welcome to the secrets of college planning on the host anthony and today we're going to get some insight on how colleges recruit for wrestling my guest today is gary taylor he's the head men's wrestling coach at rider university and welcome to the show anthony no problem so well usually i start my guess where they went to college so where did you go to school i went to two colleges went to clarion first and that's where i wrestled in all of that and then  strong actually a national program it's probably the best time that they had in in all of wrestling he was of excellent coach and an excellent guy to be under to me as a mentor and and so on great so now let's go a little back before college when did you start thinking about college is it freshman year software your high school and when did you start thinking about wrestling in college well i wrestled varsity all four years so recruiting with slightly different then in much of that didn't happen till the end but i wrestled on a very strong team in the state of pennsylvania and had watched other fellow wrestlers you know wrestle and then move on to college so yeah years if you're thinking about it at different times you know again the recruiting process today happens much earlier than it did at that time so it's kind of in the back of your mind and you watch you watch people that you wrestled on teams with move on to college and so on so you're asking them questions how it works and all of that and then  and how did you pick larry as a school well bob bob in neil turner where the coaches are both now in the national hall of fame klarion was at that time building him a major powerhouse to the point of where they had three of the ten national champs in one year so it was a very very strong as as most of the state system was it and you know still is you know in the state of pennsylvania is now off a lot of wrestlers in the ph state schools klarion was actually just really coming up at that time and then they really they they've really took off after that such a scenario after college how does one become the head men's wrestling coach at dr university what what was the process that you took from graduating from college to today was i said i wrestle i didn't wrestle under red whitman but i  coached with him in assisted him and east stroudsburg and it through that process about the time that i was finishing up with him he had mentioned you know i just got something that came across my desk that writer university or writer college at that time the writer university he said would you be interested you know tell me a little bit more you know about it because i was in this familiar with it at that time and as he talked more more and i was already applying for high school positions and so on and this was an opportunity at the collegiate level which i preferred and i knew i preferred dead at that time i  knew that all through college in watching both bob turner excellent mentors as well i was fortunate to be under some very good men and coaches in i watched i watched them and i thought you know what i really like i really like that and then spending time with with read whitman i thought i'd really like to do that one day not thinking that it would happen as a first job so  so that was your first right after assisting you stroudsburg rucker writer university was the very first position you had writer was a very first position i had there was a two year period that i wrestled for a team called athletes in action right out of college when i wrestled for athletes in action my teammates and coaches were john peterson a big gold medalists and davis bronze medalists and  being around them and being on that team we were in every major wrestling room in the country and we trained there and so and so i got a chance to you know again i was very fortunate to be around good coaches all my life my high school coaches in the pennsylvania  hall of fame so in those two years i knew that at the end of that second year that i wanted to start a career and that's when i went back up to stroudsburg and talk to read you know and it wasn't a thing where i was asking him he just happened to mention by the way gary would you be interested in this and i said webb i'd like to hear more about it he told me more about it and he said w said yeah i really i really want to apply and i was already applying and had already been offered a job at a high school level and i thought one apply here and just see and when i went to that interview i shared with them you know  that i have to make a decision you know i don't know what your time process was i have to make a decision because they have a contract and they've offered it to me so i said in a couple weeks by a couple weeks i've got to decide this so right or came back and offered me the job in i mean it was a no brainer at that time for me just because i knew i liked the collegiate level i had been around for that for quite a bet at that time both at stroudsburg and then without so it's an action  now you're at the school you've been there thirty six years thirty seven i believe thirty seven this year wow so thirty seven years give our audience a little bit of background on the team itself because it's been quite a ride for yourself well i mean this is this is a situation that i walked into after coming off athletes in action and being every major program in the united states so when i first got to write or fell in name barry burnett had started to program did a great job of building a good foundation at that point in time so when i got there and i accepted the job they did an interview you know at the beginning and they said what do you want to see happen here and i said well my goal is to bring eastern and national recognition to ryder university in you could a heard a pin drop because at that time they had never had a nationally ranked wrestler they'd never had a nationally ranked team and they had never obviously had an all american so they said well that's pretty  me what's what's going to happen and it's my home and it to me it wasn't even a goal it was going to happen while you know it was just you know that's how i thought that's how i coached in you know it yeah it's a goal but to me it was a realistic goal but to everyone else it was not in a realistic goal at that time and by our second year we placed eighteenth in the nation we had our first all american you know so fortunately  head you know left when he left there was he did a really good job of recruiting my first all american was lou do surfie know and lou went from not winning a conference to placing third in the nation  i knew i knew at the time that i watched lou for a while because again i had been around the best of the best there is no doubt in my mind when i watch lou that he could be that and i told him that and he laughed at me and i didn't talk to him and he kept coming back in the office i told him i wouldn't talk to him and you know he said he came in one day apologized and said you know i thought you were just trying to you know build me up so that i could win the conference i said you have to win  conference or go to nationals that's that's the byproduct i'm looking at the national level and i'm telling you you're good enough to do it and so the that process was the first one had to spend an awful lot of time individual time with lou to get him there but it wasn't just the technique and so it was more the mental aspect to get him to believe at that level get his technique better so that his conference kept building and then you know i think we could follow that up with with you know fourteen whole americans over those thirty some years so so what are some of the qualities and when the as a high school students start to think about going to college for wrestling what are the qualities that they need and when did they start thinking about is this freshman or sophomore year or is it seen a year where it is today it is today if you'd asked me fifteen years ago i would have had a different answer but today your freshman sophomore year you're already being looked at well and you're being looked at pretty seriously if you how do you use that they need for russell the perfect scenario is is always going to be the total student athlete someone that is a serious academic student and someone who also has the potential to wrestle in division one and there's a distinction there i mean it's you know you're you're  clearly today with seventy seven or seventy eight programs and that's just the visual hundreds of thousands of wrestler wrists throughout the nation you're getting an opportunity that not many people get so you have to be at a certain level or certainly you have to have you know there has to be something there that a division one coach is seeing potentially that you could get there and what so what are some of those qualities that the that they're looking for it first and foremost is a student so great that makes your job much easier if their grades are good ok because you know they're taking it pretty serious in high school they'll take it usually pretty serious  in college you're going to run into situations where kids are extremely talented but they are not as strong a student in high school because they didn't understand how important it is so if you're going to take one of those student out pleats and you're going to you have a job ahead of you filling in the gaps of why it was important and why you misstep in high school but you won't miss it in college or you won't be in college so it's that simple that's the kind of conversations that you have to have but ideally you do have some pretty good choices today because a lot of those kids want to be in division one so they'll have a lot of them do have you know very good grades coming up work ethic is probably more important in college by far than high school you don't have to have the greatest work yet they can high school if you're good you're just better than people you just it just happens that way how about how about is there weight mean a lot at the high school level because i know there's heavy weight and then there's a lot of different weight classes in wrestling yeah to go back to that other point before i move on to weight you you look for work ethic because everybody's good at division one college if you don't have the work ethic you're going to have a hard time transitioning at the conference and at the national level so that's one of the that's one of the biggest things that i that i look for weight classes are tricky they're very tricky because i give you an example we had a two time all american named john carr belair coming out of high school he want to high school national championship at one hundred three pounds he's a senior ok so a lot of big colleges like him but they never they didn't know if he was going to be big enough for one twenty five i looked at him and i looked that there was some range there as well and i was sitting in a situation with two light weights that were very good so i knew john didn't have to go in right away so we had a year to redshirt him build him up and a of colleges regretted that decision to not really go after him as aggressively as i did so you have to kind of some of that just takes time and again this is where the mentorship of some great college coaches and talking around tables and stuff when nobody's around and picking their brains and all of that so where are kids at in high school you can get some indications did he change all four years in high school in other words was he at one zero three and then what is he up to one twelve in the weight classes are always changing so it you know over the years you could use  you know different weights but if you see a kid getting bigger every year then you can kind of project ahead he's going to be bigger so now here's the tricky part you've got to figure out in college you've got ten  you've got to be looking at head who's a junior who's the senior who we need to start looking to replace does this kid fit that potentially even though he's lighter than that now if we redshirted him a year or even if you didn't read s american for me so we'll sit around and we'll strategize years ahead and we've got our eye on kids so weight classes are really important and that's the part you got to figure out it's tough to pass up a good kid but if you really don't need them that year but you need another kid you know then you've got to go in that direction now now you said seventy seven schools at the vision one level is they're wrestling at the vision two in division three oh absolutely you know division three being the largest the largest number of schools i don't have those off the top of my head but yeah you have division two so you do and the difference i say the difference let me explain division two can also give scholarship money division three technically can't but their financial aid packages are somehow very strong so they find ways around that if they're if they really want someone as well so what i'm saying to any young person who's a student wrestler it can pay off at any one of those divisions division one division two division three work hard and the classroom and get really good at wrestling and you reflect back to your time as well you saw a lot of multisport athletes i was a sport out the lead as was most people at that at that time today wrestling has gotten so every sport has gotten so good that and kids are looking to try and get scholarships so that they've really been geared in a direction not to go you know through both now i think you mentioned football i think this is the toughest decision the football players deciding ok in one scenario you've got kids that are not big enough really to play football in division one for the most part there's exceptions and then you've got the really big kids who have a much better chance at a scholarship with ninety five you know scholarships they've got a much better chance to pursue football so you don't see that crossover as much as he used to write ok so so now what type of  things the wrestler in high school need to have like is their camps or extra teams that they play on they'd not just do it by school wrestling and that's it is there other outside activities that these kids have to do most of the good wrestlers are good to go to good camps where they get challenge and they get taught by you know some some excellent coaches in addition to that the thing that you're seeing more and more and you probably see it more in new jersey than than most places although pennsylvania and other states certainly are are doing it now and that's for more clubs because high school kids can't start until a certain time so there's a lot of clubs  that fill in that gap at the beginning of their season before their beginning of their season at the end of their season and there are so clubs that run during their season that they go to after their high school you know work out and every scenario is different sometimes you know people want to get that extra because you know they've got an opportunity to train with a certain individual or organizer so now the student athlete comes to writ round thing where you taking these kids you know twelve months and it's pretty much year round now the n c double way has guidelines you're in the pre season eight hours of work and much of that is more of a training session cardiovascular weightlifting running you know really building your conditioning to a certain level so that when when you do get to the wrestling part of it you built that because there's really no condition that can simulate wrestling wrestling is the ultimate condition but you do have to build a base doing that so all division one one teams are doing the same type of thing in the postseason you're looking at more in a freestyle mode which is what is wrestled one of the two styles wrestled in dealin picks and then in the summer a lot the kids stay up and you know some worked in summer school s you know working in the area and come in the room in roll around you can have an olympic training center like princeton has one here you know where recruits can become part of that  on top of classes is it just the all about wrestling and that's it because there's a lot of parents out there that think it's just about the sport in that so much about the graduating you can't do one without the other when it's that simple so if you are not eligible you can't wrestle in i tend to be a simple man and that men are to explain it to him doesn't matter how good you are if you're sitting in the stands because you're not eligible then you're not helping your team you're not helping yourself you know so you're academics come first wrestling is an extremely close second and sometimes it's hard to see that difference but academics i'm speaking for or university and we have an academic adviser who would back this up if there's ever a conflict academics wins ok it's just that simple with me that does not mean that if you have to miss a practice because academics one that you're not going to make that up but will work that out an individual basis and sometimes you run into that more with science majors because their labs happen at certain times of the day and so on and there's really no way around it so would do a lot more individual  set up but we mean it's it's stressed hard in every division one school academics are really important and they're important to the coaches because if they're not well they can help the wrestling program yeah so  during the season so what's the what's the season like how many how many matches are there what sixteen dates it could be a lot more matches than that because you can go to multiple like will go to the virginia duels you know and you have sixteen teams there and you may depending on how you do because it is it's a bracketed situation you may wrestle four or five times wow and there even though it's two dates you may get in four or five you know and the you continue with them when they get to the national level after i'm assuming nationals after the season is pretty much done right nationals is at the tail end of the season but is part of the season so he would say it's post season i understand the terminology but it's really it's just a continuation you're going through your conference to find out if you're qualified to go to nationals if you qualify for nationals or you get selected as a wild card then then you go on to nationals i would like to go back to one statement from cern in the academics because the other thing and this is this is really important for wrestlers to understand there's not a whole lot of opportunity in the sport of wrestling following college so the other thing that is stressed  lot is you've got to get this right you know you've got five years to complete four years of eligibility in that five years you also need to complete your degree and that writer that stressed a lot and  i have a very strong record most people that come to write are finished and graduate from writer and that's because that's your job as a as a college coach you're trying to get them a college degree so that can move on with their life beyond wrestling because most of them won't do be in wrestling after that some will go into coaching some will you know go into m m a in it which is kind of a part of it but for the most part their college degree is what's going to be worth it for the rest of their life that they you know that they wrestled and that provided an opportunity for them to get their degree it's the work you give them yes that's work ethic academically and wrestling yeah without the other so so the the nationals is is pretty much part of that sixteen now you have seen the dates prior to that the conference is is technically postseason doesn't count in those sixteen dates and that's usually something some conferences are set up one day some are set up on two days and you know through the process you have ten weight classes in college you have thirty three wrestlers that have qualified through varying processes and conferences and so on throughout the nation in each weight class if you are in the top eight if you finish in the top eight you're if you're a division one all american usually what i say to my guess is what kind of advice do you want to give the parents out there that their sons are looking into wrestling at the college level what kind of advice do you want to give them pay strong attention to their academics and i can't say this enough because there are all different levels a kid can be really good but he might not be great ok and that's call reality all right but in that process if he's doing really let me back that up he's good he's not great he's entering college but he has a fantastic work ethic ok he could get great on his work ethic and that's what a lot of coaches look for is that kid it's just losing to that very top kid by one or two points and you're seeing all kinds of potential and yes not there right now but some kids develop a little bit later and you think he can develop but now in this scenario what i'm telling him about the academics for they can also get academic scholarship money if he's a good student and that pays that pays dividends that's money you don't have to pay back it's an athletic scholarship and it doesn't count against the program if it's at a certain level certain criteria so i would strongly recommend you know any any parent with a son that daughter that that is a wrestler to pay close attention starting the ninth grade because the academic requirements for the n c double way keep moving more and more stringent to you have to have more academic units even in the last five years and you had to have five years ago so get together with your guidance counselor sit down with them map out a strategy make sure that you're getting the number of units that you need to meet the clearinghouse then s a t s start to become important because the combination of grades you have to have enough units then you have to have good grades then you have to match that with your s a t s if you're getting all of those if that starts in the ninth grade the student athlete kind of gets in that gear if you're trying to make that up and by the junior senior year it gets harder to do you know so that's the advice i would give them great well thank you very much for coming to show thank you anthony so you've been watching the secrets of college