Ashley Flavin on Life and the Undead

Wrestling Twitter ™ is a generally enjoyable community to interact with. Like most societies, there are positives and negatives to work through, but the version I see and spend time in tends to be much more positive than negative. One of those positives really took off one night when I noticed that I had a new follower, Ashley Sword Flavin - Head Women’s Wrestling Coach at Life University. When I get a notable follower like Ashley, I tend to take a look at their profile, which I did. That’s when I noticed the origin of this entire interview. Ashley’s bio reads; “Life U Women’s Wrestling Coach/also snuggles dogs, grows plants/ actually a Master of the zombie apocalypse”. That was all I needed to fire off a DM about how she’s crushing it as a coach at Life U, and that I wanted to interview her about her team and also about fighting Zombies. She very graciously accepted the invitation and the interview was all I hoped and more. It became clear to me very quickly how and why Life U’s Women’s Wrestling program has had the success it has. It also became clear to me just how valuable someone with a Masters degree in Public Health with a focus on outbreaks of infectious diseases, would be in a Zombie Apocalypse. With that being said, let’s get right to it. For context, this interview took place on Friday February 11th, 2022.

Kevin Claunch: I appreciate you coming on here Ashley. Like I said through our Twitter messages, I genuinely appreciate the Twitter follow, and then I was looking at your Bio, and obviously know you as the Head Coach of the Life University Women’s Wrestling coach, but then I noticed Master of the Zombie Apocalypse. I myself am an aficionado of the Zombie apocalypse genre, and thought it would be fun to have a conversation around this and to promote your program. This is an awesome year to promote the program. You’re currently undefeated, having two wins over Campbellsville University who was ranked 1 when you beat them the first time and ranked 2nd when you beat them the second time you beat them. First and foremost, let’s start with your team. One of the things I like to focus on when I talk to coaches of highly successful teams isn’t just having great wrestlers at each of the weights, but more around the construct and the chemistry. Especially at the college level I feel like it has a lot to do with the success of the team and with dual meets. Talk to me about how special this team has been this year and some of the chemistry that they have together.

Ashley Flavin: We’ve jokingly said that we recruit a certain type, and it’s kind of the type that nobody else wants. It’s like the quirky kids that doesn’t necessarily fit in anywhere else, but really we recruit athletes that we want to spend the next four years with. Which sounds silly to say out loud, but we recruit genuinely good people that we want to spend time with and that we want to be invested in. This is my fifth year that I’ve been the head coach of the program, so this is our first true senior class coming through, and they have been invested since the start. This is the girls that we recruited and the team that we wanted and all our team. So it’s been really exciting to see over the course of the four an a half years, as we finish this fifth season, that the processes are working and the trust that they have in us and in each other. Their biggest goals all the time are team goals, they have individual goals, but it’s with a greater team goal in mind. It’s something that pushes them. I’m sure you’ve seen the clip from National Duals because Flo did an awesome job of putting that out every 20 minutes and it was shared everywhere, and that clip of the team going crazy on the side is not only because we are winning national duals, that’s how excited they get for each other every time they step on the mat. That’s how excited they’ll be if Jordan (Jordan Nelson ) wins another national title, that’s how excited they'll be if a girl who is a walk on wrestler wins her first match. They are just all in for each other all of the time. I think that’s something that’s very special that we have.

It’s huge, I like a couple of the things that you said there. My frame of reference tends to go back to my High School days, but my Junior and Senior years we had a pretty solid team top to bottom and that was a big difference from my Freshman and Sophomore years, everybody was up on their feet for duals, they’re cheering each other on, and it really reverberates through the team and you can feel that as you go out to wrestle your match.

Yeah for sure. We put a lot of pressure, not on purpose, but we acknowledge the pressure that our lightweights and heavyweights have. 101 your job is to get the ball rolling positively, and 191 your job is to end it with an exclamation point, and praise God for Gabby Hamilton, she is always ending it with an exclamation point, but we’ll get to her more later. They did a good job at National Duals of shaking off the fact that we had a forfeit at one, and I think it put a chip on their shoulder a little bit. This is where we’re at, okay, it’s just like any other diversity that we’ve faced. By the time we were done going into National Duals, we had been out of quarantine for 3 days. We had 19 positive cases of COVID on our team over Christmas break, which is why we didn’t have a 101 because they were both under COVID protocol. It was just like, nope, this is another piece of adversity we’re just going to handle it. We’re here to do business, we said we wanted to win everything this year, so let’s do the job. I got really nervous against Campbellsville the second time for Conference, mostly because the team likes to keep it within 1 point and make all of my hair turn gray. It’s fun for them. But we had a couple really good matches to start off and then we had some rough ones in the middle, just pin, pin, pin, and sometimes that momentum starts swinging against you, and you can get really down. Our upper weights, Destinee Rivera was able to put some points on the board to get that key point for the team. That brought everyone up, and then Jordan went out and had a huge mat return and planted her opponent, just did whatever she wanted with her. Jordan is a bully. She went out and said “I’m a fifth year senior and I’m here to do the job for my family. Then Gabby went out and did the same thing. The girls have such confidence in each other, that ever though some of our girls got pinned in the middle, it’s never “we can’t get this back”. They always expect to get this back and make it through and come out on the other side because that’s what they’ve decided they’re going to do.

That’s awesome, and to have everyone with that same mentality. I just tweeted the other day that I feel like with such a big gap in athleticism from the top heavyweights and the bottom. It’s just more difficult to have more athletic people at that size, so recognizing the importance is huge, and emphasizing the bookends of what is a really solid team. Another thing I like was that idea of wanting to hang out with your recruits for the next four years. Personality, character, integrity, and having fun people is such a big thing. That’s always been my idea of how I find people to interview, so to hear it on the recruiting side is cool. It seems like it would be elementary to do that, but to hear that philosophy is cool to recognize.

I think so often when people are talking about recruits coming through the pipeline, and I’m not trying to talk about anyone specifically, but a good athlete doesn’t always make a good fit. It’s about team, comradery, and it’s about coming together. As much as they have to trust us and like us as coaches, it has to go the other way or it isn’t going to work. Christian (Flavin) and I are just so relationship based with our team. We aren’t the 9-5 business coaches, we are not the coach where you walk in at practice, get to work, two hours later have a good day and see you tomorrow. The athletes are in my office hanging out and watching TV. We had our whole team plus alumni at our wedding, and weddings are expensive, so obviously I must care about my team if I want all 50 of them to be there. I think that dynamic is so important and it gets lost in the pressure to win, so people can forget about the joy of winning for the people that you are doing it with. So we focus on effort and not doing it for ourselves, but doing it for each other. We go around the room and everybody had to pick someone that they are doing it for that isn’t themselves. It took a lot longer this year since the team is so large, but we wanted to find the person you’re pushing yourself when it’s hard. Who are you going to step it up for. Sometimes it was a training partner, sometimes it was a good friend. For a lot of people it was for Jordan because she didn’t have a team title yet. When they get to us they are adults, it’s like a halfway house, they still need help and guidance, but we are looking for high school kids that are not just about themselves and for kids that want to truly be a part of a family and something bigger. We want kids that want a coach to be invested in their life. If a kid only wants to be weighed in and told what to do at practice, that’s not the coaches we are. We won’t just be what your old High School coach or club coach did, I’m your coach, I’m in your corner, but also in your corner for the rest of your life and all of your things.

Let’s focus really quick on your team and spotlight some of the leaders on the team. It’s tough for teams to go undefeated, and the job isn’t done, but at this point in the season it’s gone as well as it possibly can. Who are some of the leaders who are really standing out and making this happen?

From a performance standpoint you have to talk about Peyton Prussin. She is undefeated this year, she was undefeated last year when she won nationals, now she’s undefeated this year at a new weight class. Teams tend to follow good athletes. Sometimes they use their powers for good and sometimes for evil, fortunately Peyton uses her power for good. She really is a good role model for the team. Her, Jordan Nelson, Destinee Rivera the three of them when we knew that we weren’t going to have a 101 pounder at National Duals they pulled the team aside before practice and told me “coach, we need 20 minutes with the team”. I don’t know what they said, or exactly what went down, but they lead the room, figured out how to work through exactly where they were at, and kept it moving. So they really stepped up vocally in that way. Gabby Hamilton is someone who everyone loves to cheer for. On the mat she is ruthless, and off the mat she wants to read a book and have a snack. She is so kind and when you get her giggling she starts to snort. I don’t feel like I’m putting her secrets on the street. This is just, if you know Gabby they’ve seen this side of Gabby. She’s so easy to cheer for and just so fun to watch her wrestle because you always know it’s going to be an inside trip, but you never know when it’s coming. She does a really good job that is a steady force that doesn’t have to say anything but is a steady force where everyone feels better just knowing she’s in the room. We have had some leadership from some of our Freshman, Salyna Shotwell, I think she’s ranked 3 at 116 right now, and Sylvia Pierce, they are just work horses. It doesn’t matter the task, they are going to be first in line to volunteer to take out the trash, or walk my dog, or do whatever needs to be done. They are doing a great job of that. I mean, I could truthfully go through the lineup and give you a reason for every athlete on the roster and how they are leading the team. We don’t have captains, we rotate through at duals who gets to go out. We just ask them if they want to go out, and then they go. Some people don’t like the pressure of being a captain. If a coach picks them it’s problematic, and if the team picks them it can be problematic. Every one of you can lead, so do it. Step up and take ownership of what you said your goals are. Those are just some of the athletes that come to mind there as far as leaders. Olivia Mottley is a silent assassin at 136. Once you get her moving on the mat it’s hard to stop her, and she’s always the last one doing exercises. Katalina Bartelt at 101 is the same way. Kory Phillips never stops. Her energy is wild, which will be very interesting in the next part of what we are going to talk about. We just have this great group of athletes that find a way to make their strengths… My strength is making their weakness not matter anymore because they really build on each other like building blocks, like Legos, and they are really good about it.

Exactly like you eluded to, let’s get to the Zombie piece of this. You had mentioned in our Twitter message, and it sounds like the debate was sparked again today, that on the van going to National Duals the girls were talking about who would survive the Zombie Apocalypse. How did this come up and what was the general consensus.

I may have escalated that a lot.

For good reason.

For good reason, obviously. When I decided that I wanted to my masters in epidemiology, I made the joke that I was going to try to find the outbreak monkey. I’m a fan of the old 80s movie Outbreak since before it was cool. I always said that I was going to find the monkey and stop the Zombie Apocalypse, and to find out who started the ring worm outbreak, but it’s fine.

You’re like the Dustin Hoffman of Life University.

Exactly. So I go rogue quite a bit, so that’s probably a good comparison there. They were actually talking about who would win on the show Survivor, and Zoe White, one of our GAs was sitting in the passenger seat, and I’m driving, and we thought they were talking about who would survive the Apocalypse. We took it all the way. It got real dark real fast, just she’s dead, she’s dead, that ones out, Hailey (Finn) is gonna kill her. I didn’t mention her, because she’s not in the lineup, but I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Hailey Finn. Hailey is a Senior, came to us, and she blew out her knee in the Bloodround of her freshman year, and tried to come back, and blew her knee out again. Just couldn’t do it anymore, but she’s never missed a practice, she has never, like, I’ve only seen her get down with it one time. It was the night before we left for Nationals, she was in the gym alone mopping the mats, and she broke down. That was her own moment. I don’t even know if she knows that I knew that until I wrote her a letter of recommendation recently. Coach Finn is always on the side, and she is so good with technique and so good with teaching. We wouldn’t be where we are at without Hailee. She is a little like me, in that she’s an authoritarian, and so she cracks the whip. Hailey is definitely going to be a one where if you aren’t living up to standards, then she’s going to feed you to the Zombies. Our numbers will be so low, but our longevity is going to be way up because Hailee is just going to get rid of people that aren’t doing the right thing.

No, for sure. The big thing that always happens with Zombies is that someone gets bit, and then they either say that they didn’t get bit, or people try to say “oh no, they’ll be okay, we can’t send them away”, but no. They’re going to turn into a Zombie in like five minutes, get rid of them now.

Notice the young Woman on her face. That is Julia, who is mentioned below. The verdict is out on how exactly this happened. We may never know.

Yeah, no that’s Julia (Vidallion). Julia we decided today. She’ll get bit by a Zombie and not know that she’s been bit by a Zombie. Julia is a two time national finalist and a national champion, and she’s the first to go. It’s just a wrap. Peyton is not far behind because she likes her creature comforts. She was voted off the island and for longevity. She’s out to, and won’t make it. It’s unfortunate that two of our national champs are out right off the bat.

It’s different skillsets. It’s not the same as wrestling.

It 100% is. Kory Phillips, we said she is going to outlast all of us, but she is going to go feral. She is going to live on her own. She won’t be a Zombie, but she won’t be a part of humanity anymore. She has turned to the wild, lives in a tree, and living her best Kory life making friends with squirrels out there. Riley Dalrymple who is one of our 130 pounders, she grew up in Northern New York, just on the border of Canada, and she has a lot of hunting experience, so she can deal with harsh climates. Also I feel good about what she can do with a weapon, and I’ve seen the animals that she’s taken down, so I feel like the Zombies can’t be that much worse than a giant elk at 4am. Catherine Palmieri is one of our 191 pounders. Her Dad was in special forces, and she’s from Tennessee, and she’s got a really strange skillset of knowledge, so I feel good about some of the survival things that she can help us with. Jordan Nelson insists that she’s going to make it, to quote her as cleanly as I can, “It’s Apocalypse time, and I don’t got time to deal with anyone, and once the guns are out nobody is my friend anymore.” Jordan is very much a neat freak, so I personally think she’s going to blind herself spraying herself with Lysol once she gets Zombie blood on her and she’s out, so there goes our third national champion. I feel pretty good about my own skills.

That was going to be my next question. With your background and Masters Degree in Public Health with a focus on Outbreaks of Infections Diseases, what would be your biggest asset would you think to a team in this situation. 

Infection identification to start with. Knowing the signs, being able to track who you were around, where were you, being able to track the chain of the epidemic I think I would be able to see where it was coming from. Also, I don’t put up with anyone’s crap. I told the team earlier, and they asked “coach, when do you think you’re going to go out?” I said, you guys, I’ve been dealing with you for five years, I’ve been through a divorce, and I actually own a sword. I’ve been through too much to not live. I also have the bonus of having a 6’2” 280 pound husband, who is very protective, and we have a 150 pound dog, so basically having a polar bear and a giant on my side are very useful.

It sounds like you have a very solid team put together already. How much of it, with your educational background, would it occur to you to start tracking bite time to when the infection takes over, or what, if anything, can prevent it?

Absolutely. So when you get bit, we’d lose a couple of people along the way for science, hopefully not any of our people, but the Zombie apocalypse is going to put a damper on my goal for a coach. I have a 100% survival rate as a coach. I have this overarching premise that nobody in my group dies and we have 100% survival. Julia is going to ruin that for me right off the bat. You know, “okay, you got bit, where did you get bit, when did we start seeing symptoms of infection, what are the symptoms of infection, if you get bit on the finger or arm can we chop that off and be okay?” Tracking those things and then learning about so many different types of Zombies. You’ve got the slow movers, the fast Zombies, which kind of Zombie bit you, does that change how quickly you turn? We’ll need to set up isolation areas, figuring out approaches to change or treat things. I’m pretty sure penicillin isn’t going to fix things up, but again, I have a sword and really know mercy at all. So I’m good with chopping body parts off, get the weak link out of here.

I think the sword is really going to come in handy for sure. I need to get a sword now is what I’ve just come to realize.

You’re going to run out of bullets, but if you sharpen the blade you’ll be good.

I don’t remember the name of the character from the Walking Dead, but she just had a samurai sword.

Michonne.

That’s right! Thank you. I haven’t watched that show in probably ten years, but I did love it for a bit.

Fun fact, The Walking Dead was filmed by where I lived up until where I just lived, but it’s filmed in Georgia just south of Atlanta, about 20 minutes from where I lived up until a month ago.

I knew it was based in Atlanta, but it’s good to know that it’s one of those that they’re shooting onsite. I just learned relatively recently that The Office was just filmed in a studio in Atlanta and nowhere near Scranton Pennsylvania. 

Well if you make it down to Atlanta we’ll take you down to The Walking Dead Coffee Shop, little museum, you can get in the cell, do all of the things.

Absolutely I’ll do that! No, finishing out the year. 

I have to add one more person to our list. Paul Rademacher, not on our team, the girls call him Uncle Paul, he’s the head coach for Women’s Wrestling at Indiana Tech. He fought the big forest fires in Oregon, so I feel like that is a skill that is useful. He was a hunter as kid, he’s a vegetarian now, but you also don’t have to worry about him eating something weird like some diseased meat and getting an infection. We also need to put that on our list of things to watch, especially with wrestlers around, but I feel like the firefighter for the wildfires is someone we need on our list for safety.

He’s essential. I’ll have to follow up with him and get his insight on this situation also and get a whole team together. Wanted to finish out here by getting back to the team, you’ve got the Mid South Conference Championships coming up followed by NAIA National Invitational. What is the message to the team going into the last couple weeks of the season here?

I think it’s just what you said earlier, the job’s not done. We still have more work to do. Conference in some ways is going to be harder to win than Nationals because there are so few people, so those placements and points matter a lot more, somebody that takes third in the conference might not win a match at nationals, but they’re still third in the conference because there’s only five or six athletes, so we really have to be cognizant of being disciplined and not giving up bonus points and picking up bonus points where we can and staying to our game plan. The job’s not done, and there is still work to do. We’ll celebrate when it’s over. Kind of like the Zombie Apocalypse. Don’t be happy just because we killed a line of Zombies, don’t celebrate, the jobs not done yet. There are more coming. Just stay focused. This is a hard time of year. This is hard for coaches. I hope this sucks for everybody equally, because I have 40 hard working dedicated passionate athletes on my team and I can only bring 12. At conference we can bring 15 and we are trying to put the pieces together to give the team the best possible shot at winning, and I can’t bring everybody and that’s hard. Keeping athletes who aren’t going focused, because they are still so vital to the team, we still need them, they are still so vital as a partner and in anyway. Who knows, someone could get hurt, anybody could go down,  and we need them to be ready for their number to be called. Always be ready and ever vigilant. Just stay focused and we’ll celebrate on the 13th, so just focus on the next point and that’s all that matters.

You really summed this up when it went full circle and you compared finishing out the college wrestling season to surviving the Zombie Apocalypse. I think that is a good way to put the bow on this.

I had fun doing this interview the first time, but listening to it a second time had me really happy that this happened. I learned two main things. First, Ashley is going to be a vital component to any team hoping to survive a Zombie Apocalypse. Second, I completely understand why her teams perform so well. I’ve noticed that great coaches tend to be charismatic and charming people. It makes sense when you consider that you have to recruit people to join the cause, and you have to really like and trust someone to motivate you to push past your comfort levels to make the sort of gains that championship teams demand. But I completely agree with her the more I think about it. Wrestling and Zombie fighting are both team/individual competitions. You need to have the individuality and self discipline to make it, but you’ll always reach a greater potential with a team ready to push through the difficult times together and a common goal. Ashley Flavin has a sword, and so should you.