FRIDAY, MARCH 18 10:58 a.m.
The second day is under way, and as a couple of Cornell wrestlers lose their matches, a huge roar erupts from the Philadelphia crowd. On another mat, a Penn Stater has pinned his opponent to reach the semifinals. Uh-oh.
But then Kyle Dake '13, the defending national champion at 141 pounds now wrestling at 149, earns a 3-0 decision over an Oklahoma State opponent to reach the semifinals and nail down an All-America berth (given to the top eight wrestlers in each weight class). Dake, who grew up five miles from East Hill, always wanted to go to Cornell. But Lewnes, whose match begins about a half-hour later, was a more challenging recruit. His older brother wrestled for Oklahoma State and he was set on following him there—until he got a look at the Friedman Wrestling Center.
'AFTER A DAY OF COMPETITION, I'M SO EMOTIONALLY SPENT THAT I'M EXHAUSTED,' SAYS HEAD COACH ROB KOLL. 'AND I HAVEN'T EVEN WRESTLED.'
When the $4.5 million center opened in 2002, it was the nation's first standalone facility devoted to collegiate wrestling, offering 15,000 feet of training and office space. A team that not long ago shared a mat with the gymnastics squad and a weight room with the rest of the University now had the luxury of 6,300 feet of mat space and its own strength and conditioning center. The facility was made possible by donations from a number of Big Red alumni, including a lead gift from Stephen Friedman '59, former chairman of Goldman Sachs and once a Big Red grappler, and his wife, trustee emeritus Barbara Benioff Friedman '59.
It was not a slam dunk, this notion of a building devoted to a single nonrevenue sport. But Amateur Wrestling News has credited the Friedman Center with starting what it described as the sport's "current facility boom" at schools from Missouri to Maryland. In an era when Title IX concerns and budget cuts have led to the demise of some 40 percent of Division I wrestling programs in recent decades (including at Yale, Dartmouth, and Syracuse), Koll calls it "probably our greatest contribution to collegiate wrestling— showing that it's OK to spend money on the sport." Ironically, one of the programs that benefited most is Penn State, which modeled its new wrestling complex on Cornell's; Koll, who gave a tour to Penn State's coach, now jokes that he "should have showed them our old facility."
11:45 a.m.
Lewnes holds a school-record 148 career victories for Cornell heading into this quarterfinals match. Make that 149, as he outpoints his Central Michigan foe. Then Bosak wins 16-0, followed by Simaz, who records a first-period pin. In less than ninety minutes, Cornell has racked up four All-Americans and semifinalists. But so has Penn State.
2:20 p.m.
Fifth-year senior Justin Kerber '10 is about to start his consolation-round match. Just before the bout begins, former Cornell president (and current professor of classics and history) Hunter Rawlings III takes a seat in the Cornell box on the stadium's club level. Appropriately, Kerber's opponent is a student at Iowa, where as president from 1988 to 1995 Rawlings fed a wrestling bug that he'd caught as a high school student in Norfolk, Virginia. "It's a religion in Iowa," he says. "It's one of the few times when, as president of a university, you can go to an athletic event and know you're going to win." Indeed, Iowa has come to be regarded as something of wrestling's Evil Empire, winning twenty-three national titles since 1975. But Rawlings, who arrived on the Hill hoping Cornell had a good wrestling team and oversaw development of the Friedman Center during his tenure, isn't coy about his allegiances. "Get up! Get up!" he mutters, as Kerber finds himself face down on the mat.
Kerber ultimately loses to his opponent— Aaron Janssen, his close friend and high school teammate from Emmetsburg, Iowa. Janssen stayed in-state to wrestle and Kerber was expected to do the same. After all, his father, Jeff, was a four-time Iowa state champion, and his uncle, Randy Lewis, won two NCAA titles there. But then Kerber visited Ithaca in the summer of 2006. He chatted with Koll, who pointed out (as he often does) that an Ivy League degree and a solid postgraduate job can ultimately prove more lucrative than a four-year scholarship. As Kerber told WIN magazine: "It was a place where I didn't think I would have to prioritize between my passions: wrestling and finance. I could have the best of both worlds." He now has a job lined up with Goldman Sachs.
3:20 p.m.
The Cornell wrestling Facebook page (8,883 friends and counting) posts an update: "At the end of Session III, Cornell sits in the lead with 61 points, Penn State is in second with 60.5 points, and Iowa is in third with 52.0 points."
The Facebook strategy is just one of the ways in which Koll might be considered the modern face of wrestling. His coaching style is decidedly nontraditional, at least compared to the sport's drill sergeant norms. At first, Koll played the part, driving away wrestlers who couldn't keep up. But then he realized that the angst didn't jibe with his instincts and that misery doesn't necessarily translate into mastery on the mat. Says Koll, whose father was a longtime coach (at, yes, Penn State): "We're working as hard as anyone else. But I think we have a good perspective on what's important in life."
After talking with psychology professor and sleep expert James Maas, PhD '66, Koll decided to do away with a wrestling staple: crack-of-dawn practices. "Why do I have to make guys get up at five and six in the morning when they're in pre-med or engineering and they're up until three a.m. studying?" he says. That doesn't mean they practice less, just more practically. Most practices begin with a joke of the day, a bit of fun before the serious grappling.
7:29 p.m.
Mike Grey '11 is fighting back, which is something of a theme for his career. "I don't think there's a person on the team I'd be happier to see succeed," says Koll. After placing sixth nationally as a freshman, Grey has twice fallen short of regaining his All-American status. Then he missed the first semester of competition this season after tearing his ACL. But he came back, went undefeated in eleven matches, and won the Eastern championships at 133 pounds, qualifying for his fourth straight NCAA tournament. "Hopefully, this time," he says, "I'll reach my ultimate goal."
It didn't look that way on Day One, when Grey lost a quarterfinal bout against the eventual national champion from Oklahoma State. But in the consolation round, Grey won his first match, and now the senior with the torn ACL ekes out a 5-4 win, his fourth of the tournament—meaning he is once again an All-American. In a couple of days, he'll have surgery on his knee.
7:56 p.m.
Immediately after Grey's bout, a Penn State wrestler loses a match; then so does an Iowa wrestler, then two more Penn Staters. The fans in the Cornell box can't help themselves. They're cheering wildly for the opponents of Cornell's top rivals.
Then "Redman" makes an appearance. Koll calls him "the spawn of Harvard and Penn grads who cast him out in a wicker basket on the shores of Cayuga Lake." In reality, he is a former Cornell wrestler (his identity kept somewhat secret) dressed in a red bodysuit, a white singlet, and aviator sunglasses—an effort, Koll says, to bring energy and a bit of levity to the matches. In a few short years, Redman has become a viral star, thanks to a series of YouTube videos filmed by assistant coach Jeremy Spates (Jack's son)—which show, for instance, Redman playing Cyrano to assist a wrestler on a first date. "Every recruit I've spoken to this year knows who Redman is," says Koll. "For us, that's huge branding." The mascot is just one way in which the team has worked to draw fans to its matches; there have also been halftime dancers, peewee wrestling tournaments, and raffles for plasma TVs. "This is wrestling," he explains. "We have to work twice as hard to get half the people."
Redman has the crowd cheering, "Let's go Red! Let's go Red!" And it appears to work, as Dake shuts out his opponent to earn a trip to the finals for the second year in a row. But then Cornell's big three of Lewnes, Bosak, and Simaz—each with national title aspirations—lose three achingly close matches consecutively. Lots of red-clad fans are hanging their heads. Penn State now has a significant lead over second-place Cornell. Even Redman can't help.