David Hoffman

✝️John 16:33 | HILL Wrestling | Team Renegade | Husband to Lisa | Father to 3 Beauties | NCAA All-American | Hokie Nation | Never Ditch the Risk for the Comfort

[David Hoffman @DHoff_dissident]

@Aaron_LaFarge @MichaelBoyd174 @MatScouts1 Agreed 1000%

[David Hoffman @DHoff_dissident]

@MatScouts1 Jesse Jantzen immediately comes to mind. Talk about a guy that doesn’t get talked about enough. Freakishly talented…always wondered what he could have accomplished if he went to a traditional power. Hard to pass up a Harvard education though.

[David Hoffman @DHoff_dissident]

@CuylleFC Yes

[David Hoffman @DHoff_dissident]

@hicasamadim 72

[David Hoffman @DHoff_dissident]

@BarryNM @NYIslanders Lol. Yeah, except all the teams that were inactive tonight and have games in-hand.

[David Hoffman @DHoff_dissident]

An absolute must-read post for any parent with kids playing sports.

[Seth Gross @GodsWrestler133]

There’s no single path in wrestling.

Some kids need to be pushed early. They’re winning everything, dominating locally, and if you don’t get them into better rooms and tougher tournaments they get comfortable. They start thinking they’re better than they actually are. Those kids need to get tested early so they stay hungry and stay humble.

But on the flip side, some kids are already getting tested every day. They’re losing in the room, losing at tournaments, struggling to place. And that’s where parents panic. They think something’s wrong so they try to add more—more training, bigger events, tougher competition.

That’s where it gets messed up.

If your kid is already getting beat, already dealing with adversity, already having to figure things out… they’re on the right path. That’s how you build resilience. Not from winning. From losing, adjusting, and showing back up anyway. Throwing them into something even harder doesn’t speed it up. Most of the time it just buries them. Harder isn’t better. Better is what they actually need.

The biggest problem is comparison. Parents see another kid dominating at the same age and think their kid is behind. So now it becomes blaming coaches, blaming the room, blaming everything instead of just understanding they’re on a different timeline.

You’re watching a snapshot and acting like it’s the whole story.

Some of those early studs never learn how to lose. Then they hit college, get beat every day, and they don’t know how to respond. No resilience. No identity. They fade out. Meanwhile the kid who couldn’t win a bracket at 10 learned how to handle losing, learned how to adjust, learned how to keep showing up when it sucked. That kid becomes dangerous later.

And then people get burnout completely wrong.

Burnout almost never comes from training too much. It comes from pressure. It comes from a kid feeling like every match defines them, like they’re letting people down, like they’re never doing enough. That’s what drains them.

You rarely see a kid who truly loves it and owns it burn out from mat time. What you do see is kids start to check out. They stop focusing in practice, go through the motions, avoid hard situations, and become inconsistent. Then people say they’re burned out.

No—they’re detached.

Wrestling stopped being something they enjoy and became something they feel judged on. And a lot of the time those kids were never fully bought in, they were just carrying expectations.

That ties right back into the path.

When you force a kid into a path that isn’t theirs—chasing rankings, chasing other kids, chasing results—you don’t build confidence, you build anxiety. So when things get hard they don’t lean in, they pull away.

The kids who last are the ones who were allowed to develop. Win, lose, struggle, figure it out. Because it’s theirs, not yours.

If your kid is winning, good—challenge them.

If your kid is losing, good—let them grow.

Either way stop panicking. Most kids don’t fail because they were on the wrong path. They fail because someone rushed it or made it about themselves, and eventually the kid walks away.

[David Hoffman @DHoff_dissident]

@Jon_Reader @MatScouts1 @JustinJBasch @ChrisBono @BadgerWrestling @ShaneSparksBTN @FloWrestling @WrestlersInBus @USAWrestling @nickkosko59 @WI_wrestle Wishing you nothing but the best. You are one of the great minds in the sport. No doubt you would have made one hell of a HC one day…but no doubt that you will be wildly successful in anything you pursue. I loved watching you compete throughout your career — tough as they get.

[David Hoffman @DHoff_dissident]

@adamtirapelle One of my pet peeves about the push out in freestyle is when one wrestler pushes the action from center to the edge but the defending wrestler tiptoes the line and gets awarded the point. I think we all want the wrestler initiating the action to be the one rewarded.

[David Hoffman @DHoff_dissident]

@ChanceFreeman4 @SethVosters I definitely do not disagree! Personally, I do not even have Vega making the finals.

I think there’s a better chance of neither Vega or Mendez making the finals than Vega tech/pin/tech-pinning Mendez.

[David Hoffman @DHoff_dissident]

@ChanceFreeman4 @SethVosters

[David Hoffman @DHoff_dissident]

@notawrestler_x @SethVosters

[David Hoffman @DHoff_dissident]

@ChanceFreeman4 @SethVosters Andy Hrovat actually said exactly that earlier today.

[Trojan Wars @TrojanMatWars]

Of the 47 teams competing in Trojan Wars, 34 have at least one wrestler in the semifinals. Teams with 3 each include: Skyline, VA; The Hill School, Elco, Easton and Warrior Run.

[David Hoffman @DHoff_dissident]

@EtoTheZY @MatWrestling133 The guy with (checks notes) pronouns in his bio is making a mockery of two high school kids.

At least get the conference right if you’re going to run your mouth. It’s the ACC…the SEC doesn’t even have wrestling.

[David Hoffman @DHoff_dissident]

@handsometuesda9 Dang. That’s old school right there…from our days in the EWL.

[David Hoffman @DHoff_dissident]

@JaySchecter920 @NHLFlyers Not trying to argue/disagree. I respect your point. Just offering a reason why people are griping.

We chose 2 kids that, according to all draft experts, will need to greatly improve their skating.

Not sure I agree that he wouldn’t have been available at 22 but that’s just me.

[David Hoffman @DHoff_dissident]

@SportyJosh6 @spittinchiclets I love the trade, but this is a massively underrated tweet. Well done 😂😂😂

[David Hoffman @DHoff_dissident]

@allysonschwab It’s amazing how good looking and manly he is.