By Andy Hamilton
Iowa City Press-Citizen
Mark Perry Jr. said he hasn’t stopped smiling since Saturday night.
Iowa’s newest national champion hasn’t been able to stop hitting the rewind button and watching the final two minutes of his stunning 4-3 victory against Oklahoma State’s Johny Hendricks in the 165-pound NCAA final, either.
“I’ve seen it quite a few times, “Perry said Monday afternoon. “Probably 50.”
Perry watched everything from the reversal that put him back in the match to the two-point near-fall he scored with 27 seconds remaining that tipped the bout in his favor to the tidal wave of emotion that carried him around the mat and into the stands to celebrate the realization of a lifelong quest with his family.
“It’s hard to explain it, “said the Iowa junior, who rarely has been at a loss for words during his first three seasons with the Hawkeyes. “It’s just the best thing in the world, really.”
Perry’s victory — his first in seven collegiate tries against Hendricks — gave the Hawkeyes a feel-good ending to an otherwise erratic tournament at The Palace of Auburn Hills. Perhaps equally important, Perry’s win provides Iowa with its first returning NCAA champion in seven years and gives coach Tom Brands and assistant Dan Gable an illustration for a result that comes from following the blueprint.
“He makes all of the coaching staff’s job easier now, “Gable said. “When the coaches talk, it’ll give the athletes a little more opportunity to listen and believe. If you don’t believe everything they say, then it’s a lot of wasted talk. This will just give more credibility to the coaching staff and the team.”
Perry credited Brands, Gable and assistant Doug Schwab for the work they did on his body and mind during the past six weeks when they geared his training specifically for Hendricks and being able to hold up for seven minutes against the two-time NCAA champion.
“He is the best competitor I have ever faced — by far, “Perry said. “I’ve struggled with him more than anybody. I’ve wrestled other kids where I haven’t beaten them, but I wasn’t in the same mind frame in certain matches against him mentally, and he’s taken me out of them. He is freakishly strong, and he really wrestles the old Iowa style to a T. He goes hard, and he goes hard for seven minutes.”
The strange thing is, the seventh minute belonged to Perry. He not only won the final minute, but he also dominated it. Perry scored a reversal with 59 seconds remaining before he started erasing Hendricks’ riding time advantage. Then off a fresh start with 39 seconds left, Perry latched onto the Oklahoma State senior with a half-nelson, pulled Hendricks back into his lap and cranked him over for a pair of one counts before he secured the near-fall with a two count.
“He’s got some skills that aren’t basic, so we tried to get him to be more basic, “Gable said. “If you saw his win in the end there, it was really basic skills — on top of him with both legs in deep, not rolling around and he controlled the waist (and had) a half, and he kept (Hendricks) right in his lap instead of getting off to the side. In the end there, he won on some real basic skills.”
More than anything, though, Perry said he won with the change in mentality he made during the final six weeks of the season — something he credited to Brands and Gable.
“They’ve been preaching since day one when they got here, and I was always on the same page as them, but I was having a hard time making that transition just because my style is so much different than what they preach, “Perry said. “But they kept working with me and really got into where I kind of got the attitude that Gable used to coach and Brands believes in.
“You fight and fight and you find ways to win and you try to beat people as bad as possible, and that really hit home in the last six weeks. A lot of that came through motivational things they would say to me in those individual practices.”
Perry said he, Brands and Gable found the perfect balance.
“(Brands has) become a great coach, and I think he really figured me out, “Perry said. “I work real well with staying positive. Everything was positive. He was telling me that I’m the strongest dude he’s ever seen and stuff like that. That’s the way I work. I love being positive.
“Really, Gable was just the opposite and it eventually hit home with me. He’d say stuff like: How are you going to beat this guy? He’d say stuff to me that really just pissed me off. The things that he was saying were things that led me to working and proving I could do those things.
“I told them throughout the year that if I could get Hendricks flat I knew I would turn him. If I could get a good hold on him, I knew I could turn him. That was the first time I ever got a good grip on him, and it was pretty easy to turn him.”
Perry’s victory prevented Hendricks from joining an elite Oklahoma State club. The Cowboys have only had three wrestlers in their illustrious history who attained All-America status four times and captured three NCAA titles.
When the match ended, Perry dropped to his knees and threw his fists in the air before an embrace with Schwab and Brands. As Iowa fans celebrated the school’s first NCAA champion since Cliff Moore won the 141-pound title, Perry had a brief look of bewilderment on his face as he stood alone on the elevated mat, and many perceived he was looking to shake the hand of his uncle, Oklahoma State coach John Smith.
“Everyone kept thinking I was looking for him, but I wasn’t looking for him, I got confused, “Perry said. “I couldn’t find where … (Brands and Schwab) went. I wasn’t looking for John, I couldn’t find the coaches. Where did they go? I still don’t know where … they went. I looked over and they weren’t even walking toward the tunnel.”
After his victory lap through the stands, Perry walked back through the halls of the arena where he was greeted with a pat on the back from former Michigan wrestler Ryan Churella — who lost to Hendricks in a controversial 2006 championship match — and a hug from his uncle John.
“¢ SCHLATTER’S AILMENT UNCOVERED: Minnesota sophomore Dustin Schlatter didn’t look like the freshman phenom who tore through the tournament last year on his way to the 149-pound title — and the Gophers finally revealed the reason why after he came back from his second loss of his career.
Schlatter limped to a third-place finish Saturday and afterward said he had been wrestling with a sprained medial collateral ligament since the Big Ten finals. But Minnesota coach J Robinson said the injury had been bothering Schlatter for six weeks, but the Gophers didn’t want to divulge the problem and put the sophomore at even more of a competitive disadvantage. He regularly used his choice at the beginning of a period to pick the neutral position rather than putting any pressure on the knee.
“It was a little harder to get my offense going because I was a little sore, “Schlatter said. “It was hard to get my shots going. I still believe I should’ve won regardless of that.”
Schlatter dropped a 3-2 decision in Friday night’s semifinals against eventual champion Gregor Gillespie of Edinboro. It marked his first loss since losing 1-0 early last season to Central Michigan’s Mark DiSalvo.
Schlatter said the pressure of being the returning NCAA champion was “enormous.”
“Compared to last year, there really isn’t any comparison, “he said. “Obviously, I think you all know this year was tougher for me based on the closer matches. I think people were scouting me a lot more. I had a target on my back where last year I was a no one, a freshman.”
“¢ ANSON MEASURES UP: Northern Iowa freshman Kyle Anson said his first trip to the NCAA meet as a competitor taught him a lot. The former City High star won his preliminary match at 133 before losing his next two to get eliminated on the tournament’s first day.
“I’ve realized a lot of things I have to work on, how tough this competition is, “Anson said. “I know I’m right there with them; I just have to get over that hump. I go in close matches with these guys and I see they’re placing and beating other (top) guys. This summer I’ve got to work on getting bigger and work on a few key parts, and I think I’ll be right there with them.
“My offense is fine, but I have to get better at getting off the bottom. I have to work on my riding and defense on shots, too.”
“¢ BACKPOINTS: The tournament champion photo had 10 schools represented and consisted of four top seeds, four No. 2 seeds, fifth-seeded Gillespie and Nebraska’s sixth-seeded Paul Donahoe, the 125-pound champion. … Minnesota’s 98 points were the fewest for a team champion since Oklahoma State won the 1994 title with 94.75. The Gophers extended the 19-year stranglehold that Iowa (nine titles), Oklahoma State (seven) and Minnesota (three) have held on the sport since Arizona State won the 1988 championship. … Thirty-seven schools had at least one All-American and no school had more than five.
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