Tuesday Q&A: Tossin’ 10 with Kevin Jackson, Iowa State head coach

Each Tuesday, TheMat.com will be tossing 10 questions at a college wrestling coach. This week, we visit with Iowa State head coach Kevin Jackson. His Cyclones are fresh off a team title at the Virginia Duals, where they beat then-No. 5 Virginia Tech in the finals.

Question 1: What was the key to Iowa State’s victory at the Virginia Duals, and what was different from the first time you met Virginia Tech this season?
Jackson: Number one, our guys really came to compete. Each and every wrestler on our team really laid their heart on the line and battle. We know that results occur when they do that. Tactically, we attacked them more. We got off more attacks than Virginia Tech, and in our first dual meet, they out-attacked us. We also got off the bottom and we rode. We had more riding time than Virginia Tech, and that wasn’t the case the first time around.

Question 2: What do you feel about the expansion of the Big 12?
Jackson: First of all, it’s great for the conference. More importantly, it’s great for wrestling. Adding those six teams not only solidifies the Big 12 Conference as an automatic qualifying conference, but it solidifies those programs on their own campus. Their athletic directors look at wrestling more positively, their administration looks at wrestling more positively. I have talked to several coaches from those teams, and they say that when those athletes put that Big 12 logo on their singlet, they react stronger, compete harder and are more excited about where they are at, the conference they are in, and what the possibilities are. It’s great for the conference, great for wrestling in general. I don’t think we are done adding teams. When you start with those four original teams, add six more teams, and look to add more, we will be a rival with anybody in the near future.

Question 3: You wrestled for Iowa State and now coach the program. How rich is the wrestling tradition there?
Jackson: It is extremely rich. There are not many programs that can approach what Iowa State has accomplished over the years. This is our 100th year of wrestling and we are celebrating that this year. With our 65 NCAA championships and our eight NCAA team championships, our three Hodge Trophies, our Outstanding Wrestlers at the NCAA Tournament, our more than 15 Olympians and eight medalists, our six gold medalists, it’s a tradition that can stand with any other program in the country. For wrestling, the support of our administration and our athletic director and our president, the way they view wrestling, and how wrestling is viewed in this state, it’s second to none. The tradition at Iowa State is great, and the expectations for Iowa State is great. That never changes, because of the culture and the tradition of our program.

Question 4: You have a strong coaching staff, with the Paulson twins, Angel Escobedo and Michael Moreno working along with you. What do these coaches bring to the team effort to help the Cyclone program improve?
Jackson: We have a young, energetic staff. I think we have the only staff in the country where every coach, with the exception of our graduate assistant Mike Moreno, have made a World or Olympic team. Not many programs are represented that way. That is something we sell. You have to have great assistants to build a program or run a program. They have to buy into what the head coach is preaching, and it drifts down to the athletes. It is important to have coaches with the same passion for winning, improving and molding young men into men that you do. I know we have that with the Paulsons, Angel Escobedo and Mike Moreno. Our goal is to be the best wrestlers in the country and to produce some of the best wrestlers in the world. Our bigger mission is to make sure to give these young men need to be successful once they move past Iowa State. These guys are all about that, about what is most important for our young men.

Question 5: Kyven Gadson won the NCAA Championships, beating Kyle Snyder in the finals. Snyder is a World champion now…
Jackson: That’s pretty good. Kyle Snyder is pretty good…
Question 5 continued: Gadson has since decided to pursue Olympic wrestling. How much has Kyven improved since he made that decision?
Jackson: He has improved. He has had very good results. He had a good result at the Nationals this year. He went from not placing at the NYAC to taking third place in the Vegas Nationals. He beat the No. 3 ranked National Team athlete. He was in the semifinals, but got caught and pinned. He has improved and continues to improve. If he can tap into the freestyle tactics, as well as the mentality he had when he went to the NCAA finals, and the mentality he had his whole senior year… If he can get back into that mindset of complete domination, whether its stance, tie-up, attack and winning, I think he has got some great potential. It’s a work in progress as we all know. He is putting in the work. He is out in Colorado Springs right now improving his skills and taking advantage of the coaching opportunities that Colorado Springs brings to the table.

Question 6: What are the differences and similarities between coaching the USA National Team and coaching on the college level?
Jackson: The deal is, at the Senior level, it is strictly a coaching job, for the most part. It’s training the best wrestlers in the world, going with them around the world, to the best competitions in wrestling. So it’s strictly coaching techniques and tactics and trying to help these guys try to accomplish what their goals are. You are dealing with grown men who take full responsibility for their results, and you are just trying to aid them with your experience and skills to allow them to be the best in the world. That was exciting and that was very fun. Where you are not as involved is on the day-to-day. When I was the Resident Coach, on the day-to-day, that was the case, and we had a great resident program with a great group of athletes. You could look up and down on that team and see how many national champions and World Team members and World Cup champions and so-forth that we produced when I was the Resident Coach. As a collegiate coach, you are with your team every single day, you are working with them not only on the athletic standpoint, but you are trying to help them grow into guys who will be integral parts or leaders in their community and continue to be great role models for young people. That’s a big part of it. It’s dealing day-to-day with social life, to the athletic arena, to the academic arena. It’s overseeing every aspect of everything they do. That’s not the case as the National Coach. It’s more like being a professional coach in the NFL, where all you have to worry about is the X’s and O’s. At the collegiate level, the job isn’t such the X’s and O’s, it’s what are these guys doing academically, socially, can they tie into what they need to do to be successful? There is a huge transition from high school to college, no matter what your results were as a high school level.

Question 7: You have a Regional Training Center with the Cyclone Wrestling Club. How important is that for your college program and the U.S. international effort?
Jackson: Right now, the RTCs are essential. I am still a fan of all of our National Team athletes getting together throughout the year, maybe a little bit more, to train alongside other freestylers. That year-round training in freestyle can’t be beat. That’s proven. The RTCs are essential to what USA Wrestling is trying to accomplish. There are also huge parts about what is going on collegiately that you have to have a Regional Training Center to compete with the best teams in the country. You have to have quality athletes in those RTCs that are serious contenders to make World and Olympic Teams. It’s iron sharpening iron mentality. It’s putting an athlete with your collegiate athlete, which will provide a stronger competition than you see against the other major college teams. You want to put your guys in a stronger competition room than they will face in actual competition. Having Senior-level athletes who are at the next level training with your kids on a consistent basis will make them better and allow your athletes to see what it takes to be a champion. Every single one of our guys see Angel Escobedo, Kyven Gadson, Mike Moreno, who are All-Americans, national champions. Our guys can watch them train and walk in their footsteps and follow what they do, and know they are training as hard as anybody in the world to accomplish their goals of being the best wrestlers they can possibly be.

Question 8: It’s midway through the college season. Who on the Cyclone team has improved the most this year and made an impact on the team performance?
Jackson: I have to say two guys. I have to say the guy who improved the most, who is making a major impact… His weight class is probably a pivotal weight class against Virginia Tech, even though he didn’t win. We had gotten beaten pretty badly during the first dual and he kept that match to a decision. He was out there to win the match. But Dane Pestano, a kid out of Hawaii, had a tough true freshman year. He is actually a 197 pounder. Last year, he didn’t have the greatest of years. We didn’t know if he would tie into the program and wrestle from a mental standpoint, although he had the physical tools. He moved down to 184 this year and may still be a little undersized. At this point right now, if the qualifications are to make the NCAA Championships, he would be an automatic qualifier for the NCAA Championships. I am very impressed with his work ethic and the mental shift in him that allows him to compete with anybody in the country. I am extremely happy with his progression and improvement. The other one is Quean Smith, our heavyweight, even though I feel he has not tapped into his true athleticism or his strength or the things he is capable of doing. He has wrestled very, very well this year and won some big matches for us. He would be an automatic qualifier if the season was to end right now. I truly believe he will qualify for the NCAA Championships and he hadn’t been to the NCAAs his first two years. Those are the two guys who are most improved.

Question 9: You are an Olympic and World champion, competed on two World Champion Teams, and coached our Freestyle National Team. How close is the USA to returning to the top of the world in men’s freestyle wrestling and what must happen to get our program there again?
Jackson: It is a tough question, because you are happy with the two World champions and the kid who takes third, Green. The seventh place finish, I don’t think the people like myself, Kenny Monday and the insiders, I don’t know if we actually recognize how close we are based upon that performance. The world has gotten a lot tougher, a lot better. The teams around the world have invested quite a bit of money. The difference between the rest of the world and the United States is that those programs that are the top five in the world, they are professional athletes that train together every single day, that are coached freestyle every single day, that don’t split their focus on coaching collegiate wrestling. I know the guys that I wrestled with, top to bottom, when you think about the Dave Schultz’s, the Bruce Baumgartners, the John Smiths, our focus was 100% on getting better in freestyle, training together, getting out to Foxcatcher and getting out to Sunkist and doing the training with each other so much more. What it is going to take for us is for our National Team athletes, who are the best athletes in the world, to spend a lot more time together at one location, training fulltime as professional athletes to accomplish what they say they want to be, that is to be the very best in the world.

Question 10: How important is the Iowa vs. Iowa State rivalry to your program, and what will it take to get it where Iowa State can make that more of an even split?
Jackson: We haven’t held up our end of the bargain in that rivalry, for sure. It’s hard to call it a rivalry when one team has not held up its end of the bargain. We recognize that. It is very important that we are able to challenge Iowa and eventually beat Iowa. We still feel like the national championship runs through Iowa. If we can’t beat Iowa, we can’t put ourself in the position to be national champions, because they are always going to be in the hunt, they are always going to be top two, top three team in the country. So, that is a great measuring stick to find out where your team is at, to put themselves in the hunt to be the very best team in the country. They haven’t had a drop off in a long time. They have been top two or three ever since I stepped on campus. That hasn’t changed and that’s not going to change. It is a battle to get to the level they are at right now. I am confident we have the guys in our room that continue to understand what it takes to compete with the Hawkeyes and we continue to add other kids in the program that understand what Iowa State is supposed to be able to do when it comes to the Iowa State- Iowa rivalry. If you look at it historically, all the coaches who have been on campus at Iowa State, from Bobby (Douglans) to Cael (Sanderson) to Jim (Gibbons), it has been a tough grind when you are talking head-to-head. That is very, very important. That is a measuring stick that is put in front of me every single year and is something we think quite a bit about. We can’t spend all of our time and energy worrying about the Hawkeyes. There are several other programs out there that are strong. It’s important that we get that thing turned around, because when that happens, it adds fuel and energy to the state and to wrestling. Wrestling is better when Iowa State is in the hunt.

Extra Question: I’ve lost track of how many questions I asked. Was there anything we did not cover that you would like to talk about?
Jackson: It is a great opportunity to work with young men and help young men accomplish their goals. USA Wrestling was a great opportunity for me to coach at the Senior level for 10 years and see some guys win World and Olympic championships, to be a part of the Cael Sandersons and the Stephen Abases, the Brandon Slays and the Bill Zadicks and to sit in their corner and do the things that coaches do. To help those athletes, those were special times for me. I miss them. I will be getting the opportunity to coach a couple World teams. I think I will start off with the Cadet World Championships team this summer, and would love to build from there. I took a step back a little bit from the freestyle, but am looking forward to sharing what I have learned and know about the sport. I did that longer than I have been a college coach. I look forward to that again, to get out to Colorado Springs a little bit more.

Past Tossin’ 10 interviews
December 22 – Arizona State head coach Zeke Jones 
December 15 – Rutgers head coach Scott Goodale 
December 8 – Nebraska head coach Mark Manning 
December 1 – Drexel head coach Matt Azevedo 
November 24 – Oklahoma head coach Mark Cody 
November 17 – Oklahoma City’s head men’s & women’s coach Archie Randall 
November 10 - Stanford head coach Jason Borrelli
November 3 - Pennsylvania head coach Alex Tirapelle 
October 27- South Dakota State head coach Chris Bono