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From Maroon and Gold to Red, White and Blue?

By Brian Jerzak

June 11, 2008

When most Minnesota wrestling fans last saw Cole Konrad in a competitive wrestling match, he was winning his second NCAA championship and was the face of J Robinson’s powerful Minnesota Gopher squad. Konrad was a dominant record-setting heavyweight in the college ranks, but the next step in his career would prove to be even more challenging.

Konrad started wrestling at an early age while being introduced to the wrestling world by his father and older brother. Mark Konrad, Cole’s father was the local club coach and young Cole was often following his father and brother around to practices and tournaments. From an early age, his goal was to wrestle in the Olympics.

As Konrad started to wrestle competitively, he found success in all styles of wrestling: folk, freestyle and Greco-Roman. After a successful high school career, which included a high school state championship his senior year as well as 2002 Junior National titles in Greco and freestyle, he started to realize the dream of making the Olympic team might not be that far off. He qualified for the Olympic trials as a freshman in college and won a few matches at the 2004 trials.

After his Gopher career ended it would seem natural to pursue freestyle as the most direct route to the Olympics. That is what Konrad did, but something unexpected happened – Konrad lost some of his passion for wrestling.

This fall, while he was wrestling freestyle, Konrad said he felt like he was just “going through the motions and not getting any better.”

“I just wasn’t all that motivated with freestyle, which was weird for me because it was the first time that ever really happened,” said Konrad. “I used to look forward to practice at the end of my day.”

He couldn’t put his finger on exactly why his motivation toward wrestling was waning, but suggested that part of it might have been monotony of doing the same thing over and over.

Gopher assistant coach Marty Morgan suggested going back to Greco.

Photo: Cole Konrad of Minnesota Storm locks up an over/under against Pat Cummins of New York AC in last year's World Team Trials. Photo Jeff Beshey

As he dove back into the world of Greco again, his excitement for wrestling was renewed.

“I was having fun again,” said Konrad. “I was wrestling in different positions. I was loving it and have just been doing it ever since. It has been a fairly recent change, but I think if you are not having fun at it, there is no point to doing it.”

Now Konrad trains five times a week in preparation for the Olympic trials. In the morning he typically gets in his cardio work and in the evening live wrestling and technique work. In between he works for the university and continues to pursue his masters in Kinesiology and Sports Management.

Konrad knows the skills that will give him the edge and what he needs to work on in order to excel at the trials.

Conditioning is what Konrad feels is his biggest strength. Because he was just wrestling folkstyle and up until a few months ago was focusing on freestyle, he feels he is in condition to go hard for six minutes and many of his compactors have been training to go the abbreviated Greco time. Even in training, the biggest difference between Greco practice and any other style is that practices deal much more with technique and less with conditioning. Konrad says he has become a pretty good top wrestler and has worked on some turns to add to his offensive arsenal, but his strength is on his feet.

Konrad doesn’t typically give up points on his feet and feels if he pushes the pace on his feet it will pay off later in the match. His conditioning allows him to ware down his opponents so by the end of the match, Konrad can then take advantage of a tired opponent.

Where Konrad knows he must improve is his bottom defense. He said it was his biggest problem at his last competition. His opponents were able to turn him too often costing him valuable points and resulting in less than spectacular results.

Konrad has a lot of experience in the wrestling room to help him improve and get to the next level. Marty and Gordy Morgan, Dan Chandler, Brandon Paulson and Billy Pierce are all working with the former NCAA champion to give him the best chance at fulfilling his Olympic dream.

Ranked sixth by TheMat.com in April, Konrad knows he will be an underdog. He is focusing on beating Dremiel Byers, the number one ranked guy at 120 kg, Konrad’s weight, because “I know if I can beat him, I can beat the rest of the guys.”

If he accomplishes that, Konrad’s childhood dream will certainly come true.

This article will appear in the June issue of The Guillotine Newsmagazine. For subscription information click here.

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U.S. Olympic Team Trials Coverage
June 13-15, 2008 at Las Vegas, Nevada