These principles, or "laws" as I've called them, began to take form in the early 1990's after I became head wrestling coach at UC Davis. At the time UCD was a non-scholarship program competing in the tough Pacific-10 conference, among the nation’s top two or three wrestling conferences. The absence of scholarships, coupled with the athletic department's ongoing threat to cut the wrestling program, made it difficult to recruit top wrestling talent. In a conference where high school state champions are commonplace, I took over a team comprised primarily of young men whose greatest wrestling accomplishment was placing in their high school league championship.

In order to be competitive in the Pac-10 it was clear I not only had to develop the team physically and technically, but because nearly every opponent was vastly more accomplished, I had to nurture their fighting spirit and competitive resolve as well. Drawing on my own experiences, observations and research, I assembled a list of several qualities I deemed essential for success in the combative arena. I dubbed the list "Lajcik’s Laws" and made them the foundation for all our training.

Over time, as the wrestlers began to embody the "Laws", their improvement was nothing short of profound. One sterling example was the team's 118-pound wrestler, who had a record of 1-19 his sophomore season, the year before I arrived.