7 Characteristics That Make a Good High School Wrestler a Successful College Wrestler

7 Characteristics That Make a Good High School Wrestler a Successful College Wrestler

Today I again went back and rewatched the interview Flowrestling recently did with Tom Ryan, the head wrestling coach at Ohio State. This is truly a great interview with several fantastic insights into the mind of one of the top wrestling coaches in the country right now.

Right around the 10 1/2 minute mark in the interview, Flowrestling’s Christian Pyles gets coach Ryan to talk about recruiting. His question attempts to discover what characteristics coach Ryan looks for in potential college wrestling recruits.

Pyles alludes to the fact that many wrestlers underperform in college based on their records coming out of high school. Therefore, Pyles questions if Ryan has a formula to increase his probability of hitting on a successful college wrestling recruit.

Obviously, no head coach wants to give away their secret sauce for recruiting. However, I still thought coach Ryan provided a good short list of characteristics worth noting. While not going into a tremendous amount of detail, the seven characteristics below provide a good understanding of what ultimately makes a good high school wrestler a successful college wrestler.

  1. The good fortune of health
  2. The understanding of how to be the “CEO” of their life and how to look internally, self-assess, and take responsibility
  3. A deep love of wrestling
  4. A true love of competing
  5. Looks forward to being “under the lights”
  6. The ability to embrace discomfort and fatigue
  7. Knows how to execute in chaos

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