By Jim Nelson, Special to W.I.N.
Wrestlers are greedy by nature. Even in victory a wrestler can find fault.
Oklahoma State’s Coleman Scott is greedy. The Cowboy has been since he won three Pennsylvania state titles for Waynesburg Central High School. Scott got a little more greedy a year ago, when he finished second in the nation.
Scott scored the only takedown in his 133-pound national championship match against Penn’s Matt Valenti and lost, 4-2, in Auburn Hills, Mich, where Valenti scored a reversal, rode Scott out in the second period and scored an escape in the third to post a 4-2 win.
Trips to the national finals don’t come easy, and Scott felt like he blew his chance.
“I think coming close last year and finishing second, getting ridden out and getting the only takedown in the match kind of didn’t sit well with him,” Cowboy head coach John Smith said. “There are no promises that the next year is going to be better.”
Admittedly, Scott said it was hard to get back into wrestling after that March loss. He also struggled with OSU’s fifth-place finish as a team at the national tournament.
But Scott’s greedy nature got the best of him. He got back into the Cowboys’ wrestling room. He worked harder than he had ever before.
Scott also got back to the national finals in St. Louis, March 22, 2008 … and once again, his greed took over.
Scott hit a left-handed high-crotch single to a crackdown and a cradle as he pinned Iowa’s Joey Slaton in 49 seconds, the fastest fall in an NCAA final since Andy Daniels of Ohio pinned John Azevedo of Cal-State Bakersfield in 30 seconds at 118 in 1978.
For someone who was selected the Junior Schalles Award winner in 2003 as the nation’s best pinner, the pin against the Hawkeye was also only the 12th pin in Scott’s collegiate career and six of those came in four national tournaments.
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