U wrestling: Expectations of excellence
Jerry Zgoda, Star Tribune
T he first time Cole Konrad entered the Gophers’ steamy, subterranean wrestling room, his eyes bypassed the low-hung, exposed water pipes and heat ducts and settled on three wooden display boards placed prominently along a scuffed wall.
Hundreds of tiny nameplates on those boards chronicle the program’s rich history of All-Americas, national champions and Olympians, from fellows — including one named Verne Gagne — 60 or more years ago right up through today.
Konrad, on his first college recruiting trip, focused his attention upon a string of recent heavyweight All-Americas, a list of nine in 10 years that includes such names as Brock Lesnar, Billy Pierce, Shelton Benjamin, Garrett Lowney and, now, his.
“All you had to do was look at that board and you knew it was a good place for heavyweights, “said Konrad, now the nation’s second-ranked heavyweight and anchor for the seventh-ranked Gophers. “You know if you come to a place like that, you’re expected to perform.”
A former Wisconsin high-school and junior national champion, Konrad first reported for work in that room a chunky, undeveloped redshirt freshman. Two years later — after a body-changing, life-changing diet during which Gophers coach J Robinson shared his pain — he is an aggressive redshirt sophomore with a 29-2 record that includes a 17-match winning streak entering tonight’s match at rival Iowa.
Robinson, since his hiring 19 years ago, has built a program that won consecutive national championships in 2002 and 2003. The program, by design in the last decade, has groomed champion heavyweights because of the influence they can have emotionally and statistically in a match.
“You’re looking for the pitcher, you’re looking for the quarterback, “Robinson said of the value a heavyweight has on a wrestling team. “You’re looking for the guy who can put a lot of points on the board, and the heavyweight can do that because there’s just not that many of them. You don’t want to get to heavyweight [in a match] and worry whether you can win or not. You sleep a lot better as a coach if you have a good heavyweight.”
Robinson’s heavyweights through the years defy categorization: Lesner was a physical specimen, demonstrated by his lucrative career as a pro wrestler and attempt to cross over into the NFL. Benjamin relied upon speed. Lowney, who proceeded Konrad as a high school star in Freedom, Wis., proved to be a better Greco-Roman wrestler than a collegiate one, and has a 2000 Olympic bronze medal to prove it. Pierce was a big, overpowering presence. Konrad is a 285-pounder, athletic and perhaps still with just a touch of the baby fat that caused Robinson to challenge him to a diet in Konrad’s first season as a Gopher.
“I think I lost 20 pounds or something, and he lost maybe 30, “Robinson said. “But it was proportional, so I won.”
Robinson challenged Konrad for more than 10 weeks — the rookie ate small meals six times a day, worked out as many as three times a day — in a successful attempt to remodel his body. Konrad lost flab, then regained the weight, plus some, in muscle, dropping his body fat by 13 percent.
Robinson calls heavyweights “a happier group of wrestlers because they don’t have to cut weight like everybody else. “Redshirt freshman phenom Mack Reiter — the first blue-chip Iowa high school recruit lured north by the Gophers — admits there just might be a smidgen of envy.
“We always tease him that we could run circles around him, “said Reiter, who wrestles at 133 pounds. “But if he gets ahold of us, we’re in trouble.”
Konrad likes to open matches by welcoming opponents with a whack to the head. He also likes the role of closer, which often requires heavyweights to wrestle last, sometimes with the meet on the line.
“I don’t consider that pressure, to tell you the truth, “said Konrad, who is 0-2 (both overtime losses) against top-ranked Steve Mocco of Oklahoma State. “I look forward to it. You can make the duel meet go your team’s way or you can lose it. I like that feeling.”
Jerry Zgoda is at [email protected].
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