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NCAA WRESTLING CHAMPIONSHIPS

March 19, 2011

Quentin Wright

PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA

184-lb. Champion

THE MODERATOR: Joined by Penn State's Quentin Wright, 184-pound champion, No. 9 seed, our lowest seed so far to win a National title. Questions?

Q. Was there any added pressure when your two teammates lost before you tonight?
QUENTIN WRIGHT: A little bit, I'd say, because they came in and they weren't happy, I knew. I didn't watch them. I didn't watch what happened or what went on.
When they came in and they were really upset, I knew that it didn't go good for them. So Coach just took me out of the room and said, Hey, you're on your own, this is your match. Don't feed off of what happened there. Just go out there and do what you can do.

Q. Can you bring me through your season? It's been a roller coaster of a season for you. Can you bring me through your season starting from the Lehigh match, from that first match when Hamlin topped you?
QUENTIN WRIGHT: I'd say really it all started going downhill at that moment. Well, it was going downhill a little bit before that. But in the practice room I just wasn't -- I wasn't enjoying being there. I was a little bit mad at the coaches because I felt like they weren't working with me.
And it was just a lot of things were going on all at once. And then that Lehigh match, whenever he beat me, I really gotta thank him for doing that, because that started a long recovery for the rest of the season.
He was the first piece. And after that moment got really mad and things started to get a little bit worse. I said, Hey, I can turn this around. And so I started -- I started wrestling better after he beat me.
Went and won at the duals that we did, and then I won at the Nittany Lion Open, then I separated my shoulder and it really set me back again. And my attitude was just -- it was bad at that moment.
So it took the whole season for me to -- for the teammates, the coaches and people in the community really help me out and changed my attitude and heal me up. I've got to thank everyone, because they were all there for me the whole time. It's really what brought me up, brought me out of it.

Q. What made you think that the coaches weren't working with you?
QUENTIN WRIGHT: It was just some personal things that was going on where different techniques and what they were doing, I thought, just being a kid, I thought "I could do it better" type thing.
And that attitude really set me back, because the coaches are there to help me reach my goals, and I was really working against them at the time.
And so once I changed my attitude, after I hurt my shoulder and started working with the coaches, everything started to change around. And so a lot of the problem was with me, in my mind, and I just needed people to help coach me out of it at the time.

Q. You were actually recruited by the Sunderland group. Can you talk about the difference, other than these little problems? And when Sanderson arrived, what did you think?
QUENTIN WRIGHT: It was ecstatic. Everybody was ecstatic when Sanderson arrived. I went crazy because he's a legend, grew up watching him.
The Sunderland group, they were okay. I did really well under Mark Perry, especially. He kind of coached me. A lot of credit to the reason why I was a Freshman All-American, because Coach Sunderland brought in Mark Perry and he really helped me out to reach those goals. And then when Cael came, it took the whole program to a new level, to a new set of standards.
Cael brought in a bunch of guys who were going to push us. And Coach Cael, he's there for the long haul. He wants to develop a place where we get them out of high school, develop them into national champions and then they turn into world champions and eventually Olympic champions. He wants to fulfill people's dreams.

Q. Can you talk -- couple things. Number one, your reaction to the team title, how important it is to the team, and then what happened in the wrestling room after the Iowa matches to make you guys turn around like you did?
QUENTIN WRIGHT: You know, Coach Cael was mad after that. I'll tell you that. And I think I was like one of the guys who got the brunt of it because I went out there and I lost 7-2 to Gambrall and they were expecting big things out of me at the time. And I wasn't performing. My mindset wasn't quite there yet.
So after that, we just said, hey, our goals are still the same, we're going to win National titles. And I think everybody personally, we stepped it up because we had a little bit -- we thought -- not that -- not that we thought we were better than we were, but we were that good. But we weren't putting the effort to reach it.
And that's what I would say was the problem. After the Iowa match we realized the effort it was going to take that nobody's going to roll over for you, if you want it, you gotta go take it. And that's how the team as a whole changed, and that's where we are today.

Q. You're saying how upset Frank and David were after their matches. As one of the older guys now, how do you help David out with this devastating loss for him?
QUENTIN WRIGHT: I mean, just be there for him. Just tell him, hey, the sun's going to come up tomorrow, it's not the end of the world, it's just going to sting right now, but it's going to help you in the future and you're just going to be prepared next time for the next championship.
Because I know when I lost my Big Ten title my freshman year it hurt, because I went out there thinking I was going to beat the guy. And Coach Perry didn't talk to me for three days because he thought I was going to beat him, too.
So that's the main thing. You just gotta pick yourself up and move on.

Q. You said earlier about how -- I mean, you guys captured the team title. You said earlier about how this is a team thing, but take a minute and tell us what it feels like individually for you to have your own National title.
QUENTIN WRIGHT: My gosh, I want to cry. Because I've been dreaming, it's what I've been thinking about since I was in elementary going to Ken Chertow's just learning wrestling. He him immortalized the people who won nationals up on his board, and I'm one of them now.
It's a great feeling. Hasn't hit me yet. I just got out of the match. But it's going to get better for a long time.

Q. Do you take a break, or are we going to see you this spring and season? I know you've had a lot of freestyle competition, and you just got off some injuries and things of that sort. But I was curious whether winning this is going to motivate you to do some other things?
QUENTIN WRIGHT: Getting into the Finals motivated me because it fulfilled a spot for the World Team trials. I knew this was one of the qualifiers if you're the two finalist guys in the Nationals. So I was excited about that.
I know I'm going to have to work with the coaches and we're going to make a plan and we'll see what tournaments, what I'm going to do. But I love freestyle and I love throwing people. I don't want to miss too much of it.
THE MODERATOR: Thank you.

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