One-on-One with Tom Shifflet

Tom Shifflet

Tom Shifflet took over as head coach at Hofstra in May of 2006, after spending four years as the head coach at UNC Greensboro.

In his first year at Hofstra, Shifflet guided the Pride to an 18-4-2 dual meet record and a seventh-place finish at the 2007 NCAA Division I Championships.

RevWrestling.com recently caught up with Shifflet and talked about last season, his thoughts on Lou Ruggirello, Charles Griffin, and Ryan Patrovich, where Alton Lucas fits into the program, his expectations for the upcoming season, and much more.

Of the top 10 teams at the NCAA Division I Championships last season, only Hofstra and Edinboro came from outside the Big Ten or Big 12 conferences. When recruiting, how do you sell your program to potential top recruits who are mainly looking at Big Ten and Big 12 programs?

Shifflet: If you look at the tradition that Hofstra has in wrestling, and the consistency that it has of sending guys to the national tournament and guys placing and becoming All-Americans, it obviously shows that we have a great attitude within the program. Guys are working towards being national champions and having a great team. We obviously can sell the same type of thing as Big Ten and Big 12 programs. I actually think we somewhat have an advantage because our conference, the CAA, isn't as much of a grind. During the regular season at Hofstra, we go out and wrestle the best teams, wrestle in the best tournaments, we prepare our guys for the national tournament. The difference is that we don't have to go through the Big Ten tournament. We have to go through the CAA. So what happens a lot of times is that we end up taking seven, eight, nine, 10 guys to the national tournament, which is nice.

You're not just going as an individual, but you're going there as a team. You have a chance to win as a team. That's something we really sell to the elite kids who are looking at the top schools … 'Hey, we can give you everything the Big Ten and Big 12 schools can give you.' We wrestle all those schools. We wrestle Missouri. We wrestle Penn State. We wrestle Minnesota. We wrestle Oklahoma State. We go to the National Duals. But towards the end of the season, instead of going through the Big Ten or Big 12 tournament to get to nationals, we're in a conference that is tough, but it's not like the Big Ten or Big 12. You're going to get one or two tough matches as opposed to maybe a pigtail at the Big Ten tournament against a kid who has been ranked in the top 10 … so that's a big selling point to a lot of these kids. I'm not downplaying the CAA at all, because this year if you look at the percentage of All-Americans or top 12 finishers, we did pretty darn well. We do have some real good programs that are committed and have some great individuals.

In your first year at Hofstra, you led the program to an 18-4-2 dual meet mark and placed seventh at the NCAA Division I Championships. It was a record-breaking season for the program. Did you exceed your own expectations last season?

Shifflet: You know, I don't know. When you come in as a new coach and you come into a new environment, I knew that we had a very talented team. I started working out with the guys in the summer. I said, 'Wow, these guys are really, really talented, really good.' Obviously, you shoot for some of these individuals to become national champs. That's what you want. That's what they're working for. As a team, you try to piece it together on how well you think you can do. I can tell you that before the Minnesota match, on paper, I really thought we had a chance to win that dual meet. And we did. Same thing against Penn State. When you get to the national tournament, if you looked at our guys, where they were ranked, and who they beat … certainly anybody who went to the national tournament for us had a shot at becoming an All-American. We sent seven guys … if you have seven All-Americans, you win a national title. I certainly thought we could do really well. But it's the national tournament. You never know what will happen. You may go there, guys might not wrestle well, and things happen. But it ended up working out well for us.

To be quite honest, I really think we were one of the teams that had a chance to win the whole thing. Our 125-pounder (Dave Tomasette) was winning in the All-American round with 25 seconds left and got pancaked. He would have been our fifth All-American. I think that would have at least maybe propelled us into getting a trophy with five All-Americans. We were pretty close. I was proud of the guys. Did I think we had a good team? I thought we had a great team. But it was the first time for me being in a situation where the sky is the limit … if we put it all together, heck, we could go all the way.

Charles Griffin came into the NCAA Championships as the No. 11 seed en route a third-place finish at 141 pounds. What allowed him to have such a strong finish? Was it confidence?

Shifflet: Yeah, a lot of it is confidence. We put our guys in that situation over and over throughout the year with our schedule. We wrestled a lot of these guys already. So when you get to the national tournament, it's not something different, it's the same. It's just a tournament. Just wrestle it as a tournament. Charles has been wrestling the elite wrestlers since he has been in college … and knows that he's going to be in scramble situations where you have to turn the right way. You have to do the right thing. He's just confident that he can beat anybody in the country. He's just real consistent.

Tom Shifflet

Throughout the whole year, he and two other guys on the team were the most consistent wrestlers. When they walked on the mat, they wrestled in positions they were good at … and they stayed out of the positions that they weren't as comfortable … and they were consistent. James Strouse was the same. They had one hiccup. We flew out to Oklahoma this year for a dual meet and both of those guys were flat. I don't know if it was the flight out there. both of them were on big winning streaks. The Oklahoma dual was like our second to last dual … and both of them just wrestled flat. Nobody wants to lose, but it may have been a good loss … just because it grounds you a little bit. But like I said, Charlie was consistent all year. He is one of the guys who comes to the wrestling room. He comes to the office and looks at his films. He works on his mistakes. He wants to be a national champ. That's a lot of it. He's self-motivated. The self-motivation and consistency will take you a long way.

Lou Ruggirello finished his freshman campaign 31-9 and was named CAA Freshman of the Year. He had a tough draw at the NCAA Championships and went 0-2. Overall, how would you characterize his freshman season?

Shifflet: Obviously, we were disappointed that he wasn't an All-American. It was a tough weight class. There was a lot of depth to it. Going in as a true freshman, you don't know what to expect. But certainly Louie is a confident wrestler. He is another guy who when he steps on the mat, he just wrestles. He likes it … and he just wrestles. He wrestled (Jake) Strayer earlier in the season. Strayer dominated a lot of situation where Louie was really, really good. When you take that match, and you look from the beginning in November to when March came around and we wrestled in the first round of the national tournament, we took him down and turned him. We were up 5-0 in the first period. We got taken out of the match a little bit, I think. He was a little overwhelmed with, 'Hey, I'm up 5-0.' There were some calls that we could argue, but the bottom line is that towards the end of the match, I think a little anxiety set in. He went for a headlock and headlocked him to his back … and got rolled through and pinned. It kind of sucked the life out of him. It was one of those matches where we had it, but it's a learning experience.

Overall, I look at the whole year, I mean, he goes into triple overtime with a two-time national champ (Matt Valenti). He takes a guy like Adam Frey, who was ranked second or third in the country at the time, into overtime in a dual meet. And then goes into Nationals and loses a close one to him. Louie is right there. CAA champion as a freshman. Freshman of the Year in the CAA. Over 30 wins as a freshman. I mean, it's impressive. I look at the beginning of the year to the end, he made huge strides. He knew in the beginning of the year, 'Hey, we have some weaknesses. Let's work on them.' He accepted that. He was self-motivated to work on those things. By the time he got to the national tournament, he was turning a lot of heads … 'Hey, who is this kid from Hofstra? He's up 5-0 on the guy from Penn State.' He's certainly a guy coming back as a sophomore. He'll be at 133. Honestly, I think he could win the whole thing. I think that much of him.

Alton Lucas scratched from the NCAA Championships. Can you shed any light on why he did not compete at the NCAA Championships?

Shifflet: It was just a violation of some team rules.

Do you expect him to be in your lineup this coming season?

Shifflet: Yeah, he will be back with us. He was actually just over in Canada at the Canadian Cup. He wrestled real well. He made it to the finals and then hurt his shoulder, so he didn't wrestle in the finals. But he wrestled real well. He's going to be back with us next year … and probably moving up a weight class.

Last season, you brought in two-time NCAA champion Joe Dubuque as an assistant coach. What has he brought to the Hofstra program?

Joe Dubuque

Shifflet: Well, obviously when you bring a guy like him in … if you're an athlete in the wrestling room and you look at a two-time national champ, it's motivation. It's ‘Hey, I'm going to do anything Coach Dubuque wants me to do because he's been there and done it.' I think anything he says or does, these guys look up to him for. He's a leader. He was real important to all of our guys one the team to get to them to the next level, whether it was something he said, whether it was him drilling with them, or whether it was watching him watching film with them. He certainly played an important role for us and how well we were able to finish off the season.

You lost Mike Patrovich to graduation, but now have his younger brother, Ryan. Where do you see Ryan Patrovich fitting into this year's team? And what kind of season do you see him having?

Shifflet: Ryan is very, very talented. He actually went out to the FILA Junior. Unfortunately he got hurt and transferred back … and had a knee injury this year. Once he got it healed up after the season, he was able to go out the FILA Juniors and competed real well. He took second. So he got back and got some competition in, which was good. He's a very hard-working kid. He has a strong work ethic. He loves wrestling. Some of the things he does, you can't really teach it. I think he can have a great season. As a redshirt freshman, I certainly think he can be an All-American. He's going to wrestle at 165. I think he's going to be a guy who is going to be tough to beat.

While you were coaching at UNC Greensboro, you founded the Southern Scuffle. In your opinion, where does the Southern Scuffle rank in terms of competitiveness when looking at collegiate events across the country?

Shifflet: Well, I think now it's up there with any of the top tournaments they have, whether it's Las Vegas or the Midlands. I mean, for a lot of the better teams in the country, now it's just another option, which is nice. You can go to the Midlands for a couple years and then go back down to the Southern Scuffle for a couple years. And no matter where you go, you're going to find competition. That's where a lot of the best teams go. We're going to go to the Southern Scuffle this year. I'm going there not just because I started the tournament and coached there, but because there is good competition … Ohio State, Cornell, Lehigh, Minnesota, and Missouri.

A lot of the top teams will go down there and compete … and that's what we're looking for. They certainly allowed me to start that up down there. It was great for UNC Greensboro. It kind of helped put them on the map a little bit. It was great for wrestling in the south to get something like this started. To have these teams come down there. .. and have all these middle school and high school wrestlers down south come and watch great wrestlers like Ben Askren, it's great. You can't put a price on it.

You lost three All-Americans to graduation: James Strouse, Mike Patrovich, and Chris Weidman. Will any of those guys be sticking around and helping the program?

Shifflet: Yeah, Chris Weidman is going to be our volunteer coach. And what's nice is that these other guys are always around if some guys want to get other workouts in. James Strouse lives on the island. And Mike Patrovich is on the island. And you have guys like Jon Masa. Those guys are all local guys, so it's nice. They are all there for these guys if they want to go in individually and just work out with them at some point, they can do it. Obviously, because of the NCAA restrictions, you can't have them all in the room as coaches. But in the summertime as workout partners and everything else, it's great.

Although you lost three All-Americans, you return five of your NCAA qualifiers from last season, including third-place finisher Charles Griffin. What are your expectations for this year's team?

Tom Shifflet

Shifflet: I think we have a very talented team. I think we have some young guys who are very talented, but we also have some guys who haven't proven themselves at the big tournament. We lose three All-Americans and return one, but I certainly think we have at least three other guys on our team who could place. So I certainly think we could replace the four All-Americans we had last year with the talent we have in the room. But it's guys like Alton Lucas, Mitch Smith at 149, Dave Tomasette, who lost in the All-American round … we're centered around them. They're no longer young guys. They're leaders of the team. They need to get it done at the national tournament. They're hard workers.

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