By DAVID WATSON
The wrestling room at the University of Wyoming UniWyo Sports Complex is thick with humidity as the heater is turned up before the start of practice.
The music is blaring as the Cowboys enter from the locker room and are welcomed by third-year coach Mark Branch and his staff.
The squad begins another day of preparation for the start of the season on Nov. 13.
Last season the Cowboys finished 12-3 overall in duals and 6-0 in the conference, were the Western Wrestling Conference champions and won their first-ever NCAA West Regional team championship.
The success was noticed as UW enters this season ranked No. 22 in both the Amateur Wrestling News preseason poll and on the Open Mat Web site and No. 21 in WIN Magazine.
The following is a question-and-answer session with Branch before the start of that practice:
Q. What is the tone being set in practice?
A. We have veterans in this program that now know me, our coaching staff and our expectations. They know what our goals are and understand what we expect out of the program, so we are not trying to re-teach anything now.
We do have a huge group of freshmen and transfers that came in, but what makes it nice is that they can piggy-back off those veterans and it’s a lot quicker process to teach them the ropes.
The biggest thing is taking this program to another level, and we will continue to do that. We’ve had a great experience these last two years and put the program a little bit on the map. But now it’s talking about going out there and competing and being one of the top programs in the country.”
Q. Is being in the national preseason polls creating a different atmosphere?
A. There is an extra bounce in our steps “¦ more credibility.
The biggest deal during the first couple of years was getting them to believe that we could be successful here. The new kids believed it before they came and wanted to come because they could be successful here.
A lot of it was building confidence and getting them to believe what we were doing. Now they expect to have success and there is a much different attitude in the wrestling room.”
Q. Is what you envisioned for the program when you first came to UW starting to come together and is it faster or slower?
A. I would say a little faster. But the fact is that when I came here I understood the process, and to be honest, I talked a lot with the team about, ‘Hey, we can be successful now.’ You want them to set lofty goals, so you talk big.
But I’ve been around long enough to know that a lot of it is talk. This sport is mental in getting our guys to believe that they are winners. So we are only going to talk about winning, when in reality, I knew we were going to take some lumps. I have been pleasantly surprised with the last two seasons and to be able to jump into the mix, get recognition for the program and go to the NCAA Tournament.
When I came here, I set my goals high, and it took some talk to get these guys that way. To see it start to develop is gratifying, and to see the potential is even more gratifying and exciting.
Q. How much behind-the-scenes work does the team do in the off-season?
A. We really preach that wrestling is a year round sport, and it really is demanding. Our season started on Aug. 25 when we first started working with these guys, and we go all the way through the end of March, which is a long stretch for any sport.
We also had a lot of kids in freestyle and Greco-Roman tournaments. We told them that if they didn’t want compete in those tournaments, that’s fine. But we expect them to stay committed to the process of the program.
We also preach that it’s not a sport or a season but a lifestyle for the next four or five years, and they bought into it.
Q. What are challenges of the upcoming schedule with the amount of other top programs?
A. We’ve never shied away from competition. The way I thought about it is that if we ever went through a season undefeated, then either I didn’t do my job in setting up the right schedule or we’re national champions.
We are looking to challenge ourselves every year. Right away in the third week of November, we hit (the Omaha Open), which is a tournament where we will see all the Big Ten and Big 12 teams and it’s one of the toughest preseason tournaments in the country. Then our dual schedule is set up with Nebraska, Oregon State, Cal Poly, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State, which are all teams ranked ahead of us.
If we take losses for the good of the season, that’s fine with me. The fact is that if I pad the schedule, it’s not reality. We face reality at the NCAA championships, and we would struggle if we don’t have a good grasp of it.
Q. Do other top programs want to schedule UW?
A. Absolutely. They don’t want to wrestle scrubs either, and they are the best programs for a reason, too. They also want to see our team because we are now a little bit of a threat and don’t want to see for the first time during the NCAA championships.
I have turned down several good programs because we only have 16 dates. We added Oklahoma because they called us, and I said we were going to Oklahoma State. Cal Poly has also put together a tough team and is a top 10 or 15 program.
We also added the Virginia Duals. We have to get East every year to see those teams and going to out Virginia, we will hit some of those East Coast teams. They are good programs that are so far away that it will be our only chance to match up with them head to head.
I also want to see those kids. For example with (UW wrestler Joe) LeBlanc got beat by (Clayton) Foster of Oklahoma State during the season last year. Then we matched up with him in the NCAA championships and manhandled him. We lost to him earlier in the year, learned something and turned it around when it really counted.
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