#GrecoMonday: Nolan Baker on committing to Greco-Roman and adjusting to life at the USOPTC

Photo of Nolan Baker battling with Alex Sancho at Senior Nationals by Tony Rotundo/Wrestlers are Warriors.

 Nolan Baker is one of new faces on the Senior Greco-Roman scene. In 2018, Baker made the U23 World Team as a virtual unknown. At the time, Baker was wrestling collegiately at Northern Illinois and had just finished his freshman season.

Fast forward a year and Baker was making an even bigger splash, finishing third at the Senior World Team Trials Challenge Tournament. His performance at that tournament would earn him an offer to train as a resident athlete at the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Training Center (USOPTC) in Colorado Springs, Colo. However, it was not an easy decision.

“I loved everything about wrestling at Northern Illinois, my last college. With the coaches, the teammates, the community, all that stuff was great… It was definitely a tough decision. I had to leave my coaches and my friends behind and see my family way less than before because my college was right next to my home,” Baker said.

However, in his heart Baker knew he was meant for Greco-Roman.

“The only thing I didn’t like was the wrestling. I did not look forward to wrestling folkstyle every day. Now when I wake up and go to a Greco practice at the USOPTC, worst case scenario, I’m going to have fun. Wrestling Greco is so fun to me now that I don’t have to worry about legs or anything. I’m more confident in myself. It’s more of a game to me than the grind sport folkstyle kind of is. Everything about Greco puts me in a good head space,” he said.

From an early age Baker showed a propensity for upper body ties and throws. During his senior season of high school, he claims he only took one shot attempt all year. However, he still thinks that wrestling folkstyle has been beneficial to his Greco aspirations.

“I brought the good aspects of folkstyle over to Greco and I left the bad ones behind. I wasn’t that good at some folkstyle stuff before. Like I couldn’t sprawl or anything. I was not equipped to be a national folkstyle wrestler. On the other hand, I was using all the good Greco stuff but it just wasn’t working in folkstyle because you’ve got to use the legs. Now when I’m wrestling Greco, I finally feel like I’m wrestling good Greco and I can bring over little things from folkstyle, like certain ways to stuff the head down into a go behind, that I think I would have only gotten had I started wrestling folkstyle at the Division 1 level,” he said.

While Baker is still relatively new to focusing on Greco-Roman full-time, he is already seeing improvements in his wrestling.

“I’ve only been at the OPTC for three or four months now. I don’t want to say, oh I’ve gotten so much better, but I think that I have. A lot of the things in Greco are so minute, you almost don’t realize when you’re making gains. I went into this last month or so, where we’ve had all these tournaments, and I was kind of thinking to myself, am I getting better or am I stalling out, what’s going on? But when I compete, I feel so much more natural wrestling Greco. Before, I was a folkstyle guy wrestling Greco. Now, I’m starting to feel like a Greco wrestler. I’m confident in my ties, I’m confident I can deal with what other guys are bringing at me as opposed to trying to completely flip the script and do wacky stuff that has no technique. Whether it translates to wins on the mat or not, I feel the most confident I’ve ever been in myself when I’m walking out on the mat,” he said

“I think that’s the biggest thing that the USOPTC has given me is confidence in my abilities. Before, I knew I could win some of the matches, but I I wasn’t sure how I was going to do it. Now, I’m not wondering when I step on the mat. I don’t know exactly what I’m going to do, but I know there’s like eight things I can do.”

Baker’s results have been reflective of the progress he has been making. In November, he finished third at both the Bill Farrell Memorial International in New York City and the Haparanda Cup in Sweden. At the end of December, he placed fourth at Senior Nationals, which guaranteed him a spot at the Olympic Team Trials at Penn State this April.

Despite his strong showing, Baker knows he is capable of more.

“It’s weird. I always have different mindsets before and after a tournament. Before the tournament, I saw all the guys that were signed up, and it was right there in your face, all these good guys. Obviously during an Olympic year the brackets get stacked. I was worried that I might not All-American or qualify for the trials. Then after the tournament when I got fourth and I lost 13-13 in the third place match, I thought I could have got third. If you had told me before the tournament that I was going to get fourth, I would have been super stoked... I think I did really well during the tournament, and it’s just that last little bit keeps you hungry for more,” he said.

Qualifying for Olympic Team Trials means that Baker can fully devote his energy towards earning a spot on the Olympic Team. It also gave him valuable experience against new opponents.

“It was big because it’s obviously a confidence booster going forward. I got to see a lot of guys in that bracket that I hadn’t seen before, and I got to see some guys for a second time and see the improvements I made after my overseas trips. It was really good to get those wins under my belt and get qualified. It was also big because it means that I don’t have to go the last chance qualifier a week or so before the Olympic Team Trials. It’s big in that it lets me prepare a lot more easily, and my mind can be clear going forward these next few months. I don’t need to worry about if I’m going to be in the trials; I can worry about getting ready for the trials,” he said.

While it’s easy to point to his success and say that Baker made the correct the decision in coming to train at the OPTC, there was still a significant amount of transition and not just in wrestling.

“Another thing that was really tough, and I think it was the biggest thing I needed to figure out was how I was going to finish graduating college. At Northern, I had two more years of taking classes. I want to become a teacher and a wrestling coach. At UCCS (University of Colorado, Colorado Springs), which is the new college I’m at right by the USOPTC, I didn’t even know that college existed. There was a mad dash where I had to figure out can I get my degree from here and do all this. I figured out I could still get my degree; it would just take me one more year. Now have three years left instead of two years. Then, that allowed me to make the leap and go forward. Wrestling-wise, I knew that I wanted to wrestle Greco instead of folkstyle.  I just had to make the real life stuff work and fit in with that, which thankfully I was able to do,” he said.

While the practices took some time to adjust to, Baker now feels comfortable in his new environment.

“At first it was weird for me to get used to. Morgan Flaharty is in my weight class, Nick Tarpley might be going my weight class, and then there’s other guys like Logan Hatch. In the beginning, I had the mindset that why would I practice with these guys? I’m going to be training them to beat me. I wanted to avoid those guys so they wouldn’t get a look at me. Then about a month in, my mindset changed to we are a team, at least at the OPTC, and we have to train each other to beat all of the other guys. It’s a lot different wrestling a guy off for a starting spot where it’s you versus one guy. At the OPTC, it’s like me and Morgan (Flaharty) versus a pool of 35 other guys. I’ve really bought into the mentality that everyone is going to get better from point A to point B. Point B being the Olympic Trials. We might as well help each other improve as much as possible within that time. Now, I have no issue wrestling anybody in the room because I know it’s helping me get better and helping them get better. That’s better than me not getting better at all,” he said.

While it will be another few months before Baker is competing with an Olympic Team spot on the line, it seems likely that his Greco-Roman prowess will only continue to grow.