Former Sooners National Champion Reunited With Coach Jack Spates
NORMAN, Okla. ” The University of Oklahoma wrestling program announced recently the hiring of assistant coach Robbie Waller. A standout OU wrestler and former 174-pound NCAA national champion, Waller replaces former head assistant coach Barry Weldon who resigned in March.
After graduating from OU in the summer of 2003, Waller served as the Total Person Program Graduate Assistant for the University of Missouri during the 2003-04 season and was hired as an assistant coach with the Tigers in 2004-05. At Missouri, Waller helped lead the Tigers to their best NCAA finish in 20 years (11th), and coached three All-Americans.
Waller recently discussed the move with The Wrestling Mall.
“The University of Oklahoma is a special place that has done so much for me both athletically and academically,” says Waller. “Coupled with a tradition-rich wrestling program, the University of Oklahoma is at the forefront of successful college athletics. “
Waller will be reunited with his collegiate head coach “Jack Spates. Spates also wrestled with Waller’s father and uncle at Slippery Rock University in the early 1970’s.
“They became lifelong friends and I have known coach Spates since I was young,” says Waller, a native of Latrobe, Penn. “Coach Spates and I had a wonderful wrestler-coach relationship while I competed for him and I expect it to be no different working under him. He is an incredible coach and an even better friend. “
Along with assisting the Tiger wrestlers, Waller was attending graduate school and working towards a Master’s Degree in English at Missouri. He leaves a Missouri program, led by coach Brian Smith, that has emerged as a consistent top-15 program on the verge of becoming a perennial national power.
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