Tuesday Q&A: Tossin’ 10 at Alex Tirapelle, University of Pennsylvania head coach

Photo of Alex Tirapelle courtesy of the University of Pennsylvania Athletics.


Each Tuesday, TheMat.com will be tossing 10 questions at a college wrestling coach. This week, we visit with the University of Pennsylvania head man Alex Tirapelle.

Question 1 - You are going into second year with Penn, what did you learn about your team and about competition in the EIWA during your first season here?
Tirapelle: When you make any change, going from one university to another, there is a little bit of a learning curve. You need to learn who the people are you need to talk to, who to know, how to get things done quickly and efficiently. I was fortunate enough to have help from people like Roger Reina and Matt Valenti, who have gone through the process as both athletes and coaches. So we were able to get on the right track faster than if I had done it myself. I learned a lot about the program. I learned a lot about the conference. The wrestling community is relatively small, so it’s not like its night and day, but there are some differences. I am really happy to be at the university, and really happy to be in the EIWA conference. It has a great group of coaches and a great group of teams. I’m excited for the future.

Question 2: With your experience coaching at Stanford and now at Penn, talk about the special kind of athlete who can handle the challenges of Div. I wrestling at a highly-academic college.
Tirapelle: We are very fortunate that we get to work with some outstanding young men. Obviously, they have the intelligence to succeed in academically prestigious schools. But they also have incredible drive. That really is not uncommon in the wrestling community. We always talk about how coming in, based just on academic profile, they are slightly lower than the general student. But, when they come to school, they actually perform better because of that wrestling mentality, that drive to succeed, work hard and be disciplined. The bottom line, they get things done.

Question 3: Cornell has been the king of EIWA wrestling for the last decade. What will it take for Penn, or another conference team, to knock the Big Red out of the top spot in the conference?
Tirapelle: Cornell has a very mature program. They have things running in the right direction. It will take clearly a lot of hard work, a lot of guidance from above and consistency. I don’t think any program, us or anyone else in the EIWA, is going to put together a program in a year or two and dethrone them. It is something which must be done with consistency. You recruit consistently, you have staff around consistently, you have the same goals and the same roadmap, the same plan over the course of several years. That will put you in position to dethrone them from the EIWA championship spot.

Question 4: You come from the West Coast and competed in the Midwest. What is your assessment of Eastern high school wrestling and the recruits in the neighboring states?
Tirapelle: I said before, the wrestling community isn’t huge. It is not that much different. In regards to the style of wrestling, that is probably the major difference. I am very impressed with wrestling on the East Coast, especially the youth, high school and pre-college wrestling. We have an incredible wealth of talent that we are fortunate to be able to recruit from, Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Ohio. There are so many talented kids; it’s kind of overwhelming at times. And just the exposure the kids have as such a young age. There are so many opportunities. That’s one of the biggest things I felt like growing up on the West Coast as a competitor. We weren’t fortunate to have the saturation of programs they have here. It’s outstanding. It’s a great thing.

Question 5: Lorenzo Thomas was an All-American in 2014. What are his strengths as a wrestler, and what kind of leadership does he provide for this program?
Tirapelle: For the most part, he is straight and narrow with the basics. He does get crazy at times, wrestles from different positions. He is a little bit of a scrambler. He likes to make things happen, maybe. He is certainly entertaining to watch. He does give some headaches to the coach sometimes, some frustrations. He definitely has some talent and is a great competitor. As far as becoming a leader, he is coming into his own right now as a senior. A lot of times that’s the case that happens with kids. They see the light at the end of the tunnel, their last go-round. It’s nothing new. They want to give it their all and capitalize on the opportunities. That is when they really blossom and mature into that leader you wanted them to be from the get-go.

Question 6: C.J. Cobb and Caleb Richardson are both two-time NCAA qualifiers. What kind of progress have they made since last season that will help them reach the podium at NCAAs in New York.
Tirapelle: We have had progress on our team across the board. We had an outstanding summer. A vast majority of our team was around training all summer, the best summer experience I’ve had as a competitor or coach anywhere I have been, to tell the truth. It’s not rocket science, just keep plugging away, keep tweaking what you are doing and make sure you are doing a little bit better each day. By the end of the road, the end of the season, you will be where you want to be. I think we will have a lot of guys knocking on that door this year and I wouldn’t be surprised if a couple of them break through.

Question 7: Do you have any young Quakers that may not be well known that fans should watch out for going into the new season?
Tirapelle: We have a good group of young kids coming in. I don’t know exactly what the college fans know about them. I know in the East, it seems like everybody knows everybody. The guys who are you are most likely to see are A.J. Vindici wrestle a bit at 141. We have some opportunity there. We had a couple seniors graduate. He wants to be the guy, he wants to step in and contribute to the team. A guy you may see a little time from is Tyler Hall, a freshman heavyweight out of New York. It’s the same kind of thing. He has some opportunity to step in, and I know he’s hungry to contribute as well.

Question 8: How important is the wrestling tradition at Penn and the strong alumni support to building this program into national prominence?
Tirapelle: The alumni support is outstanding. I always tell people that’s what attracted me to the position when I came out to interview. The number of alums I got to meet with and talk to about the program, you could tell how passionate they were and how closely in their heart the program held a spot with them. As far as how it will help us, you only get four coaches. You need help. Anyone who tells you that tells you they do it alone, or with a small group of people, they probably aren’t telling the truth or they don’t realize they have had a lot of help along the way. We are very fortunate. Our alums drive a lot of efforts that allow us to focus more on the primary objectives and the things going on with the team. I am very excited about the future, and what our guys have in the works for us.

Question 9: Who were the top influences in your development as a wrestling coach and how did they help you develop your skills?
Tirapelle: I am not a guy who thinks he knows it all. I am fortunate to have had interactions with not only some great coaches but also some great people. Starting back, my father was my high school coach growing up. I was fortunate enough to wrestle at the University of Illinois for Mark Johnson and Jim Heffernan, who is there now. Great guys, outstanding people. I started my coaching career at UC-Davis and got to spend some time with Lenny Zalesky, another great guy who is at Cal-Baptist now. I moved on to Stanford and got to work with Jason Borrelli and guys like Ray Blake. They are all different coaches, different styles, different techniques, different philosophies. But I am very fortunate. I feel everyone I have been around have been high-quality, high class people. I feel that has shaped me the most.

Question 10: What is special about competing in the Palestra, where the Quakers were unbeaten last year and a place with great history in our sport?
Tirapelle: I really like it. It has a lot of tradition behind it. Palestra actually translates to “House of Wrestling.” It is a great venue to compete. I love the acoustics in there. I notice the first time we went in there to do a cross-train workout. I was on the stairs at one end and I yelled down to the other end to the other half of our guys. There were so many echoes bouncing off the walls, you can’t even understand what’s going on. It gets pretty loud when you have exciting things going on in there.

Past Tossin’ 10 interviews
October 27- South Dakota State head coach Chris Bono