Sometimes I think the entire wrestling community needs anger management classes. That includes me.    I mean, somebody from the outside world could conclude that wrestling people are angry all the time. And you know something, they may be right. When somebody is always fighting for their life, it is natural to be a bit pissed off. I wonder how other sports would feel if they had over 400 college programs taken away.    Title IX. IOC cutbacks. USOC controversies. A lack of television and major media coverage. Girls wrestling boys. Ignorant people making statements that insult wrestling and wrestlers. It seems the challenges are never ending.    If you go to TheMat.com's bulletin boards (thematforums.com) and read what the wrestling world is posting these days, you can taste the anger. It's real and it is pervasive.     In boxing, if you keep giving your opponent body blows, later in the fight the rival will slow down and be vulnerable for a knockout. The wrestling community has taken more than its share of body blows, but remains standing, still fighting. Hopefully there is still fire in our eyes.    We had a doozy two weeks ago. As USA Wrestling staff members, many of us in Colorado Springs could only shake our heads and sigh.    First, the IOC Executive Board issued its report about disciplines at the Olympic Games. Sure, we will be allowed to keep both freestyle and Greco-Roman, but the EB (as it calls itself) still seeks more cutbacks in the number of medals for wrestling at the Games. More medals? Isn't this the group that has cut our men's medals from 10 to eight to seven since 1996? Hasn't the IOC only awarded four medals to women's wrestling, about half of what we have at the World Championships? Cut more medals? You have to be kidding.    Then, in one fell swoop, eight months of hard work on Title IX may have been flushed down the pipes when the Commission on Opportunity in Athletics turned in its report to the government. Two members from quota advocate groups refused to sign on to the report, issued their own propaganda, then went up to Capitol Hill to stomp and cry and complain. Then, within hours of receiving the Title IX Commission report, Education Secretary Rod Paige decided only to consider unanimous proposals from the Commission. He gave complete veto power to the two biased whiners, negating the efforts of the other 13 members to come to reasonable conclusions. Rumor has it that a few nameless cowards at the Bush White House had a hand in Paige's gutless decision. Even though we don't know exactly who to get mad at (except for Paige), this one certainly raised the blood pressure too high.    By the end of the week, the U.S. Olympic Committee was under attack from Senators and the national media. A day did not go by without more allegations of wrongdoing and mismanagement plastered over the front pages. Gillions of dollars of severance packages. Employees having their local luxury hotel accommodations covered as travel expenses (have they heard about the idea of renting an apartment?). Travel budgets for leaders that could cover the entire competition budget of a small National Governing Body. Major sponsors screaming for accountability, or they will take their support away from the athletes. Suggestions of outright fraud. Although these attacks weren't directly pointed at wrestling, the sport is certainly a part of the American Olympic family, and the controversy was eating at the soul of the Olympic movement.    I guess if you don't get mad about these kind of things, that might mean that you have already given up. For some reason, that does not sound like a wrestler. After an opponent has launched you through the air and slammed you to the mat, you have a choice. You can clear out the cobwebs, slap yourself, and go back into the battle with more determination. Or you can just fade away, letting the rival get a few cheap tilts for a quick technical fall. What's it gonna be, boys and girls?    For me, the choice is easy. Stand up and fight. The USOC mess may be on the way to some kind of solution, as CEO Lloyd Ward resigned and the pressure quickly lessened. Actually, a wrestler, Jim Scherr, has been named as the interim-interim CEO. Nobody knows if Scherr will serve another week, a month or longer, but the media barrage has at least quieted down.    Title IX gets no easier. Just after the Paige disaster, we found out that NCAA CEO Myles Brand has decided to buy completely into the baloney from the quota advocate groups. In a speech at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., Paige issued some of the old tired rhetoric, and decided to single out wrestling for an extra shot. This is the guy hired to run the NCAA and build all of its sports. Yet, in a major public address, he chose wrestling to attack with misinformation from our enemies.    The IOC thing should be a simmering mess for quite some time. We are finding out about the players in the international sports community, some who are too much to be true. What is for certain is that wrestling has no representation and little pull at the international level. We are now being punished for 30 years of no leadership from the last FILA President and ineffective FILA Bureaus. The challenge here is finding out whether or not we will even be allowed to fight this one.    Those involved in wrestling understand the anger, which has boiled up during the past decade and seems to be spilling out of the pot. I found it funny that the Title IX quota advocates seemed surprised by the anger of the wrestlers (and other men's sports) during the recent Title IX debates. They tried to dismiss it as something caused by the NWCA lawsuit, Jessica Gavora's book and a column by George Will. Just like the NCAA, the quota groups have just ignored wrestling for so long that they had no idea how much anger has been building up for many, many years. The Title IX Commission hearings gave us a public forum for this anger, and the wrestling community has taken advantage, as if we were provided an entire show with Dr. Phil.    I know what wrestlers are thinking. Leave us alone. Let us have our team, so we can go to the wrestling room and work with our athletes. It is a bunker mentality, for sure. However, this is something we need to avoid, this defensive position. One of the reasons we are always under attack is that people do not understand wrestling. They have not been in that wrestling room, and we have done little to invite them into our world. They know nothing about the positive things that wrestling can do for individuals. They don't understand our many rules, so they can't enjoy our matches. All they see are these aggressive, self-confident individuals, doing something all sweaty and confusing, and they don't like us. Unless we teach them why we care so much for wrestling, we will continue to be a target from those on the outside.    I sometimes worry about my own role in all of this. I have become a master of the anger letter. I can craft a concise, sharp and sometimes cruel response letter to anybody who decides to mistreat wrestling. Because of all of the shots we have taken, I am getting considerable practice in this art. I do some of my best writing when I let that anger build up and explode. But I'm not sure I like it very much.    Wasn't wrestling supposed to be fun? Didn't we all get into this because we enjoyed the challenge of competition and the excitement of the battle? Did we join this sport to be angry all the time?    When I was wrestling, I was one of those guys who got all pumped up before a match. I let the emotions flow, and went into a bout all full of fire. But, I was also not a superstar. As I have spent my career around Olympic heroes, I have found that some of the best wrestlers are the guys who can calm themselves before battle and completely focus on their task. As a community, wrestlers need to recognize the anger, then step back and focus, channeling the emotion into positive action. Once in awhile, we need a coach to tell us to relax and try to enjoy the sport a little bit more.       TheMatside View is published on Tuesdays most of the time.