Legendary Okie State head wrestling coach John L Smith retired last month, opening up one of the biggest jobs in the sport. This week we found out who's replacing him:
It's a big swing -- Taylor's credentials as an athlete are unimpeachable -- Olympic gold medalist, World Champion, 2-time NCAA champion, 4-time NCAA finalist, etc. -- but he's never even been an assistant coach before.
Taylor is bringing in a familiar face as one of his assistants too -- Thomas Gilman.
Gilman had an excellent career at Iowa and has had a lot of freestyle success as well. A lot of his freestyle success came after he (in)famously moved to State College and joined the Nittany Lion Wrestling Club a few years ago. He recently lost to Spencer Lee in the Olympic Team Trials as they both fought for the 57 kg spot.
He's also adding Jimmy Kennedy, another former PSU wrestler, to his staff.
My take? It's definitely a gamble for Okie State since this staff doesn't have a lot of coaching experience, but if they're able to recruit well (and there's not much reason to think that they won't be VERY good at recruiting) then they could definitely have Okie State as a significant power player in the college wrestling world sooner rather than later. On one hand, they might be able to cut into PSU's dominance by attracting some of the talent away from State College. On the other hand... they're going to make it harder for the Hawkeyes to recruit as well and will be another formidable challenger on the national level. It will be interesting to watch and see how things pan out.
It's a big swing -- Taylor's credentials as an athlete are unimpeachable -- Olympic gold medalist, World Champion, 2-time NCAA champion, 4-time NCAA finalist, etc. -- but he's never even been an assistant coach before.
Taylor is bringing in a familiar face as one of his assistants too -- Thomas Gilman.
Gilman had an excellent career at Iowa and has had a lot of freestyle success as well. A lot of his freestyle success came after he (in)famously moved to State College and joined the Nittany Lion Wrestling Club a few years ago. He recently lost to Spencer Lee in the Olympic Team Trials as they both fought for the 57 kg spot.
He's also adding Jimmy Kennedy, another former PSU wrestler, to his staff.
My take? It's definitely a gamble for Okie State since this staff doesn't have a lot of coaching experience, but if they're able to recruit well (and there's not much reason to think that they won't be VERY good at recruiting) then they could definitely have Okie State as a significant power player in the college wrestling world sooner rather than later. On one hand, they might be able to cut into PSU's dominance by attracting some of the talent away from State College. On the other hand... they're going to make it harder for the Hawkeyes to recruit as well and will be another formidable challenger on the national level. It will be interesting to watch and see how things pan out.
