Reiter content with choice of Gophers over Hawks
Iowa, Minnesota wrestlers hit mat tonight in Iowa City
By Andy Hamilton
Iowa City Press-Citizen
For the longest time, Mack Reiter wanted to wrestle for Iowa.
He pictured himself as a Hawkeye. He covered his room in black and gold. His wardrobe was filled with Iowa apparel.
He envisioned nights like tonight when he would wrestle inside Carver-Hawkeye Arena. He just didn’t figure he’d be wrestling against Iowa.
“I had always dreamed of wrestling for Iowa, “said Reiter, a four-time Iowa state champion at Gilbertville Don Bosco. “I still love the old Iowa style, but when it came down for me to make my decision on where I wanted to wrestle, it seemed that Minnesota was the only place that really fit me. The coaches up here were great, and I get along great with everybody on the team. Everything seemed perfect up here.”
Reiter, ranked third at 133 pounds, is one of 13 ranked wrestlers expected to take the mat tonight when the No. 10 Hawkeyes wrestle the seventh-ranked Gophers at 7 p.m. The two programs, which waged one of the sport’s top rivalries throughout the past decade, add another chapter with the influx of talented freshmen.
Minnesota coach J Robinson landed the nation’s top recruiting class two years ago when he plucked Reiter out of Iowa, pulled C.P. Schlatter and Matt Koz out of Ohio and signed Michigan prospect Roger Kish.
Robinson said he promised Schlatter a redshirt. Then he opted to withhold the rest of the class from competition. But after seven straight finishes among the top three at the NCAA meet, the Gophers dropped to eighth last year, and Robinson questioned his decision.
“In retrospect, we should’ve wrestled them, “Robinson said. “We dropped off.
“The thing that really hurt us and the thing that has hurt Iowa is that you count on certain people, and with the way athletic aid is, you put a lot of stock in those people. When those people leave you, it pretty much (handcuffs) you.”
Robinson lost a pair of top recruits when Cory Cooperman and Marcus LeVesseur left the Gophers as freshmen. The Hawkeyes had Willie Parks penciled in at 197, Todd Meneely at 133 or 141, Steve Mocco at heavyweight, and Mark Mueller as a possibility at 174. All four left school.
Those are reasons why Iowa coach Jim Zalesky was left plugging true freshmen into four starting positions at the beginning of this season.
“I think he did what he needed to do, “Robinson said. “You need to put your best team on the mat. You’re paying them to wrestle and if you need them to wrestle, (they’ve) got to wrestle.”
Reiter’s migration to Minnesota has been a popular topic this week. The freshman enters tonight’s match against 10th-ranked Mario Galanakis with a 30-3 record.
“A guy like Mario, it doesn’t matter who he’s wrestling, he wants to prove himself anyway, “Zalesky said. “He never won a state title and he’s got a chip on his shoulder anyway. He had to go to a junior college (because) no one really recruited him out of high school. I don’t think he needs any extra motivation to wrestle anybody right now.”
During the recruiting process in the fall of 2002, Reiter was aware of Iowa’s scholarship situation.
“They were loaded in the lower weights at the time, “Reiter said. “I didn’t go into it expecting to get too much. I understood they were three-deep at ’25 and ’33, and you can’t give out a lot of money for a guy at one of those weight classes. I don’t blame (Iowa) at all. I think they made the decision they felt was right.”
Reiter said Minnesota offered him a full-ride during his first year and 80 percent for his final four, while Iowa countered at 40 percent. But Reiter said “money had nothing to do with it.
“When you look at what I’m paying out-of-state here, it’s about the same as what I would’ve been paying in-state there.”
Said Zalesky: “If you want to go someplace, you’re going to go there. Everybody says, ‘You didn’t offer him enough money.’ But at the time, you had to look at what our scholarship needs were and at that time we thought we had some guys there and our finances had to go to the upper weights.”
Reiter said he was “95 percent sure “he was headed to Iowa when the recruiting process began in July 2002. When he left for his official visit to Minnesota, Reiter said he was still leaning heavily toward the Hawkeyes, but the Gophers had a drawing card in former assistant Mark Schwab, whose brother, Mike, worked with Reiter at Don Bosco.
Reiter said Minnesota pulled even after his official visit.
“I think Jimmy obviously knows what he’s doing, “he said. “He’s a great coach and a great recruiter and he made his decision based on how he felt I would turn out, and I don’t blame him at all for that. I completely understand why he did what he did, and that doesn’t bother me at all.
“About two months after I signed it still hadn’t set in that I wasn’t going to Iowa. It was still almost not real, but eventually I adjusted to it and now I’m happy with what I’ve done. But really, it was kind of hard to accept because for so long of my life, that’s all I wanted.”
Reach Andy Hamilton at 339-7368 or ahamilton @ press-citizen.com.
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