#TeamUSATuesday: Men's Freestyle National Team member Nick Heflin

Photo courtesy of Tony Rotundo/Wrestlers are Warriors

Nick Heflin is currently No. 3 on the Men’s Freestyle National Team at 86 kg/189.5 lbs. Heflin was a three-time All-American for Ohio State and an NCAA finalist in 2014. After graduating, Heflin spent two years as a volunteer assistant coach at Princeton before taking an assistant coaching position at The University of Oklahoma. Recently, Nick took some time to answer some of our questions


What is your favorite movie?
300
Who is your favorite musical artist?
Riley Green
What is your favorite food?
Sushi, I like nigiri and sashimi.
What is your favorite sport to watch other than wrestling?
UFC
Did you play any other sports growing up?
I played baseball, basketball, football and a little soccer… I played baseball in high school up until my junior year. I ended up quitting to focus on wrestling.
Who is your favorite wrestler to watch either past or present?
Right now, one of my favorite guys to watch is on our team, Dom Demas. I love watching him compete. He just goes out there and throws it to the wall.
What are some of your other hobbies off of the mat?
Hunting, fishing, I’m wicked good at ping-pong and lifting... I can play ping-pong left-handed, right-handed or with my cell phone. I can actually beat most of the guys on our team with my cell phone.
What is your biggest fear?
One of my biggest fears is not living up to my potential. You only get a handful of opportunities in this life to do something special.
Do you have any plans once your wrestling career is over?
I want to be a coach. I want to affect young mens’ lives and help them reach their dreams. One of the best feelings I’ve ever gotten is helping Brett Harner All-American. It was a wonderful feeling to watch someone reach their dreams and have been with them all along the way helping them. Watching Dom Demas All-American was awesome. That’s my plan. I want to stay in coaching, and I want to keep grinding. It’s a really special thing to be with some of these guys on their journeys and help them in the right direction and push them.


How did you first get involved in wrestling?
I was super hyper. Someone told my mother wrestling would help. In fifth and sixth grade I split my weekends. One weekend I would play basketball; one weekend I would wrestle. I got cut from basketball in sixth grade, so I said I’m going to go fully into wrestling. Even though I dabbled with it in fifth grade, I only wrestled a handful of times, and I was terrible. Luckily, in high school I had world-class coaches with Dave Riggs, Brent McBurney, Flint McCollins and an awesome strength coach John Foster. I just had a really really good group of guys that could take someone lousy like me and mold me into someone worth something.
What was the best advice you’ve received in your career?
As a young man, sometimes you have a very jaded mentality towards working hard. You try to avoid it. One of the things that kind of resonated with me when I was younger and really just getting into wrestling was when the high school coach at the time Dave Riggs told me that you should be working out like no one is watching you. That happened to strike a chord for me. This is for you, why are you checking over your shoulder to see if you have to go hard or not? Everyone has different advice that strikes those chords, but I would say that was mine.


What advice would you give to a younger wrestler?
There are greater pains in life than suffering while you’re working. I’ve watched grown men cry. I’ve watched my dreams die in front of me. There’s just things in life that are so much worse than practicing and suffering and pushing. Learning how to dig deep so you can avoid those great pains of dreams dying, that’s one of the things that really hard to watch. You’ve seen it, but it’s still really tough to watch because you know how much it means and how much people sacrifice.


Do you have any pre-match rituals?
Yes, I don’t like music. I don’t like mindless pumping up. I like focus. I like self-talk, going over game plans, going over opponents and their big moves and what they hit. For me, that 15 minutes of pacing and jumping is constant self-coaching, self-talking, going through the match and getting in that red zone.


What motivates you during training?
The pain of watching a dream die, it lets you dig a lot deeper. When you know that type of pain, you just dig really deep in your training. You’ll go to whatever lengths when you’re tired, when you’re sore, when you’re hurting, when you’re injured. You just go “today’s a work day”, you punch the clock and you get in there and find another level, find another gear.
What is your best wrestling memory to date?
One of my best memories was beating Scott Schiller (Minnesota) and Travis Rutt (Oklahoma) at National Duals. I was struggling in the season a little bit and then my huge breakout match was that weekend. I hit both those guys back-to-back. I knew it was going to be a tough weekend, and it’s one of my favorite memories because it put me on track to my Big Ten title and then the national runner-up finish. It gave me that confidence and was a big spark in my wrestling.
You wrestled for Lou Rosselli at Ohio State, and now you coach alongside him at Oklahoma. What is your relationship like?
At Ohio State, my guys were Ross Thatcher and Lou Rosselli. It was awesome. I had a great time. I loved wrestling under Tom Ryan as well. I just specifically worked with Ross and Lou. I have a great relationship with those guys. We talk every day about wrestling and how we can get better and where can we improve. He pushes me to be my best all the time. Another reason why I came here, he just constantly pushes you to find that next gear. He makes sure you live in a perpetual state of uncomfortableness, and I think that’s just how you grow as a person, a coach and a leader. You have to be uncomfortable. I can’t speak enough for the guy. He’s an awesome coach, he works his tail off.
You’ve wrestled at a Big Ten school (Ohio State) and coached at an EIWA school (Princeton) and currently coach at a Big 12 school (Oklahoma). Can you speak about the differences at the schools and in the rooms?
My experience at OU is pretty similar to Ohio State because Lou Rosselli is the head coach and was also the head assistant at Ohio State. So I’d say it’s pretty much the same room-wise between Ohio State and OU. Obviously campuses offer different things and different academic services. I think it’s pretty similar though.
A cool thing when I went to Princeton is it’s an Ivy League school. Recruiting was different; I got to learn a lot. I was around a whole new group of guys with (Chris) Ayres and (Joe) Dubuque. It was kind of really cool to be around a new set of guys and learn some new different skill sets, learn some new different ideas with coaching. I enjoyed the contrast. I enjoyed my time at Princeton. I enjoyed the coaches; it was awesome.
What is it like chasing your personal goals while also being an assistant coach?
It’s one of the toughest things I’ve ever done. When you’re here building a program but also working on your wrestling, it’s one of the toughest things I’ve ever done. I’m so grateful for the opportunity to do it. It’s awesome. I love it. I love working every day. It’s just immensely challenging to balance both.

The Heflin file
Birthday: February 12, 1990
High school: Massillon Perry
College: Ohio State
Residence: Norman, Okla.
Club: Titan Mercury/ Oklahoma RTC
Twitter: @TheDarkhorse197
Instagram: @TheDarkhorse197
• Three-time NCAA All-American
• 2014 NCAA runner-up

• 2014 Big Ten champion
• Runner-up at 2019 World Team Trials Challenge Tournament
• Runner-up at 2019 U.S. Open
• Fifth at 2018 Ivan Yarygin Grand Prix (Russia)
• 2009 Ohio state champion