In 2020, Stanford University decided to discontinue wrestling. But the steely determination of the team and their ‘Keep Stanford Wrestling’ campaign, combined with the lightning energy of new head coach Rob Koll – who moved 3,000 miles across the country to lead the pack – saw the programme reinstated. For HERO 27, we documented the gruelling preparation, and the team’s first match back, against Oklahoma State, in the fall of 2021.

James West: What inspired your move to Stanford? It’s quite a change for you.
Rob Koll: It was a number of different reasons, where do I start? It was the pandemic and how Cornell reacted to it, the fact that they shut down the season for their athletes in the Ivy League whereas every single other college programme in the USA bar none, other than D3, found a way to continue the season. That, to me, was a loud and obvious statement to their commitment to athletics which is an affront to my career and what I stood for; athletics is incredibly important. I think they likened it to intramural sports and so, for me, it’s a disconnect through upper-level administration in the Ivy League and, in particular, Cornell.

JW: So you packed your bags.
RK: That was a big reason, it was huge, but it wasn’t just that. We had been building it for 32 years and then the NCAA allowed everyone to have an extra year, but Cornell said, “Not only do you not get an extra year, you can’t go to grad school”. Every other league allows their students to go to grad school and complete their four years of eligibility, Cornell doesn’t – they don’t let them redshirt. It seemed this was probably the right time to make a move because we hit the top and I didn’t know what more we could do. We built the Friedman Center, you couldn’t build any better facilities, you couldn’t have a better team and it just seemed like the right time to leave.

JW: So what was it about Stanford that drew you there? Can tell me what the scene was like when you arrived?
RK: It was like, “My god!” It was the antithesis of Cornell at that point in time. I loved building Cornell to where it was, I look at Stanford as a similar challenge but with greater resources, ultimately. At Stanford, you can redshirt kids, their students are allowed to go to grad school and compete, they have palm trees and sunshine. [laughs] In Ithaca they have snow, rain and cold, at Stanford, they have a scholarship and at Cornell, they don’t. All those things played in, and when I say it’s the palm trees it’s actually true – that is one of the reasons, being in Cornell for 32 years I saw the sun maybe three times… So it did make a difference, my wife was excited about going and trying a warmer climate. So if it wasn’t Cornell, it would’ve been North Carolina or something more Southern, we just felt like this was the time. Ten years from now… I’m 65 years old you know, who the heck wants to hire me?!

JW: Stanford did! [laughs]
RK: 65 isn’t ancient, I’ve got some good years left in me and I just always thought there were a few schools out there that had untapped potential. I didn’t want to go to a wrestling school that was just a bunch of guys who only go there to wrestle. I’m not going to name names, but there are plenty of schools out there that kids are going to literally just wrestle to get a degree and not learn anything.

JW: We read about ‘Keep Stanford Wrestling’ but when you arrived, was there even a programme? Was it about to come back?
RK: They had reinstated the programme but, in the meantime, the head coach had left and gone elsewhere. It was a kind of turning over, an opportunity to step in and do everything fresh. They had set the stage for me not to fail – they had some good kids in the room but just not enough of them, so obviously recruiting was first and foremost on my priorities, only after fundraising. The caveat of bringing this programme back was, okay Stanford will bring the programme back but what about the alumni and friends who made pledges to support it? It’s one thing to make a pledge, it’s another to actually write the cheque. So that was my job, to continue the rallying cry of saving the programme and then backing it up with the funds to endow these positions.

I’m not trying to pretend that I’m the one who went out and initially did all this work, I’m the one who has been the recipient of a lot of work that came before me, and I continued that work. Since I’ve gotten here we’ve officially endowed all three of the coaching positions, three of the scholarships and it looks like we have three more in the pipeline now. The only thing left to get taken care of is the operating account which is about $200,000 a year – that’s recruiting, travel, uniforms and all that. We need to raise slightly south of $4 million to do that and we have about $1.2 million already taken care of. When you consider we already raised $11 million for the coaching salaries, another $4 million, soon to be $7 million for the scholarships, it’s certainly not daunting at all. I’m confident we’re doing things right, the people who have made those massive gifts are still going to be around to help us finish off the operating account as well. I think it’s a three-year process to where we get everything completely endowed.

“If you want to achieve greatness and be a national champion you have to make sacrifices.”

JW: It says something about the character of a body of athletes who invest their time into campaigning to keep their programme, what is the personality is of a successful student wrestler?
RK: First and foremost, they have to be really smart kids, natural talent alone doesn’t cut it. This is why I think athletics in college is so important, it’s time management; these kids are getting up in the morning, going to class all day, then they’re wrestling. They don’t have the option of going out to the bar and having a few beers and chasing their girls around, they have to stay focused and get their schoolwork done, because if they don’t have the grades they can’t compete. That’s why I think the people I deal with are so incredibly successful upon graduation, because they have that rigorous schedule – once they get out of here, everything becomes a lot easier. Whereas the kids in the fraternity that are slamming down the beers can do a couple of things with greatness, but they can’t do it all. I also believe anything great requires sacrifice. The Vikings, the Egyptians, Incas and the Aztecs didn’t sacrifice things they didn’t like – they didn’t sacrifice an old shoe. They sacrificed a goat, or the Vikings sacrificed their boats. It really meant something to them because they wanted something in return, they wanted rain, they wanted fertility – things that were important. In wrestling, I talk about it on the same terms, if you want to achieve greatness and be a national champion you have to make sacrifices. It is a unique group of kids that stuck it out last year. They could’ve taken the easy route; they could’ve gone elsewhere. Over the summer all their stuff was packed in a locker room, it was very tough for them not knowing where they going to go, I think having to go through that last year will make them very close friends for a long period of time.

“I will say after only one year of recruitment it’s going to be significantly different and that’s what I’m looking for.”

JW: We came and documented you guys in the run up to your first match back against Oklahoma, and you’re just about to head into your last of the season. What’s the journey been like? I know you said you didn’t think you’d win that first match.
RK: You never know if you’re going to win or lose, I just know the cast of characters we were able to assemble at that particular moment in time and compared it to the team at Oklahoma State… I knew the result wasn’t going to be favourable. But I thought that we could have some minor Pyrrhic victories, and we did. I will say after only one year of recruitment it’s going to be significantly different and that’s what I’m looking for. I know we have the national championship, but in the hand we were dealt, we have a couple of aces that can really do some damage at the NCAA tournament. Then next year I’m extremely excited about the kids we’re bringing in, when you attract high-level athletes, it makes it easier to get the next group of high-level athletes, because nobody wants to be the first one. [laughs] It’s like, “I’ll stick my toe in that water but I’m a little nervous,” but if you see thousands of people frolicking in a pool you don’t think it’s twenty degrees, right? It’s much easier to stay on top than to get there, anybody that tells you otherwise has never been on top. People don’t want to have to pay the dues, they want to reap the benefits of the people who paid the dues that came before them.

I’m incredibly thankful for this next class we’re bringing that took a chance on what we’re going to build at Stanford now. Fortunately, I was able to bring these guys in because I didn’t inherit a baron shelf; I’ve got three All-Americans in Real Woods, Shane Griffith and Jaden Abas – those are three incredibly gifted athletes. People will look at Stanford and say, “Well those three guys did it, I know I can do it.” We’re bringing in ten kids this year, it’ll probably be the largest class they ever had, they gave me more help and more kids. We only had twenty kids on the team this year as there was no recruiting class last year. So this is a big class, it’ll bring a lot of energy and that in itself allows us to develop the team better, because right now, at any given time, three are hurt, two have an exam, so you’ve got fifteen guys in the room and you’re not getting different looks. To give you an analogy it’s like a baseball team where the pitcher can only throw a fastball, you never see a curve. When you’ve got 30 guys in that room it makes it easier to develop the programme.

STANFORD CARDINALS WRESTLING TEAM ROSTER 2021–22:
JADEN ABAS NICK ADDISON LUCIANO ARROYO LOGAN ASHTON SUHAS CHUNDI ELIJAH CLEAVER CHARLIE DARRACOTT JACKSON DISARIO JUDAH DUHM TYLER EISCHENS SHANE GRIFFITH COLBEY HARLAN MARSHALL KOOLS ANTHONY LE PETER MING JASON MIRANDA SEAMUS O’MALLEY KYLE ROWAN FABIAN SANTILLAN DAWSON SIHAVONG NICK STEMMET TONY WILLIAMS ETHAN WOODS REAL WOODS

Head Coach ROB KOLL
Assistant Coach VINCENZO JOSEPH
Assistant Wrestling Coach ENOCK FRANCOIS
Volunteer Assistant Coach GRANT LEETH