Editor’s Note: Kevin Jackson, a former Olympic and World champion, has served as the United States’ national freestyle coach since 2001, producing two gold and 13 overall World/Olympic medalists. W.I.N. editor Mike Finn recently spoke to Jackson about the team he will take to the 2007 Worlds in Baku, Azerbaijan, in September and other matters that deal with USA Wrestling’s freestyle program.

Q At this point, you have three weights were recent World medalists (‘06 gold medalist Bill Zadick, 145.5, ‘06 bronze medalist Donny Pritzlaff, 163, and ‘05 bronze medalist Tolly Thompson, 264.5) did not qualify for this team and another (‘06 silver medalist Mike Zadick, 132) must still win a wrestle-off. Are the many new faces on the freestyle team a good thing or a bad thing for this year’s World Championships?
A It’s yet to be seen. I took a group of guys last year, who after the team was set received a lot of negative feedback from the wrestling community as far as what the results of what that group would be. Except for Tolly, Daniel Cormier and Sammie Henson, everyone else was looked at as second tier and didn’t have a chance to perform and the United States would not get any medals. Now with the results of the World Team Trials, it’s our job as coaches to get this team ready to win. When you have weight classes where you have medalists and that medalist loses in the Trials, the guy who took his spot should medal and win based on the fact that you just beat a medalist.

Q What were the reason’s for last year’s success from a team that was also considered inexperienced?
A It was a buy-in by the whole group. You always want your proven guys on the team because they are proven. When you look at the Greco-Roman team or the women’s freestyle team, look at how many they replaced from the previous World Championships. Not many. People who get to the World Championships for the first time in our history always perform better if they have never been seen before. We have more World champions in their first appearance than those who win a second or third time. The success of that group was a complete buy-in to the plan and secondly they focused in areas of concentration from a tactical standpoint, worked hard and became a team over the summer. Then they wrestled hard and wrestled the way they were trained. As Americans, we are always going to go out there and compete. It’s a matter of whether we are tactically sound in must-win positions.

Q Was that attitude the difference between the 2005 results (only two bronze medals) and last year’s results (one gold, one silver and two bronzes)?
A We had some other issues in 2005. Normally, we don’t perform well in the year after an Olympics. Coming off the 2004 Olympics, I lost three medalists (Stephen Abas, silver, Jamill Kelly, silver and Cael Sanderson, gold). If you gave me those three young guys, we would have had a much better performance in 2005. In 2005, we had a group of guys who did not have to earn their spot on the team by beating a World medalist. You can never predict results. We could go in there and have a hot tournament and guys could wrestle well or we could have five or six matches come down to a coin flip.

Q With the Olympics in mind, do you treat the preceding Worlds as a warm-up to the Games?
A Not at all. The Worlds and the Olympics are the same. The only thing that is different is the hype and media attention the Olympics receive. You cannot put it on another level from the World Championships. When you think about it, (the Olympics) is just another wrestling match against the same guys who competed in the previous Worlds. For anyone to treat it any differently would detract them from wrestling the way you are capable of. There are differences that come with the Olympics such as opening ceremonies, the Olympic village and based on all these other athletes running around and the media giving it the attention it deserves.

Q Getting back to first-timers, what are the reasons for their success at the Trials?
A I think it’s inconsistent training by the majority of athletes around the country. I don’t think they train full-time to insure success. I think a lot of them get caught up in their jobs, which may be a college wrestling job or other areas that they are forced to do because they have families to support. Most of the guys who are on the circuit are professionals and perfectionists. If you give them a job to do, they are going to try and do it to the best of their abilities and they are not going to be selfish like a lot of us were in the ‘80s and ‘90s to really put that on the back-burner and focus on themselves getting better to become a World champion.
When you start looking at what we are up against like Russia, Iran and Cuba, those guys are training full-time and they have proven over the last couple years that they out-performed us. We are already behind them and they are training with world-class guys every day. When you look at the American team, you might ask, “How can we compete with that?” It’s the American will and fight in what we do in the 60 days we have with them in the summer to try and prepare those guys.
These other teams are preparing in freestyle every day with Olympic and World champions, with world-class wrestlers and being coached in the freestyle-dominated environment every day and the majority of our guys are not. When that happens, you can get beat by anyone if that’s the case. That’s why you see guys not being able to hold on to their spot. Bill Zadick was an exception to the rule as his lack of matches and his injuries hurt him over the year.

Q First-timers Joe Heskett and Tommy Rowlands got a chance to work with coaches (at Ohio State) with World or Olympic experience. Does that help?
A Heskett and Rowlands also have a continuing communication with myself. They competed a lot this year and in recent years. They come to Colorado Springs quite a bit and are based in an environment that allows them to focus on wrestling and themselves. They work with other guys, but their focus is on themselves and they have Lou Rosselli, a World team coach, overseeing them and making sure they follow through.
You need three or four things to be successful: elite-level coaching, world-class athletes to train with, a proven plan to get you there and then you need a commitment to all three of those areas. That’s what those guys have.

Q Greco-Roman’s United States Olympic Education Center (USOEC) in Northern Michigan is mentioned as a reason for that team’s improvement. How close are we to seeing that in freestyle?
A I don’t know if we will ever see an actual scholarship program to get freestyle athletes in. I’d like to see that, but right now guys like Henry Cejudo will have access to that same scholarship but would go to school out in Colorado Springs. We haven’t made that push. It would enhance our overall chances, but you are going to get some really negative feedback from a lot of these college coaches who understand that we could take the best guys out of the college system.
If we have poor results, I think something is going to have to change and we are going to have to allow a system like that to be put in place.

Q If Henry Cejudo becomes as sucess ful on the World stage as he is in this country, what will that do for young wrestlers?
A It depends on what their goals are. Is being an NCAA champion your goal? That was never Henry Cejudo’s goal. He never had the motivation to go after being an NCAA champion so he chose a different route and when he came to Colorado Springs, he realized that he could be an Olympic and World champion. That’s what’s going to happen if kids come to Colorado Springs and see eye-level to this wrestling and then see the NCAA tournament, they are going to see that they are at the highest level. It all comes down to what are your goals?

Q Regarding the video replay system that (FILA) wrestling has, my thought was that it was brought in to eliminate subjectivity by officials. But it also seems like it has brought in more chaos to matches, where coaches are allowed to complain so much. What can be done with this?
A That’s a problem that we have in this country. You don’t see that at the Worlds or the Olympics. There are way too many match reviews in this country. It’s like a lot of our officials have lost confidence. The rules are that if a move is confirmed by two officials, there should be no review. We should stick to that rule because the matches are broken up way too much with way too many reviews. I understand the officials’ mentality. They want to make sure they get it correct and these (matches) were for the World Team and have a lot of coaches who might be verbally abusive towards our officials and that’s hard to take. I think if a move is confirmed by two officials, you have to live with it.

Q There were several veteran wrestlers like Kendall Cross, Eric Akin and Cary Kolat who came back to compete. What brings them back?
A For the most part, high-profile guys come back because they have not accomplished their goals when they were in their prime. When the Olympic Games start coming around, they get that itch to compete. The rules right now allow for older guys to compete and be successful because their tactics were always good because they were on the World Team. And with the two-minutes periods, conditioning is not as much of a factor. So those kind of things and seeing former opponents accomplishing things now (are bringing them back). I’m sure Kolat was fueled by seeing Bill Zadick win a World championship and he doesn’t have one and he used to beat Bill.

Q Finally, have you thought about how much longer you want to do this and what has been your proudest moment?
A My proudest moment has come when I’ve gotten Olympic champions like Brandon Slay beating Saitiev (in 2000 when he was a resident coach) or seeing Cael Sanderson win in 2004. I’ve had flashes, but I haven’t had that moment that allows me to take a deep breath and say that we’ve accomplished our goals yet.
My goal is to get the United States on that top podium as the No. 1 team in the world and to stay there; to put a system in place that is built to last and help us maintain that status.
I don’t know what my timeline is. My wife might want it to end now. I enjoy where I am at with USA Wrestling and enjoy being at Olympic Games and World Championships. But it’s only enjoyable if you produce champions. In 2003, we went something like 22-0, then fell apart and placed second in the world without any World champion. In 2004, we had three guys reach the finals, which was exciting, yet to see other guys not reach their goals. Last year, we had four medalists out of the first five weights and I’m thinking we are well on our way to accomplishing our goals. But then Cormier and Thompson lost to Iranians who passed us up.
I’ve had some exciting moments but it doesn’t pan out and we don’t reach our expectations.