DO YOU KNOW ME?
Two-time champ Dubuque felt disrespected in 2006
If Joe Dubuque was a basketball player, there probably wouldn’t be a place the Indiana senior could go in Bloomington, Ind., without being bothered by the Hoosier faithful who love their hoopsters, especially if they won a national championship.
But Dubuque is a wrestler stuck in the middle of roundball country, which is one reason the native of Bloomfield, N.J., didn’t get as much publicity by wrestling enth
usiasts in this country as he deserved.In fact, this Hoosier felt like he was forgotten shortly after he won his first NCAA title in St. Louis last March.
“I think I’ve been overlooked since the national championship last year,” said Dubuque, who became Indiana’s ninth all-time champion in 2005 … and most recently became the first Hoosier since 1938 — when Charles McDaniel won the second of two titles for Indiana — to win multiple championships with an 8-3 victory over Cornell freshman Troy Nickerson.
But considering Dubuque was the defending champion and entered the 2006 tournament with a 23-1 overall ranking — after losing to Illinois’ Kyle Ott, 5-4, in the Big Ten tournament — the Hoosier received little respect from the seeding committee that put Dubuque in the No. 3 spot.
“It actually motivated me a little bit more,” said Dubuque. “Some people who looked at the rankings would say, ‘He’s only No. 1 just because he’s the returning national champ or that he never wrestled the tough schedule. But who’s going to remember who won the Missouri Open title or the national championship?”
For the most part, Indiana’s schedule did not allow Dubuque to face other nationally-ranked wrestlers at a weight that returned four other All-Americans from 2005, including Ott (who lost to Dubuque in the 2005 final), Oklahoma’s Sam Hazewinkel (who lost to the Hoosier in the 2005 semifinals) and Michigan State’s Nick Simmons, who earned the No. 1 seed in 2006 after winning the Big Ten championship.
Meanwhile, the weight class also had its share of youngsters, including Oklahoma State sophomore Coleman Scott, an All-American in 2005, and Nickerson, a true freshman, who won the 2005 Junior Dan Hodge Trophy as the nation’s best prep wrestler.
Dubuque admitted that it was tough being forgotten.
“It could break people,” he said. “I’d be lying to you if I said that I didn’t pay attention to what was being said on the forums; saying that I’m over-rated or it was a fluke that I won it last year; or that if I wrestled Simmons or Troy, I’d get beat.
“You could hear people say that, ‘Hazewinkel is still the best and that he just had a bad match (in 2005), or that Dubuque just had the best tournament of his life. I can understand that but when I come back and do it again, hopefully I will get a little more respect.”
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