. It was the best against the best and it was time to see where we stacked up nationally. Ultimately it was an eighth place finish for OSU, its best since 1996, with three All-Americans. Each step along the way I found myself living and dying with each triumphant win and each heartbreaking loss. My excitement about the event was palpable as I tagged along with former OSU head coach Joe Wells who introduced me to all those wrestlers, coaches and referees from past and present, who each belonged to this unique fraternity of wrestling fans and participants. Sitting in my hotel room the night before the final day of competition, I couldn’t help but really get psyched for seeing greatness, Kyle Dake vs. David Taylor and Dake’s quest for a fourth consecutive national title and a fourth different weight class, simply unprecedented. Only before had I gotten this excited for Yankee games growing up or West Virginia football and Kansas basketball games during my undergraduate and graduate school days. Seeing Michael Phelps compete at the Olympic Trials in Omaha the summer before really gave me an appreciation for individual sports and this was hammered home by the night’s finals festivities, where I joyfully talked with our team’s PA announcer (Andrew Stanfield) about the majesty of the sport and unique aspect of one-on-one battle it provides. I even tried my hand at predicting the outcome and score of the Dake/Taylor match and came awfully close to nailing it, further proving to me how much I had become a fan of wrestling in such a short amount of time.

Following NCAA’s, I enjoyed the event program from cover to cover and even engaged my friend who worked the Big Ten Championships for the Big Ten Network in a discussion about the great wrestlers he had seen that day such as Ed Ruth and Jesse Delgado. He had virtually no enthusiasm for the sport and it’s athletes who competed that day, but could tell that I did, which made me realize that I had officially became a wrestling fan, thanks to this past season working as the sports information contact for head coach Jim Zalesky and his Beavers.