“2025 NCAA Championship”
Every year I walk away from the NCAA championships in astonishment of how freaking hard the tournament is. This year alone two former national champions didn’t place. An Olympic Gold Medalist lost!
This got me thinking about the numbers and odds that an individual actually achieves the goal of becoming a National Champion or All-American, and the statistics are staggering. In 2024 the total number of boys wrestling in HS was approximately 291,000.
Of those boys .79% will go on to wrestle for one of the 77 DI programs…
.26% will become a starter…
.11% will qualify for the NCAA tournament…
.03% will become an All-American…
.003% will become a National Champion.
I know people like Jordan Bryan ‘15 (Stanford wrestler & Phd in statistics at Duke) and some others in the Stanford “Nerd Nation”are questioning my methodology and looking to poke holes in my statistical analysis, but I’m simply trying to drive home a point…the NCAA national tournament is incredibly hard.
Just to qualify is an incredible feat.
While as a coach I had the expectation that we would place higher and bring home more hardware, I have enough perspective to understand the unforgiving nature of the NCAA tournament, and placing in the top 20 again (18th) with two All-Americans is something we can all be incredibly proud of. Certainly it could have been better, but it could have been worse.
The better vs worse of a season is generally determined in the bloodround (win you’re an All-American, lose and you’re not) and we had two wrestlers fighting for a spot on the podium, Tyler Knox (133) and Hunter Garvin (165)..
For the coaches this round is extremely difficult, so during this round I sometimes find myself making “deals” that go something like this: “Dear God, I know I haven’t spoken with you since the last NCAA’s and I’m sorry for that. But if you could find it in your heart to help Tyler get this win and allow Stanford to have an All-American, I promise I’ll do better next year and won’t ask for another favor for quite awhile.”
Tyler’s match was particularly stressful because just months prior at the Cliff Keen Invite he lost to his opponent, Nic Bouzakis of Ohio State, by a score of 17-7. The pressure was on, but Tyler put on a masterful display of composure and pulled out the victory 5-0. Tyler wrestled a great tournament, and I’m so happy he was able to find his place on the podium. He has been amazing all year and is a model for the team in relation to doing the right things all the time. He is a big 133 and lives an incredibly disciplined lifestyle. Simply put, wrestling is extremely important to him and all the small decisions he made in his day to day activities leading up to the championship allowed him to reach this milestone.
Tyler’s win ensured that Stanford would once again have an All-American for the Cardinal, bringing a streak of 5 straight seasons that Stanford would bring at least one trophy back to the farm. The longest streak for the Cardinal prior was the four seasons 1983-1986 when Doug Perkins, Jeff Wilson, Scott Wiggins and Dave Lee placed in each respective year.
Once Tyler won I was faced with a dilemma because Hunter Garvin was coming up as our second wrestler in the blood round and I wasn’t sure if I could ask for any more favors, but I decided that I couldn’t be biased to one athlete over another and went for it:
“Ok, I know I may have already used up all my asks for the year, but Hunter Garvin is a really, really good individual, and if you could help him perform to his ability, it would be greatly appreciated.”
Hunter was facing the 5th seed Julian Ramirez in the bloodround; a wrestler who he lost to by technical fall (18-1) in the 2023 Cliff Keen Invitational. Hunter started the match on fire, scoring a takedown in the first, and quickly scoring an escape and a takedown at the beginning of the second. It looked as though Hunter was controlling the match and then disaster struck.
Hunter was in a 50/50 upper body position towards the end of the second and let’s just say he didn’t end up on top. In an instant Hunter went from having a commanding lead, to being down 9-7.
Now to provide some personal context, I’m not in Hunter’s corner so I’m in the underbelly of the arena because only the two coaches with the athlete are permitted on the floor. There are four entrances to the arena and in each of those areas there is one television that displays all the matches on one screen. As one can imagine, it is quite a scene as all the coaches who can’t be on the floor try to watch the little box of their wrestlers match. Coaches are moving around as if they are wrestling the match, screaming at the screen, and pretty much acting like crazy people as their wrestler competes.
I was not immune to this insanity. When Hunter landed on his back, I just couldn’t take it any more and basically exited the area in fear he would give up the pin…I just couldn’t watch on the small little screen. As I was away from the action, it dawned on me this could be a good thing if he fought off his back.
Throughout the tournament, and quite frankly throughout the season, in the tough matches with two really good opponents, if someone got a lead and started to “hang on” to that lead late in the match, they almost always lost the match. I thought about Hunter’s match with Caliendo in Iowa where he was up by quite a lot, but ended up losing 17-12 as he tried to “hang on” to the points he scored earlier in the match.
Hoping he didn’t get pinned I ran back to the televisions to see if the match was still going on and it was! Turns out Hunter was only down by two, which was perfect, because he would have to keep wrestling in third and he wouldn’t be hanging on. Hunter picked up the pace in third, scored three takedowns and won the match 16-12.
It was a great moment for Hunter and the program. Hunter would go on to win another match before losing his last two to finish 6th in the country, to become the 7th Stanford wrestler to become a multiple time All-American. Hunter knows how to compete in the biggest of moments, and it was incredible to witness him achieving All-American accolades for a second time!
Beyond our two All-Americans, we had six more wrestlers in the tournament. True Freshman, Grigor Cholakyan dropped his first match to the #6 seed Ryder Downey, and then faced a tough match in the consolations to returning All-American, Ed Scott. Although he didn’t pick up a win, he was one of only 9 true freshmen to qualify for the tournament and the experience will be important as Grigor moves through his career.
Redshirt freshman Lorenzo Norman had a dominating first round match picking up a major vs the Chattanooga wrestler before meeting #1 seed and muti-time National Champion Keegan O’toole. I’m not sure how often Keegan O’Toole has been taken down multiple times in a single match during his career, but I’m certain it hasn’t been many. Lorenzo did just that, scoring two takedowns that earned a 6-3 lead going into the third. Lorenzo extended the lead with an escape and was holding off Keegan until the last minute of the match where he gave up two takedowns. It was a heartbreaking defeat.
Lorenzo wasn’t able to get a spot on the podium, but he had an amazing season with a ton of signs that he is on the path to a national championship. We know where we need to work and with this experience under his belt I’m certain he will enter next year with a desire to get to the top of the podium that will carry him to a great season and NCAA tournament.
And then there were the seniors.
This is going to be hard to write about.
The beauty and brutality of a college wrestling career lives with the seniors. On one hand it is a beautiful journey they have been on as they entered Stanford as boys and will leave transformed; young men ready to take on life’s next adventure. The adversity and lessons of the sport allowed them to grow at a deeper level, giving them tools that other students at Stanford couldn’t possibly gain by taking the more traditional non-athletic path.
On the other hand it is a brutal journey. As Coach Hidlay mentioned to me at one point at the NCAA’s, “there is scar tissue with this tournament.” After all the hard work and adversity, none of the seniors achieved what they set out to accomplish when they entered the farm as freshman. Unfortunately, isn’t this how the story ends for nearly every athlete who embarks on their journey in wrestling (see flawed statistics at the start of this newsletter for support)?
But, can there be a silver lining? Those that don’t get what they want are forced to reflect a little deeper about the experience and, from my experience, most who stay connected to the sport begin to realize it was all the other “stuff” that made the experience special.
The relationships. The crazy trips all over the country. The dual meet wins. The dual meet loses. The dumb stuff they did. The dumb things their teammates did. The coaches they loved. The coaches they didn’t get along with. The brutal practices. The lessons learned. The list could go on and on.
At the end of the day “National Champion” or “All-American” next to a name doesn’t define the experience.
Jaden Abas, Peter Ming, Jason Miranda, and Nick Stemmett have been the absolute ROCK of this program and are some of the best leaders of any team I have ever been associated with. They care about everyone in and around the program to a level that makes a coach proud. Only one of them walks away with “All-American” next to their name, but that doesn’t define this group. Their impact on the organization will be felt for years to come and their legacy will live on because they cared beyond their individual achievements.
In the current climate of college athletics, with athletes jumping schools when things don’t go their way; these four stuck it out together, and followed through on their commitment to each other and the program. They showed loyalty to each other and the program; a character trait in short supply these days.
They will be greatly missed, but I’m hopeful, somewhere in the youth of our program, some of their teammates learned the valuable lessons they were giving, and will emerge to take their place. They have some huge shoes to fill (literally and figuratively as Nick is a size 15), but there are signs in the ranks that this changing of the guard could be a seamless one.
As a team we finished in the top 20 for the second year in a row and the 10th time in program history. This is a sign we are headed in the right direction, but we have a lot of work to do. Stanford athletics is the “Home of Champions,” owning more National Championships than any other department in the history of college athletics, so there are signs all around us that wrestling can do the same.
The reality is, with 21 points, we were 60 points from a trophy, and 156 points from the title, so we have to figure out how to make up that large difference. I firmly believe we are approaching a “tipping point” with the program, and while the typical activities one would associate with coaching a program (training, recruiting, fundraising, etc) will help to push us to the next level, the power of a strong “community” around the program will be the primary driving factor that allows Stanford Wrestling to win a trophy at the NCAA Championships. As we move up the ranks, join us, be a part of the Stanford Wrestling Story.
Results
133 – (13) Tyler Knox, 4-2
dec. (20) Blake Boarman (Chattanooga), 6-3 (SV)
lost to (4) Zeth Romney (Cal Poly), 4-2
maj. dec. (30) Derrick Cardinal (South Dakota State), 9-0
dec. (22) Tyler Wells (Minnesota), 1-0
dec. (7) Nic Bouzakis (Ohio State), 5-0
lost to (6) Connor McGonagle (Virginia Tech), 1-0
141 – (24) Jason Miranda, 1-2
lost to (9) Jacob Frost (Iowa State), 16-1 (6:29)
dec. (25) AJ Rallo (Bellarmine), 4-1
lost to (7) Tagen Jamison (Oklahoma State), F5:46
149 – (17) Jaden Abas, 1-2
dec. (16) Trae McDaniel (Army), 11-7
lost to (1) Caleb Henson (Virginia Tech), 5-1
lost to (18) Ethan Fernandez (Cornell), F1:21
157 – (27) Grigor Cholakyan, 0-2
lost to (6) Ryder Downey (Northern Iowa), 12-1
lost to (22) Ed Scott (NC State), 19-3 (6:08)
165 – (7) Hunter Garvin, 4-1
dec. (26) Paddy Gallagher (Ohio State), 7-2
maj. dec. (10) Andrew Sparks (Minnesota), 14-4
lost to (2) Peyton Hall (West Virginia), 6-5
dec. (5) Julian Ramirez (Cornell), 16-12
dec. (9) Cam Steed (Missouri), 4-0
174 – (16) Lorenzo Norman, 1-2
maj. dec. (17) Sergio Desiante (Chattanooga), 14-3
lost to (1) Keegan O’Toole (Missouri), 10-8
lost to (15) Luca Augustine (Pittsburgh), 4-3
