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NCAA WRESTLING CHAMPIONSHIPMarch 21, 2015Kyven GadsonST. LOUIS, MISSOURI THE MODERATOR: We're joined by Kyven Gadson. Kyven, let's start with an opening statement. KYVEN GADSON: You want it longer than the onelast night? Well, you know there wasn't a lot of offense going around. I didn't really commit to anything until I saw that move show up. And Coach Jackson calls it the Gadson, you don't see nobody hitting it. He said you gotta hit it on the big stage for it to really stick. Yeah, I think it's gonna stick. Yeah. THE MODERATOR: Questions? Q. What's Willie saying right now? KYVEN GADSON: I don't know. I think he would be proud. I think my dad would be proud of me. He would be real happy. You did it, Boo. That's what he would say. You did it, Boo. Q. You're very comfortable upper body. And that's like a Greco guy, but you do a lot of freestyle. Why is it that when you get with these really talented guys you're not afraid to go and just take a throw? KYVEN GADSON: I wrote myself a letter Wednesday night. Wednesday night I wrote myself a letter. I sat down in the hotel room and I told myself, I put all the stuff in there that I needed to know that I needed to do to dominate this tournament. And I just trusted my training. That was one of the things, trust my training, trust my instincts. And they came through. They came through. It all came through. Q. When you were turned and kind of squatted down before the match started, what was going through your mind? KYVEN GADSON: I was saying my prayer at the beginning of the match. I always say my prayer. And just ask God to keep me healthy, keep me strong. And allow me to do what I came here to do which was dominate. The first period wasn't domination. And, yeah, the second period, you know, the last match of my career. I wanted to go out with a bang. I told ESPN that, and I did it. I did it. Q. I know I tried this last night, Kyven, talk about you add your name to a pretty prestigious group of people but natives of Waterloo with Gable. And now Kyven Gadson. Can you talk a little bit about adding your name to the history? KYVEN GADSON: Add my name to the history, yes. You know, I texted Kyle Klingman earlier this week when I was filling out the ESPN questionnaire, and they asked what my hometown was known for. And Waterloo, Iowa. I said, they're known for making NCAA champs. That's what I put on there. I planned on becoming the next one, and that came through, came through. Q. You say it's your last match. You don't have any aspirations to wrestle in freestyle and why? Obviously you're a national champ at this level. KYVEN GADSON: Why not wrestle anymore? I mean, I'm not positive in it yet. But I told myself I'll make that decision after season. And wrestling, it's given me a lot. It's given me a vehicle to get a education. I'm working on my Master's degree right now in higher education, leadership. I want to become an AD. Shout out to my mentor right there, Mr.Harris, as well as Mr.Pollard. He's in the hospital. But it's also caused a lot of heartache with family and stuff like that. You sacrifice a lot to get to this point. And I'm not sure if I really want to sacrifice that anymore. And so it's a decision I'm going to make after I sit down with some important people in my life and I'll go from there. Q. Who taught you the Gadson? When did you learn it? How did you learn it, how did you perfect it? KYVEN GADSON: Who taught me that? Coach, he had been saying it since probably about freshman year. Didn't get to use it either one of those years. And then coming in this year, I took really the summer off from wrestling. It was too much for me. Last year I went in Coach Jackson's office and I went in, said, I'm done, I'm not doing this anymore. It hurts. It's not fun. I started wrestling because it was fun, something I liked to do. I took the summer off from wrestling and decided how are you going to get back to what you love? What I love is scoring points, having fun, going out to dominate matches. And we practice that. You can ask my training partners. Some days I go in the room and that might be the only thing I try and hit. Coach Jackson was getting on about me, probably about two weeks ago, he said, you've got to open up the offense, open with your shots and it will show up. And it showed up. It showed up, yeah. It showed up. Q. Can you share a bit more about what you wrote down Wednesday night? Did anybody else see it? How many words were on it? KYVEN GADSON: Two pages. I have it in my backpack. I read it before every session. Start out with 1 Corinthians 15:10, that if I listen to God, if I listen to God and I work hard and I do everything that I was supposed to do, let them come, my goals are going to come through him. I'm going to stay humble. They're going to come through him. I'll let you see it afterwards. I didn't memorize it. I wrote it down so I could read it out loud, and repeatedly tell myself I will win. And that's what I meant, too, everything I needed for the tournament was on there. If there's no more questions I want to say thank you to everyone who reported me ‑‑ Coach Escobedo, Coach Jackson and the Paulson twins and TNT. Nate, I love you. Earl, I don't know if you're still in here, but I expect him to be in here next as well as a couple of my other teammates, I just have to show them that you can get it done. You can get it done at Iowa State and I'm going to do a little recruiting pitch. If there are any other kids out there bad out there, bad men out there, give Coach Jackson a shot. I would say thank you. THE MODERATOR: Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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