Nebraska
More Seasoned Caleb Smith ‘Feeling Like the Champ’ For Nebraska Wrestling – FloWrestling
Caleb Smith transferred to Nebraska last summer and made an immediate impact for a team that had a major need at 125 pounds. He landed on the podium in his first year in a Husker singlet and is brimming with confidence right now.
When asked how he’s feeling, Smith immediately responded: “I’m feeling like the champ.”
Now ranked #2 in the country with a 7-0 record, Smith is positioned to make that happen in his final collegiate season.
Not heavily recruited out of high school, Smith spent his first four seasons at Appalachian State where he was a SoCon champ and two-time national qualifier with a 56-16 record. Despite his success, Smith decided he wanted to transfer to a Big Ten school to test himself against the best in the country.
“We went to nationals a couple years in a row, and I started wrestling the Big Ten guys, and I thought that I could beat them,” Smith said. “I felt like I just need to be around them more and wrestle them more.”
A graduate transfer with two years of eligibility remaining, Smith had a lot of calls once he entered the transfer portal. Ultimately, his connection with Nebraska coach Mark Manning stood out. Also, Smith’s faith is very important to him, and he wanted to be in a place that shared that faith and those values. Nebraska was just that place.
“I just felt spiritually that God wanted me to be somewhere else and he wanted me to plant seeds here in Nebraska to help grow his kingdom, so I just listened to him,” Smith said. “When I talked to coach Manning, faith was something that was really big and important in my recruiting process because I want to be surrounded by it and be rooted in my faith. We were talking about how all the coaches were pretty strong in their faith, and that’s not something that happens in every program. That makes a program special because it’s bigger than you and it means more.”
In addition to that, Smith talked to his former club coaches Bobby Lloyd and Mike Dalton out of the School of Hard Knocks in North Carolina. They told him not to miss out on an opportunity because you may look back someday and regret not taking the leap.
“I talked to my club coaches about it a little bit — coach Bob and coach Mike, they kind of guide me through everything since I started,” Smith said. “Because I was real hesitant about it and didn’t want to leave, he was saying that if you were to look at this five or 10 years down the road, you’re going to regret it if you don’t.”
Smith started looking at what Nebraska had to offer, and the choice became more clear in his mind. From how the coaches made him feel to their pedigree, Smith saw Nebraska as the best place to be.
“(Manning is) the only coach that talked to me and doesn’t talk about wrestling immediately. He’s just asking me about me and how I’m feeling during the process,” Smith said. “He knows it’s stressful and he kind of made me feel heard — made me feel like he cared about me more than just what I could do for him.”
Smith saw going to Nebraska as an opportunity to train under the same coaches that helped turn Jordan Burroughs and James Green into two of the best wrestlers in the world. And with a future in freestyle, Smith saw it as a no-brainer.
“He’s coached so many of the greatest athletes like James and Jordan Burroughs and everybody on that wall,” Smith said as he looked at all the Husker greats on the south wall of Nebraska’s practice room. “I remember just watching Nebraska when I first started getting into wrestling in seventh grade, and I got to see James go place at the national tournament and got to see JB making World Championship teams and winning World titles. I was like, ‘Dang, I can get coached by that guy.’”
With Green on staff and Burroughs making the occasional stops in the room, Smith tries to learn as much as he can from them. Despite being much smaller, Smith still hits the mat with them from time to time.
“I ask them as many questions as I can and wrestle them if I can,” Smith said. “Last time me and JB wrestled, I felt that double leg. I was surprised he didn’t send me to like 2048 because he shot right through me — it was awesome.”
Last season, Smith went through the grind of the Big Ten for the first time and performed well. He certainly took his lumps, but he improved as the year went on and found the NCAA podium, finishing sixth in Kansas City.
Smith went 24-12 on the year, but all of his losses were to All-Americans. Eight of those losses were to wrestlers who either graduated or moved up in weight this season. The others were to #1 Richard Figueroa (4-3), #3 Matt Ramos (5-2), and #8 Jore Volk twice.
“I took some losses, but I don’t even count them as losses because they taught me so much and it all paid off,” Smith said. “It made me feel like I can compete with the best of the best. It can be an on-day or an off-day, but I’m still going to show up and be the same Caleb Smith. It’s going to be a grind, and they’re going to have to fight and try to kill me to stop me.”
Smith also assembled an incredible hit list last year. He beat #3 Matt Ramos 8-4 in sudden victory and #5 Troy Spratley 5-4 at the Cliff Keen Invite in Las Vegas. He shut out #7 Stevo Poulin in the NCAA blood round and majored last year’s Big Ten champ Braeden Davis of Penn State in a dual. Against #4 Tanner Jordan of South Dakota State, Smith fell in overtime at CKLV before downing the Jackrabbit in a dual and at NCAAs. Also at NCAAs, Smith split matches against second-seeded Luke Stanich, winning their quarterfinal bout before falling to him in the fifth-place match.
“It just gives me a chance to know that I can get it done,” Smith said of those matches. “I expect to go out there and perform and win, and if I don’t win, then I just want to make sure that they don’t ever want to wrestle me again.”
Now with a year in the Big Ten under his belt, Smith knows that the season can be a grind and that you have to be ready every week.
“It’s anybody’s week every week, and you have to just be ready. If you’re not, you will get exposed,” Smith said. “The good thing about it is you get a chance to bounce back – if you drop a match, you still have a chance to be ranked top-10 because you can literally wrestle the next best dude.”
Manning said that Smith has gotten his weight under control more in the last couple weeks. As for his development, they are trying to get him to be more consistent.
“He’s still developing and figuring out a few things — he’s going to be so much better when March comes,” Manning said. “He hasn’t mastered it yet. He does it sometimes and doesn’t, so he’s figuring that consistency part out in his wrestling.”
Anyone who’s watched Smith knows that he’s a very high-energy guy who teammates seem to feed off of. You’ll often see him dancing or singing while warming up before duals.
“I think he kind of emulates our team concept of just wrestling loose,” Manning said. “It’s really about how he’s going to approach the fight and bringing it for seven minutes.”
As for the ultimate goal, Smith is locked in on winning a national title for Nebraska, a team that hasn’t had an individual champ since Burroughs in 2011.
“When I came on my visit, I told them ‘If I’m not a national champion by the time I leave, then I failed.’ That’s the expectation,” Smith said. “I never go into a tournament just hoping that I place — I go in there to win it. This sport is too hard and the dedication is too much to just go in there and be satisfied with placing. Obviously, I was very grateful and very happy about (finishing sixth), but I got higher expectations for myself and I think I have a chance to get it done.”
So far, he’s passed every test in front of him this season, including three ranked wins, most recently a 4-3 decision over #9 Maximo Renteria of Oregon State in the final of the Navy Classic. Moving forward, Smith will have an opportunity to prove himself at Cliff Keen Invitational in Las Vegas in December.
Once his senior season is over, Smith will turn his attention full-time to freestyle. Smith hasn’t yet decided if he’ll wrestle for Team USA or Puerto Rico, but he does know he wants to be a champion. He plans to stay in Lincoln and wrestle for the Nebraska Wrestling Training Center under Tervel Dlagnev, joining a number of recent Husker grads who have stayed in Lincoln to train — Eric Schultz, Christian Lance, Liam Cronin and Peyton Robb.
Smith has flashed some potential at the Senior level as his style translates well to the more neutral-heavy discipline. At the 2023 Senior U.S. Open, Smith won his opening match against Poulin before taking on Spencer Lee, now an Olympic silver-medalist, in the quarters. In that match, Lee took a 9-0 lead into the break, but Smith was able to withstand the opening barrage by Lee, scoring four unanswered points in the second period. Smith lost the match 9-4, but it gave him confidence, especially considering what Lee has gone on to do.
“I want to make the Olympic Team. I’m not sure if that will be for USA or Puerto Rico,” Smith said. “I’m trying to be an Olympic champion, the best ever to do it. I have a lot of work to do obviously, but Olympic champ and World champ.”
Huskers Will Be Ready in Vegas
In less than two weeks, Nebraska will return to Las Vegas for the Cliff Keen Invitational. After winning three tournaments in a row in 2019, 2021 and 2023, Nebraska finished second last year behind Iowa State.
In a historically tough field, Nebraska had two champions a year ago and three the year before that. As for guys still on the roster, #4 Brock Hardy won it at 141 in 2022, while #5 Ridge Lovett won last year at 149.
This year’s field looks to be brutal again, but Manning and the Huskers don’t really concern themselves with that. They are focused on getting better and letting the chips fall where they may at tournament time.
“These guys know there’s a lot of good competition there. I think these guys are ready for that — they’re bracing themselves for a big tournament to be their best,” Manning said. “We don’t talk about it too much — about other teams or who’s there. We’re just trying to focus on what we have to do to be our best. They know it’s going to be a tough tournament, and we’re going to be ready for it because we’re going to prepare that way.”
LINCOLN, Neb. (Nebraska Examiner) – Hundreds of Nebraskans protested against the Trump administration Saturday along Nebraska Parkway in Lincoln, and thousands protested near Northwest Radial Highway in Omaha as part of No Kings demonstrations statewide.
The third iteration of No Kings protests organized border to border gatherings to vent displeasure at President Donald Trump and his administration’s policy decisions. The Lincoln protest was held on the Helen Boosalis Trail between North 27th Street and North 56th Street.
“I don’t like what’s going on … I know it’s not the world I want to live in,” said Ford Kloepper, a 17-year-old Lincoln resident.
Kloepper said people his age are going to take the “brunt” of Trump’s “mistakes.” He pointed to the recent U.S. conflict in Iran as a motivator to protest for him, as he doesn’t want to get “drafted into a war in the Middle East for no reason at all.”
Many of the protesters, much like previous demonstrations, held anti-Trump signs with slogans like, “Trump lies” and “Stop Trump, save democracy.” Others held American flags and wore costumes. Volunteers from different groups gathered signatures for ballot initiatives and at least one candidate. One of the petitions sought to let voters decide on a state constitutional amendment requiring larger majorities to repeal or change any law passed by voters. Volunteers for nonpartisan U.S. Senate candidate Dan Osborn collected signatures to get him on the November ballot.
Organizers planned 18 protests across Nebraska. In Omaha, the rally was held at Gallagher Park, with thousands of protesters filling the sidewalks and grassy areas near the intersection of Maple Street and the Northwest Radial.
Organizers said the spot let protesters draw attention to historic Benson and all of the restaurants, galleries and coffee shops that have made the neighborhood a cultural destination since 1887. Among the crowd filled with a variety of ages and races was Lorin and Elwin Moseman, waving signs that said, “End Wars Before Wars End Us” and “No Kings No ICE.”
It was the Mosemans’ third anti-Kings rally, and despite the chill of the day, they said they wouldn’t have missed it.
“It could have been an ice storm,” said Elwin, who was motivated in particular by “the Epstein files and Trump being in them, this stupid war we’ve got involved with Iran.”
His wife, Lorin, said she came to “stand up for democracy.”
“I want to show up, stand up and speak out about our country,” she said, decrying “leadership incompetency from the very beginning.”
She said the nation needs a presidential job description and interview, and she was not short on words to describe her disgust and disappointment about current leadership: “Shameful, disgusting, exhausting.”
“We’re in a broken world,” she said.
Nearby, a bundled up woman in a wheelchair held onto a sign that said, “I’m mad about everything.”
Sara Peterson led buses carrying about 75 protesters from First United Methodist Church of Omaha. She said people felt a sense of unity and joy seeing the chanting crowd, which she said reflected her group’s makeup — diverse in age, ethnicity and political party.
“We’re not alone,” she said “It’s an exciting day to be a part of.”
Peterson called the rally a “tangible sign of people coming together … for democracy.” Her group included church members and their friends — some of whom never participated in such a protest or rally before but felt the urge and were nudged “out of their comfort zone to take back our country and democracy.
Since the return of Trump for a second term, the anti-Trump group has organized national protests. Nebraska, much like the rest of the nation, saw multiple demonstrations throughout 2025.
The group also bought ads in local newspapers ahead of the Saturday protests. Nebraska Republican Party chair Mary Jane Truemper had no immediate comment on the protests.
As Election Day gets closer, political observers have wondered how organizers might harness the political energy, whether the demonstrations might signal a coming wave of change at the polls, or whether momentum will fizzle after the crowds go home. Some have argued Democrats and progressives are good at mobilizing people for large-scale protests but have lagged conservatives in building local infrastructure to affect sweeping policy changes.
Back in Lincoln, Erik Betts, a University of Nebraska-Lincoln student, said the political winds are in Democrats’ favor, and he feels the possibilities are endless, even in a reliably red state. He said he thinks Osborn could beat Republican U.S. Sen. Pete Ricketts, and he hopes the “blue” wave might be large enough to beat Nebraska 1st Congressional District Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Flood, a former speaker of the Legislature.
“We need to really show up this time …We’ve got to take this motivation … and make a difference,” Betts said.
Betts said events like these help him stay hopeful because it reminds him that he is not alone.
“When you are in your own house and just scrolling on social media, it’s easy to feel just defeated,” Betts said. “So I come out as much to show support for everyone else, to feel that maybe a bunch of people agree with [me] and things can change.”
Nebraska Examiner is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Nebraska Examiner maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Aaron Sanderford for questions: info@nebraskaexaminer.com.
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Copyright 2026 KOLN. All rights reserved.
OMAHA, Neb. (WOWT) – For many families, beating a cancer diagnosis isn’t just about physical recovery. One Omaha cancer survivor is now using her voice to fight for medical debt relief across Nebraska.
Diana Gleisberg Meredith thought she had an upper respiratory infection in January 2024.
“In January of 2024, I felt like I had some kind of upper respiratory – maybe Pneumonia, RSV…” Meredith said.
She was sent from her primary care doctor to the emergency room to a hospital by ambulance in a five-hour span.
“The ER doctor identified that it was cancer, likely lymphoma,” Meredith said.
Diagnosis came as new mother started treatment
The diagnosis came as Meredith became a new mom. She knew she had to immediately start treatment.
“It’s life changing. You go from not having a care in the world to thinking you’re going to die and how is that going to affect my baby. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to go through emotionally, physically and mentally,” Meredith said.
Meredith said there’s an invisible burden that comes with the diagnosis.
“Not everybody is lucky to have the financial support or the human support to help them,” Meredith said.
Treatment costs could add up to millions
Meredith had 12 chemo treatments. Each used four medications, with one of those costing more than $130,000. For one family, this could add up to millions.
After Meredith entered remission, she began fighting for medical debt relief for other Nebraskans.
“Nebraskans all throughout the state and right here in Omaha – they’re having to make those decisions about should they save their life, or how do they care for their family,” Meredith said.
Advocacy group plans Washington trip
She works with Blood Cancer United alongside other Omaha mothers whose children are cancer survivors. They hold fundraisers like “Light the Night,” collecting thousands of dollars and supporters.
In May, they’ll travel to Washington, D.C., for training on how to push for change at the federal level.
“Our office of public policy gets together to help train these volunteers, help them get to know each other better and develop familiarity with what it means to go to a lawmakers office in Washington DC,” said Dana Bacon, senior director of government affairs for Blood Cancer United.
Meredith is fighting for lower interest rates on medical debt, no foreclosures on homes over medical debt and paused interest rates.
“It’s probably the most stressful thing that you’re going to go through, and then having to add medical debt on top of it? To be honest it’s hell,” Meredith said.
Other states are already protecting families from medical debt. Meredith said Nebraska should be next. Iowa is one of the states that limits liens and foreclosures when a family is drowning in medical debt.
Copyright 2026 WOWT. All rights reserved.
LINCOLN, Neb. (KOLN) – Red Flag Warnings are in effect across Nebraska as dangerous fire conditions develop heading into the weekend, paired with unseasonably warm temperatures and strong winds that could quickly spread any flames.
Red Flag Warnings are in place for eastern Nebraska through 9 p.m. Friday night. The warning area expands significantly on Saturday, covering the entire state from throughout the entire day Saturday.
Friday: Moderate Fire Danger, Drying Trend
Friday’s fire concerns are lower than Saturday’s, but still significant. A Red Flag Warning remains in place for eastern Nebraska through 9 p.m. tonight as northerly winds pull in drier air throughout the afternoon. Dewpoints are expected to fall between 0° and 10° this evening as wind speeds taper.
The strongest winds and driest air won’t occur at the same time Friday, which is why confidence in Red Flag conditions is lower than normal today. By sunset, winds will become light and shift to the south as a surface high pressure system moves through the area.
Saturday: Extreme Fire Danger
Saturday brings the most critical fire weather conditions of the period. The Red Flag Warning expands to encompass the entire state as relative humidity values plummet to 8-15% — dangerously dry levels that will allow fires to spread rapidly.
Winds will be the primary concern. Southerly winds are expected to be sustained between 20 and 30 MPH for most — with gusts between 40 and 50 MPH possible at times. These powerful winds combined with extreme dryness create a recipe for rapid fire spread.
Temperatures will warm into the 60s and low 70s on Saturday — warmer in the west — but the heat is secondary to the wind and dryness threat. Relative humidity values will fall below 30% as early as 9 a.m. when the Red Flag Warning begins.
Sunday: High Fire Danger, Lighter Winds
Fire danger remains high to very high Sunday as an upper ridge moves overhead. Temperatures will climb to the upper 70s to upper 80s. The good news: southerly winds won’t be as strong, with gusts peaking at only 20 mph. This provides some relief from the most critical conditions, though fire danger will still be elevated.
Record Heat Monday
Monday will be the week’s warmest day, with mid- to upper-80s and low 90s forecast across Nebraska. Records are within reach — for many areas across the state. Lincoln’s forecast high of 88 degrees would tie the 1917 record.
Pattern Change Ahead
A cold front will slice through the area Tuesday morning, bringing cooler and cloudier conditions back to Nebraska. Highs will fall back to the 50s and 60s — a dramatic 30+ degree temperature drop from Monday. Winds will remain gusty from the north.
Precipitation chances will increase by early to mid-week. Tuesday through Thursday will see low chances (~20%) for light precipitation, with a mixture of rain and snow possible at times. No winter impacts are expected. Better chances are forecast for Wednesday night and Friday night as a wholesale pattern change develops, bringing southwest flow and surface moisture back to the region.
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Copyright 2026 KOLN. All rights reserved.
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