The Vision Quest Podcast
A podcast about life, sports, and life in sports! Enjoy!
The Vision Quest Podcast
#112 Singlets, Saunas, and Nose Breaks: Dean Peterson's Tale!
What motivates a successful college wrestler to leave their home state program for a new opportunity in their final year? Dean Peterson pulls back the curtain on this profound decision while sharing the complete arc of his wrestling journey.
From backyard wiffle ball games with his brother to competing in packed Big Ten arenas, Peterson's path reveals the sacrifices, challenges, and triumphs that shape elite wrestlers. His early wrestling start at just four years old planted the seeds for what would become a lifelong passion—one that had him declaring Olympic dreams before he'd even started elementary school.
Peterson offers rare insights into the unique wrestling culture of New Jersey, where competition is fierce and sometimes ruthlessly territorial. His high school years required extraordinary commitment, including daily hour-long commutes each way to train with elite coaches. Unlike many peers who pursued extreme weight management strategies, Peterson embraced a more sustainable approach that protected his long-term development—a philosophy influenced partly by a chance encounter with Olympic champion Jordan Burroughs.
The conversation shifts to his collegiate experience at Rutgers, where injuries and illness complicated his redshirt year before he established himself as a formidable competitor. Peterson candidly discusses the realities of competing while sick, the politics of college wrestling, and the complex factors that ultimately led to his transfer to the University of Iowa for his final season. His forensic psychology studies and aspirations to continue into international freestyle wrestling add fascinating dimensions to his athletic journey.
Whether you're a wrestling parent, athlete, or fan, Peterson's authentic perspective on navigating the sport's physical and mental challenges will resonate deeply. His story captures the essence of what makes wrestling simultaneously so demanding and rewarding—the constant pursuit of growth through adversity.
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Speaker 3:Just ended abruptly because I want to get to the.
Speaker 2:I want to cut to the chase man. This is another episode of vision quest podcast, and I am joined by none other than dean peterson of the ruckers. Right now, right now, ruckers right now soon to be hawkeye right? Uh, exciting news, so congratulations on that. Not an easy decision to make. Um, I respect it. It is what it is. Um, how are things going for you? How's your easter?
Speaker 3:uh, easter's been pretty good. I got to take some photos with my girlfriend, my little brother and I don't know if you saw my instagram story. I had this nice anime store that I was posted up with so yeah, I was having some fun. I won't lie, it's been a fun easter it's awesome.
Speaker 2:That's awesome. See your home. Are you at home, like parents home?
Speaker 3:yeah, I'm at my home for easter. Right now, obviously, my mom's cooking up easter dinner as we speak, so nice, nice.
Speaker 2:Well, we won't hold you back too long then, because you got to get into that dinner, man, let's I am, I am hungry.
Speaker 3:I won't lie, I can eat too, I can eat.
Speaker 2:What is it? What is the ham she making?
Speaker 3:it's italian stuff.
Speaker 2:She's got some penny vodka, some meatballs going to a lot of pasta, a lot of good stuff a lot of good stuff, yeah we just had, uh, my wife's sicilian, we just had her, uh, dad's 85th, my father-in-law's 85th birthday up north, as well as Easter. So we had pulled pork, we had porchetta, I mean, we had all kinds of crazy just meats going on everywhere. It's always awesome going up north there because there's porchetta and then there's pasties. I don't know if you guys know pasties.
Speaker 3:I know what you're talking about. Yeah, so both sides of my family, they're both from Sicily, so they came over on the boats in like the early 1900s and stuff, whatever so you know Ellis Island and all that so.
Speaker 2:I get it.
Speaker 3:I get it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so they actually went up the Canada way. They went up through Canada and they came down through like the upper Michigan area. So that's why they wound up in the frozen tundra way.
Speaker 3:You don't hear about that too often.
Speaker 2:You hear about that too often. You hear about them coming to the east coast and that's kind of where you know, like new york city and all them. So I don't know if they, I don't know if it was just somewhere there, that it was just like a little detour, but they just thought canada was a little nicer that time of year I guess they came across. But but, dean, thank you, thank you again for joining us. It's, it's been kind of a wild ride for you. But I want to start out kind of talking about, uh, where you came from, how you started. You know like where, what kind of what was one of the first sports you ever played that you remember, like just in the yard or anything like that I've always been in love with like baseball, honestly like a lot like everyone like used to play football, whatever, but me and my little brother would always play wiffle ball and we'd go at each other and this one time I'll even tell you it.
Speaker 3:you, it was a funny story. I struck him out on like three pitches and he threw the wiffle ball at my face and I've got a scar somewhere on here that you can see it. But you know, we had so much fun we probably played it for like we still play it today. We go out backyard, play some wiffle ball, have some fun. So that's kind of where my love for baseball started baseball when I was younger. At the same I, at the same time I started boxing at the same time.
Speaker 2:I started wrestling when I was like four, so, okay, okay, we had a couple other guests that had done boxing as well, which I find interesting because it's it's a more of a light-footed sport, right, you gotta, you gotta be good with your footwork, so that's interesting, I like that. So baseball, not not different. I was a baseball guy. I played soccer, I played baseball, I played golf. I mean, I did a bunch of stuff, did you? Did you find yourself like thinking I'm gonna be an mlb baseball player someday, you know, especially with as good as you were with a wiffle ball? You?
Speaker 3:know, I was actually really good at baseball too, because I was on like one of the top travel teams or whatever and I was like 10 or 11 years old at that point. I'd been playing it for like you know, five, six years at that point. But what I would do is I would only show up for the games because I'd rather go to wrestling practice. And the team didn't like that very much. So I just told him you know what I don't feel like sitting in the dugout, I'm gonna go just wrestle. And they were like okay, we get it, we get it, yeah, yeah and that's.
Speaker 2:That's that same thing. Same thing for liam. He wanted to do soccer, he was trying it, trying it, but he missed wrestling practice. He didn't want to miss wrestling practice. So he's like, yeah, no, I'd rather be there. So that's cool, all right. So we know now that wrestling kind of bleeds into the baseball a little bit. We start to kind of see the, the wrestling light. Where, where did wrestling start for you?
Speaker 3:uh, so my dad was running a rec practice over at the high school and when I was like four years old, so they got me. They got me with all the other, I think. At the time I weighed like 35 pounds. I was super small, so they put me with all the other four-year-olds.
Speaker 3:I've told this story a million times yeah, I was beating up on all the four-year-olds, so like you know what, we're gonna go push you with the six-year-olds, and I got my butt kicked so I was crying. I'm like, ah, it's like my dad and I got in the car. I'm like, ah, ah, so like my dad and I got in the car, I'm like I can't, I need to go back and I need to beat those kids, and that's kind of where I fell in love with it. I'm like, because I've been competitive since I was little, I'm like I need to go back and I need to beat those kids. I need to get on the mat again.
Speaker 3:Get better, beat those kids.
Speaker 2:So that's kind of good. We'll put them in something a little better than just a rec league.
Speaker 3:So my first year was basically rec and at the time I lived in Barnegat and Southern was a town over and they let me wrestle for the Southern team. And then, after I beat two kids up, they I got kicked off the team because they found out I lived in barnagate.
Speaker 3:someone someone wrote to the place and was like he doesn't even live in southern and like southern is 10 minutes down the road so then, I got kicked out of rec or whatever, and then I was gonna go to the state tournament like the new jersey youth state tournament my first year, and someone convinced my dad not to send me, so then I went a year later when I was like five or six years old and I ended up winning it the first time. I was there like 40 pounds, 45 pounds so so I don't.
Speaker 2:I guess that because we all know that wrestling fans get crazy, but it's crazier out on the east coast, right and and there's different levels of crazy there we're certainly kind of noticing, as with college wrestling right now there are some, some crazy dads, especially in New Jersey.
Speaker 3:I mean, even you saw Jordan Burroughs tweeting about it earlier this year because he was at the New Jersey State Tournament with his boys and they were like giving him stuff about it because he lives in PA. I'm like it's like a six-year-old kid Let him wrestle, what's the problem? Who cares? Actually, Like it's six years old, but these like dads get so upset and worked up about it for no reason.
Speaker 2:I don't get it. Yeah well, they're all gonna be olympic champions someday. You know like everyone's gonna be on the podium at the olympics and that's the. That's the problem. And I'll be honest with you, I got caught up in that a little bit. You know like you get you're taking pride in because I was, you know, a little bit of a coach at one point, and take pride in what he's doing. But then you're like, well, I really want him to do this. He gets sucked into that position. It's like, man, you gotta step away. And that's that's why we found good coaches, all that stuff. You don't have to worry about it, it's easy. Parents, you can literally send your kids into a wrestling room and just walk away yeah, you don't have to watch the entire practice, they'll be all right, I mean like my dad was.
Speaker 3:My dad was very involved too the beginning, but he learned to take a step back and everything. Especially once I got to high school college, he took a step back and he's like, yep, just let him be. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:That's right. That's right. It's an intense sport already, right, like, and your kids go into the most intense part. It's intense for us parents too, don't get me wrong it. Sometimes you gotta leave it off the kids. Now, what was that? Was that kind of a feel for you? Like, when you were younger, was your dad a little and like intense like I was like I never went overboard with liam where I like braided him on the mat. I think I got upset one time when I slammed my hand on the mat and then my wife kind of told me she's like you gotta stop doing that. I was like she showed me. I was like, yes, I gotta stop doing that definitely like a little bit like at the beginning.
Speaker 3:But you know, I I kind of like as a kid I was like you know what, just let me wrestle. You know, I've got to say the same thing. My entire life is like just let me wrestle. Like even when I got to college I told the coaches like look, I just want to worry about wrestling, I want to worry about nothing else, I just want to wrestle you know what I mean, that's always been my biggest thing of like your, I guess like your first tournaments as as a kid I mean, it's hard to out east.
Speaker 2:It's not like you. You could go into a basic wrestling room where we would look at and be like, oh well, look at all the beginner kids. But you go in there and out on the east coast it's like holy cow, there's these kids.
Speaker 3:No technique already that, trust me, it was. There was always good kids and there was always new kids popping up you know what?
Speaker 3:I mean it like the competition was always deep at the state tournaments. Like I never was a pinner, I was never like a guy that just ran through the tournament. I would have tough bouts from like the quarterfinals on in like the youth state tournaments. Like it would be an 8-0 match, like a 6-1 match, 5-4 they'd all be close-ish you know what I mean like I was winning them and I was doing good, but it was always a dog fight. It's always a dogfight in Jersey.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah for sure. I find it a little interesting sometimes, especially with the level, and you see some of the growth as guys come out of high school and they get into college. But like seeing the level of some of these guys even now, and not even just East Coast, I mean kind of all across the country. But levels have changed right. Tournaments when I was a kid there were bullpens right there and you stood in line with steve macko talks about a little bit. You call them this bullpen. You're talking to the dude that you're gonna wrestle for the next like six minutes or five minutes on the mat. You're like, hey man, how's it going? What neighborhood you from? You're like, oh cool, let's, let's play. You know legos, when we're done here, yeah, and now it's so intense that even when you go to a normal kids tournament that it's that, it's a little, it's a it gets a little heated. But what was it like for you? Kind of and like did you have a group of friends that also joined into wrestling? Did you find out? Find out your?
Speaker 3:oh man, jimmy's doing this too, or whatever you know, I ended up falling into, like the group that was actually up north, because there was a really, really good club in jersey called scorpions. I don't know if you know that yes, yeah so that's who I ended up wrestling for now who I don't know. So would you know, joey oliveri, who's that? Right, yes, joey oliveri, anthony clark, who's at princeton?
Speaker 1:you know, there's gerard angelo, nikki ramo, a lot of those guys that went to went to scorpions will guido who's at like unc now oh, that's right, yeah, yeah, there's a look, there was a bunch of a bunch of guys like dylan sudanios who's at virginia now yes, yes, yeah but, uh, I grew up wrestling him a lot.
Speaker 3:We ended up having like a triple overtime match at the state finals and I don't even know what years, but it was. It was a he, me and him had some battles. He awesome, me and him probably wrestled like in a span of like two months, probably like four or five times. It was insane. And yeah, it was insane, we'd wrestle each other all the time but, no, that's kind of the group that I fell into.
Speaker 3:So it was kind of kind of like a nice moment, especially like when I got to ruckers and then joey was already committed there and there were a couple other guys on the team that I'd a lot. It's a lot of jersey kids, so it was kids I grew up wrestling with.
Speaker 2:So yeah, when you got, when you because it sounds like obviously you're running you know in a in a nice, you know in a good club, you got good partners, things like that when, when you were little were you kind of already by little I mean like 10 you- know 11 almost middle school, but like still a little kid. Were you dreaming about wrestling in college already?
Speaker 3:When I was literally when I before that, when I was six years old there's a video of me talk, because I used to go and run at my high school track all the time when I was little. That's one of the workouts that my dad would put me through. He's like you're going to run bleachers and you're going to run on the track because I want you to have strong legs. So, um, I think there's a video of me saying I want to be a four-time ncaa and ncaa champion, like six years old, and I'm like I want to dominate, I want to kill people. I'm like watching it back.
Speaker 3:It's so funny. I'm like I love this it's. It's just one of those videos I like to go back and re-watch sometimes.
Speaker 2:So yeah, yeah no and so that's kind of interesting too, because, like I mean different levels. So I we talked to uh, you know, some people that come from Georgia. We talked to some people that come from, like, north Dakota, and it's different, right, and again, the sauce is a little thicker when it comes to wrestling out on the East coast. So just just kind of curious as to when these guys get these dreams in their head. Cool kind of area.
Speaker 3:You were six yeah, no, I was little. I've had that same dream. I'm I basically. It's been my my whole life. For the for the most part, everything not everything revolves around wrestling for me, but that's how I basically. It built me into who I am. That's, yeah, you know, the sport built me into who I am as a person so we talked a little bit about your dad.
Speaker 2:How was your mom with wrestling? Some moms didn't like the fact that their kids are in wrestling she wasn't.
Speaker 3:She just wasn't very involved and she didn't mind me getting beat up and coming home with whatever. You know what I mean. She was like you know he's, he's good at it, I like watching it sometimes, but you know she doesn't like watching it too much because she, you know she gets a little bit. She's like oh, no, no, no, no. She's like that's where my knee is getting tweaked and she's like no, no, I no, I can't. I'm like looks away, she can't watch that.
Speaker 2:So does she go to events like big events? Does she ever? Is there a head in the hands?
Speaker 3:Yeah, she came to a lot more events recently. She's actually in the background when I pin Richie Figueroa. From some of the angles you can see her like jumping up and down and like grabbing my little sister and she's like that like during when I got taken down, like two seconds before that she's like yeah. I'm listening. That's the same thing.
Speaker 2:She just takes special pens, like she gets nervous. Wow. And I don't blame her, I mean because I'm just as worked up, as intense sometimes. But she gets to the point where she gets so worked up she can't. She has to pace, she's got to pace.
Speaker 3:She's got to walk around. I'm there with her too. We put on like 20 000 steps each tournament. You know like it's crazy. My dad would always make the joke that we should bring like a portable defibrillator for his chest, for like if his heart stops she's like shock him, get him back up I get it, though I get it it's it's.
Speaker 2:It's tough, especially, like you said, when your mom sees you, your leg getting tweaked in a certain direction, and you're like, oh my God, you just don't want to see you get hurt. But at the same time, though, too, you're like, oh, he's going to do it, he's going to do it. And then, dude, that pin was awesome. We're going to talk about that in a little bit. That was sick. But as you're kind of going through the years, then Real and big, but I mean like a Super 32 or Tulsa Nationals, what was the first big tournament you remember?
Speaker 3:The first one that I probably remember was winning the Kickoff Classic right before, because I ended up winning the Trinity that year. But I had been to the Kickoff Classic before and I kind of ran through it. I went to Tulsa Nationals, took second and I went to Reno when I was like eight and I won it. So I had won the beginning in the last tournament but I'd never won the one in the middle. So when I won, went to tulsa nationals I actually beat.
Speaker 3:I'm trying to think of who it was because he was a hawkeye oh boy no, you know what me and it was for it might have been during the thing. It was shriver, I think oh yeah, I don't know who I beat in the finals. Yeah, you know who I beat the finals. He's that rider now.
Speaker 3:He was at cal baptist was eli griffin oh really in the tulsa nationals to win my like before I won the trinity that year. But that was probably the first tournament because I know you were talking about earlier how mako used to talk to the whatever talking to people in the line or whatever. But at Tulsa Nationals you do, You're like in the line with the kids before you wrestle them. And.
Speaker 3:Eli Griffin was like talking smack to me before we wrestled and I'm like that was the first time I had dealt with anything like that. I'm like dude. I'm like 10 years old. I'm like I don't even know what to say. I'm like I'll beat you.
Speaker 1:Oh God, it was not funny though. I'm like OK, what do you want me to do?
Speaker 3:I'm ready to wrestle and he's like like getting him. He's like you know, I'm going to beat you, I'm going to, I'm like dude.
Speaker 2:So they eat glass and stuff. He's biting on nails. He's like flexing.
Speaker 3:He's like look, I beat you. That's awesome.
Speaker 2:Hey, more power to him. Right, he was ready to bring it, but you said you beat him.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I ended up beating him 6-1. It was a good match.
Speaker 2:It was a good match, it was close At the time.
Speaker 3:I mean we were both really good kids, yeah, yeah yeah, he gave him a toss-all.
Speaker 2:He gave you a toss-all, that's good. Well, telling you about some of liam stuff, you know all that other, you know stuff that he's done recently or whatever and you're like, well, I haven't done that. Like liam's never won a tulsa national as a kid. And see, now this is where you see some of that part of that parent shining through like that, does that shit really matter? It doesn't matter. But like, at the same point you're like man, it would have. Would have been cool as a dad to have his kid win at the time it feels like the biggest thing in the world.
Speaker 3:But like after like, a couple months later, you're like what's next? You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:Like what's next yes, and we're going to talk about that because that happens even when you're in high school, because after you win a state title, about a week later nobody gives a shit anymore. I don't care if you want to stay, that is literally like it's the toughest.
Speaker 3:I think mentally it's one of the tougher, tougher times, like after, right after states, after you win a state title. It's like yeah what am I going to do now? What do I? Do now. So came off this huge high and it's like everybody's like, yeah, whatever it's next week and now like I heard my name on the school announcements and now everyone in the school is not gonna know who I am the week later walking through the hall there.
Speaker 2:Everybody knows, nobody knows who I am, nobody. Okay, nobody knows who I am, that's fine, it's fine.
Speaker 3:No big deal, it's not a big deal so when?
Speaker 2:when you were, uh, what area did you live in for high school?
Speaker 3:I still lived in barnagin. I've basically been in barnagin my whole life, but I asked to go to southern for high school and the coach at the time basically told me he didn't want me to go there. So I was like okay, cool, and my brother, my older brother, who also wrestled a little bit, was up at saint john vianney up in Holmdel, which is where Knox is at right now.
Speaker 3:So, they had never had a state champ. They weren't good at wrestling, but they brought in one of the legendary coaches from the 90s which is like one of my best friends now was Tony Caravella and Denny D'Andrea. Obviously, denny ended up passing a couple months ago, which is pretty sad, but that's kind of where I wrestled. I wrestled for four years. I didn't even get to wrestle four years. I didn't wrestle my senior year, high school, but that's where I wrestled in high school and I would drive up every morning about an hour to school.
Speaker 3:So oh my god yeah, yeah, it was a journey, it was a, it was so was that?
Speaker 2:was that sacrifice for wrestling? Was that to okay, that was this okay? So because we get around here, we get this uh stigma of people like that's way too much, you're doing way too much. You know, in some, in some eyes, it might be right. In someone, someone's field of view, it could be. But when you see something in your kid and this could be soccer, this could be lacrosse, could be badminton, I don't care if they're. If they're, if there's someone that could do something really well, you try to advance that Right. And it sounds like that's what your parents kind of understood, because otherwise they're the ones that make that decision ultimately.
Speaker 3:Right, yeah, I mean like hearing from six years old that I wanted to be a national champ. They just want to give me every opportunity to be where I wanted to be and get where I wanted to get to.
Speaker 2:Right, Right. So, and sometimes, yes, we can be crazy as parents when we do that stuff, but it's that view right there, that when, when we see that our kid has that vision as a, as a child, you're like do you think they had that vision? I think they did, and we're just trying to facilitate it a little bit for them. So that's cool that that they were able to. To make that happen, we moved I mean, we literally moved from one town to another so that way he could be on, you know, a really good team. When you wound up doing that, did you find any difficulties as far as where you led versus where you're going to school and like friends, things like that? Did you find that you were hanging out up by school longer and then maybe stayed at a friend's house?
Speaker 3:The days were definitely longer, but I would. I didn't stay up there a lot, I they were, I was. I didn't have any trouble making friends with the kids up there, which I still talk to the kids that were in my homeroom till this day like they were like when I pinned richie figs, everyone was like all right, dean, we got it, we saw, everyone saw it. What happened?
Speaker 3:they was like give us like the tea of it, to give us the rundown yeah but what it definitely like at first, like in the first year, like my freshman year of high school, was definitely difficult, cause I'm getting home at like seven or eight o'clock at night after wrestling practice and I'm just like I'm dead tired and they're like Dean, get up, get upstairs and shower and I'm like falling asleep on the couch downstairs trying to get. I can't even crawl, I'm like crawling up the stairs, I'm exhausted. So that was one of the times that it was. It was a little bit difficult, but I want to say that I didn't even not that I didn't have a choice to go to my high school, like Barnegat High School, but the year before I went into high school the coach ended up getting arrested for some pretty bad stuff.
Speaker 3:So, I was just trying to stay away from it as much as possible.
Speaker 2:And I read an article. It was another school. I read an article about another coach that was doing some not-so-safery stuff over in Jersey.
Speaker 2:But you know, and he actually had like mob ties, I think it was, I was reading an article about that, where there's a lot of some of that in jersey for sure. I'm not gonna say it was I can't remember what school, so I didn't want to tie the two together, but it's like it's kind of, I know this shit happens, but it happens over here too. It's no, no, uh, no surprise. But when, when you started getting into, like I would say, middle school things like, things like that were, you did you have like big growth jumps, like from your seventh grade to eighth grade year?
Speaker 3:I think the biggest jump I ever had, because I think my first year of middle school, in sixth grade, I was like 65. And then I went like 90 or like 85. And then my last year I think, I was like a hundred pounds. So I was, I was just on track to basically be a one oh six pounder when I got to high school. So I didn't have, I didn't have to like reclass, I didn't have to take an extra year or whatever. I didn't have to get homeschooled. Because that's one of the big things in Jersey is kids will like take a year or two before they get to high school and they'll reclass. And then they're a little bit older, which got I not that I don't respect it, but I wasn't a big fan of it personally yeah, yeah, and I'm not.
Speaker 2:So I'm not either. I'm not a huge fan. There are reasons. You know, everyone's got the reason for something right, but a lot of times when you look at the competition side, it was like, well, he wouldn't have been big enough by the time he was a freshman. So get him on some weights, you know. Make him eat some more protein, exactly. You know, have liam, the one thing we never did with liam. I'd never say this stuff ever to like pat myself on the back, or even, you know, christina, but I just never saw the advantage of constantly cutting right, especially as kids. You know, when they're kids, you're stunning growth. We see the result of it.
Speaker 2:Some, you know some, and some kids in the state here, um, it is what it is. Some kids, you know some certain competitions, we cut a couple pounds, but we always wrestled up a weight, you weight. Sometimes he wrestled up a weight and he wrestled up an age group. He was 12. It's funny. I ask you this because Liam went in from his 7th grade year into his 8th grade no, 6th grade into 7th grade year, and he was from 90 pounds to 125 pounds. While it's COVID, these kids are sitting around doing nothing, like you got your headset on and everything, so he's just playing video games. So it is what it is.
Speaker 2:But then I told him he was 12 and I was like you're going into 15, you 125 pound, you know weight class, he goes okay. And I took he got smoked, like I didn't take him there to win. I was like this is what's gonna happen, this is what you're running into, so that way you're ready and we always did that. Now I again. If you, if you think your kid's bull Bassett and you think he's going to win four natties, hey, you do it. You do you boo, you do what you gotta do right.
Speaker 3:You do what you gotta do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you do what you gotta do. But any other guy on on any other kid grow, you know, let him, let him wrestle and have fun with it. And it's easier said than done when and because, again, I've been in that weird position. But how did your parents deal with the like your? What was your dad's view on the weight cutting thing?
Speaker 3:I have the perfect story for this. So when I was around I I couldn't tell you how old I was. We were at a camp for jordan burroughs and his driver did not show up and he lives in Jersey. So my dad was like we're going back there, We'll drive him back. So me and him sat in the back seat and watched family guy for like four or five hours.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, four or five hours Just watching family guy and at the time he was writing like an article about how kids shouldn't cut weight. Oh really, I rubbed off on my dad. So he was like, dean, I don't really want you cutting too much weight. So I cut, I cut a little bit. I would say I cut most of my weight eighth grade, in my freshman year of high school, but after that I wasn't cutting a ton of weight. I never cut. I never cut what some of these kids got. I never cut more than 15 pounds. That never, never, even, never even a thought. The most I cut, probably in high school, was to make 106. And that was a struggle. It was probably like 11, 12 pounds and that was for me that was a lot.
Speaker 3:But even once I got to college I don't cut too much. You know what I mean. Like right now I'm walking around like 131, 132.
Speaker 2:That's awesome, yeah, that's awesome, yeah, yeah, and I'm a big proponent of that. I love that, and and and again. I'm not here to bag on parents, but some of y'all need to calm down with the whole way cutting with your kids, cause it's not really worth it.
Speaker 3:And plus, there's no college recruiter that's watching your 10 year old, so yeah, cutting 30, 40 pounds probably isn't the best for your body down the line anyway. You know what?
Speaker 3:I mean, like that's like growing up, even even though, like a lot of kids in Jersey cut a lot of weight, like you'll hear stories about how parents had to like hold these kids up to hop onto the scale, like it was. It was pretty gross, pretty disgusting at times here and that the weight that some of these other kids had to cut cause like I don't want to say I'm a baby when it comes to cutting weight, but like I would like lose like two or three pounds and be like, oh, I had to lose two or three pounds but bounds, but like in the grand scheme of things, I'm not losing anything close to what these kids are cutting right now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no it's nuts, and there's some of the high school guys, there's some high school coaches that have requirements, for these kids are like I need you here, I need you to do this. Like, do you, though? Do you really can you take an l on that spot? Just put the other guy in see what happens if he's not that good kind of thing.
Speaker 3:But high school is the worst time for the kids to be cutting in the first place because, like my junior and senior year, I didn't cut anything like when I was wrestling 2026. I could eat a pack of skittles and down a mountain doing beyond weight you know what I mean and still make weight and I'd be all right but like, even like for the certifications. Like people would like change the numbers, change your height, change your weight, just to like certify them for these weight classes. They didn't need to be yet yeah so yeah, it's it's crazy.
Speaker 2:And I think again, if you're going for something that's highly competitive, a us open or an olympic trial, you know things like that. Yeah, you know, because there's always a number one, there's only so many weight classes, but I get it that, you know you you're trying to make it be competitive, as competitive as possible. But yeah, when it comes to the kid stuff, it's a little crazy. So when you got to high school and it, what was your schedule like? So I don't understand. I don't fully know exactly how New Jersey rules are when it comes to high school competitions, cause our public schools. If you're WIA, you can't go outside except for two events and it has to be okayed, right. So you have to get the athletic director, things like that. What was your school able to attend and do for tournaments? Where were you guys able to go?
Speaker 3:So we weren't really able to do much because our school kind of sucked at wrestling so we didn't get invited to a lot of good tournaments. But after I won my state title my sophomore year, so freshman year I lost in the state finals to Joe.
Speaker 3:E yo, which was you know a great match and he was one of those guys. It was I was. I walked out there and I'm like I've been knowing this kid my whole life and it's like, oh man, I gotta wrestle like one of my, my best friends growing up. This sucks. But yeah, um, after I won my state title, my sophomore year, junior year, we got invited to beast of the east and that was like our big tournament for the year, whatever. Um, I ended up winning that or whatever. But we never really had like huge tournaments we went to. So like we had like sam cali, we didn't really get to go to like escape the rock in uh, what's it? The other one, escape the rock, and then there's another, there's another one in powerade. We never got to go to those.
Speaker 3:We kind of really it was just basically jersey competition for me. I mean in the off season I would go to like super 32 and those other tournaments to get competition, but we didn't really like our school schedule wasn't anything like that tough to be real, yeah yeah, but you guys, I mean just to say that you're, you're wrestling in jersey alone.
Speaker 2:I mean you got tough competition either way, so so you really had to kind of go outside of your comfort zone during the off season then to be able to go and chase some of those guys down. So where were, where were some of the top? Was it the usuals was like us opens and and doing little things like that, or where did you guys wind up going when you were trying to get on the scene a little bit?
Speaker 3:super 32 was the big one for me. That's where we ended up going. So my eighth grade year I ended up, if you look at the eighth, like my eighth grade year. I think it was 98 pounds or something like that. It's actually it's a crazy bracket. It's got Jesse Mendez in it, levi Haynes, uh, peyton Keller, vinny Um, there's just a lot of like. If I sent you this bracket you'd be like oh my God, there's so many college guys that are, like all Americans, national champs, right now in this bracket.
Speaker 3:Uh, I ended up beating Mendez like 5-1. That's my only time in eighth grade though in eighth grade, doesn't you know, it's whatever and then I ended up. I think the next time I went to super 32, I was 120 pounds. I ended up wrestling jordan williams in the semifinals and losing in the last seconds. He hit me. They used to call him the ice man yeah, I was up 3-2.
Speaker 3:With 30 seconds left he hit me with like a super duck oh I was like oh, my god so that was one of those one of those tournaments, super 32 was the big one for sure, though were you?
Speaker 2:were you much into freestyle, did you? Did you like freestyle that much?
Speaker 3:I would go to freestyle tournaments and I would just have like up and down performances just because, like not that I didn't get the style, I just I didn't train it enough. I wasn't training freestyle and greco enough to like be good at it. So we have northeast regions, which is like our big qualifier tournament, and the one time I went I had I beat cooper flynn the day before 10-2 and then I I ended I was winning 8-0 against anthony noto. He ended up beat me 10-8 and then the next day I have to wrestle cooper fly on the back side. He gets me in a leg lace in the first 20 seconds I lose 10-0. So that was like I just wasn't consistent and created freestyle to be real.
Speaker 2:So well and I look at I do look at, you know, sometimes the duels. You know you look at junior duels and things like that. When it comes to all the Fargo talk and Fargo stuff, like Jersey's always been kind of up there, you know kind of thing, never been real dominant. So I kind of even wonder if that's kind of like a passion anybody in Jersey has. It's not it's not very.
Speaker 3:It's not trained very often at all. I mean my senior year of high school because I didn't end up wrestling the state tournament. My senior year because it got pushed back because of COVID and I ended up getting. My nose is still crooked. So I ended up. I was playing baseball. I was playing baseball and my brother hits a fly ball.
Speaker 3:I lost it in the sun. Oh, I needed. I had two deviated septums, nasal valve collapse. I broke my nose so I needed to get the surgery because they said I had cartilage floating around and if I didn't get the surgery I could just sniff the wrong way. It could surgery because they said I had cartilage floating around and if I didn't get the surgery I could just sniff the wrong way. It could go into my brain. It would be bad. And, oh my god, I was like I need to get the surgery and get it out.
Speaker 3:So I went to fargo by my senior year and, like I actually ended up losing to, uh, vincent robinson, I got. I got attacked by him. I look, I got killed by him. He hit me with that wrist snap right by, got me pretty bad. It was all over flow wrestling at the time. It got blown up. But then I hurt my knee and I like defaulted out of the tournament. I went like two and two or three and two or something like that. So freestyle again, just not not huge in jersey and I've never been great at it.
Speaker 2:So well, that's, and I think, uh, I think a lot. I think we've had a couple kids now out of Wisconsin that we know they like competing in it. Right, they had fun doing that kind of thing, but they're like I'm sticking to folk style. I really have no interest in freestyle. So I was like, all right, all right, it's an acquired taste. They're all acquired tastes, especially Greco. Nobody really seems to spin off into that one too often. But we're getting better, we're getting better.
Speaker 3:I want to dabble in greco a little bit. I feel like I'd be pretty like even though my style has kind of changed a little bit once I got to college, like now, I feel like I'd be a lot more comfortable wrestling freestyle, like I think my freshman year, my redshirt year, I kind of went to. I went to the us open and I was I again. I made the blood round. It was one fun round away from placing, but at the time I was a little bit fatter. I couldn't make 25. So I was up at 61 kilograms, like 34, 35. And that's what I was walking around at. I shouldn't have been there. I shouldn't have been there at that weight at all. I just like the kids were walking out, like I'm like five, three and the kids are walking out at like five, eight and I'm like yeah, I'm looking at the kid I'm like, oh Jesus, five three, that's.
Speaker 2:Oh, my god, that's. That's another thing that floors me, as we see you guys on tv, right, and you're all built right, you're athletes, you're built athletes. And you walk down the hallway and you're like, hey, there's steve macco. I'm almost the same height as that guy. Holy, that's crazy. And then you're like I'm five, three, five, four. I'm like that is the shortest man I think I've stood next to his five, three, five, four.
Speaker 3:I get that a lot like people see me they're like that's dean peterson. Why is he so small?
Speaker 2:I'm like yeah liam's getting a complex. All of his cousins are like super, super tall. His cousins like number seven in the country's a quarterback is that in california he's like six foot three.
Speaker 2:He was like five, six, seven oh man so there's definitely a complex when it comes to wrestlers, but when, when you're kind of starting to navigate through high school I mean you, so you're having fun, folk style you're, you're in a great area and obviously freestyle just isn't like really something you're striving for. But what, what are your goals once high school hit? Restart and already kind of look at colleges and everything like that when you got like your freshman sophomore year, or was that a distant thing in your head at that point?
Speaker 3:I never really thought about where I wanted to go college wise. I kind of just wanted teams to teams to reach out or whatever. But what I made the mistake of doing is I committed really, really, really early in the process so originally I wasn't committed to ruckers, so I was committed to princeton.
Speaker 3:Actually it was the other jersey school and like I just started to have a lot of doubts about it because like it's a rich kid's school for the most part and like you wear suits to class and I'm just like I don't know, I don't fit the bill for that at all. You know, I'm like a Jersey kid through and through. I'm not like that. I don't want to say like snobby, snotty nose, but I'm not like the yeah, I'm not the suit and tie type of guy.
Speaker 3:So I was like, and I had a conversation with one of the coaches. They're like you can be a chameleon for four years. I'm like I don't, I don't want to do that, I don't want to do that. So I, when I was at Fargo, one of my coaches was like saw Goody, like the Rutgers coach, and was like, hey, if you guys needed 25, dean's thinking about decommitting from Princeton, and that's kind of how the ball got rolling on that and I ended up committing. Like two months before school started I ended up switching over to Rutgers. So I didn't really get to talk to a bunch of schools I talked to like I think West Virginia and even like Penn State had asked for my transcripts and then they kind of like ghosted me, which is funny.
Speaker 2:Yeah, harvard does the same thing to Liam.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's good, it's good. I just I didn't get it, like why why ask for my transcripts?
Speaker 2:and then we gave them to you, and then you're like, oh cool, yeah, thanks for the paperwork. Yeah, so, when you so, when you're, when you're looking, even in the process, like you, you decommitted. What was that like, though? Because we've had a couple guys here that like, uh, you know Eric Barnett, he committed North Carolina first, then he went to the Badgers. Did you catch? Did you catch? A lot of shit for that Was there? Was there a blowback for that? Trust me, I, I had I had.
Speaker 3:Look, that's trust me like it was probably worse than like because I've gotten some blowback from like obviously going to iowa and committing to iowa and everything guys.
Speaker 3:But it was probably way worse when I decommitted from princeton because, like yeah I had like obviously at the time, because pat glory was the 125, I had like that dude like flipping on me a little bit. I I had some like other guys the RTC that weren't happy with it and they're like we trained you. I'm like you guys because the thing is at the time that was also that kind of went. What in what went into my decommitment is it was during. Covid and.
Speaker 3:I was trying to train with the guys that I'm like how am I, how am I supposed to like be a part of this if you guys won't even let me train with the people I need to train with?
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah, right, and that was, and that's so. That's interesting. You say that because I know you know that what, when, when liam goes around and he's able to train in certain places, things like that, like it was, they're pretty open, you know. They're like oh yeah, if you want to practice, just let us know, so that way we can get them set up ahead of time. It almost sounds like they're kind of like yeah, no, we don't want to show them how good you are.
Speaker 3:Yet Recently Jersey has been getting better, but for the longest time they were really tight-knit and people wouldn't let you into certain clubs. If you went to this club, I wasn't allowed into what's it called. One of the bigger clubs in jersey is short thing, so I wasn't allowed to go to short thing because I beat up the kids or the guy's son that owns the club. I beat him like six or seven times in high school so he just like wouldn't let me train with other short thing guys or be at that club. Like I was like banned from short thing.
Speaker 2:I was never, never allowed to be in there there's some closeted kind of crazy shit like the hide people away. But I mean, I I can't, I can't bang on it too much, because I remember before Liam was even in high school, his youth tournament was coming up and he was at at Kekona practicing with Kekona kids. So he was in that group Right, and there was a dad that wanted his kid to be able to come up into like kangaroo to practice and Liam was up there and they knew that he was going to wrestle Liam at state. No, we can't. No, you guys can't.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I never got that. If you're two of the best kids in the state, why aren't you going to wrestle? You're going to wrestle anyway, just wrestle, it's wrestling. Have fun, go out there Wrestle.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's going to make fun of stuff once in a while too. But the absurdity of things. But when you, when you decided to go to rudkers and with with the, you know it's not that far from home, kind of thing?
Speaker 2:um, what were your thoughts on on a school in general? Were you ever at the point point of like I got to get out of Jersey, I want to go here, I want to, you know, go to here, but you just never got the offer, kind of thing? Was it Iowa? Were you looking at Iowa when you were looking at colleges at all?
Speaker 3:I. I never got the call from Iowa. I'll be real, they I didn't think they had any interest in me. I one of interested in was stanford, because I wanted to go where it was like nice all the time. Yeah, the warrior for me is at the time. That's when stanford's program was getting cut and I wanted, I wanted so bad to like go out, get out of jersey and do whatever. But yeah, I was so worried. I'm like, are they gonna lose their program? And now I'm not gonna have somewhere to wrestle, like I'm worried about that. At the time I'm like, oh god, what am I gonna do? But I think after, like my freshman year at ruckers, I kind of I got some like not like under the table offers for the most part to go yeah I rounded 12 and people were like well, well, you know, if you want to come here, you can come here, and I feel,
Speaker 3:like I should have jumped at it at the time because I know I could have grown a lot more in my college career if I was somewhere else. Sure, sure, for the most part I I felt like Rutgers was the comfortable decision, like the safe choice. Like you said, it's close to home. I've been here my entire life. I'm not putting myself in an uncomfortable situation, and that's where I believe is you get better when you put yourself in uncomfortable situations.
Speaker 2:For the most part, You're going to have fun in Ohio. You're definitely going to be made uncomfortable. I'm new to how kids work out, so you are going to you. You're going to have fun on an aisle. You're definitely going to be made uncomfortable. They're going to do it. So I'm I'm new to how kids work out, right. Like I'm not into. I don't. I see YouTube stuff but I'm not like trying to scroll down to find out what high school kids are doing to work out Right. So when I took him down there like you're doing sauna workouts, like it's crazy, Like I never understood the amount of workout stuff you guys put into your day, and then desanto put them through something. There's a couple other kids I think cassiope's little brothers are down there too, so those guys are going through and I was like oh, how was that? You guys can't hang out in the sauna talking. He's like no, we're working out in the sauna. Shut your mouth. Yeah, no that's look.
Speaker 3:I don't like to be in the sauna too much, but we do this thing called the russian sauna. So what we'll do is we're going for 20. You'll bring some fruit in, bring in some water. You're eating, drinking, you're moving around a little bit, go out, eat and drink fruit and then you come back in for 10, 5, whatever it's like. You go lower, lower, lower but yeah no definitely working out there.
Speaker 3:I I do some crazy workouts. I do some really not because like even right, like this morning. So when I weightlift I don't go, I don't try to lift heavy. What I'll do is I will go. I think I did this morning probably over 400 or 500 reps of like different types of bench press for my chest. So we started out with just regular bench press. We did about 50 reps. We would incline bench press with a plate on each side, 50 reps, and then we went isolated, one arm at a time, 50, 50, then both the same 50. Then we did some hangs and we were doing obviously there's a couple machines you do for them too. But I'm really big on like endurance, training my muscles so they can go longer and last longer. I'm not super big on like the muscle aspect of it and ego lifting like super, super heavy weight. I just I yeah, I'm not gonna try and deadlift 400 or 600, whatever many pounds aj ferrari does or whatever yeah, yeah, you can smell that guy's hair gel through the screen.
Speaker 2:I swear to god.
Speaker 2:But yeah but that was the thing too, like with liam, with the conditioning, like there's it's. It's crazy on the amount of levels that you guys jump and have to jump going into college Cause you're wrestling also other state champions and other state qualifiers and other guys that have made world teams or something like that. So you're not, you're not walking into a room with some kids that, oh, it's thought I'd try wrestling this year. You know it's not like that. So you have to be well conditioned. I think I'm starting to. We're looking at liam a little weird. Sometimes right now he's like I'm gonna go work out, I'm gonna go work out. I'm like seriously like that much. Okay, again, cool, you can't look at it. Yeah, again like you just did it like this morning.
Speaker 2:But now, like knowing you guys and hearing the stories I could hear from you, I'm like okay, it makes more sense. All right, I I will not get in the way as much, I'll make make sure that you get your workout. But were you guys doing that in your high school program?
Speaker 3:Um, you know we would have some. The thing is with my high school program, like I said, like our program wasn't really good. So I kind of what. I would end up doing is I would. I'm going to club club practice over like regular practice, so like I would teach the technique at my high school practice and then I would go to, I would go to.
Speaker 3:I would go to elite, where the word the room is a hundred degrees, literally a hundred degrees. They make it as uncomfortable as possible, very hot, and you're like you, you go right in, you warm up for 10, 15 and it's right in the live and then technique. So you really have to like I think that's the best way to do it, because then you have to really concentrate your mind because you're tired from wrestling, you're tired from warming up and if you're, if you really want to absorb the technique, you got to really mentally focus on what's going on in front of you I agree, I agree, I wholeheartedly agree with that and that's that's.
Speaker 2:I think that's the biggest thing is just exhaustion, because you think about it over time. Third period, things like that. You've already been going for six, seven, you know eight minutes already and, man, and you're not wrestling again guys that are new to this and your body is struggling that whole time just to keep someone down or take them down. So yeah, and I think a lot of times I mean you were coach peterson pretty early, so I think a lot of times kids can take away the fact that a they had, you know, good partners, guys that cared about the sport and cared about each other, just in the room and having good camaraderie, and that goes a long way, cause I mean, I'll tell you what you can be a championship team and hate each other and give you the worst experience.
Speaker 3:I mean I've always loved the teams I've been on. I've always been like around guys that have been like a good, good team atmosphere. But yeah, no, I've never really been around like guys that that, yeah, it's crazy, it's crazy.
Speaker 2:So with with your, with your high school kind of career was coming to an end. You pick ruckers. Yeah, your, what was your last day tournament like uh in high school?
Speaker 3:so that was my junior year so yeah, that's right I had.
Speaker 3:It was kind of weird. So the week before I was winning a match 11 and like three and then I got put on my back and I almost got pinned. I almost got pinned. I ended up winning like 11 to 9. It was a close match. But I go like people were like, oh my god, he's not gonna whatever, I'm the one seed going in like at 120, so like I'm expected to do whatever, and like people are having doubts because I I got put on my back the week before and then I go go into the state tournament and I don't have a single point scored on me. So I got, I got to. Just you know, I ended up winning in the finals like one zero. I rode the kid out for two minutes but like he had his head in the mat the entire time and, funny enough, it was that kid's son of the club or whatever, cause I, I in the bracket which you know, I was like good for him.
Speaker 3:He got his state title. But it was funny because my coach called me up and he's like, yeah, the kid's not happy about it anyway, cause he didn't get to wrestle you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm like I get it, I get it.
Speaker 3:Let him have that one. Yeah, it's all good. I mean it sucks because I'm only a two-timer. I wish I was a three-timer. I'm a four, I'm a three-time finalist, two-time state champ, but I really wish I I got been able to wrestle my senior year.
Speaker 2:It kind of sucked but so what was the call to not to not go to like school? Your senior year were you homeschooled and you were training kind of thing. What was that?
Speaker 3:no, that's that surgery. I had that surgery on my nose, that's right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, so the reason that the surgery yeah. So I was trying to wait till the season was over, but what ended up happening is covid, so it ended up pushing the state tournament about a month back. So I was like I can't keep waiting to get this surgery because, like I said, if I sniffed the wrong way, what if you know, cardios in my brain or whatever? So I'm like I need to get this surgery. I've been trying to schedule it for months and, like I was told originally, I'm like, okay, I'm gonna be back after four weeks. And they're like, no, after four weeks you can slowly get back into working out, because if you go, if I go too hard right away, I'll just start getting like nose bleeds and mess up everything that I've already done.
Speaker 3:So I'm like, oh, and they're like, yeah, you got another six weeks. I was like and I'm like oh, so I'm not even gonna get to wrestle and I was like this this sucks that's horrible.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that sucks well and liam has. We don't know how it happened. Liam has the same affliction. Uh, he, currently it's difficult to breathe. So we actually give him like allergy meds and when he doesn't need allergy meds because that's what I would do.
Speaker 3:That's what I would do. But even now it's like I regret getting the surgery because two weeks later I took like a knee to my nose and broke it again and that's why they said they won't give him the surgery until he's done competing.
Speaker 2:They won't do it because they're like if you, if you get it done, it'll be great. You know things like that. But you're in a sport where if it just gets tweaked just a little bit, it's going right back to the way that it was. We're like well, that sucks, man, you're kind of like half blind, can't breathe out of one nostril, so he's really got the card stacked against a little bit when he goes to the matches. But well, at least, I mean at least you got it done, but it just sucks that it came right back and didn't even matter the first place.
Speaker 3:I can't breathe that well through my nose. I'll tell you that much. I'm a mouth breather at heart, for most of my life.
Speaker 2:So that's for sure, you guys are matching twins when it comes to mouth breathing. And I just it was funny because he was just complaining about something in the day and he puts his head back. You can see like the whole one side just collapsed over.
Speaker 2:It's like, yeah, poor guy, I feel bad for him, but yeah, hey, it's, it's what happens. I and I think, uh, I blamed, I blamed, uh, my wife. I was like it probably happened when he was born. It's nothing I can, I didn't have anything to do with it, I didn't beat him that bad, but no, it's uh. I think I think when you, when you jump, that I think uh, going just into a college environment, I think guys get a little twisted. I think guys get a little twisted. I think they sometimes get scared. They sometimes you know you're homesick, you know you're in college, even if you're just an hour up the road or something too. You know you wind up. Not, I don't want to be here, I'm going to go back home and hang out with my buddies. What was your thought kind of when you jumped into college? Were you homesick? I mean, even though you're at Rutgers, not too far like I don't know if I want to go to college.
Speaker 3:It was definitely an adjustment. I wasn't like I didn't want to go to college, but like I would come home on the weekends and be like I want to come home for a little bit. You know, whether it's for like a day or two days. I wanted to come home and just like be around like my brother and stuff and like spend time with him, because like I'm really close to my brother and like even moving out to iowa it's gonna damn.
Speaker 2:I want to go home a little bit, you know I was definitely homesick yeah, my brother went to parkside, which is like two hour two and a half hours south from us, like he was homesick too, like he still transferred back up to the college that was literally right in our town because he was so homesick and I was like then he came back and he didn't want to be in college in general, the wrestling coach yeah nick becker I'm thinking of a different parkside, I don't know, because he would.
Speaker 3:You know who john trend is?
Speaker 2:no, all right all right, he went to lake lehigh.
Speaker 3:He wrestled kale sanderson in one of his state or in one of his ncaa finals and stuff oh really I think he coaches at a school called parkside, so that's why I was thinking about that. I don't know where that that's at, but it's probably another small.
Speaker 2:So Parkside's probably one of the as far as in our state one of the better D2 schools that we have. Nick's done a really good job. He gets a lot of the Askren kids. He gets a lot of the Askren kids that come down because Becker's an Askren kid himself, so he gets. He's also gotten some decent transfers to come into a school too. So kudos to him. I know everybody's kind of pissed off with the Badgers right now and things are going on around there, but yeah.
Speaker 2:I think, yeah, I, I complain a little bit too, but I'm not like I'm not, I'm not a Badgers fan, right, so it's like I get where the people are coming from, up with it, kind of what's going on up there what is going on out there like I'm a wisconsin guy.
Speaker 2:I'm hearing all my friends complain about it. Now I'm looking, I'm like holy shit, they got a reason to complain. But so when, when you, when you start in college, who was? Who were guys you were rolling around with in the rutgers? When you got in there?
Speaker 3:nah, I'm trying to think. Let me, I gotta think of who was there. I was rolling around with shaver, honestly, because he was the 25 at the time. What's his name? Robinson was a guy that was leaving.
Speaker 3:He was Blair Academy I'm trying to think of his first name, oh man, nico Messina, which was a Jersey kid I was rolling around with. Kletzos, got in there the year after me, but at the time there wasn't a whole bunch of 25s when I got in, to be real, we didn't have a lot of like smaller guys to roll with. Like I tried to go with seb as much as I could, but like seb's like a 41 pounder and he's kind of bigger for me because that was my guy, but I'm like I tried to go with him as much as possible. I went with joey a little bit, um, but that was kind of like the guys that I went. And then, uh, we had what's it? One transfer come in. It was, um, oh man, oh man, I'm so bad with names sometimes but I can't even think of it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no my memory is shot right now, Cause I can only cause. I've been in college for four years now, thinking about my partners, my freshman year I can't even remember who I was rolling with.
Speaker 2:Did you consider, like was it hard? Was it something that you're like man? And this is a little tougher than I thought it would be?
Speaker 3:The toughest part was stop being chunky, because I walked into college. I was if compared to what my face looks like right now if you looked at me my freshman, if we could get a picture of I had long blonde hair and I had a fat face like I was. I was walking around at like 42 and I just was a pudge ball. Well in my own eyes, I was pudgy. Yeah.
Speaker 3:But yeah. So like I don't know, I just I guess what I wasn't in the hardest part was trying to make 25. I didn't make 25 at all my redshirt year, so I went to. So what ended up happening? My redshirt year is I tore my hamstring in one of the preseason workouts sprinting across the football field, just grabbed my hand. I'm like oh, whatever. And like, dina, you're all right.
Speaker 3:I'm like nope, something just popped in my hamstring and then I tried to come back for a couple like open tournaments, and I got walking pneumonia and I was coughing up blood and I was in the hospital and then I tried.
Speaker 3:I was trying to recover from that and they're like okay, we're gonna put some contrast in your, in your whatever, to see what's going on in your lungs. Yeah, I had an allergic reaction to the contrast and I started I'm like I can't breathe and I started spitting up more blood and I was like so I didn't even get to my first college open tournament until january, second semester, and I ended up taking out, uh, julian clayable from arizona state.
Speaker 3:Oh, yeah, that was like my first big win. But at the time we like had this crazy scram while I hurt my knee and I was like, oh man, I ended up defaulting out of the tournament. Again. I was like two and two and I again I wrestled one open tournament, my red shirt year, which is not the type of red shirt year you want to have at all so like I had a, I had a rough red shirt year like all around it was yeah, it was a tough time for me when I first got into college so was it?
Speaker 2:was that, was it like a like, a, like a legitimate tear in your, in your hamstring?
Speaker 3:yeah, they were a little bit confused because usually when you tear your hamstring you can see the bruising. But it was so deep in my hamstring they're like, oh, you're probably fine they, they x-rayed it and everything. Like you tore your hamstring pretty bad, and I'm like I was out for, I think, from october until like late december, so like I was out for like two, two, three months almost and I believe that.
Speaker 2:So I'm. I'm an old dude, right, and I played soccer. So I was like I'm gonna sign up for soccer again, right, and I I'm in this adult league, I'm ready to just go kill it because I'm this dude, you're playing semi-pro soccer, I can do this. And I get out there and I did a kick that I've been doing. So I was 12 years old. Straight up, I wailed on that ball so hard and then when I, when I woke up and got up because I passed out almost from it I got up and I was holding my leg and I looked at the ball. The ball went like maybe 20 feet away from me because I hit the ground so hard when I swung.
Speaker 2:I the the and you're talking about how many months it was. I've never seen this underneath my leg because I never tore my hamstring in my entire life. Underneath was all black and blue. When you mentioned the black and blue thing, all over, like the whole thing and I didn't even pay attention to that, like I was, like it just hurts, right, it's, there's no coloring. So I didn't even look at it and I looked at the next day. I'm like, oh my god, I think I was at the, I was at the gym, I was doing whatever I could to work out and my leg just taking a shower saw my leg. So yes, two to three months.
Speaker 3:I definitely you Cause that stuff hurt that was bad, yeah, and like you feel it for a little bit afterwards too, like there's a constant, like that little like twinge of like pain, that like sharp pain pretty deep in the hand. I'm like, oh man.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's almost like you're. It's almost like it's a constant um, uh, flexing like you're, like you're, like your muscles just flexing.
Speaker 3:You're like constantly flexing your leg and you can feel it and I'm like, oh my god, I can't make it stop.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I feel you on that. I did it in a, in a completely horrible way as a, as an old man who didn't stretch out and do the proper things you're supposed to. But it's, it's crazy how that kind of ended your season. But were you down, like what did that kind of send you spiraling a little bit like?
Speaker 3:oh man, you know that's a rough take on your redshirt year, you know mentally I wasn't probably in a great spot because I wanted to wrestle again.
Speaker 3:Like I got into college I was ready to wrestle, I was ready to do all these things and it's like I couldn't even compete. My redshirt year, that's the whole. That was the whole point of like. Redshirt is like oh, I need to get some competition in. Get against these college guys, see where I'm at. And I didn't really get to see where I was at against like top guys where I wanted to be and all this other stuff. I was kind of just, you know, on the sidelines recovering from injury after injury.
Speaker 2:So so you had a good run. I mean, I you know not good run your freshman year, but you, you have a good spot. I mean, were the coaches pretty optimistic, like, hey, we'll get this taken care of, we'll get you brought, get you brought in, we'll make sure that you're all set for the next season. Maybe we'll get some in the offseason for you. You can compete here. How does that go for guys in college? When you deal with an injury, what do the coaches wind up telling you?
Speaker 3:I was not basically fully recovered, but they tried to get me. That's the year I did the US Open and everything. They were trying to get me in competition after competition. So before I did the US Open, we had something called the National Freestyle Duos that we do in New Jersey. So I got a couple good matches at that.
Speaker 3:I was supposed to wrestle Vito. Didn't get to wrestle Vito. I got to wrestle Caleb Smith at the time and I beat him 4-3 in freestyle, which was my best. It was a fun match. It was a fun match. So I did get to see where I was bit and that's kind of where you know. They were like, okay, he's ready to go, he'll be, he'll be ready to go for the next season. But at the time, um shauver was still at 25. So when I was coming in they were telling me, oh, he's gonna bump up to 33, bump up to 33. But when I came in for my freshman year, shauver came in and said I want to go 25 still. So for the first three or four months of the season up until midlands, we were fighting for the spot my freshman year.
Speaker 3:So I didn't even have the spot locked up because we went to a couple of duels. I would have ended up wrestling Richie Figgs, my freshman year at some school in PA, but we were splitting matches that day. So I wrestled the first match and I'm like I wanted the Arizona State match but since he had already been the starter, they gave him the match. He ended up losing like seven six. It was pretty bad refereeing. He probably should have won the match but he ended up losing. And that's when richie was in, like his freshman year, his redshirt freshman year too, because he was behind courtney at the time. So yeah, definitely my. That beginning of my freshman year was pretty interesting for the most part fighting for a spot yeah, that could have been a sweet wraparound, having that match again.
Speaker 2:Get him, get him your freshman year. Then come back around and I'm like holy cow that we're gonna talk about that in a second, because that was. That's pretty sweet to watch us. Yeah, either way, because you walk into a tournament, you're hearing all this buzz, you, you hear expectations, right, like I mean I was like this guy should do this, this guy should do this and and then it doesn't happen. It happened all over the place in the tournament. Right, I mean it's. It's just crazy. Did you find your freshman year? Like, did they take you to the tournament? Were you able to be there?
Speaker 3:They took me to Big Tens that year. I was able to go to Big Tens and watch everything and be around like what it was like to be at a Big Ten tournament. Which I will say this the Big Ten tournament is probably tougher than the NCAA tournament because there's a good guy every single round, even in the prelims. You're not wrestling any slouches.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I can't argue with that. I mean, in almost every conference, though, too, it's like either way, you're going to be going against the toughest guys that you should have been wrestling all year anyway. So that's like, oh man, how is this going to turn? Out this weekend Because you know, if you had a rough go, but when you kind of got into a position when you were, you know, put into the starting lineup.
Speaker 3:What was your first duel? My first duel, oh man, my first, I can't even. I couldn't even. It might have been like something like bloomsbury. It was actually like some, some light match that wasn't super, super difficult, yeah I can tell you what my, like my toughest match of the first semester was because, like I locked up the spot at midlands, because I ended up making the semi-finals against barnett from wisconsin so I was like my first, like real match, and he, he, he, me and him were like talking to each other during the match, like in a.
Speaker 3:In like a positive way yeah, because I was like it was like talking smack a little bit but it wasn't so he was beating me at like six to six to one or six to nothing at the point, and then he's like he was telling me to shoot. He's like take a shot, take a shot, take a shot. I ended up scoring on him because he was pretty good at scrambling. I ended up winning the scramble when I was like, yep, I got one, I was on top. I'm like, yeah, I got one, I got one, and he won like six, three, but I he was like that was good, that was a good shot, whatever, and like we kind of exchanged words a little bit but, like it was a positive experience.
Speaker 2:It was like positive, like trash talk you guys are bantering with each other, that's fine it was great, but that was definitely like my wake up call.
Speaker 3:I was like you know what? You're here, you're there. Like it was 6-3. It was a close match. I'm like this dude is already an all American. You're ready to go so that's awesome.
Speaker 2:It doesn't surprise me that, barnett, I had him. He's just from down the road, so I've had him on the show a couple of times too and just kind of and knowing and knowing who he is, and like you're talking about scrambling, like I'll be honest with you, I love Eric, but man, that kid did not have a shot. He was.
Speaker 2:He was a defensive wrestler coming out of high school and we were worried, like because we're all excited for him, like I wasn't always a big barnett fan, like a lot of people didn't like him coming out of high school, but I always and it was fun watching him wrestle because he was so competitive and he would let it fly if he needed to. Right, if it was the last seconds that kid was going to make sure he let it fly, but he just didn't seem to shoot. Loved crackdown, loved it when you shot on him because he like come around the backside a little bit and scoring you that way. But then he got. When he got to wisconsin and I I praise gross for this one he got this single leg and it was like, oh man, he can wait a minute, he's got a shot like he's gonna, he's gonna start shooting. This is awesome. And he started getting better and better.
Speaker 3:But he couldn't get off from bottom either yeah, so that's another thing that was hard for him when I wrestled him he rode me out on top because he's pretty good on top. He didn't take that single leg on me. I took a high crotch and he scrambled out of it twice and beat me up pretty bad.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was Eric. He was good at it. You couldn't argue with a kid who was good at something. Everybody's got their one thing. I think that's kind of cool that you got to wrestle me. He was talking shit on the mat.
Speaker 3:Who's the biggest shit talker on the mat that you've ever wrestled? Oh man, I mean he might be one of the bigger ones because, like he was talking smack on the mat, but you know who is kind of a little bit it's Braden Davis from Penn State. A little bit.
Speaker 2:Is he?
Speaker 3:really he was talking a little bit. When I wrestled him the one time I ended up losing to him, but I lost on a pretty I don't want to say BS, because I don't like to say I take accountability for my losses or whatever.
Speaker 3:Sure yeah, but it was at the BJC and at the time I took, I will say I took him down with like 30 seconds left, put him on his back and they didn't give me the takedown or whatever. I tell my corner, throw the brick, throw the brick. And they hand that brick right back to my corner and say what? In a Big Ten duel there was no video review because it went out right before the duel or something in the BJC and I was like you're a Big.
Speaker 3:Ten program. You're the best team in the country. You don't have video review right now. And that was like the week after the same thing Not the same thing happened. But he had wrestled Kilcurry from Ohio State and the dude tossed him with like five seconds left and they waved off the call and everything. So off the call and everything. So like everyone was pretty, pretty heated about it too. They're like dean shouldn't have lost to davis because it ended up going overtime and at the time I I I don't want again. I take accountability for my losses. I had the fluid time. I I run off the mat because I'm trying to get to the trash can, because I gotta throw up. They're like get back to the center. I get taken down in like 20 seconds. Then I run to the trash can, I'm thrown up and then it's a full pack BJC. So I have Penn State fans chirping me while I'm thrown up in the trash can and I'm like leave me alone, please.
Speaker 2:That sucks. Why were you sick?
Speaker 3:I think I had like a one-on-one or a one-on-two fever at the time and I was just like I was not not in a position to be wrestling in front of as many fans as I was. But Okay.
Speaker 2:So now tell me about that position, because that's interesting. Guys wrestling injured you know that that's one thing in and I get it there's. There's either it's a big duel in line, kind of thing like that, but what, where? Where's the decision making? To wrestle sick right, like I'm running 102 fever, or or you know I I was throwing up before I came in. Where was it? Because I'm here, I need to make sure I do this kind of thing. Does it feel like it's a job? What was it?
Speaker 3:So for the most part at Rutgers, I never really had a full-on backup Again. We didn't have a lot of. We weren't pretty, we weren't deep at 25 at that year eligibility, so like he ended up getting like a little bit of an injury, they had something fixed up. He didn't lose that year. But we didn't have another 25, we didn't have someone behind me.
Speaker 3:So anytime I needed to go out there, whether I was hurt, sick, injured, I needed to go out there, and that's kind of what they told me, that I knew that going in though you know, that's kind of what it is. It is that it's a job, but it is your spot, it's my spot, I won it, I wrestled for it and that's what I signed up for. You know what I mean. But I think even the next year we didn't really have a guy that we not that we didn't trust him, but we didn't have a guy that could compete behind me at 25 that would be competitive in the duel or be competitive against these other guys. So so, no matter whether I was injured or whether I was sick, I was going out there to wrestle, okay.
Speaker 2:It's an expectation.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and then this was the first year that I had a backup that could like his Aiden Smith. Honestly, I trained them all year. Great kid, great wrestler was the first time I had an actual backup so, like when I was sick, he got to wrestle the Michigan state match this year and he ended up winning an overtime, which. Like. I actually had a backup that could go out there and wrestle for me when I wasn't in a position to wrestle.
Speaker 2:Okay, okay and that's so. That's kind of the intricacies that I think that a lot of kids don't get to see, cause they they're like, well, I don't know, I don't know if I want to wrestle sick or if I want to wrestle hurt. I mean, sometimes you know, like you said, that was your spot, you wrestled for kind of thing. In a position to be on a team like that, a Big Ten things like that. You're already above and beyond what you're thinking, what you need to be doing, and that's where you put yourself. And a lot of the kids do that, especially these high-level kids, and I don't down them for it.
Speaker 2:Sometimes you kind of question like, was it really worth it, kind of thing, but in the end, like you said, otherwise, your team is taking the L Otherwise they're taking minus a six If you can go out there and just see, even if you don't win, if it's minus three, we'll take that over the minus six kind of thing. I get it and I commend a lot of you guys. That's dedication to be like hey, especially then having to go throw up and listen to people berate you while you're throwing up the Penn State fans are funny.
Speaker 3:but look, I turn back at them and I've said some things on Twitter at them. So we all know about that. I don't know if you know about it, but I said some crazy things after I beat Luke this year. I had to delete that tweet, but I wish I could have kept it up. The only reason I deleted this cause, you know, my coaches were getting calls from administration. They're like you got to delete that right now and I'm like, okay, I will. But if I could have kept it up, I would have not that I hate Penn State, but you know I don't like them.
Speaker 3:I don't like them. I don't think a lot of people like them, but it's not because they're the best team in the country.
Speaker 2:I have my reasons.
Speaker 2:Right, and so that's the thing too. I think a lot of people get lost in this fact of like oh, you just don't like them because you don't win. You know, some people have different angles on things. Right to you, you know, or in something just might I get worn in different ways than other people might, right, like and I told this to someone the other day sometimes things wear me down and I get. I get to a point where it's like I don't want to. This is stupid, and I point out the absurdity of things. Right, and that's that's kind of where I'm at.
Speaker 2:When you see anything that comes out like negative about me, it's because I've seen it about 30 times. I'm tired of seeing it, and now you're going to hear me be tired of seeing it, and now you're gonna hear me be tired of seeing it, and that's what happens. So and I I don't blame it you guys have to be able to have your reactions too, and it's just like being at a job, though if you're, if my employer doesn't, hey, why are you posting that stuff about someone? That they work at a company or something like that? You gotta take that out. So I get that too, but you're still in a place where you're like yeah, you know what that? That was me.
Speaker 3:I did win that yeah, you know, you go back to the year before with the whole no brick, no review call like yeah, I, I, I. I feel like kale should have said something to me and been like you know that is on us or whatever, and that's kind of where some of that comes from is like you guys did nothing, said nothing to me after that. Like that's ridiculous that you guys let that happen, especially as the number one program in the country not having video review in the bjc, no less, with like 20 000.
Speaker 3:However many fans like yeah, you guys are the best program in the country and you don't have video review for a big 10 duel.
Speaker 2:That's ridiculous tell me your ab lab kids aren't hanging around. They could hook some shit up. I mean, that's what I'm saying you can't, you can't wait five.
Speaker 3:You don't tell me someone wasn't recorded on their phone.
Speaker 2:They can't look at the broadcast right quick exactly, exactly, yep, exactly, and that was so a lot of people were saying that during the whole thing, like how, what? There's no, how is it?
Speaker 2:not, we're watching it live right now yeah, like someone's getting it in a database somewhere, right, we can pull that view back up. But yeah, that was a little different and I think a lot of people are kind of getting lost in this whole duels thing too, like and you and I were kind of talking about before. But they have their own decision, they have their own reasons for doing something. We get it, but fans still have an opinion about why they they're not seeing things right there. They still have a of a look of like okay, well, if you're going to do it, then why do you act like you're up here hoity-toity, everybody else is all game to do it. You win a lot, you're respected because you win a lot and people want to see you put that up and whatever it is. And sure, time of year, injuries may happen, things like that. But you and I were talking about that no-transcript.
Speaker 3:They're wrestling the best guys in the country. What's different from the duels? There's nothing different from the duels. I get it, it's your, your, whatever, but again, it's also little bit. I honestly, I'll say it, I think it's a little soft it is.
Speaker 2:It was a little soft, yeah, because we're worried about our national championship and I think a lot of people are throwing the legitimacy of it's not even an ncaa event kind of thing under the bus too. It's like now you're, now you're diminishing something that everybody's been talking about what they wanted for how long right to bring back, and it's just crazy and you and I there's certain things with willie that I agree with on it, like how people are just being kind of a little ridiculous. I'm one of the guys that was like fine, if they don't want to come, don't come, don't invite them, make them ask, make them ask to join don't shut them out.
Speaker 3:The thing that sucks is like people are like oh well, the penn state's going. Does it really matter? Yes, it still matters. Like I get it, they're not going. It still means that there is going to be a dual meet championship and the winner, that is the dual meet champion.
Speaker 2:Like we'll be crowned a champion whether they're there or not correct, correct, and and if they I think someone else made a good point too, uh, I think it was um papalizio had set up those collegiate duels. They weren't there the first year for that either. They waited, then it was the next year they're at it. So you know, maybe kale's waiting to see what it's really like and kind of, you know, watch as a spectator to see what things are like. I get it. But at the same point, though, too, we're still like fans, like come on man, like we're finally possibly gonna see iowa versus you, and I right, oh oh yeah.
Speaker 3:I'm excited. I'm excited because I heard that's a pretty big, pretty big thing like out in Iowa.
Speaker 2:It's been called out forever and I know that Iowa gets a lot of crap for not accepting it because Schwab will put anything on the line I love Schwab, he talks a lot.
Speaker 3:Yeah, he talks a lot, and I love it, but he puts up right. Like the guy, he's a great coach.
Speaker 2:I want to say he's a great coach and he is.
Speaker 3:He's tough as hell.
Speaker 2:I'm up to a brick wall for that guy and I'm 46, right, like I'm not even ready to do that stuff, all right, and we're going to talk about you kind of getting to the Iowa decision here and then we're going to kind of talk about that for a second. But we, you've been on for a while and I know you've got to eat, because it's Easter dinner, man, your mom's been cooking. So you've had a really good college career at Rutgers, right, you've formed some bonds. Not everything there is just like any other kid at any other college. Not every single thing is as expected. I can't talk all of a sudden. My exes are getting stuck. Not everything turns out as expected, right. But at the same point, though, too, things were learned.
Speaker 2:You also, you still build bonds, you still have coaches that you have respect for things like that, right. But so you know, time comes to an end. You're at four years, you're coming up in your fifth year, and not every school has room or is allowing someone to stay for a fifth year. Nope, we're done here kind of thing, and you jump off. So your decisions are your decisions, but how? How? Let's talk about this again. You and I talked about them before we jumped on. How was your decision making process with this whole transfer thing, because it's crazy out there right nil, all this other stuff. This was something that had been in your head for a little bit, so it wasn't something that just popped in. You're're like no man, I'm done here, I'm going to go to Iowa.
Speaker 2:You're kind of thinking about some little bit of a move. So talk about that a little bit and kind of the decision-making process of that.
Speaker 3:So there was a couple of things that like led up to the decision. So originally I will, I will say, before I even hit the portal, I tried, I tried a lot to try and stay at Rutgers at the time because at the time I wanted to. I wanted to because I'm all about loyalty, staying, finishing out what I started here and all that. So I came back to the coaches and we had we had talked about some things and we had something worked out and a lot of what they worked out ended up falling through and like they had told me, they had basically made me some promises about some stuff and they were telling me that these things were going to happen and those things didn't end up happening. I won't get into the specifics of them, just because I don't want to.
Speaker 3:I don't want to blow up whatever, everything online, but you know it led up to my frustration and I was like you know what? I'm going to hit the portal I'm going to. You know I'm going to DM Spencer Lee.
Speaker 3:See what I can get going see if I can get to these other schools. And then, once I hit the portal, I was getting. I was getting a good amount of calls, I was getting a good amount of offers. But what I noticed a lot of the time, like once I, once I got into the portal, like once I was live is I tried to get probably from three different schools pressure to make my decision on the first day, really like over the phone, without seeing the school or anything.
Speaker 3:They're like we're going to offer you this and this and if you accept it, we'll give it to you whatever, blah, blah, blah, you won't have to worry about it.
Speaker 2:I'm like I kind of want to go and like see what my options are a little bit, you know, explore hell, yeah, so that they were like, oh well, that's not what we're here for, and then yeah, and then they're just done. Yeah, okay, okay, that's rough, that's rough, but were they schools? Let's look at it this way, though, too Were they schools, that they were something you were actually considering, or?
Speaker 3:were you like? No, there were some that I was like. You know what I would think about it Because, like a couple of them were still on the East Coast, they were a little bit further down south, but I heard they were getting some guys I didn't want to be on the team with so that's kind of where decision was.
Speaker 2:That happens, right. Yeah, you have to be happy with your environment, and I can preach on about that too. You have to be happy with your environment.
Speaker 3:So, yeah, yeah, yeah, so I was like you know, that was kind of what went into my again, like I didn't want to get rushed into a decision in 24 hours. You know, I wanted to because it was also part partly because in high school I didn't get to go through that process. Like I said, like I committed early, I didn't get to explore my options and see what schools wanted to reach out to me. I was committed at almost like a month or two after I could be contacted.
Speaker 2:So yeah, so, as you're going through the process, obviously things blew up a little bit online, right, and we, we all know how twitter can be and I'm a part of the disease, not gonna lie, I'm one, I'm one of the disease carriers when it comes to twitter. I got caught up in the whole wanting to release information, right. You know, I it's kind of one of those things like oh, it's kind of cool because you get clicks and likes and shit like that and everybody kind of lives off that stuff, right, especially when you're online, um, but I, I do, I do, I do try to kind of curtail things a little bit for you guys, like I don't do announcements anymore, right, like I don't. My theory on that and I got in an argument with someone the other day, but not exactly just about this, but a myriad of things and things that I'd said but to my theory on the commitment thing is, I think you guys should be putting out I'm going to be making my announcement on so-and-so's podcast tomorrow, right, or on thursday.
Speaker 2:That's cool, because it's your thing. It's your thing, the announcement. I don't care if you make the announcement. The announcement is not what bothers me, it's the people that are jumping onto a dick to be able to get some clicks and likes, to be able to do it. And again I'm guilty. I did the same thing back in the day. I was asking big, trying to get big name high school kids to come on and make their announcements in Wisconsinisconsin.
Speaker 3:You know things like that the thing that really sucked is I'll you know. I'll just say he, who shall not be named, didn't just leak my commitment. He said I was in the portal two days before I was even live in the portal.
Speaker 3:So he was basically not, you know, putting me in a spot, but he's making it look like I'm in a portal that I'm not in yet you know what I mean like I had two days before I'm live, like it's a process, you have to go through it or whatever, and like it's almost like he was trying to get me in trouble in a way and I was like that's just really really weird. Right then I wasn't even done with my photo shoot with like the iowa singlet and it was leaked on twitter that I was committed to iowa. I had like I couldn't believe it. I was like still taking pictures and people are posting like I was still in iowa when people leave, because I didn't want to release it right away. I wanted to wait a couple days. You know, celebrate a little bit on my own.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it was already everywhere and like even when I first hit the portal, people were committing me to iowa before I even did it. Because of who said what he said. You know what I mean. I was just like this is ridiculous. Like at the time that he leaked that I was committed to iowa the first time before I actually committed I was I hadn't even gotten my offer from iowa yet. I hadn't even talked to brands yet. I hadn't even talked to the coaches yet.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was kind of ridiculous so so it's a, to me it's a. I'm not gonna say privacy, right, I mean you guys in the public eye. It's just like a football guy thing, like that.
Speaker 2:But we're athletes Like you said you had you hadn't even gotten done with a photo shoot yet, right, Like. So that's where some of this stuff does. It gets a little absurd to me and that's the stuff that I wind up getting worn by and things like that, the of things. And then you know, but sometimes you have a little guy that makes the call that that may know someone, right, that that says something out there, and then, but because they're not big enough, like then they're just some new guys that are absurd, their opinions are weird, things like that some people do you and I talked about it too, like my opinion about the penn state thing might be dumb, right like. As far as I'm like, just let them ask them make them request it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I think that's funny, though that's funny make them ask you didn't want it so bad before. It's fine, you don't need it. Then just if you want to come in, you can ask us. But I think I, a lot of guys wind up getting, I guess, the lesser look when you know like social media kind of stuff, and then you guys are out there, like you said, you want to enjoy the moment you want to kind of do, then guys, fat dudes like me sitting around doing nothing, wind up ruining things because we want to tell people stuff and it's fun, banter. I'm not going to deny it and it does. It creates a buzz. So I'm not going to deny that either. But sometimes we have to look at a line. You know just a little bit of a line, just a smidge. You know like maybe even messaging the guy hey, is this true? Can I say something?
Speaker 3:You know I had a lot of people reach out and like, hey, can I do this, can I post this yet? And I'm like a hundred percent. You know, I'm glad you asked me before you did it, though, you know.
Speaker 2:Right, right, right, and I'm not, I'm not going to be the guy that's like, uh, uh, I do everything, perfect. But when it comes to that, I did one announcement and I I felt weird, right Like, because I'm the one who went to the kid, you know, and I was like God, this doesn't feel like. And they were fun, they, they had a good time doing it, it was fun for them. They still made their announcement, but I felt weird about having to, like, ask a kid to do that. Would you do it on my show? Would you do it on my show? So I get guys that do it. It's cool, whatever you do your thing. But I think a lot of guys that want to be a part of that, and then they are a part of it and they say something and they get called out like there's some noobs and shit like that and like hey, actually that guy had more information than you did and it was accurate.
Speaker 2:He was a little more respectful about it and then call someone a retard for it.
Speaker 2:You know that kind of so that's where I sit with it and I feel, you know, again, you athletes are in a different position. It's your information, you know. So the respect thing for me goes a little bit further, because I I wasn't a famous athlete, but I was an athlete nonetheless. That was, you know, doing things in a, in a, in an area of of you know, people that are cameras are around and you can't say certain things, you can't do certain things, and you guys have rules you have to follow. So who knows if someone's saying something that could have broken a rule at the same time, too, when it comes to NCAA rules, because then everybody knows all those rules. So we appreciate you guys allowing us to do the things that we do.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm not really going to call myself, you know, I guess I'm not really newsworthy. I guess I I'm not really gonna call myself, you know, uh, I guess, uh, I'm not really newsworthy. I'm not a news guy.
Speaker 3:No like.
Speaker 2:I'm not.
Speaker 3:I'm not a news guy, it's not like yeah, I guess that's not the way to put it Media maybe just like media in general. Yeah. That works, that works you know it encompasses a lot, so right.
Speaker 2:I respect the guys that do it and I and I and I understand that you know certain guys are doing certain things and it is what it is, but it's just sometimes, like I said, there's gotta be that line. You're just asking that line and I think you guys are stuck under the bus sometimes with it, but you guys have fun with it though too.
Speaker 3:I think I think, seeing some of the reactions that you guys get, when I saw someone just draw with, like MS paint, the Iowa singlet on me over my Rutgers singlet, I was like, yep, that's my profile picture. That's hilarious.
Speaker 2:That was great. Yeah, I love that one. It was just. Yeah, it was just odd, just draw really crane.
Speaker 3:It looks like a dress and I'm like, oh my.
Speaker 2:God, that's awesome. That was awesome. So you're going to, you're going to be in Iowa, you're excited to be there. I Iowa, you're excited to be there, I'm excited to see you there. Finishing up, what are your goals, I guess? Uh, academically there. What, what do you? What are you going to be doing academically there?
Speaker 3:So what I have to do here at Rutgers is I'm taking some summer courses to finish up my degree a little bit, Cause I was going to spread them out over the next year or so and just graduate as like a regular, without without going to like a graduate program. So by the time I get to iowa I'll be a graduate. So I've got a major in psychology with a minor in criminology. I'm hoping I can get into like a forensic psych program over at iowa which is like all an interview like insane people figure out if they're actually insane and stuff after they commit crimes yeah, it's like that kind of stuff.
Speaker 3:Yep, yeah, that's what I'm into, a little bit so so you'll.
Speaker 2:you'll be the guy that may be kind of digging into some of these minds that's walking around doing shootings and stuff all the time. Right, If we save them, if they're saved. That's a guy that I want to open his brain up and figure out what makes someone fire the way that they fired. No pun intended. Sorry, I didn't mean to do that.
Speaker 3:What's the thought process basically?
Speaker 2:That was good yeah. The insanity behind it all. So that's cool. That's kind of a fun degree because a lot of times you see, like I think I remember when we first got back into wrestling we were watching the Nationals and every Penn State guy that came out, kinesiology, kinesiology, kinesiology, kinesiology. It's cool to see you're doing something kind of different. You know you're doing. I think some guys are going to do some financial stuff, but a little criminal investigation stuff yeah, it'll be fun.
Speaker 3:It'll be fun, trust me. I've been at it for a little bit now. Once once I got like into my minor into the criminology aspect. I was like because I was trying to decide between like sports psych and like forensic psych and I'm like you know what forensic psych is a little bit more interesting it definitely is.
Speaker 2:It definitely is. You might still run into some wrestling mind there.
Speaker 3:Anyways, you never know I think for sure I will. I mean, I know there's some crazy people in the wrestling world, so I'll definitely run into them eventually what is?
Speaker 2:when is your? Uh? When do you move? When do you decide to move?
Speaker 3:so my lease in iowa starts on june 1st. So my lease in new jersey is up on the 25th of may. But I will be out there for the camp that spencer's doing with uh dylan, uh l40 camp. I'll be out there on the 17th for that, so I'll be out a little bit early or I'll fly out there and then fly back to jersey. But I'll be out permanently in iowa on june 1st, june 2nd.
Speaker 2:So that camp is on the bufu app, so you need to go check that out and get on there, and that is something else that we're're that that I want to talk to you about. So training partners you would kind of talk about a little bit too, and obviously the RTC at Iowa is really not that shabby when it comes to training partners, is it so, with the, with the, the prospect of having those training partners, are you eyeing up a little bit more into the freestyle world? What do you? What do? What do you?
Speaker 3:think that's basically been. That was one of the biggest decisions in coming to Iowa. For me is like I would look at the other RTCs of these other programs and I'm like there's just so many. There's just so many guys at Iowa. You've got Spencer Lee, ayala DeSanto, even like Dennis is one of the coaches.
Speaker 3:You've got Ironman still there. You've got Joey Cruz. You've got the other Peterson there, you've got. You know, you got joey cruz, you got the other peterson there. There's just so many guys for me to train with that I know that if I want, like I told him, I'm like I want to go into freestyle, I want to give myself at least one chance at the olympics and stuff, and I know spencer's the guy, but I'd love to be in that room and train and try to get better at freestyle and and then throw my hat in the ring, whether it's in freestyle or greco or either both, like try it, try it all out. You know, yeah, it's something that I'm definitely interested because I don't want to just be done wrestling after college. I want to keep going. You know, like I love this sport so much, I've been doing it forever and I want to keep going, keep doing it you could do the next best thing and piss everybody off.
Speaker 3:Wrestle for italy I could do that, I could do that, I could do that they haven't had anybody good since frank jamezo, though.
Speaker 2:So that's what I'm saying. Bring him back a little bit, right, you go over the train with frank just for a competition. You know you get. You get up and beat spencer, right? Oh man, no, spencer. We're not saying that.
Speaker 3:We're not saying that'd be fun yes, look, I still gotta train with him the next year. He's gonna be, I know. Right, I didn't make him say anything.
Speaker 2:It was me, it was all me, spencer. He said nothing, nothing. So, um, so I, I'm excited to see you on the move. Um, it'll be fun watching. You know, it'll definitely be. Your environment's gonna change, my friend. Let me tell you that. Let me tell you that I'm excited. We had season tickets for two years.
Speaker 2:I was a hawkeye fan forever. I mean, I, I was. I grew up with brands brothers, right, like that's what. That's what I was fed, that's what I was given to watch when I was a kid, for wrestling like these are the guys we're gonna be. So my brother and I tried to be those guys. So I've always been a hawkeye fan.
Speaker 2:I'm now a cavalier fan, right, my son's gonna be going to virginia. I'm always gonna be a fan of wherever he goes. Hawkeyes are always to be like in the shadow back there, just still kind of waiting behind. As much as I'm a Cavalier fan, I'm still a Hawkeye fan. So 17,000 screaming, right, I don't know what a state tournament's like for you guys in high school, but, holy man, you are about to experience some definite fandom and some craziness, and it's one of the more electric environments in wrestling in general, and I'm excited to see him black and gold. So if you got any shout outs man, you're doing that camp again through the Bufu app. What do you got going on? Anybody you want to shout out at all?
Speaker 3:Oh man, I don't even know if I can't do shout outs right now. I've been talking for an hour and a half. I wish I could shout people out, but I don't know if I could right now. Like I look, I've enjoyed talking for the, but my mind is probably fried a little bit after talking, for I've been going from the beginning of my wrestling career until now and I'm just like, oh, but yeah, I mean obviously I'm doing that camp out in Iowa on the 11th.
Speaker 3:It's an Albee, it's only a couple of hours away from Iowa city. So you know, that's obviously. That's probably the one thing I could shout out is like I'm gonna be doing that with jordan. That'll be exciting, you know, we're gonna, I'm gonna. Maybe I'll teach my navy series my secret sauce a little bit. You know the thing I put my pin, richie figs with and stuff.
Speaker 2:Teach that cradle, you know come hide the phones, though no phones no phones, no phones, no phones that's cool. Well, I congratulations on the move, man. It's gonna be fun watching. I appreciate you here. We're gonna talk for just a second when we hang this up, but, um, man, it's been another episode of the vision quest podcast with mr dean peterson of rutgers, soon to be iowa. We appreciate it, man. Um, everybody, we're out. Peace, peace.
