Catching Up With Coach Carl

11/26/2003

The Panthers' assistant coach goes over the team's first two dual meets of the 2003-04 season.

The Thrill of Victory and the Agony of Defeat

Last week we headed east across Pennsylvania to wrestle our first dual meet of the season. Our first match just happened to be against Lehigh, the No. 2-ranked team in the nation. Regardless, I felt that if we competed as well as we were capable we could give Lehigh a run for its money. Unfortunately we wrestled nervous and a little scared. 

This was not a big surprise considering our lineup consists of primarily freshmen and sophomores. They say you always learn more from a loss but it sure doesn’t make it any easier to except. 

The greatest part about our trip east was the beginning of our league competition the very next night against Bloomsburg, a team that we lost to last season. I have to say, I have never been more proud or excited about a victory in my life. Our team had been on the road for two days, suffered a tough loss, and had to make weight two nights in a row.

Not one of these factors affected a single guy on the team. We not only won the match but we displayed complete domination in nine out of the ten bouts, pinned three opponents and the only loss we took was in overtime. 

The final match score was Pittsburgh 41, Bloomsburg 3. I was so proud of the way the team responded after the loss to Lehigh. It took a lot of character on everyone’s part to rebound in this fashion. 

The most interesting experience that I had on the trip was the emotional toll that it took on me. As an athlete you learn how to deal with your own success and failure. Considering wrestling is primarily an individual sport, dealing with your own wins and losses are all you have to worry about most of the time. There were a lot of times in my competitive career when I won but the team lost. I always took it hard when the team lost but I could hang on to the fact that I got my job done.

As a coach you do not have that luxury. If the team loses, you lost, and there is no way around it. On the other side of things, when the team wins, it is so much more gratifying than just winning one individual bout. 

All in all, I felt the trip was a positive one for the team and was a great learning experience for myself.

The team also had some individual performances worth highlighting. True freshmen Matt Kocher won both his matches last week against tough opponents in tough environments.  This is not an easy task for anyone and certainly not for a true freshman. The other outstanding performance came from our undersized heavyweight, Travis Shirley. Travis also won both of his matches. 

In his match against Lehigh, he was dominating Joe Sahl, a ranked opponent, when Sahl injury-defaulted from the match. The next night, Travis pinned his opponent from Bloomsburg. Congratulations to both Matt and Travis and to the team for showing so much character.