TEN QUESTIONS WITH...

Talk about the experience you had on your recent trip to China as the head coach of a National Wrestling Coaches Association team.
It’s the second trip I’ve been on in two years for the NWCA – the year prior I was an assistant for the team that traveled to Bulgaria and Paris. This year we stayed in Beijing, which is a city of 13 million people. The Chinese culture is ancient, and there are thousands and thousands of years of rich history. The buildings, the Great Wall, Tiananmen Square – they were all things I’ve heard about, but to be there and see them was very special. It was a tremendous trip, and that’s just one part of it.

The team of wrestlers we brought over competed against their army team, their National team, and against one of their club teams. For us, it was a great learning experience. The team did well by winning two of the three matches. Only their National team beat us, and that’s a team that is training for the World Championships and the Olympics. All of the wrestling was done in the freestyle format, which is quite different from the collegiate style of wrestling.

What are the differences between collegiate and freestyle wrestling?
During the majority of the year, we train to wrestle collegiate style. Then, we switch over to freestyle wrestling in the summers. Most of the other countries wrestle freestyle and Greco-Roman all year long. So typically, they are better than us in those styles.

There is a difference in the scoring system – a freestyle takedown counts for one point, where a collegiate takedown is worth two. The other major variances basically allow for points to be scored considerably quicker in freestyle. Also, when a wrestler is on the bottom in freestyle, there aren’t as many ways to score points as there are in collegiate wrestling. It’s a lot more dangerous to move on the bottom in freestyle, because your opponent can then score some quick points on you. Another difference is that there are three officials as opposed to the one used in collegiate wrestling.

Discuss what the incoming recruiting class at UB – which received an honorable mention from top wrestling publication, InterMat – does for the look of your team entering the 2002-03 season.
We have a very good class coming in. In general, we filled the spots that we needed to. We didn’t bring in any blue-chippers at heavyweight last year – we tried, but we didn’t find anybody. So, we decided to wait a year to go after Tom Curl. He enters with numerous New Jersey State high school records and we’re really glad to have an anchor on that side.

There are also a handful of lightweights coming on board and one recruit at 174/184 pounds. The overall number of guys coming on is what we need. We were successful in strengthening the weight classes that we needed to improve. If the young guys can make up ground in a short period of time and our returning guys can lead the way, that should make us a very good team. But what’s on paper means nothing, you don’t ever really know until you get on the mat.

Touch upon what the recruiting process is like from the coaching standpoint.
It really varies, because sometimes you spend a whole year on a kid before he decides where he wants to go, but other times it may take a couple of weeks and they’ll sign their National Letter of Intent. So, it’s hard to answer a question like that.

Typically, what we do is focus on New York State. When we don’t find what we are looking for in the sense of getting a commitment, we will then look at the surrounding states of New Jersey, Ohio and Pennsylvania. But we will go as far as California to get a recruit if we like what we may be getting.

People in the wrestling community are also calling and e-mailing us with thoughts all the time. If they see someone out there that we need to take a look at, they’ll let us know. Our other big resource nowadays is the Internet. We can find out what the best kids are doing – where they are wrestling, what matches they’ve competed in, what the scores were. It’s a big advantage for us.

How important is it to be located in Western New York, which is known as a strong area for wrestling?
Western New York has been very good to us. On the whole, it ranks as one of the best wrestling sections of New York State. Each year, there seems to be one or two standouts. Those are the kids that we target, because we want to keep the best kids at home. Kyle Cerminara and Ryan Bentley are two of the best examples of that.

Looking at New York State, it may be in the Top Five in the country in wrestling. Of course that means that it is heavily recruited, making it more difficult to keep the best kids in their home state.

What goes on from a wrestling standpoint during the off-season?
Most of our guys go home to work and wrestle in their local communities, high school programs and clubs. Some guys stay on campus and work out amongst themselves – they lift, they wrestle, and are truly focused. Those that work hard are the kids that we love, because they are the ones that will excel in the future. It really comes down to self-motivation, because they have to do their workouts on their own, wherever that may be.

When do team practices start and what does that consist of?
Our season begins in early September after the opening week of fall classes. That gives everyone a chance to become oriented with their classes, and do things like pick up their books – especially the newcomers. At that time we begin our preseason conditioning, which amounts to the eight hours per week that the National Collegiate Athletic Association allows – that basically comes down to running and weightlifting.

Our regular practices don’t begin until almost November. At that point, the NCAA allows for 20 practice hours per week. We work hard and condition in shorter increments, so we may not approach that time limit each week. Conditioning is one of our fortes. We aren’t a team that loses because of a lack of conditioning – that’s an area we never had a problem with. Matches then begin in mid-November, with a full season consisting of around 16 dates of competition.

Detail what goes into putting a regular season schedule together, and when does that process begin and end.
Truthfully, a schedule takes a little more time to compile than many people would think. Once the season ends, a lot of the focus shifts to summer camps. Teams are switching their schedules during the off-season. That includes us – we are certainly trying to improve our schedule each off-season. But what often happens is that coaches are busy with their summer camps, meaning that contacting one another isn’t always easy.

July is usually when the schedules are tentatively completed. In our case, there are a couple of home dates that we are still trying to schedule. We have tried hard to expand our home dual meet season, because the people of Western New York who follow wrestling deserve that.

The UB Wrestling Camp ran during the second week of July. Talk about the success that the camp has recently had.
I think that we’ve now got one of the biggest residential camps that UB has ever had. We have between 200 and 250 kids staying on campus for our summer camp each year. There are also a bunch of commuters that come in.

We are really proud of that, because camps are one of the most difficult things to build. There is so much competition – along with the other major college programs within a 200-mile radius, there are a number of camps available. So, for us to have built a camp of this size over the past few years really says a lot. We’ve now got teams to come in from Ohio, New Jersey, Iowa, California and Delaware.

Brent Thompson has been added to your coaching staff. What does he add to the staff you currently have?
Coach Gibbs has been with me since I started at UB seven years ago. He’s grown significantly as a coach and as a person. He’s done a tremendous job as our recruiting coordinator.

Now, we’ve also added Brent Thompson to our staff as a lightweight coach. He’s one of the few four-time Mid-American Conference Champions in the long history of the MAC. He wrestled at the 125-pound weight class for Kent State, and had been working for an accounting firm prior to taking this position. He had just decided to look around for a coaching job, and we were happy to have a place for him at UB. Brent has a great desire to work with our student-athletes and make them better wrestlers and people.

-The ’10 Questions with…’ feature is compiled by Geoff Nason.