Iowa Hawkeyes’ $31M Investment Slammed by Wrestling Community Recalling Retired NCAA Wrestler’s Divisive Claim: “Just a Fancy Building”

As another thrilling season of NCAA wrestling inches closer, the nation’s top programs are scurrying to add some extra infrastructural weapons to their arsenal. With OSU making waves after their new head coach, David Taylor, announced incoming investments, it seems like others are also following a similar path to up the ante. With the Iowa Hawkeyes being hailed as one of the biggest hurdles for Taylor’s first year with the Cowboys, Tom Brands’ lads are also looking at a possible bump to their training conditions to make sure they keep going toe-to-toe with the Olympic gold medalist and his strategies.

Iowa is shaping up nicely ahead of the new season as they continue to add more depth to the roster over the past few months. On top of that, now it looks like these new joiners will also have the perfect place to hone their skills.

The Iowa Hawkeyes receive yet another boost to the engine

In a recent post on X by the official Iowa Hawkeyes account, details of the school’s brand-new training facility have been shared. The Goschke Family Wrestling Training Center has been built at an expense of a staggering $31 million, making it look like an exotic affair that will certainly improve Iowa’s performance multifold. “This is truly a place for the champions,” said one of the hosts of the event where the new facility was unveiled for fans to bask in its glory.

Coach Brands also looked elated in the accompanying video as his words oozed with optimism: “This place will get better with time.” In her opening introductory speech, Hawkeye wrestling star Nyla Valencia noted that the facility is a “testament to perseverance” before setting high expectations for the coming days.

“It is a place where dreams will be realized, champions will be made, and legacies will be forged,” said Valencia as she continued to beam with pride. However, despite such enthusiasm from the school and the roster members, not all fans are on board with the prospect of how the new training center could change things around Hawkeye Central.

Fans have their reservations about the $31 million investment

One Hawkeye fan urged the authorities to now turn their attention to getting commitments from more rising stars or take advantage of the vast talent pool that is still available in the transfer portal. Opining that there’s no point in having state-of-the-art infrastructure if its potential won’t be used to the fullest, the fan page commented, “Just a fancy building if we can’t fill it with talent!”

The news was also shared on the Subreddit r/wrestling, and fans there too, had a few suggestions to make of their own. Redditor Dobsie2 seemed to take a dig at the jaw-dropping numbers that went into constructing the facility, highlighting how a high school has pulled off a similar thing at much lower expenses. “That high school’s facility doesn’t look that far off this and it was much cheaper” grunts the fan’s comment.

MMA star Ben Askern also said last month that modern training facilities seldom have a meaningful impact on wrestlers or the overall performance of an institution. Keeping parity with this view, they said that the facility doesn’t look worth such a pretty penny, “I don’t know anything about wrestling but I feel like I’m missing something in how what they showed in that video cost them 31 million.”

Another wrestling fan thought that Iowa’s grim weather would be enough to make the entire facility look like a utopian structure soon. “Looks all good now but it’s going to be covered in ice and blowing snow 6 months of the year” joked the fan.

What did you think of the newest addition to the Hawkeyes’ closet? Share your feelings with us in the comments!