Kyle Dake moments before his NCAA finals match (Photo/Tony Rotundo, WrestlersAreWarriors.com)Dake becomes only the third wrestler to win four Division I mat titles, joining Oklahoma State's Pat Smith from the early 1990s, and current Penn State head coach Cael Sanderson, who earned his four titles a bit more than a decade ago for Iowa State.
However, within the Four-Timers Club, Dake is on his own in a couple notable ways. First, unlike Smith and Sanderson, he won his four championships without taking advantage of a redshirt season. And, the Big Red wrestler who grew up five miles from the Cornell campus in upstate New York won each of his four titles at a different weight class: 141 as a freshman, 149 in his sophomore year, 157 as a junior, and, this year, at 165.
Now, it would have been understandable for Dake to stay at 157 as a senior ... but, not wanting to back down from a challenge, he stepped up to 165 ... and wrestling fans immediately salivated at the prospect of Dake taking on the 2012 champ at that weight, David Taylor.
A brief history of Dake-Taylor
Kyle Dake and David Taylor have been friends since grade school"Kyle Dake wrestling David Taylor really helped," Moore said in a November 2012 interview with InterMat. "At the end of the first week after tickets had gone on sale that Monday, we had sold 400 tickets, which was nothing to sneeze at. We thought we were on a good pace. Then, the following Monday, the Dake-Taylor matchup was announced; by that Thursday, tickets were sold out. In fact, we had to make sure to save seats for sponsors and organizers."
Nearly 3,400 fans saw the battle between the two 2012 NCAA champs who were perfect the previous season that had Dake top Taylor, 2-1, TB2.
Two months later, the two met again on the mat ... this time at the 2013 Southern Scuffle at the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga. In the 165-pound finals on January 2, Dake edged Taylor, 3-2, to win the tournament title.
"The Match of the Century"
This early-season activity between arguably the two best grapplers in college wrestling today really stirred the imaginations of mat fans, eagerly anticipating a finals match-up at the 2013 NCAAs.
The fans were not disappointed. The bracket-builders complied, with Dake being seeded No. 1, and Taylor the second seed, setting up the possibility of the two meeting for the title. The NCAA and ESPN complied, by rearranging the order of the finals matches so that the 165 title bout would be the last match of the evening. The media complied, promoting the matchup, going so far as to label it "The Match of the Century." Even the fans complied. In InterMat's Big Show Pick 'Em Contest, 1,301 contestants picked Kyle Dake to win it all at 165 ... 887 voted for David Taylor to take the title ... and only 7 entrants named someone other than Dake or Taylor.
Now, if only the other wrestlers in the 165-pound bracket would all comply.
Things have a way of working out. Each man made it to the finals, each with a unique way of displaying his dominance. Taylor did it by pinning all four of his foes before the finals ... while Dake managed to win his four bouts without being scored upon.
Now ... how would the wrestling gods write wrestling history? Would Dake join Smith and Sanderson in the Four-Time Champs Club?
Would history repeat?
As someone who writes about the history of college wrestling, various scenarios from the past sprang to mind once it appeared that Dake and Taylor would wrestle for the 165 title.
For instance, would Taylor serve as a spoiler? As a kid, I remember all too well watching "ABC Wide World of Sports" tape-delay broadcast where Larry Owings of the University of Washington denied Iowa State's Dan Gable the 141-pound title at the 1970 NCAAs, ruining his perfect record that extended back through high school and college.
Or would officiating play a role? Many of us remember the questionable calls in the Hendricks-Churella finals at the 2006 NCAAs at the Ford Center in Oklahoma City... but I immediately thought of the 1949 NCAAs, where a referee's refusal to call what most observers considered to be a last-second takedown denied Oklahoma State heavyweight Dick Hutton the opportunity to become the very first four-time NCAA champ at any weight.
Kyle Dake took David Taylor down late in the first period (Photo/Simon Jimenez, WrestlersAreWarriors.com)Coach Leeman was right. Pendleton upset Kinyon to close his collegiate career with an NCAA title.
In the history of the NCAA wrestling championships, only fourteen wrestlers have been four-time finalists. (Note: Until about 40 years ago, freshmen were not allowed to wrestle varsity ... with a brief exception immediately after World War II. That's how Dick Hutton was able to compete in the four NCAAs from 1947-1950.) Of these four-time finalists who were NOT four-time champs, only two won three titles (the rest won one or two titles). Both wrestled for Iowa. At the 1992 NCAAs at Iowa State, Ed Banach lost the 177-pound finals to Oklahoma's Dave Schultz, 16-8. At the 1995 NCAAs inside Carver-Hawkeye Arena, Lincoln McIlravy lost to Illinois' Steve Marianetti, 13-10.
Kyle Dake gets his hand raised after a 5-4 victory over Penn State's David Taylor (Photo/John Sachs, Tech-Fall.com)Comparing Dake to Smith and Sanderson
I am not qualified to compare the quality of the wrestling performance of Kyle Dake, Cael Sanderson, and Pat Smith. I can't analyze technique or the level of competition each of these four-timers faced in his college careers.
That said, I can provide some background on each of their collegiate careers.
Pat SmithSmith was the top seed at all four NCAA championships where he wrestled. At the 1990 NCAAs, Smith defeated second-seeded Scott Schleicher of Navy, 11-7. The following year, the Cowboy beat the No. 2 seed Iowa's Tom Ryan (yes, now the Ohio State head coach), 7-6. At the 1992 NCAAs, Smith got a 3-1 victory over Arizona State's Ray Miller, seeded third in the bracket. After taking a redshirt for the 1992-1993 season, Smith returned to the 1994 NCAAs, where he concluded his college career by beating No. 2 seed Sean Bormet of Michigan, 5-3, to become the first four-time champ.
Fast-forward fifteen years. Born in June 1979 in a wrestling family (father Steve was his high school coach; his brothers wrestled), Cael Norman Sanderson became a national presence even as a youth wrestler growing up in Utah. After graduating from Wasatch High School in 1997, Cael Sanderson entered Iowa State, where he took a redshirt for the 1997-1998 season. The following year, Sanderson won the first of his four Big 12 conference titles (1999-2002) ... his first national college crown ... and first of four NCAA Outstanding Wrestler awards.
Cael SandersonSanderson concluded his college career with a perfect 159-0 record in varsity competition. (Yes, he lost one match at Iowa State, to the late Paul Jenn of Iowa, in his redshirt year.)
Less than a decade after Sanderson graduated from Iowa State, Kyle Dake started making a name for himself as a collegiate wrestler. A third-generation matman (his grandfather and father coached; dad Doug was an NCAA All-American at Kent State at 177 pounds in 1985), Dake was a four-time team captain at Lansing High School in upstate New York, where he was a two-time state champ and a three-time NHSCA champ with a 224-14 record. When it was time to go to college, Dake stayed close to home, selecting Cornell University, just five miles from his home.
Before he wrestled a single official match at Cornell, Dake was the subject of an October 2009 InterMat profile, which opens with this prophetic line: "Great things are expected of Kyle Dake, Cornell University freshman ... not just from wrestling fans and the media, but also from his coach, Rob Koll, who has referred to Dake as ‘the second coming of Troy (as in Nickerson, 2009 NCAA 125 champ for Cornell).'"
Back then, Koll told InterMat, "I have been friends with Kyle's parents longer than Kyle has been alive so it would have been tough to lose him as a recruit. He is a great kid on and off the mats. Although he is young he is already a great leader and will help us to attract wrestlers with similar attitude and ambition. He has the athleticism and work ethic that is required to achieve immediate success at the national level."
Since those interviews, Dake has more than lived up to those early high expectations, compiling a 132-4 overall record, three EIWA (Eastern Intercollegiate Wrestling Association) titles, and now four NCAA individual championships.
And Dake did it against four highly-ranked Big Ten mat studs.
Kyle Dake won his first NCAA title over Montell Marion (Photo/Tony Rotundo, WrestlersAreWarriors.com)Just to reinforce the quality of Dake's finals rivals.. three of the four -- Molinaro, St. John, and Taylor -- all won individual NCAA titles.
"Visibility" factor
One significant difference among the three four-time NCAA champs is how much publicity -- or national visibility -- each generated as he earned his place in college wrestling history.
When Pat Smith won his fourth title in 1994, the Internet was in its infancy. Wrestling fans outside the state of Oklahoma were pretty much dependent on national wrestling magazines to keep up with the sport. Outside of a few "wrestling hotbeds", the sport was rarely featured on TV. Back in 1994, the NCAA Division I championships were showed in a highly edited form on a tape-delayed basis on CBS. Only a couple minutes of Smith's match with Bormet was shown at the end of the broadcast, with Pat hugging his brother John, who had taken the helm at Oklahoma State.
When Cael Sanderson claimed his fourth championship in 2002, the Internet was home to a handful of wrestling websites and discussion groups; college programs were just establishing an online presence. Back in 2002, ESPN was showing the NCAA finals on a tape-delay basis, usually overnight (as in "while most people are sleeping.") Sensing the gravity of Sanderson possibly making history, ESPN interrupted regular programming to show his title match with Jon Trenge live, then followed up with interviews with the newest four-time champ, his coach Bobby Douglas, and some of his family members ... then went back to whatever it was showing.
A decade later, it was much easier for wrestling fans anywhere in the world to have followed Kyle Dake's quest for a fourth title. Various ESPN channels broadcast all six sessions of the 2013 NCAAs; numerous websites provided various options to follow the action live from desktop, laptop or mobile device. The Dake-Taylor match was shown live on flagship ESPN brand, not at 2 a.m.
Kyle Dake shakes Penn State coach Cael Sanderson's hand (Photo/Tony Rotundo, WrestlersAreWarriors.com)As of this writing, it's too early to predict whether Kyle Dake will be the cover guy of any national magazine beyond those that focus on wrestling ... or be on a Wheaties box ... or anywhere else in supermarkets in upstate New York. Prior to the NCAAs, Cornell University and media in that area seem to have played it cautious -- no splashy countdowns, for instance -- as if not to jinx Dake's chances. But his history-making achievements have certainly garnered plenty of coverage -- and respect -- within the media, and among amateur wrestling fans.
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