No-So-Fresh Men
Minnesota sets high standards for first-year wrestlers
Every year — or at least the last five years — a large group of freshmen take the NCAA Div. I level by storm; not only through successful regular seasons during their first year on varsity but also having post-season success.
Last year, for example, ten freshmen — including one true freshman in Oklahoma State’s Coleman Scott — earned All-American honors for their schools. One year earlier, also in St. Louis, nine rookies took a step on the medal stand at the NCAAs. One year before that — 2003 in Kansas City — seven freshmen earned All-American honors, including two — Oklahoma’s Teyon Ware and Oklahoma State’s Jake Rosholt — who won national championships. And in the two preceding NCAA tournaments, a total of 13 freshmen earned All-American honors in 2001 and 2002.
And based on the number of freshmen who are currently ranked in W.I.N.’s top 20 — 24 freshmen make up the 200 wrestlers rated at ten different weights, including four who are rated in the top 8 — that trend should continue in Oklahoma City.
Among those freshmen making almost immediate names for themselves nationally is Minnesota-standout Dustin Schlatter, ran
ked eighth at 149. No program has had more success with its youngest wrestlers than the Gophers, who are ranked No. 2 as a team after recently winning the Southern Scuffle.“I think our coaching staff is good at developing young guys. That is one of our strengths,” said Minnesota coach J Robinson, who mentored nine of the 59 freshmen All-Americans between 1996 and 2005.
Robinson, who is in his 20th year at Minnesota and won two consecutive NCAA team championships in 2000 and 2001 while leading his team to top-three finishes over seven straight years, is quick to credit his assistant coaches Marty Morgan and Joe Russell and former Gopher aide Mark Schwab (who is the current head coach at Buena Vista University) for his young wrestlers’ success. But he was also disappointed that two other freshmen in 2005 — C.P. Schlatter at 157 and Roger Kish at 184 — failed to ear
| Minnesota true freshman Dustin Schlatter won the 149-pound Southern Scuffle title over redshirt freshman J Jaggers of Ohio State. |
“They were good enough to be All-Americans,” Robinson said. “I dropped the ball on that. I will take the responsibility.”
Robinson also credits his freshmen wrestlers for living up to the expectations placed on them at a young age. The bottom line is that Robinson does not give his freshmen the excuse of being freshmen when it comes to a first-year performance.
“Why should you (give them that excuse)?” quizzed Robinson. “If (freshmen) got to do it, there is an expectation and a time table in which to do it that changes everything.”
Robinson added that people don’t understand human nature when it comes to meeting expectations.
“People work on deadlines. They do things different on deadlines,” said Robinson. “They are more productive in the last week than they are in the second week before the deadline. Why would it be any different for a kid who is wrestling?”
Robinson, who featured ten All-Americans in 2000, also pointed out that’s why many seniors finally reach All-American status after failing in their first years.
“That’s because it’s the end,” he said. “If they’ve tried it every other way and it hasn’t worked, now they are going to do it the right way. If you listen to people, they will give you clues to where they really are.”
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