Doane University’s Greco-Roman team, which officially launched in time for the 2025-26 season that began this past fall, has gotten off to a very fast start. Members of the squad competed in November’s Bill Farrell Memorial as Ned Kauffman (63 kg) collected the first international medal (bronze) for the program. Then a month later, the Doane Greco Tigers traveled to Marquette, Michigan to train with NMU before engaging in a friendly but competitive dual meet against one another to close out the calendar year.
And not long into ’26, more activity became available. Several of Doane’s more experienced athletes, led by ’21 U23 World Team member/Tigers grad assistant Tommy Brackett (82 kg), embarked on an overseas trip that saw stops in Romania, Sweden, and Denmark (in Sweden, the aforementioned Brackett earned gold, thus providing Doane with their first-ever tournament champ). But the biggest impact Doane has made, and keeps making, centers around recruitment. Since the fall, head coach Jason Christenson, in conjunction with Brackett, has managed to attract an impressive number of young Greco-Roman competitors who had previously garnered experience elsewhere as well as a group of talented high school wrestlers who are interested in long-term development and will thus begin attending the college following the summer.
While the future indeed appears promising for Doane, their focus is directed more towards immediate concerns. First on the table is a tournament (dubbed the “Tiger Wrestling Club Open”) that the program will host on Saturday, March 28th featuring four age divisions (U20+, U17, U15, and Futures). This event is intended to present an avenue for athletes who are preparing for the various World Team selection tournaments in April to sharpen up and test their skills prior to arriving in Vegas. Then there is the US Open itself, which will deliver to Doane athletes the opportunity to fight for World Team spots on both the U20 and Senior levels, respectively.
In this latest report, Christenson discusses the TWC Open, what the winter training block has had to offer, the bevy of recruits who are set to join the program, and how he views using training and competition to ignite meaningful progression for his athletes.
Head Coach Jason Christenson — Doane University
March 2026
5PM: Where did the idea come from to have this tournament at the end of the month?
Coach Jason Christenson: It is something that I tried to institute in Iowa to give those college athletes an opportunity to compete after their seasons were over and prior to the US Open. This tournament is strategically-placed about a month out from the Open. It’s not too close, not too far away, and it is kind of a tune-up. That is the main purpose. I guess the primary difference between this one and the one in Iowa would be the fact that it is Greco-Roman only. I feel that our purpose is to promote the sport of Greco-Roman wrestling. It isn’t about lining our pockets or making money off of a tournament. Maybe I’m not smart for taking things in this direction, but we just want to promote Greco and give guys an opportunity to compete a month out from the US Open.
5PM: There was activity in the fall and leading up to the winter as far as competition is concerned. What has periodization looked like over the past few months as the Open approaches in April?
Christenson: We have the year broken down into two six-month macros and I guess our mesos are month-by-month. We are really in the second month of that process. That first month we had spent some time overseas. We were able to go train in Romania for a week and then we sent some guys to Sundsvall to compete thee, and a few went on to Denmark to train with Thor (Hyllegaard). Those guys are on a little bit different of a cycle than everyone who was back here, and so right now we are just beginning to get some guys back who were competing in folkstyle. Our folkstyle team just left today for the NAIA nationals. We are still in the grind part of our preparation in that we are trying to wrestle a lot of matches right now. We lack that competitive feel compared to many of those we might see in the U20 division. A lot of the opponents for our U20 athletes have been competing week-in and week-out. We’re trying to figure out where we are good and implementing those things into our training and simulated matches.
I can say that we’ve been doing simulated matches, but our cycle includes a low intensity day, a medium intensity day, and a high intensity day is when we do our simulated matches. We try to cycle through this, for the most part, because I’m dealing with guys who are training pretty much throughout the entire year. We are trying to keep our guys as healthy as possible and, thankfully, most of our injuries have not been wrestling injuries. In fact, most of our guys are pretty healthy at this point, or they are getting healthier. That is always a concern when you are on this kind of international training model. You are making strides, making improvements, but you can fall into the trap of thinking that more live wrestling is better and it is the only way to improve. Live wrestling is definitely a part of it, but it is not the only thing here. We’ve been working on a lot on position and finding what our best control is and what our best options are from there. And not only on the feet, but from par terre, as well, since that is probably our biggest weakness as Americans along with the lack of training from that position.
5PM: Do you offer any feedback when it comes to the weight classes your guys might choose?
Christenson: Yes, for sure. You have to know where they’re at and how things are going, especially when they are not competing every week. The first time I find that out was when we went up to Northern and it was like, Some of these guys don’t know what they’re doing (laughs). That is educational piece is important for those guys, to really have a plan. That is one of the things that we talk about a lot. Part of your plan has to be where you fit best in a weight class. The gaps between weight classes are big. If you are going to go down in weight, that is going to be a lifestyle change. In folkstyle, you can jump a weight class and for the most part it’s not a big deal because they are so close together. So it is definitely part of it and something we discuss. And if a wrestler has plans to go up, then we work with them, and we do the same if they need to go down in weight, as well. It is definitely part of the equation.
5PM: How has Tommy Brackett been doing as far as having a dual role with helping coach while still functioning as a competitive athlete and going overseas recently?
Christenson: He has handled it really well. I would not say it is his personality because maybe it is just his demeanor, but he comes in everyday with a great attitude. That is one thing about Tommy: you just can’t find someone who doesn’t like him. His attitude is infectious. I don’t think you can find someone who would say that he isn’t a great guy. He has been able to handle the rigors of both. I don’t tax with him a ton of coaching, even though he is more than willing to help out and do those things. I think it is important for him to have some leadership from me, and he does a lot of things recruiting-wise. He does a great job of talking to kids, social media, things that he is more in-tune with. And I think that he has grown as a competitor during this time, too. I think that part of it has to do with him becoming more analytical due to teaching more often. I know that he helped at a club before in Colorado Springs when he was working with Mohamed (Abdelfatah).
I think it is a benefit for guys like him in his position. He can do both and he is handling both very well. Plus, when it is time for him to compete, I let him be a competitor. For example, prior to the Bill Farrell Memorial he was not doing any coaching. We have a little micro-cycle that we do right before a competition that lasts less than two weeks and he does nothing coaching-wise. It becomes all about his preparation as an athlete at that point. I’d say that about a month out from a competition is when I allow him to shift his focus and it was very much the same thing when he was overseas. He had good results in Sundsvall by winning gold there.
He just keeps on getting better and I think that part of it comes from him being in that dual role position where he sees the things that a coach can see. We talk a lot about how the coach is in the watchtower and the athlete is in the trenches. Sometimes when you are just the athlete, you cannot see a foot farther than right in front of your face, but as a coach you have to see the future a little bit and look at everything around you and in the distance. He has been able to balance that pretty well and is gaining some traction on the watchtower, and he has obviously already been in the trenches for most of his life. I think that it has been a good fit. I’m thrilled to have him. He is a big reason why we’re working right now and why Doane is moving in a great direction.
5PM: Over the past few months, you have added several more athletes to your roster. You must be encouraged that you keep making these roster additions and Doane hasn’t even eclipsed Year 1 yet.
Christenson: Yes, and I think obviously the biggest one we got recently was Luis Alberto De Silva, who was a Fargo champ and voted Outstanding Wrestler. He is someone who has been an All-American in Greco in every weight class from 55 lbs to 130. It has been a very productive recruiting time. We have also gotten some transfers in last semester, and a few who were from the Dubuque RTC. Alex Robeson was 3rd at U23’s last year at 82 kg, and it doesn’t hurt that we have Tommy Brackett here at 82 kg, as well. Then we have Ruben Karapetyan from Dubuque, and he was 2nd at the U20 Trials as well as Jayden Tadeo-Gosal, one of the CYC (Community Youth Center — Concord, California) kids and who went to Northern Michigan. These guys have been great additions to our team and then we have our high school recruits coming in the fall. There was a time period recently when they were all winning folkstyle state tournaments, like Caleb Blackner, who just won a Utah state title and has been a U17 competitor for Team USA. Anthony Delgado, as well, from Slam Academy, and that club has had really impressive Greco results. In addition to Blackner, we have our other Utah guys such as Keegan Miller, who will be a 77 kilo wrestler for us. He just won a state title. We will have Alex Williams, who was runner-up, and Gavin Whitefield, who was a runner-up in Colorado, I believe. David Burchett, also from Colorado, was a state champ.
It just kind of goes on and on. We just keep adding these great wrestlers who, more importantly, are also great competitors. So, we can’t wait to get these recruits here for next fall. But even with the guys we do have in the room currently, we are a totally different team than the one that went up in December to duel Northern Michigan.
5PM: Did that dual meet stick in your craw a little bit?
Coach Jason Christenson: (Laughs) Oh, of course. But I’ll tell you what, that’s why I wanted to do it. Something like that motivates me more than anything else and I wanted our kids to know that, Hey, we’ve got a ways to go here. That’s the problem right now with Greco-Roman. If we do not go and compete, and if we do not wrestle our simulation matches in practice, then how are we going to really know where we’re at? That is why we are hosting this tournament. It is really important to test yourself. Sure, you can practice but, ultimately, it has to be real. You have to make it as real as possible.
I know that for me as a coach, I am trying to get our guys to focus on what is possible. Where they can be, where hard work can take them. But you cannot say that you want to be an Olympic champ when your lifestyle does not correlate with what that goal requires.
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