by Dave Ruffo
At first glance you would probably consider Kevin Dresser to be your typical middle-aged man. He’s not real tall; he’s pushing about 140 pounds; and you can see the gray starting to appear in his beard as he just celebrated his 44th birthday. However, this two-time NCAA All-American wrestler is ready for the next step in his life as he becomes one of the new faces in Virginia Tech athletics.
Dresser is the new wrestling coach at Virginia Tech where he will try to turn around a team that finished 1-16 last year. Dresser enters Tech amidst, as he likes to call it, “adversity” after former coach Tom Brands abruptly left to coach at his alma mater, the University of Iowa. Dresser, though, has assured athletic director Jim Weaver that this will not be the same case for him.
“I’m not going anywhere,” said Dresser. “I told Mr. Jaudon (associate director of Athletics for Administration) and Mr. Weaver when I took the job that I’m keeping my Tech gear. They’re stuck with me”
Dresser is no stranger to the Southwest Virginia area where he coached 13 state championship teams and had three runner-up finishes in 18 years at Grundy and Christiansburg high schools. With all of his past successes, coach Dresser isn’t backing down from his new challenge.
“I don’t think we have to have success immediately,” he said, “but I’m the kind of person that has a sense of urgency to be good right away. I was that way as an athlete and I’m that way as a coach. Pressure is what gets me up in the morning.”
As a wrestler, Dresser excelled at Iowa where he was a two-time Big Ten Champion, finishing fourth at 142 pounds in the 1985 national championships and winning a national title in 1986 at 142 pounds. Dresser was also honored with the Mike Howard Award in 1986, given to the most valuable wrestler at Iowa, arguably the greatest wrestling program in the country.
After spending some time as a graduate assistant at Iowa, Dresser came to Grundy High School where in eight years he won eight state titles. In need of a new challenge, he moved on to Christiansburg and in the last 10 years he has transformed them into a national power. Christiansburg had three runner-up finishes at states in Dresser’s first five seasons and then won the last five Group AA state titles under his supervision.
“Kevin’s had a ton of success,” said assistant coach Tony Robie. “He’s got great management skills. He’s got great vision. I’m very confident that the same kind of success that Kevin has had at the high school level is going to follow him to the college level.”
That’s the winning mentality that Dresser and the rest of his staff hope to establish early on at Virginia Tech after a less than stellar campaign last season.
“A coach knows when to push and hopefully we’ll push at the right time,” said Dresser.
At first, though, some of the wrestlers were a little hesitant with the coaching styles of Dresser and his staff.
“There were some kinks early on with chemistry,” said junior wrestler Steve Ratley, “but we now realize that Coach Dresser and the other coaches do know what they’re doing and I’ve definitely bought into what they’re selling me.”
Ratley, along with fifth-year senior Steve Borja, will anchor an extremely young lineup in Dresser’s inaugural season. As many as seven of the ten spots could be filled by freshman this year. There is at least one person, though, who is not concerned with all of the youth on the team.
“I think he has a real good knack of being able to develop wrestlers,” said athletic director Jim Weaver. “I think that’s a trait we need to have in our head coach.”
Another asset that Dresser hopes to bring to Blacksburg in addition to all of his wrestling credentials is a fan base. With his local ties in the New River Valley area, Dresser has high expectations for the crowds this year.
“One thing I was told by the former coaching staff was that you could never get a good wrestling crowd at Cassell Coliseum,” said Dresser. “I want to prove everybody wrong. Our goal is to get 5,000 people at a home wrestling match, so I challenge everyone to come on out and see Virginia Tech wrestle.”
The new era of Tech wrestling has already started off better than expected for Dresser as he has led the Hokies to a 4-2 record and already has crowds of around 2,000 fans filling the stands of Cassell Coliseum.
If Dresser’s past successes are any indication of what he will do at Tech, then Hokie fans should expect nothing but success from Virginia Tech wrestling in the near future.
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