Rocked Up

By: Jason Bryant
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  • Summary

  • Wrestling is the world's oldest sport. In Arkansas, it's the newest.
    Follow the University of Arkansas at Little Rock as it starts up a brand new sport in a place that hasn't seen major college wrestling in half a century. Rocked up follows the fledgling wrestling program as it begins from scratch with a start date of November 2019. Produced by the Mat Talk Podcast Network.
    Copyright Jason Bryant
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Episodes
  • BONUS: A Second-Season Update with Neil Erisman

    BONUS: A Second-Season Update with Neil Erisman
    Jan 22 2021
    This is a special bonus episode of #RockedUp that's actually the January 21 episode of the Short Time Wrestling Podcast. It's plugged into the feed to give subscribers an update on the program since the whistle blew on Conner Ward's first match. Little Rock hosted its first home event of the year on January 17 at the Jack Stephens Center against Oklahoma State and SIUE. The tri-meet launched the second season of Little Rock wrestling on the mats. Coach Neil Erisman, an Oklahoma State alum, sat down to talk about the progress of the program in the second year of competition, what it’s like to bring in new wrestlers with something tangible to show rather than just a vision, and the investment a coach feels when they lose an athlete who doesn’t want to compete anymore. Erisman also explains some of the things that aren’t taught, but learned on the job, such as working with mentors from the community, giving back with community outreach as well as his relationships with assistant coaches Javier Maldonado and Chandler Rogers.
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    51 mins
  • It's Time To Fight

    It's Time To Fight
    Nov 30 2019
    When November 24, 2019 finally came, it put a close on the building era of the Little Rock wrestling program. It’s been 616 days since the announcement during the 2018 NCAA Division I Championships of a new Division I program. For coach Neil Erisman, it’s been 522 days since he was introduced as the first head coach in program history. For wrestling fans in the state of Arkansas, it was a decade and a half in the making. The only time a major state school had sponsored wrestling, as you learned in Episode 1 of Rocked Up, came in the 1950s at Arkansas State. That was more of a pet project of a wrestling coach rather than a bonafide college athletics program. That also pre-dated the NCAA’s divisional structure. So history was going to be made when the first whistle blew at 2 p.m. on Sunday, November 24, 2019 at the Jack Stephens Center on the campus of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. These are the final hours leading to the culmination of the building process and the commencement of competition. One last practice. They weigh in, at home, for the first time, in 24 hours. Welcome to Rocked Up, the story of the foundation and formation of the first Division I college wrestling program in Arkansas, starting in November of 2019 at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. This is the finale to that story. We started the journey developing the foundation of wrestling in the state of Arkansas and now we’ve moved on to the formation of the team, because to tell the full story of this program, you have to start at the very beginning. Where one door closes, another opens, and in Little Rock, we close the book on how this all got started. Now, the coaches, administration and athletes at Little Rock will write their own stories. Thank you for listening. I’m Jason Bryant. Rocked Up is a presentation of the Mat Talk Podcast Network and can be found on the web at GetRockedUp.com or at MatTalkOnline.com.
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    26 mins
  • Optimistically Scared

    Optimistically Scared
    Nov 22 2019
    With the days winding down before Little Rock wrestlers take to their home mat at the Jack Stephens Center for the first time, there’s been a change at the top. One of the men instrumental in making Little Rock’s wrestling program a reality, Chasse Conque, left Little Rock in late August to accept the role of Athletic Director at the University of Texas-Rio Grande Valley, which came into being after a consolidation of three separate colleges. You might have heard of Texas-Pan American. You probably haven’t. Conque also brought Molly Castner with him as she assumes the role of Deputy AD and Senior Women’s Administrator. This left Little Rock searching for a person to lead the department, not just into the launch of its new wrestling program, but to the lead during a time of great growth within the school’s athletics programs as a whole. They turned to George Lee, the standing Senior Associate Director of Athletics and Chief Financial Officer. This is a man who’s job was to make sure things were financially viable for anything to happen within Little Rock Athletics. Lee is a Little Rock alum who’s had an association with the school for over 30 years. His wife works at the school and he previously served as an interim AD in the past. Today, we learn more about Lee. Welcome to Rocked Up, the story of the foundation and formation of the first Division I college wrestling program in Arkansas, starting in November of 2019 at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. This is the 11th edition of this story. We started the journey developing the foundation of wrestling in the state of Arkansas and now we’ve moved on to the formation of the team, because to tell the full story of this program, you have to start at the very beginning. Lee’s background is on the financial side. While a fan of sports, he’s always been one of those administrators who didn’t have to make all the public appearances and address the people. Lee’s role is a requirement in college sports. If no one’s managing the money or asking “How do you expect to pay for that,” then you have balance sheets in the red and athletes potentially out in the cold. First, Lee explains how the campus has changed in size and stature since he attended in the 1980s. Rocked Up is a presentation of the Mat Talk Podcast Network and can be found on the web at GetRockedUp.com or at MatTalkOnline.com.
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    28 mins

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