Winning conference championships, becoming an All-American and national champion can help determine what makes a college wrestler successful. However, is that the only true mark of what makes a wrestler good? A number of factors play into deciding what makes a wrestler good, and what makes one’s career better than another. What formula do you use to determine who had a good career or was a good collegiate wrestler? Read below “and then decide.
By Stephen Stonebraker “TWM Freelance Writer
A graduated wrestler who will remain unnamed looked back on his career as a NCAA Division I wrestler, and said, “I wasn’t any good.”
He feels that because of his lack of credential accomplishments he cannot consider himself a good wrestler. There was always someone better than him at his weight all four years he tried to make varsity, and he never got to compete.
As caring and understanding fans, we often try and sugarcoat issues, to try and avoid hurt feelings. We try and assure a wrestler who fell short of his lofty goals that he was indeed good, but for some reason things just weren’t meant to fall into place. Watching a young man with feelings of un-fulfillment, a subjective question, is left unanswered. If the wrestler truly wasn’t any good, as he told me, then what makes a good wrestler?
A good wrestler on the NCAA Division I scale that is.
To many fans, wrestlers, coaches and critics, a good wrestler is a wrestler that at least qualifies for nationals. That means when looking at the number of wrestlers in Division I wrestling, only 37 percent of the wrestlers in a given year will be considered good by those standards. The percentage comes from looking at the number of teams and multiplying that number times the number of weight classes. You come up with approximately 860 slots for a DI wrestler to compete at. Out of those 860 wrestlers, only approximately 320 wrestlers will qualify for nationals. Does that mean that our remaining 63 percent of wrestlers, who did not qualify for nationals, are not good?
Seems like an awfully high number, if it does mean that.
Some wrestlers, coaches, fans, and critics will even go as far to say that a good wrestler is a wrestler that makes All-American status. There are only 80 wrestlers every year that accomplish that honor. Out of all the wrestlers in DI, that gives us less than 10 percent. It’s hard to believe that anyone would be that harsh of a judge and truly consider the other 90 percent who do not make All American, as not being good.
Yet, what if they did? What if they do? What other factors must be put into play? Is a four-time national qualifier who didn’t make All-American better than a one-time national qualifier who made All-American? Tyrone Byrd, a former wrestler for the University of Illinois, qualified for nationals all four years, but came up short of placing each time. Tony Black, a Wisconsin Badgers wrestler, only qualified once, but was able to capture a fifth place finish at the national tournament and earn All-American status. Who’s the better wrestler out of those two? Or can you truly determine that? Is level of competition a factor? Byrd wrestled at 197. Black at 125. In the years that both wrestled, which weight class was harder to be successful at? Or are those questions, once again too subjective to give a straight answer?
How’s this for a question? Is a national champion better than a four-time All-American?
Ben Cherrington, a Boise State standout, only placed at nationals once, but that place happened to be first. Dustin Manotti, one of Cornell’s all-time greats, finished eighth, fourth, sixth and third respectively. Who’s the better wrestler out of those two?
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