NCAA PREGAME NOTES: The weigh-ins are going on, just a few hours prior to the start of the tournament. While the college kids are weighing in, one weight at a time, a number of America's top international stars are banging heads in preparation for the upcoming season. Joe Williams is shooting takedowns on one mat, as Chris Bono and Sammie Henson battle right next to them. Kerry McCoy and Charles Burton, teammates on the 2000 Olympic team, are working the par terre position. A pair of Erics, Guerrero and Akin, are working on their offense. That's the lifeblood of the NCAA Championships, all of America's wrestling people getting together in one spot for one week….    The press conference on Tuesday was held in a unique location, in a portable press area right on the arena floor, next to the mats. When the coaches, and then Cael Sanderson, took the podium, not only were the journalists listening to them speak, but also a large crowd of coaches and tournament officials. It was interesting to witness what ended up being the largest press conference audience since I've been covering this showcase since 1983…    As expected, the ghost of SUNY-Albany is hard to miss here. Andy Seras, U.S. Olympian and NCAA Div. III champion at SUNY-Albany is an assistant coach at Sacred Heart, which has a few athletes in the field. We will be seeing his teammates from Albany all weekend, I am sure…    Last night, the NWCA had its annual banquet, sponsored by Resilite, and a number of awards were announced. The Amateur News Man of the Year went to Minnesota coach J Robinson, a worthy recipient not only for his coaching success but for his promotion of the sport. Robinson gave a short acceptance statement, praising all of his assistant coaches and staff for their efforts. According to Robinson, the award was earned by his entire Gopher coaching team. A class act…     The NWCA gave two meritorious awards to people who have made a major impact on the sport. The first went to Eric Pearson, the former Princeton athlete and coach who has been a leader in the fight for sanity in the Title IX mess. Pearson is affiliated with the National Coalition of Athletics Equity, which played a key role in the NWCA lawsuit against the Department of Education. Eric is a born leader, and has been a unifying influence in his efforts to form an effective coalition of sports who are being hammered by proportionality. The other award went to Gary Hartrnaft of Virginia, a high school coach who has been a leader within wrestling for many years. He helped build the NWCA's Scholastic Division, and was key in creating the Scholastic Duals. I worked a year with Gary on the high school national rankings, and he is a hard working person who has a great passion for wrestling. It was not mentioned, but he was also a key leader in USA Wrestling/Virginia a number of years ago…    The Albany Times-Union should be applauded for its coverage of the NCAA event. For the second straight day, the paper included a special NCAA Wrestling section in its paper, and had wrestling stories and pictures all over the paper. They also signed up award-winning novelist and wrestling nut John Irving to write a feature column as well as a story about wrestling rules and traditions. It was a great read. The paper has also tapped into the knowledge of local hero Jeff Blatnick, Olympic champion and television commentator, in many stories about the event and the sport. Blatnick will do the color commentary for ESPN here…    Speaking of ESPN, SportsCenter sent one of its top reporters, Steve Cyphers, to cover the Cael Sanderson story here. Cyphers had done a number of tremendous features about wrestling, a sport he enjoys. Steve was an athlete at Colorado State, back when it had wrestling, and has enjoyed wrestling ever since. I've worked with him a number of times with our Olympic teams. In addition, he probably did the most accurate and fair television report about the murder of Dave Schultz of any reporter in the nation. Steve had a choice this weekend between coming here or doing one of those NCAA Basketball Regionals. He chose wrestling, and his colleagues called him nuts, but I think he made the right choice myself…     It's nice to see Terry Brands here, just getting started with his new position as head coach at UT-Chattanooga. Expect great things from him, as his passion for coaching matches his passion for competing and that school probably has gotten much more than they expected when they hired him…     An early observation. The arena floor is tight, the fans are close, this is not a home field for any team, so expect some really heated and unexpected results from this event this weekend…