Popular Oklahoma State freshman Daton Fix is now making a big impact in Div. I college wrestling
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by Gary Abbott, USA Wrestling
Oklahoma State freshman Daton Fix poses with a group of young fans after their dual meet at Northern Colorado on Sunday. Photo by Patricia Fox.
After Oklahoma State’s Big 12 dual meet victory over Northern Colorado in Greeley, Colo. on Sunday afternoon, a large group of youth wrestlers waited patiently while Cowboy freshman 133-pounder Daton Fix completed a media interview. They were seeking autographs and wanting to take photos with Fix.
Fix, the fuzzy-haired kid from Sand Springs, Okla., is perhaps one of the most popular freshmen wrestlers in college history.
Very few college freshmen starters have such a rich resume. Second on the 2018 Senior National freestyle team, by placing second in Final X. 2017 Junior World champion and two-time Junior World medalist. Cadet World medalist and Youth Olympic Games medalist. All before his first official dual meet for Oklahoma State.
“I love where I am at. It is really a dream come true, being at Oklahoma State and being a Cowboy. We have a great team. We have a lot of potential. If we keep wrestling the way we are, and we keep training hard, we have a good chance to do good things come March,” said Fix.
Cowboy head coach John Smith understands what Fix is going through, as an Oklahoma boy who went on to became a college star for Oklahoma State. A two-time Olympic champion and four-time World champion, Smith had the same kind of goals that Fix did when he came up through the system.
“He enjoys it. He is living out a dream right now, like all of us who grew up in Oklahoma and wanted to go to Oklahoma State. That is a big part of your wrestling from the time you are pretty young,” said Smith.
In the age of FloWrestling, TrackWrestling and social media, young wrestling stars like Fix grow up online in front of the entire wrestling nation. There are lots of reasons that he has a fan base already. Fix likes to jump up way high in the air before his matches. He has an amazing offense that lights up scoreboards. He always has this great big smile. Along with that, Fix is a humble young man with an amazing work ethic, a mat rat who just loves to wrestle.
Ranked No. 5 in the nation at 133 pounds, after winning his match on Sunday over UNC’s Sean Cannon by a 16-1 technical fall, Fix is now 8-0 in college wrestling. He already has victories over past NCAA runner-up Ethan Lizak of Minnesota and nationally-ranked Montorie Bridges of Wyoming. And he is probably wrestling up a weight class from where he could be, or may end up by the end of the season.
Nobody is saying whether or not Fix may drop to 125 pounds for this college season, which is his international weight class in freestyle. Fix placed second in Final X behind 2017 World silver medalist Thomas Gilman at 57 kg/125.5 lbs. and gave him a good battle. OSU has a very strong lineup with Fix at 133 pounds and All-American Nick Piccininni at 125 pounds and Fix is fully capable of challenging for NCAA gold by competing at 133.
“I can get lower than that. I make the weight pretty easy. After practice about every day I am within a couple of pounds. It is nice being at 133. I feel good. I can wrestle really hard, which is what I like the most about it,” said Fix.
Coach Smith is also not on the record about where Fix will wrestle at the NCAAs, as well as other wrestlers on the team for that matter. The Cowboys have three All-Americans in their room who did not wrestle against Northern Colorado, and Smith said he would not be surprised to see changes as the season progresses.
“It is how things materialize the next few months. For me, it has been exciting for me to watch (Fix) wrestle. He has done a good job to this point. He feels pretty comfortable at the weight class. I don’t know what we are going to do in the future. Right now, he is enjoying his freshman campaign. A lot of people have enjoyed watching him wrestle, and he has a lot of tough matches coming up that he is going to have to focus on,” said Smith.
Wrestling fans who are hoping to see Daton Fix at 125 pounds with a chance to meet up against NCAA champion and three-time age-group World champion Spencer Lee of Iowa may or not get to see that battle on the college scene this year. However both Fix and Lee have been on the record saying they will be competing at 57 kg in freestyle for a run at the Olympic Team, where Gilman and other top talents will also be waiting for them both.
Fix came into the new college season after falling short in his attempt to win back-to-back Junior World titles after winning a gold in 2017 following his final season of high school wrestling. Fix made the 2018 Junior World team a few weeks after Final X by beating Brandon Courtney of Arizona State in a Special Wrestle-off in July in Fargo, N.D., making a third straight Junior World Team.
At the 2018 Junior Worlds in Slovakia, Fix won his first two matches by technical fall, before dropping a tight 5-4 match to Naveen of India in the semifinals. He rallied with another 10-0 technical fall in the bronze-medal match over Bekbolt Myzanazar of Kyrgyzstan to come home with a second straight Junior World medal.
“I didn’t do good enough to win in the semifinals. There were some questionable calls on the edge that didn’t go my way. I can’t leave it in those officials’ hands. It is something I learned a long time ago, but it is still a real thing. I have to go out there and score as many points as I can. I didn’t do that. But, the way I wrestle, I came back and got a bronze medal. That says a lot. I have such high goals to win a gold medal, but I could still come back and get that bronze medal,” said Fix.
Right now, Fix is focused on the college season. Against Cannon in the Northern Colorado match, Fix was able to score multiple tilts from the top after getting his takedown, and ended up with a technical fall in the first period. He has been working on getting better in his folkstyle mat wrestling this fall.
“I have been working on getting the legs more, and the last couple of matches, I have been able to get more of that and have done that better than in the past. That is something that I have been working on. And just wrestling on the mat in general. It is something the coaching staff has been having me do a lot and I think I am improving,” said Fix.
Smith’s entire Cowboy team was dominant from the top against UNC, which ultimately helped lead to a 47-0 victory.
“Sometimes you do more than what you thought you could do. We definitely turned more than we thought we could do. It is not like we have spent a lot of time focused on that, but we have done some of it in our practices, being tough on top and grinding it out on top and making sure we get up from the bottom. It is an early time of the season. You need to be turning people and doing those things in March. That is when you really focus on it, when everybody is in tip-top shape and at their best,” said Smith.
Fix does not seem to care who his opponent will be when he wrestles, whether it be in college wrestling or on the international scene.
“I am just taking it one match at a time. Every time I step out onto the mat, that is the main focus. Whether the guy is ranked ahead of me, below me, I am going to go out there with the same mindset and wrestle as hard as I can,” he said.
If you are concerned that Fix could burn out this year at NCAA time because of all of his summer wrestling, he isn’t. Fix went right from his redshirt year at OSU into a full summer of freestyle, then right back into the college grind as a starter on the team. “Whenever you are doing what you love, you don’t need too long of a break,” said Fix.
Smith is keeping an eye on that, but also does not seemed that concerned, either.
“I think there will be a time that he will probably need to take a break. Does that mean a break off the mat, or a break in competing? I don’t think you ever take a break off the mat,” said Smith.
Right now, Fix is having a great time with his Oklahoma State teammates, travelling the country and trying to be the best college team in the nation. The Cowboys are rated either No. 3 or No. 4, depending upon the ranking, and Fix wants nothing better than to be part of a national champion team at the NCAAs in Pittsburgh.
“We believe we are the best and we are going to fight as hard as we can every time we step out there. Definitely, we believe we are the best,” he said.
After Oklahoma State’s Big 12 dual meet victory over Northern Colorado in Greeley, Colo. on Sunday afternoon, a large group of youth wrestlers waited patiently while Cowboy freshman 133-pounder Daton Fix completed a media interview. They were seeking autographs and wanting to take photos with Fix.
Fix, the fuzzy-haired kid from Sand Springs, Okla., is perhaps one of the most popular freshmen wrestlers in college history.
Very few college freshmen starters have such a rich resume. Second on the 2018 Senior National freestyle team, by placing second in Final X. 2017 Junior World champion and two-time Junior World medalist. Cadet World medalist and Youth Olympic Games medalist. All before his first official dual meet for Oklahoma State.
“I love where I am at. It is really a dream come true, being at Oklahoma State and being a Cowboy. We have a great team. We have a lot of potential. If we keep wrestling the way we are, and we keep training hard, we have a good chance to do good things come March,” said Fix.
Cowboy head coach John Smith understands what Fix is going through, as an Oklahoma boy who went on to became a college star for Oklahoma State. A two-time Olympic champion and four-time World champion, Smith had the same kind of goals that Fix did when he came up through the system.
“He enjoys it. He is living out a dream right now, like all of us who grew up in Oklahoma and wanted to go to Oklahoma State. That is a big part of your wrestling from the time you are pretty young,” said Smith.
In the age of FloWrestling, TrackWrestling and social media, young wrestling stars like Fix grow up online in front of the entire wrestling nation. There are lots of reasons that he has a fan base already. Fix likes to jump up way high in the air before his matches. He has an amazing offense that lights up scoreboards. He always has this great big smile. Along with that, Fix is a humble young man with an amazing work ethic, a mat rat who just loves to wrestle.
Ranked No. 5 in the nation at 133 pounds, after winning his match on Sunday over UNC’s Sean Cannon by a 16-1 technical fall, Fix is now 8-0 in college wrestling. He already has victories over past NCAA runner-up Ethan Lizak of Minnesota and nationally-ranked Montorie Bridges of Wyoming. And he is probably wrestling up a weight class from where he could be, or may end up by the end of the season.
Nobody is saying whether or not Fix may drop to 125 pounds for this college season, which is his international weight class in freestyle. Fix placed second in Final X behind 2017 World silver medalist Thomas Gilman at 57 kg/125.5 lbs. and gave him a good battle. OSU has a very strong lineup with Fix at 133 pounds and All-American Nick Piccininni at 125 pounds and Fix is fully capable of challenging for NCAA gold by competing at 133.
“I can get lower than that. I make the weight pretty easy. After practice about every day I am within a couple of pounds. It is nice being at 133. I feel good. I can wrestle really hard, which is what I like the most about it,” said Fix.
Coach Smith is also not on the record about where Fix will wrestle at the NCAAs, as well as other wrestlers on the team for that matter. The Cowboys have three All-Americans in their room who did not wrestle against Northern Colorado, and Smith said he would not be surprised to see changes as the season progresses.
“It is how things materialize the next few months. For me, it has been exciting for me to watch (Fix) wrestle. He has done a good job to this point. He feels pretty comfortable at the weight class. I don’t know what we are going to do in the future. Right now, he is enjoying his freshman campaign. A lot of people have enjoyed watching him wrestle, and he has a lot of tough matches coming up that he is going to have to focus on,” said Smith.
Wrestling fans who are hoping to see Daton Fix at 125 pounds with a chance to meet up against NCAA champion and three-time age-group World champion Spencer Lee of Iowa may or not get to see that battle on the college scene this year. However both Fix and Lee have been on the record saying they will be competing at 57 kg in freestyle for a run at the Olympic Team, where Gilman and other top talents will also be waiting for them both.
Fix came into the new college season after falling short in his attempt to win back-to-back Junior World titles after winning a gold in 2017 following his final season of high school wrestling. Fix made the 2018 Junior World team a few weeks after Final X by beating Brandon Courtney of Arizona State in a Special Wrestle-off in July in Fargo, N.D., making a third straight Junior World Team.
At the 2018 Junior Worlds in Slovakia, Fix won his first two matches by technical fall, before dropping a tight 5-4 match to Naveen of India in the semifinals. He rallied with another 10-0 technical fall in the bronze-medal match over Bekbolt Myzanazar of Kyrgyzstan to come home with a second straight Junior World medal.
“I didn’t do good enough to win in the semifinals. There were some questionable calls on the edge that didn’t go my way. I can’t leave it in those officials’ hands. It is something I learned a long time ago, but it is still a real thing. I have to go out there and score as many points as I can. I didn’t do that. But, the way I wrestle, I came back and got a bronze medal. That says a lot. I have such high goals to win a gold medal, but I could still come back and get that bronze medal,” said Fix.
Right now, Fix is focused on the college season. Against Cannon in the Northern Colorado match, Fix was able to score multiple tilts from the top after getting his takedown, and ended up with a technical fall in the first period. He has been working on getting better in his folkstyle mat wrestling this fall.
“I have been working on getting the legs more, and the last couple of matches, I have been able to get more of that and have done that better than in the past. That is something that I have been working on. And just wrestling on the mat in general. It is something the coaching staff has been having me do a lot and I think I am improving,” said Fix.
Smith’s entire Cowboy team was dominant from the top against UNC, which ultimately helped lead to a 47-0 victory.
“Sometimes you do more than what you thought you could do. We definitely turned more than we thought we could do. It is not like we have spent a lot of time focused on that, but we have done some of it in our practices, being tough on top and grinding it out on top and making sure we get up from the bottom. It is an early time of the season. You need to be turning people and doing those things in March. That is when you really focus on it, when everybody is in tip-top shape and at their best,” said Smith.
Fix does not seem to care who his opponent will be when he wrestles, whether it be in college wrestling or on the international scene.
“I am just taking it one match at a time. Every time I step out onto the mat, that is the main focus. Whether the guy is ranked ahead of me, below me, I am going to go out there with the same mindset and wrestle as hard as I can,” he said.
If you are concerned that Fix could burn out this year at NCAA time because of all of his summer wrestling, he isn’t. Fix went right from his redshirt year at OSU into a full summer of freestyle, then right back into the college grind as a starter on the team. “Whenever you are doing what you love, you don’t need too long of a break,” said Fix.
Smith is keeping an eye on that, but also does not seemed that concerned, either.
“I think there will be a time that he will probably need to take a break. Does that mean a break off the mat, or a break in competing? I don’t think you ever take a break off the mat,” said Smith.
Right now, Fix is having a great time with his Oklahoma State teammates, travelling the country and trying to be the best college team in the nation. The Cowboys are rated either No. 3 or No. 4, depending upon the ranking, and Fix wants nothing better than to be part of a national champion team at the NCAAs in Pittsburgh.
“We believe we are the best and we are going to fight as hard as we can every time we step out there. Definitely, we believe we are the best,” he said.
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