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NCAA WRESTLING CHAMPIONSHIP

March 14, 2018

Cleveland, Ohio

THE MODERATOR: We're joined by head coaches Pat Santoro of Lehigh, Zeke Jones of Arizona State, Brian Smith of Missouri, Tom Ryan of Ohio State and Cael Sanderson of Penn State.

COACH SANTORO: First off, thanks for coming. I know at Lehigh we're really excited to be here, real fortunate, feel blessed to have the team we have and coaching staff but we're excited for a great weekend.

COACH SANDERSON: Yeah, I think all the same things there, and we're just happy to be here. So thank you.

COACH JONES: Excited for the opportunity to compete here, to sit up at the table with some great coaches and to have three days of fantastic wrestling, the best in the country, obviously the best in the world. And ready to compete.

COACH SMITH: I'm looking forward to a great weekend. Walk around the streets and the excitement from the people in the community. Tom's been talking about this forever. So really excited about it.

COACH RYAN: Blessed to be up here in Cleveland. A lot of our student-athletes were born and raised in this area. It's a great opportunity for them to compete in front of some people that have watched them in their careers for a long time.

I'm excited about the team I have. We've got great leadership in Kyle Snyder, Bo Jordan and Nate Tomasello and we're excited to get this tournament underway. It's great to be here.

THE MODERATOR: Questions.

Q. Zeke, you look around you, you've got coaches up on the panel before. They've got coaches that have been part of the team race before. What does it mean to you as an alum of Arizona State to have yourself up there in this press conference to know that your Sun Devils squad is now up in the running for team championship and team trophy?
COACH JONES: I was quite shocked I got an invitation to be here. I don't know that we're in the team race necessarily. Maybe it's because we're from the West Coast and we all have suntans and we're getting ready to wrestle and an opportunity like this as a team.

But it is. It's truly a blessing to be able to come and sit up here and have an opportunity to put guys on the podium, on top of the podium. I think that it's a great statement for the West and wrestling that there's been a tremendous commitment from President Crow at Arizona State to Ray Anderson, our athletic director, to the people in the community in the West that really care about this sport.

And I know the guys that sit up on the panel here as coaches have been tremendous in supporting the growth of wrestling in the West. So I think it's great for Arizona State that we get to be honored and also get to sit at this table.

Q. Brian, talk is about Ohio State and Penn State in the team race. You guys went undefeated, did well at the MAC again. Have we overlooked the Tigers this year? And why could you guys be the surprise team?
COACH SMITH: If you would have asked me that in the summer I really didn't know who my team was going to be because I had a young man coming off a complete knee reconstruction. I didn't know if he was going to make it back.

I had a kid coming off of three major surgeries and a neck replacement, a disk replacement in his neck, so I didn't know. If you would have seen them wrestling at that time, watching them in open mat, I thought we're in trouble at some of these weights. And how far they've come is a credit to my staff.

I have an unbelievable staff of doctors, trainers, assistant coaches, from people that work with our program and just develop these guys. And besides the physical part, the mental part, bringing these guys back from injury and where we are right now and how far they've come, just pleased with what the staff has done.

So for us to be even thought about it, we've come a long way and we're enjoying the ride. And our kids just, they show up and compete every time we go out.

Q. Should we consider you a favorite (indiscernible)?
COACH SMITH: You guys won't, but that's all right. We've been the underdogs all year, so we'll keep playing that.

Q. Coach Ryan, Kyle Snyder said earlier that Ohio State should be considered the team favorite. What are your thoughts?
COACH RYAN: Kyle is -- sometimes you have student-athletes like Kyle that are on the pulse of the team as well as any coach could be on the pulse of the team.

So he's around these guys a lot more. He feels great about this team. He's a great leader. Penn State has a tremendous team this year, as does Missouri and many others here. When you look at the last competition that occurred, the Big Tens, if we can wrestle like that and our guys can compete to that level, we certainly have a shot.

So I don't guarantee anything other than I believe my team is ready. I like where they are physically and mentally. They care about each other, and we're ready to wrestle. So we'll see Saturday night how this all shakes out.

Q. Coach Santoro, can you talk about this season? You've been able to win the conference. Last night they named you coach of the year. You've got ten guys here wrestling. Just what it's been like and what kind effort it took for this opportunity to come for your team?
COACH SANTORO: I think it was just a lot of hard work. Starting last spring, actually going into summer, we had some setbacks during the season, some injuries. As Brian said, we've got a great staff, medical staff. Got our guys back.

And this team, they wrestle for each other. They know it's bigger than just themselves. I think that's important. I think they're more excited when their teammates win than themselves. That's really unique with this team; it's something that I haven't seen in a long time. It's been a journey, a great journey, and we hope to continue it through the weekend.

Q. Coaches Sanderson and Ryan, with the championship being in Cleveland, you have both teams' fan bases not being far away. They can drive here. You've been the top two teams all year long, preseason going in. Had a good dual meet and great conference championship. What are you expecting and how can we build this up and keep it going here at the NCAAs when you guys both have guys going for championships and the team race is on the line?
COACH RYAN: I think I got the question. So there's a lot of great teams here. Preseason, you look at returning All-Americans, returning national champions. The preseason poll would say that two teams seem to be a little bit better than the other teams.

I think to some degree that's held. The fact that -- the fact that we have the team that we have and we know we're in the serious dogfight speaks volumes to the team that Cael has.

I believe that there's a good chance that on Saturday night the second-place team will be the best second-place team to ever wrestle in the national tournament. That's the kind of ability that some of these teams have here. Penn State being that team.

So Cael's been good for the sport. That team is a team that you can't not consider them -- everyone in life needs that individual or that group that brings them to another level. And I think that Penn State has been that recently.

We were happy the way we wrestled during the Big Tens but we want this one, too.

COACH SANDERSON: Yeah, I know I'm happy to be here. And we'll find out over the next three days if our team's happy to be here. But we have a great team of great young men that are just stand-up guys and great competitors and they love each other and we'll see what happens after three days.

Q. Zeke, when they announced they're going to cut the program in 2008, you just happened to be in town as an Olympic coach. And all that kind of came down at the same time. Now you're running the program. To go from that, the feelings you had that day when the announcement came out, to where you're at now, can you describe what that's like?
COACH JONES: Maybe in some ways, like winning a national title or going 0-2 at the NCAA Tournament, you feel the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. I think on that day we all felt the lowest of lows. I think I'm not just speaking for Sun Devils, but I think for the sport of wrestling, similar to when wrestling was dropped at the Olympic Games.

Our sport is about struggle. And I think that on that day we felt that struggle. And to now we're at the point where we're sitting at the table with the greatest programs in the nation, which is more of the highs, right?

We tell our guys: Be careful; don't get too low with the lows or too high with the highs. Stay steady. I think that's what happened with Arizona State. It stayed steady. Art Martori came along and three days later the program was reinstated. It was 72 hours, in essence. But after that, it was a long progression to this place.

Now my thought is, and looking across this table, it's going to take an extraordinary effort to be great here. And extraordinary, that people have lifted cars off of people that are dying in the street and people are under water and jumping and save them out of the ocean from drowning, that that extraordinary effort is going to be needed this weekend to compete.

So I start to think of, what your question is, which is those lows that we felt that day to this extraordinary effort that we're going to see this weekend and preferably from the Sun Devils. So I guess that's what I think of when I think of when you say that day, about that day.

Q. Cael, just the status of Jason Nolf, do you need him to do well for the team to do well. And how much did you guys learn from last year, finished second in the Big Tens, winning in the NCAAs?
COACH SANDERSON: We obviously need Jason Nolf, right? He's a returning national champion, great leader, fearless. And what did we learn, you said, from losing the Big Ten? It's a new day, new tournament. New day. It's the same every year, simply whoever goes out and scores the most points. I think I say that every year but that's the truth. It's not any more complicated than that. If our guys want to win their matches they have to go score more points than their opponent, it's very simple.

Q. (Indiscernible)?
COACH SANDERSON: He's ready to roll.

Q. A follow-up on Nolf, he had an interview this week where he mentioned he felt he could have wrestled throughout the Big Ten tournament. How do you pull the reins on a guy like that and make sure they're not pushing it too hard too quickly and reinjure themselves in the process?
COACH SANDERSON: We have an excellent staff in our doctors and trainers and our wrestling coaches, and we thought it was in the best interests of not only -- whatever is in the best interest of Jason Nolf is in the best interest of Penn State wrestling. He could very easily have wrestled through that tournament. I thought he was getting better as the minutes and seconds went on in his matches. But we need him this weekend.

This is the ultimate goal. We want to be -- he can win the national championship one weekend a year, and this happens to be that weekend.

Q. How important, with the tournament here in Cleveland two hours from Columbus, how important would some sort of home advantage be to winning a quarterfinal, semifinal match, getting a bonus point here or there that could propel you to a team title, how important is that?
COACH RYAN: I believe in energy. I felt it in State College what energy feels like when a crowd gets going.

So we're in a great state for wrestling, in a great region. I think the energy is real. And you can choose to feed off of it or let it get to you as well.

So we expect the place to be rocking with crazy, in-love-with-the-sport fans. And if it helps us that would be nice, win some of these tight matches that we know we're going to be in. We're going to be in tight matches. We happened to get them last weekend, two weekends ago.

A year ago we happened to get them at the Big Tens, didn't quite get as many wins here. We'll need the tight ones.

Q. Cael, obviously people have been hammering you with questions about Jason Nolf. One of the things throughout your career is that you guys have been able to stay healthy going in the postseason. Can you kind of compare and contrast the situation last year where you had a major injury and you guys still won by over 30 points and maybe anything you've learned, obviously different kids, different situation, but you learned from handling the injury late in the season last year to this year and how maybe it will help you guys win again this year?
COACH SANDERSON: Regardless of where we are and how we got to this point again it comes back to the same idea of we've got nine kids in the tournament. They can score points.

And everyone here wants to win. Everyone wants their kids to be successful and it just comes down to who goes out and who gets it done, whose kids get it done.

Regardless of what it took or why we're here, injuries or no injuries, right, this isn't who is the healthiest nationals, this is the national wrestling championship. If you want to win you've got to go score the most points.

Q. Tom, specifically you've got two northeast Ohioans in Kollin and Nate, how important is it to win a championship in their backyard?
COACH RYAN: They first started wrestling as second or third graders. If someone told them, hey, 12 years from now you're going to be in The Q wrestling and hopefully leading Ohio State to a national championship, I would think that you would see the biggest smile on these little guys' faces like: That's right; that's going to be me.

Well, their opportunity is now. So now it's time to do what they've longed for. I know they're excited to be here. And so kind of the rubber meets the road this weekend. You wanted this, you said you wanted it, now you have it. What are you going to do with it?

So they both live really clean lives. There's nothing -- there are a few things in life that I want more than to see Nate go out with a national championship.

My life is complete, but it will be a little more complete if he manages to win a second national championship. And if he doesn't, on my deathbed I will say that I will probably be a little less satisfied with life. That's how bad that I want to see this guy end with a national championship.

So they're excited. They're really fortunate that they happen to be at an age where the tournament is held in their hometown. So kind of the stars have aligned and they're looking forward to wrestling.

Q. They talk about Ohio being one of the more fertile wrestling states in terms of talent that comes out of it. What is it that makes it that way? Is it the quality? Is it the quantity? For all of you, if you could speak to what it is.
COACH RYAN: I know I'd like to keep all these guys out of the state. I know that. I think it's a combination of a lot of things. I think it's great environments.

I think it's parents that understand the Charlie Hustle mentality. There's a lot of programs. There's a lot of great coaches. There's a lot of history.

There's great tradition in a lot of the schools in this state. And the best know where the best train and they find their way to those places. And we're fortunate -- I'm fortunate to be in a position as the coach at Ohio State in a great state like this, it certainly helps us.

There's a lot of reasons, but I'm just glad we're in a great state for wrestling.

COACH SANTORO: It obviously is a great state. It's got all of the above: Depth, quality. It's a lot like Pennsylvania in that way. But, Tom, I'd like to keep you out of Pennsylvania, too.

But it's a great state for wrestling and all the coaches know that. You want to recruit this state and a lot of other states.

COACH JONES: We want to make it hard on Tom too. To add to that, some of Arizona State's greatest champions are from Ohio. And one will be presenting an award on Saturday, Dan St. John was a two-time national champion from Cleveland, but guys like Marcus Mollica to GT Taylor, the history from Ohio to the desert has been tremendous. We appreciate you letting us come back, Tom.

COACH SMITH: I remember being a Florida boy going up to Michigan State, and I was recruited there by Pat Milkovich, which is probably the greatest family of high school wrestling in Ohio and learning from going to camps and meeting Old Man Milkovich.

And then a lot of my teammates were from the Cleveland area. And a lot of still my good friends from college are from the Cleveland area that will be here and just going back home with some of them and seeing the culture of the youth wrestling that I'd never really witnessed in the state of Florida, it wasn't as big there, these other sports called football and baseball in Florida.

And they had -- just youth wrestling was the most amazing thing to me, how many kids were doing it and the techniques they were hitting. And I said man, Ohio -- I remember it back then in college, being a freshman or sophomore, going back, watching that, going these people are really passionate about the sport.

COACH SANDERSON: Ohio obviously has a great history. Everyone's talking, I'm thinking about my coach, Bobby Douglas, he recruited a lot out of Ohio.

My roommate, Joe Heskett, was from Ohio, four-time All-American, national champion, world medalist, one of the best friends. And Zach Thompson, Cleveland, Ohio, couple-time All-American. And we had a pretty solid kid from Ohio couple years ago in David Taylor.

So there's a lot of great wrestling in Ohio. Some of the best high school programs in the country. So, yeah, I think it has a lot to do with the culture and tradition.

Q. Coach Smith, you have a high number of highly seeded wrestlers. One of the criticisms that's emerged is the question, have they wrestled the schedule and are they proven. What would be your response to those criticisms?
COACH SMITH: You know what, I really don't listen to it. But I know we wrestled a pretty good schedule. You can talk to Oklahoma State and Virginia Tech and the Cornells and those schools. We'll wrestle whoever will wrestle us. We'll ask everybody and we'll continue to wrestle everybody.

Q. Coach Santoro, you guys are coming in in a pretty good position. Lehigh won their first EIWA championship in a while. You qualified 10 wrestlers, which is pretty rare. One of them is a returning NCAA champion. Wondering if you can speak on what that does for expectations for this tournament and how, if at all, that's changed from earlier in the year.
COACH SANTORO: Nothing's changed. The goal early on was to get all 10 here. It was a goal accomplished. EIWA was a goal, goal accomplished. Honestly, we want to perform at a high level. Wins and losses take care of themselves. This is a fun group, hungry group. I'm excited to watch them compete.

Q. Coach Smith, I wrestled for Coach Smith when I was a freshman when he first got there. Mizzou kind of stunk, to be honest, back in the day. But the first meeting we had, you said: We're going to be at the top; we're going to beat the Iowas and the Oklahomas and everything else. And here you are, perennial top 10, top 5 team. Why did you think that was possible?
COACH SMITH: I was a stupid young kid. I just had a vision. I was 32 and just said what the hell. And I focused on what we had. If I would have focused on what Oklahoma State and Iowa State and the programs that I was competing with, they all had more than us, so I didn't.

I focused on what we could have and started with young guys like you and said let's start working hard, let's start going to class, let's do the little things we can control. And every year we got progressively better, and better recruits started to come. The program -- the administration has really bought into wrestling. We are their top sports program there. Without a doubt we are their best. We won team trophies. We're winning conference championships and they've invested in the program, not only just in money, but they've invested in -- they're flying out here to watch the events. They come to our events.

They believe in what we're doing. I think that's what it's all about. It's a process. Had to put a picture on the wall because there's nothing else we could. You know that, Mark.

Q. Pat, unlike Missouri which did not have a past, Lehigh did at one time, a long time ago. Do you wrestle now trying to bring back those ghosts, those memories, getting people as excited now as they did then?
COACH SANTORO: I don't know that we're trying to bring back. We're trying to kind of reinvent ourselves. The sport of wrestling has changed tremendously in the last 10 years. All these coaches can tell you. You have to make those adjustments.

In a small school, it takes a while to make those adjustments. But we have an unbelievable fan base, alumni base that allowed this to happen.

It's been a slow progression, but it's happened. We want to win for our fans. We have an unbelievable president, unbelievable athletic director. These are the people that we're going to be wrestling for. And I think when you're doing things for other people, you can accomplish greater things.

Q. Coach Jones, so obviously you're here coaching a bunch of guys, you've got 20, 30 kids in your room. So I don't know if you want to speak specifically on this, but your relationship with a guy like Zahid and bringing in a top-level recruit like that and having a good relationship with them, I want to try to get at here, developing those relationships with those high-level guys and how it can get you to the level of where Penn State and Ohio State and Missouri are at right now?
COACH JONES: I think when I was the national coach and came to Arizona State, my athletic director called and said are you interested in this job. I said why would I leave, I'm coaching the best team in the world. He said he wanted to do something similar to that.

And when he said that I knew there's a guy that lives eight miles away named Art Martori who also had a vision for being the best in the world.

Of course, Cael and John Smith and Kenny Monday wrestled for the Sunkist Wrestling Club, I knew they had the resources and people.

And it was literally when I was announced the coach, five minutes later my phone rang and it was Ruben Valencia and he said: You're close to us. And from being from LA and St. John Bosco, and so that I think for him, as a parent, said, okay, there's a program choice for us that's close to home. And being California.

Zahid and Anthony committed shortly after, but we didn't have much for them. We really -- you can call it a vision and a dream or maybe I call it smoke and mirrors, but we shared with them that you could help build something here. That was our angle.

I also call Anthony and Zahid the first believers. They were the first ones to believe that we could do something great when we had nothing. The team was 65th in the country.

I'd like to see you do a little graphic flow from how -- the progression of where we were, because I think they had one returning NCAA qualifier here before.

So Zahid and Anthony who came from a program that liked to build, because there was only about five or six of those Bosco kids running around, but they were all really good, Cade and the group.

So they believed. And I think that when they believed that gave Tanner Hall, Josh Shields, Josh Maruca, the place in their minds where they're saying, okay, we want to be part of building something too.

And once we got that ball rolling, then the ball rolled. Then we were in a place where it got easier. But Zahid is a tremendous, as we all know, a world-class athlete who got the gift. And he's been blessed. And he's training his gift. You just can't have it; you've got to train it.

And he's been a true leader in the room, outside the room, in the wrestling community, in the Arizona community and we've been really fortunate to have that happen to us and for them to be highly successful and it started with Zahid and Anthony being those believers.

THE MODERATOR: Thank you.

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