Northwood-Kensett program to have two new faces at Corn Cob Nationals

Every year the Northwood-Kensett youth wrestling program sends worthy kids to compete in all kinds of national tournaments, including the Corn Cob Nationals held at the Jacobson Center at the Iowa State Fairgrounds in Des Moines this March 14-15.
And while the national tournaments have been trying to be more inclusive the past few years, adding different categories of wrestlers, one new category added for this year's Corn Cob Nationals caught the eye of a couple of what one might call unlikely wrestlers.
At this year’s tournament, Northwood-Kensett’s 42-year-old Tiffany Tiedemann and 36-year-old Valerie Paulson will take to the circle and test their wrestling ability and knowledge against other women in the Moms Division, a category made up of women who have children wrestling in the Corn Cob.
As it turns out, this won’t be the first time these two young women have wrestled. They got the itch to compete at the Corn Cob Nationals after facing off against each other at a Clear Lake beach two years ago.
“We were at a wrestling event on the beach and they announced that they wanted a couple of moms to wrestle,” said Paulson. “I was standing on the other side but looked over to Tiffany and we shook our heads and were like, let’s do this.”
“It happened so quickly that our husbands at the time didn’t even know what was going on, they just walked up on a group of people watching a wrestling match and it turned out to be Valerie and me," Tiedemann said.
But it was that match on the beach that got them thinking about competing at the Corn Cob Nationals, which will have a Moms Division for the first time this year.
Both Tiedemann and Paulson have seen their fair share of wrestling, having had, between the two of them, six kids and a combined 35 years of wrestling experience from the stands.
But does that knowledge from the stands translate well to the mat? It seems Tiedemann and Paulson thought it would.
“Well, we thought we knew what we were doing,” Paulson said laughing. “It’s changed the way we watch our kids wrestle now. It’s not as easy as you think it is while you’re watching it in the bleachers.”
“I’m not as vocal now,” Tiedemann said nodding her head in agreement. “I used to scream for them to move, do this, do that, but when you have someone laying on you, you can’t always do what people are screaming at you to do.”
After talking to Tiedemann and Paulson for this story, one thing was made perfectly clear to me, while these two women are natural competitors, the only goal for the Corn Cob Nationals for both is to have fun enjoying a new experience that not many other mothers would be brave enough to try.
Neither woman expects to have to face the other but when asked just how seriously they are taking their training and competition, both had pretty much the same answer.
“I think it will be all fun until you get a mom that’s really taking it seriously,” Paulson said.
“Yeah, that’s when I think it will get serious in a hurry, if you have someone really roughing you up, I think that competitiveness will kick in and it won’t be fun anymore, it will be a wrestling match.”
And if they would have to meet in the circle, who would win?
“She would kick my butt, she’s a tough lady,” said Paulson.
Joining Tiedemann and Paulson in Des Moines will be members of the youth wrestling program, including Caden Schrage, Drake Tiedemann, Trent Tiedemann, Alex Tiedemann, Brody Paulson, Bryck Abrams, Baylor Abrams, Lane Knudson, Owen Binbose, Ethan Binnebose and Ella Knudson, who, by the way, decided to skip the girls division and wrestle with the boys instead.