By Mike Finn, W.I.N. Editor

Michael Mocco had no idea what happened the moment he spent with his dad on Father’s Day 2008 in Las Vegas. The one-year-old son of Steve and Katie Mocco probably didn’t care that his dad earned a trip to the Beijing Olympics shortly after Michael and Mom hugged and kissed Dad matside after the 264.5-pound heavyweight wrestler won the freestyle final.

            Steve hopes that  lesson will be learned later when Michael is old enough to understand what his dad accomplished when he defeated Tommy Rowlands in the third and final match of the heavyweight series.

            “Not to quit. Not to give up,” said Steve. “It’s hard when you come so close and then you fall short. Today I wrestled well and the chips fell where they did. I put myself in position to win and that’s what happened. That’s a good lesson for anybody.”

            Earlier that evening on June 15, it appeared that Steve, a two-time NCAA champion who won titles for both Iowa (2004) and Oklahoma State (2005), was heading for the same disappointment that has haunted him in freestyle the past five years when he finished runner-up in four of the past five U.S. Nationals and in each of the three most-recent World Team Trials.

            After winning the first match, 1-0, 1-0, in the best two-of-three Championship Series in the Thomas & Mack Center, Mocco lost the second match, 3-0, 1-0, in a questionable finish that saw a video review rule that he had stepped out first on what would have been a period-winning takedown.

            “In the moment after the first match, you think you’re going to walk out and win again,” said Mocco, who lost to Rowlands in both last year’s World Trials and this year’s U.S. Nationals. “You don’t see that coming. I had to wrestle the best I could every match or else I was going to lose.”

            Mocco’s rivalry with Rowlands dates back to 2003 when the former Buckeye beat the Iowa freshman in the NCAA finals. In the rubber match this time, Mocco scored two takedowns in the second period to clinch the bout, 1-0, 2-0.

            “We go back and forth and he’s a great competitor,” said Mocco, whose right eye was blood shot and half-closed after competing in both the Challenge tournament — where he won two  matches — and the Championship Series. “I knew that I would have to wrestle hard. I knew that it would be a dog fight. I knew that I could win. I really believed in myself coming into this tournament.”

            There were few others who believed that Mocco would ever reach the top spot of the U.S. ladder. In 2004, he finished third at the Olympic Trials, where Kerry McCoy earned a second straight Olympic bid. In 2005 and 2006, Mocco played second fiddle to Tolly Thompson in the World Team Trials, then also came up short at the 2007 Trials where he lost to Rowlands.

            “It’s tough when you come up short all those times,” Mocco admitted. “Many times I had to look at myself and ask, ‘What am I doing? Can’ I win?’

            “Every wrestler who goes through that feeling knows exactly what I’m talking about after being so close to something and losing it. You are right there, but it’s like you are light years away from it.”

            Mocco, who married Katie in August, 2005, said his decision to move the family to Colorado Springs, Colo., and train full-time at the Olympic Training Center, has made a difference in him reaching the Olympic promised land.

            “I’ve been there for a good year and I really focused on things that had to do with freestyle,” said the native of North Bergen, N.J., who first made a name for himself at Blair Academy in Blairstown, N.J., started his college career at Iowa before transferring to Stillwater.

            “I always trained hard in the places that I’ve been, but when I looked at it as though I was getting up every day to go to work like a job, I felt more professional. This is my job, not a hobby.”

            And through all the tribulations, members of this family have always been there. His older brother Joe is usually the most visible. He’s a former Brown wrestler and current lawyer who was in Steve’s corner with USA freestyle resident coach Terry Brands during the recent Trials.

            “My relationship with Joe is priceless and the amount of time he spends with me; leading up to competition and travelling with me,” said Steve. “Today is one tournament.   He’s left work three times this year and got on planes with me to go wrestle in gyms in countries where no one spoke English. He is unbelievably supportive.

            “I know he is going to support me no matter how I do but I also know that he wants me to wrestle as hard as I can.”

            Steve, the son of Joe Mocco and Hellen Peck, had many members of his family cheering him on in Las Vegas, including one of his sisters, Katie, who came up short in her bid to make the U.S. Judo Team in an adjacent tournament in the Thomas & Mack Center.

            Later, he admitted that many of his family take on a “Don’t Quit” attitude.

            “That’s a good trait for any family,” Steve said.

            His son Michael will soon be learning that life lesson that Dad and family have been hanging onto for many, many years.