2022 NCAA WRESTLING CHAMPIONSHIP

March 18, 2022

Pat Glory

Media Conference

Q. Pat, you are the first NCAA finalists in the Chris Aryes, Aryes at Princeton. What does it mean to do it for that guy and that guy bleeds orange, man. He is a great guy. What's it mean for you to be his first NCAA finalist?

PAT GLORY: I think we'll have a second one coming up pretty soon, but, I mean, it's amazing. It's kind of a culmination of all that work and all that adversity and sweat, tears, everything that Coach Ayers and the rest of the coaching staff has put into this program.

We have a national champs wall, and right next to it is an All American wall, so every day when we walk into practice, we see what the legacy has been and what the history of our program has been. We're blessed to have the opportunity to kind of add to that and create new thresholds and new stepping stones for this program, and I'm just glad to be a part of it.

Q. You were standing right here. Did you hear Nick's comments. If so, what did you think?

PAT GLORY: I didn't hear anything, the comments. To be honest, I'm just worried about keeping my sweat going at this point, but I don't know, man. I'm just ready to go get that thing tomorrow. It's going to be a fight, and regardless of what he is saying, regardless of what I'm saying right now, you know, that seven minutes or however long it takes in that match is going to dictate who the champ is.

Q. Pat, he just mentioned that you guys are both from New Jersey, that type of thing. Do you have any type of background with him?

PAT GLORY: Yeah. Yeah. We're both Coach Buxton guys. I used to wrestle with Nick when he was maybe a junior in high school when I was seventh or eighth grade. He is not a fun guy to drill with, but it was a mutual respect for guys that come from that area and kind of grew up in that program. We know what each other are about, and it's going to be a fight, and I think that level of mutual respect is going to up the intensity and the technical aspect of the match in general.

Q. Ten days ago you wrestled Vito in the conference finals, and the score was a little bit lopsided from the first time you wrestled. First time looked a lot like this time, a lot of going back and forth in positions. How do you in ten days after taking that type of defeat prepare yourself for the event that you just did?

PAT GLORY: I feel like in a lot of ways you can't. You just have to shake that off and get ready for the next week. My coaches and I are going back to that match and watching it. You know, it wasn't really a lot what he was doing. It just was what I wasn't doing. In the back of my mind it's, like, okay, I have the opportunity to come here and kind of wash that slate clean and just get back to me, right? Doing me. It had nothing to do with him or anything else in that tournament besides where am I? What am I -- what was the difference between how I was wrestling prior to that and what happened in that match, and I was just out of gas. I was a little rusty, or whatever the situation may be. I knew that wasn't going to be the case today.

Q. Just to piggyback off of that, from getting your doors blown off by 13 to a huge win, right, projecting you -- propelling you into the NCAA finals. What does it say about the coaching staff?

PAT GLORY: It says everything. It says everything about our technical, what we think about going into matches, our mental status and just everything. You know, it's a culmination of losing weight, of what we're thinking about going into the matches, what our strategy is. You know, what we're thinking about prior to the match going in that is going to set us up for success.

Props to Coach Ayers, Coach Grey, Coach Dubuque, and Coach Jackson. I wouldn't be sitting in this seat without those guys. It's a blessing to be a part of their program, and just kind of help them and help myself reach new goals.

Q. Pat, what happened in that flurry when you got the four-point near fall? Some people thought he almost got the points there. What happened there?

PAT GLORY: I was still on top. I had my high cross on the left side. He had my ankle hooked, but that's not two. It's not a reversal. I knew I was still on top. I just wanted to expose him. I kind of rolled through to get some kind of exposure. I think he thought it for himself, so he kind of stayed there, and I looked up at the score, and I was up by four. There was a locked hands call. I'm pretty sure I was locked in the coach. The coaches argued it, and it turned out I was locking hands, it turns out. Six one half, dozen of another. They gave a locked hands call and wasn't able to get out. And at the end of the second period, we just went into this third period trying to still keep scoring.

Q. The video challenge was about the left hands?

PAT GLORY: That was what the challenge was, correct. And I think there was maybe an argument about them going back because the locked hands happened before the reversal. Then I would still be on top, and it would only be 7-3 as opposed to 7-5. The match goes against you sometimes and goes for you sometimes. You just have to wrestle through it.

Q. It was back and forth there. Was that the most critical point in that match when you got that four-pointer? It almost looked like he was going to reverse you too?

PAT GLORY: I would say so. I kind of felt him break a little bit. I kind of felt him moan and groan, and he was surprised, I think, by the call. Regardless of what happened, you have to keep wrestling and just try to keep scoring points. That's it.

Q. One thing I noticed, you got the underhook a couple of times on him. He doesn't like being underhooked and kind of panics a little bit, it looks like. Is that something you were working on coming into this match?

PAT GLORY: Yeah. Listen, we're both going to have game plans. It's the national semifinals, right? That being said, I wanted to stick to what I do best, and that's diversify my attacks. Underhook is one thing. You know, chopping hands away, faking. Just having multiple different ways of scoring, being diverse in my attacks is going to kind of throw them off a little bit. I have a drag. I have a single leg. I have a high crotch. I have front headlock stuff and underhook.

There's a million different ways I can score, and I know that, and showing those things is only going to fluster him even more, so that's what I tried to do, keep diversifying, keep showing different stuff. When I have to slow him down, slow him down, right? Just finding ways for me to be in the driver's seat.

Q. Back to New Jersey a little bit, you and Nick Suriano both from that area coming into this championship, what does it say about New Jersey wrestling, and how would you define New Jersey wrestling?

PAT GLORY: If you make it out of New Jersey wrestling and huge wrestling and make it to this level, you have done the gauntlet, and I think all New Jersey guys kind of know the other ones just from either growing up in the sport, going to the same clubs, going to the same national tournaments, whatever the situation may be. There's always a mutual respect for New Jersey wrestlers. That doesn't change.

You look at the history. I'm sure New Jersey is pushing P.A. and pushing some of the other states for the highest amount of national finalists in the history of our sport, so I was blessed to grow up in that area and have the ability to learn from some of the best wrestlers in the history of our sport. And to be here and to be on this stage, it's really -- it shows how much people have put into me.

You know, this status, right, it's not over yet, and I have one more to get done, but it speaks so much more to everybody around me and the support that I have than to what I can do myself because I couldn't do this by myself.

Q. Do you like the song Glory Days?

PAT GLORY: I'm a big Bruce Springsteen fan. My dad would like that question too. My grandfather owned a sailboat, and it was called the Glory Days, and we just bought a new boat this past year, and we're naming it the Glory Days 2. I think it will be playing in the summertime on the bay down in the Jersey Shore, right?

Q. He is from Jersey, right?

PAT GLORY: He is. Bruce Springsteen is from Jersey. A great story line there too.