daily nebraskan
NU wrestling picks
up the pieces after
a painful offseason
by david diehl
The scattered remnants of die
1999-2000 Nebraska wrestling
season tell the saga. Strewn about
die state and die country, coaches
and players have left the program,
moved into new ones and into
new lives. The effects of it all can
be seen today.
All inside the Nebraska
wrestling program - the three
dozen wresders, the handful of
coaches and assistants, the boost
ers - were taken on a ride they had
no control of once it got going.
Starting with a sub-par regular
season last year, Nebraska ended
on a roll by mid-March. A 6-5-1
regular-season dual record didn’t
seem as bad once the NCAA
Championships ended.
With just five wrestlers at
nationals, the Huskers wresded
their hearts out for an eighth
place finish, NU’s highest since
19%.
NU captured four All
American honors and one huge
national championship with its
homegrown Husker stud, Brad
Vering at 197 pounds.
The oudooks were blinding.
Nebraska would return nine of 10
starters, a national champion, a
seasoned corps of veterans and a
seasoned coach in Tim Neumann.
A man who could sell iceboxes to
Eskimos and parkas to Caribbean
surfers, Neumann could drive a
team like no one else.
The Huskers were moving on
up, George and Wheezy style.
Developing a New Status
Quo
But Neumann isn’t back for
his 16th season. His 199-76-6
mark at NU will stand for now, and
probably much longer, as the best
record by a Husker wrestling
coach.
Former Northern Iowa coach
Mark Manning is in, back to the
school where he started his col
lege wrestling career before mov
ing on to two national champi
onships at the University of
Nebraska at Omaha.
Neumann, in a whirlwind of
allegations and scrutiny, resigned
April 18 of this year after being
suspended for half a month.
Allegations of under-the-table
payments and scholarship cut
ting emerged, and Neumann’s
career fell, just one win shy of the
200-win benchmark.
Neumann has never flat out
denied he did anything wrong.
During the proceedings of mid
April he admitted to making “mis
takes” but has never specified
what those mistakes were.
There will be no complete
denials, no absolute admissions
of guilt
“I never got mad if what they
said was true,” Neumann said,
speaking about the media scruti
ny surrounding the affair.
While Neumann was facing
the sharp bites of the media and
the loss of his job, Athletic
Director Bill Byrne was faced with
replacing the long-time coach.
The New Status Quo
tf Instead of replacing him with
team-favorite and then-top
assistant Mark Cody, Byrne
chose Manning. Byrne said
the former Northern Iowa
coach had the Midwestern
values he was searching for.
“He fit into our team
here,” Byrne said. "He’s
horn the area and has all
ates his student athletes,
complies with NCAA rules,
and his reputation is very
high among people in
wrestling.”
However, players said,
Cody would have continued the
flow of unity and chemistry the
team had going after its booming
show at NCAA’s. He would have
continued driving the bulldog
that is Nebraska wrestling to its
national-title hopes.
But Cody is out and has since
taken the top assistant position at
Oklahoma State University. Cody,
38, said it was his 12 years experi
ence at Nebraska that made him
so attractive to OSU. Cody also
said that he was told those same
12 years weren’t enough to land
him as Nebraska’s coach.
the right values. He gradu
i wanted it oaa, ana i tnougnt
I was the right guy for the job,”
Cody said. “I thought I was more
than capable.”
But one would be naive to
assume that the allegations had
nothing to do with Cody’s non
hire. Ask Neumann. He offers one
simple, short reply on why Cody is
an Oklahoma State Cowboy and
notstillaHusker.
“Because he was on my staff
for 12 years,” Neumann said.
The players’ choice is out.
New guy is in. Nothing to be done
about it now.
Or is there even a need to have
anything done? Old dogs don’t
learn new tricks, but they can
adapt to new owners. With
Manning’s intense, in-your-face
wrestling style, he has made his
new team buy into his methods
and gotten that bulldog’s bite as
bad as its baric
The foggy status of how this
team would react to a new coach
ing staff has been cleared up. It’s
all positive, they say.
“He's been real personable
and worked with me,” Vering said.
“He came in and made changes
that needed to be made.”
After the negative aspects of
the spring and summer, the new
status quo of Nebraska wrestling
isn’t a bad family to be a part of.
“It was a real good situation
that we ended up with,” senior All
American Todd Beckerman said.
“They didn’t just bring in some
one that wasn’t going to help the
program.”
They brought in Manning.
And he, in turn, brought in more
winners. Terry Brands, who won a
bronze medal at the 2000
Olympics in freestyle wrestling,
was named to Manning’s staff.
Brands was an assistant at his
alma mater, Iowa, before coming
to NU. He helped coach and train
TJ. Williams and Eric Jurgens, two
impressive foes who stand in the
paths of Bryan Snyder and
Beckermans
national-championship hopes.
Now after training the enemy,
Brands brings their secrets and his
outright jaw-dropping ability and
knowledge to Lincoln.
“The Brands are gods in the
wrestling world," Snyder said. “I'd
grow up asking my parents for the
new Brands wrestling video for
Christmas. I looked up to him my
whole life, and now he’s my
coach.”
All Brands had to do to reach
god-like status was capture two
national titles, three Big Ten
championships and a career 137
7-0 record at Iowa.
With Manning and his staff
there is a new atmosphere in the
Husker wrestling room. It stinks of
toughness borne of a deep inten
sity that Manning requires of each
person who wrestles on his mats.
It's not what they had before,
but where the Nebraska wrestlers
are right now isn’t a bad place to
be under the direction of the fiery
Manning.
“Some things I liked, and
some things I didn’t,” Vering said.
"But that’s the way it will be with
any new situation. We’re just try
ing to stay real positive and run
with it because we like the stuff
they’re doing.”
Manning has instilled a bad
ass attitude into this team and the
team has proven talent in
Beckerman, Snyder, Vering and
others who adorn national top-20
rankings: Beware, wrestling
world.
Backside of the hill
But go back to the pre
Manning days. Return to the days
of a jubilant March and
Nebraska’s showing at the NCAAs
that anybody who followed
Husker red singlets could be
damn proud of.
Not long after that exciting
weekend at the NCAA
Championships the wheels on the
rollercoaster started to turn. NU
wrestling fans barely had time to
wipe the celebratory smiles from
their faces. The joy they got from
watching their team claw, fight
and drive its ass off to its best fin
ish in five tries silently took its first
of many jarring hits.
The seasoned coach,
Neumann, who had just complet
ed his 15th year at NU, was quietly
suspended with pay the first week
of April, three weeks after
NCAAs finished.
The news would get no better.
Word got out to the press
about the suspension, and ques
tions and accusations flew. The
snowball grew.
On April 18, Neumann
resigned the post he held at his
alma mater, opening the flood
gates for speculation and bewil
derment
Former wrestlers alleged
Neumann paid them under the
table after cutting scholarships.
People involved with the program
staunchly denied such accusa
tions.
Who would be the new coach?
Would Bill Byrne dare go outside
the NU system, outside Mark
Cody, who had the strong backing
of the entire program?
ti was teai luugu, saiu
Beckerman, one of the four All
Americans from last year’s squad.
“A lot of guys didn't know what
they wanted to do. Some wanted
to leave, some wanted to stay.”
Joe Henson and his twin
brother Josh knew. Both trans
ferred to Pennsylvania after
Neumann’s resignation. Joe was
Nebraska’s starter at 149 pounds
last year and was an NCAA qualifi
er. He would have provided a qui
etly successful year behind NU’s
big three - Vering, Snyder, and
Beckerman. Now he’s ninth
ranked as Penn’s 149-pound
starter.
Joe said the sole factor in his
leaving was that Cody didn’t get
the job.
"When something like that
happens,” Henson said, “you have
to look at what’s best for yourself.”
After the resignation, Bryan
Snyder was unsure. Especially
after Cody was named just as the
interim coach.
Snyder was quoted in the
Omaha World-Herald as saying if
Cody didn’t get the job full-time,
“the chances of me staying are
about as good as me not staying.”
Cody was part of the Nebraska
wrestling family. The whole group
had won, lost and evolved togeth
er in a sport, on a team, where
individuals are augmented by the
bond they share for each other.
Without Neumann, its trusted
leader, coach and family member,
the team that was celebrating a
magnificent finish just one month
before April 18, wasnowonunsta
Steven Bender/DN
NU senior and defending national champion Brad Vering goes after a second nation
al title this season under new Coach Marie Manning.
ble ground as to just how far up it
would be moving.
A change of direction
Tim Neumann doesn’t watch
daily practices in the winter any
more. He isn’t propped up against
a wall with a sweat-soaked T-shirt
plastered over a heaving, deeply
breathing chest
Brad Vering will be his last
national-championship
embrace. And the 1999-2000
Cornhuskers were his last
wrestling team at Nebraska.
He has accepted all of that.
The crescendo of the 2000
wrestling season was followed by
a hard, steep nose dive for
Neumann. A suspension, an
investigation and eventually a res
ignation have led Neumann to
today.
He sits in a leather chair in an
intimidating conference room
buzzing with electronic gadgets.
Neumann, 41, now is an insur
ance professional, working with
individuals and businesses, help
ing them with estate planning and
insurance in business.
He’s using the skills that made
him a successful mentor in the
wrestling room to be successful in
the boardroom. Instead of leading
and directing 20-year-olds in a
wrestling room, he leads and
directs business people to finan
cial security.
“Life hasn’t slowed down,”
said Neumann, who earned his
degree at Nebraska in education.
“It’s taken a brand new direction.
"The reason I coached was
because I enjoyed helping people,
working with people and seeing
them reach their goals. That's
exactly what I’m doing now."
On the mat In the classroom.
In a plush office. Neumann uses
the same confidence and leader
ship that made him a highly
respected coach to become a suc
cessful businessman in main
stream America.
He doesn’t solicit his business.
He doesn’t need to. Young entre
preneurs seek him for his direc
tion, ambition and confidence in
leading them to a financial safety
net
Now the Peshtigo, Wis., native
doesn’t look after 40 wrestlers and
have worried parents calling him
at odd hours.
His priorities are clearer. One:
Family. TWo: Work. As much as he
told himself in the past 15 years
that it was always that way, it’s a lot
easier to believe it now, Neumann
said.
Now he doesn’t tell his kids
they’re No. 1 over the phone while
on a weeklong recruiting trip. He
does it when he walks in the front
door each night
"I love it,” Neumann said. “I
absolutely love it.”
Its a different situation for
Neumann but not a bad one. After
a tumultuous offseason, the same
is true for the Nebraska wrestling
squad.
Sometimes on the way up, the
elevator stops on a different floor.