Hlas: To NYC, NCAA wrestling is just one more thing

NEW YORK - Here's how not to make the NCAA Wrestling Championships the biggest thing in town:

1. Hold it in midtown Manhattan.

2. Hold it in midtown Manhattan on St. Patrick's Day.

Via the arena's signage and people outside it wearing school colors, you could tell the NCAAs were going on in Madison Square Garden Thursday afternoon. But they were dwarfed by far more people walking by on the streets who faithfully observed the wearin' o' the green.

They were either heading to the St. Patrick's Day Parade 10 blocks north of the Garden or to a nearby pub for some corned beef and cabbage. And, quite possibly, a pint or three of Guinness or Smithwick's.

For Iowans and Iowa fans who go to the national tourney no matter the site, this one is a little different. Er, a lot different.

'One time here is probably all right,” said Al Cook of Manchester. 'But a better site would be St. Louis, or Oklahoma City.”

That seemed to be the consensus of the Hawkeye fans I met outside the Garden an hour before the 125-pound matches opened this event. They love St. Louis - which will again host the tourney in 2017 - as the venue. New York City?

'There aren't 20 people in the city who know wrestling's going on here,” said Kevin Azinger of Pella, a former assistant wrestling coach at Central College who has been to all but three NCAA Championships since 1982.

'I think it's a great opportunity for the sport to get shown off in a major city like this. But the hotels, the restaurants don't know what's going on. The evening news last night didn't have a word about it.”

Hawkeye fan Randy Martin of Lakeville, Minn., called holding this tourney here 'unique.”

'Hey, you can see the Empire State Building from right here,” Martin said while standing outside the Garden Thursday morning. 'It's a memory. That's the key. This will be a memory.”

But it's an expensive memory. Azinger said this trip will cost two or three times more than his typical journey to the NCAAs.

Randy Steward is the head wrestling coach at Loras College in Dubuque. He was inducted into the National Wrestling Coaches Association Division III Hall of Fame last weekend when the D-III National Championships were in Cedar Rapids.

Steward has seen college wrestling in a lot of places, but never a place like this.

'I want (this tourney) to be in St. Louis every year,” he said. 'It's the best city, best venue. It's easy for everybody to travel to.”

But once the matches began on eight mats at noon, it was wrestling just like anywhere else.

'It's a lot saner inside with 18,000 wrestling fans than it is out on the streets,” said a videographer from Iowa who didn't want his name attached to that quote, no matter how many fans here might have agreed with him.

The crowd for the opening session was 17,761, spread from the best seats to the nosebleeds.

Look, it's a national tournament. If you want to be a national sport, you occasionally venture outside your comfort zones.

'It's a different world,” Cook said. 'I'll take Iowa.”

'You know the old saying,” Martin said. 'This is a stressful place to visit, but I'd never want to live here.”