Editor's note: this is an extended interview from our new "Around the
Country: Minnesota College Connection" column found in the print
edition of The Guillotine. For more Minnesota college information from
around the country that you won't find anywhere else, subscribe to The
Guillotine.
Around the Country:
Checking in with former Minnesota preps Jon May and Brett Landrum, Both Now at Nebraska
Jon May had a new roommate last summer. The Hutchinson senior and
285-pounder on the Nebraska wrestling team had an extra room at his
house, and offered it to fellow Minnesotan and new teammate Brett
Landrum of Wayzata. Landrum was looking to get a head start on his
collegiate career, and moved to Lincoln soon after high school, moving
in with May.
May, Landrum and Brian Litch, also of Wayzata, are all members of the
Nebraska team that was ranked No. 10 in the nation in the W.I.N.
Magazine Dec. 17 rankings. May is 5-0 as the teams starting
heavyweight, while Landrum and Litch are both redshirting. Landrum is
6-6 in open tournaments, while Litch has not competed in any events.
Here are some thoughts about life at Nebraska, college wrestling and more from May and Landrum:
Jon May Interview
After battling injuries throughout your career, how is your health this year and how are you feeling on the mat?
It's not 100 percent, but it rarely is in wrestling. It's kind of
something you learn to deal with. Knowing it's my last year kind of
helps because I do not have any time to wait around and play the
waiting game. Each practice is less and less time that I have left
wrestling.
Can you believe it's your senior year, has the time flew by?
Now, when I look back, it seems like where did the time go. Five years
is a long time. It seems a lot longer than five years when you are
going through it. When I look back now, it went real quick.
What are you most proud of accomplishing at Nebraska?
It's a tough sport. It's not for everybody. We had 10 or 11 guys come
in my freshman year, and I am the only one that is still here. That is
kind of hard to do.
What do you think are your biggest obstacles to becoming a national champion?
Honestly, I would say myself is the biggest obstacle. I can be my own
worse enemy sometimes. Stuff I am working on mentally every day.
How do you overcome those mental blocks
It's training yourself to think the right way. Keep positive thoughts
and keep pushing myself. I keep focused on the process and not the end
of the year.
What can you let Minnesota wrestling fans know about you?
I am definitely moving back to Minnesota (after graduation). As far as what I am doing, I am not 100 percent sure.
Do you still follow Hutchinson wrestling and Minnesota prep wrestling when you can?
Yes, I do. I follow it quite a bit. My brother helps out coaching the
team and I am still pretty close with coach Todd Card. I definitely
check out how the team is doing and stuff. Some of the names I do not
necessarily recognize as much. When I was there they were pretty young
so it's kind of fun going back and seeing them on varsity now. I pay
pretty close attention to Hutchinson athletics in general.
You are 5-0 in duals so far this season, what has been your key to success and how do you keep that going?
It's my senior year, so I am not looking back to any matches like what
I did wrong as far as dwelling on it. I am not looking at any matches
ahead. My immediate concern is whoever I am wrestling next. I am not
trying to put too much thought or emphasis on any one person. There is
nobody in my weight class that is that unbelievable. I am just taking
it one match at a time.
Talk about inviting Landrum to live with you this summer and what you have tried to teach him.
It helps for kids to come down in the summer before they get here, so
they can kind of get their feet wet and see what college wrestling is
all about. As opposed to coming down the first week and dealing with
getting to classes and finding their way around campus, and then coming
in the room and keeping the intensity up. It's nice to come down early
and get yourself into it before you hit the real deal. He came down on
his visit and we obviously had an immediate connection. We are both
from Minnesota and we were both in the same section. We wrestled his
team in high school quit a bit. He is a nice kid and a hard worker. He
wanted to come down and get a head start. It kind of worked out. I told
him if he wanted to come down in the summer, he is more than welcome to
stay at my place. We had an extra room and it just worked out that he
wanted to come down. The invitation was there.
What have you tried to teach Landrum?
Not really anything. He is a pretty smart kid. I told him if your
grades on not in check right way, it's really hard to dig yourself out
of a hole. It's a lot easier to do well in practice if everything else
is going well. If your grades are going well, then practice is going to
go well and that is going to have the trickle-down effect in every
other facet of your life. It makes everything else easier. He is pretty
good student anyways.”
Nebraska's Jon May lifts and drives Minnesota's Ben Berhow. May defeated Berhow 6-5 in Minneapolis on December 6th.
Brett Landrum Interview
How is Nebraska and how are you making the adjustment from high school to division I competition?
It's going well. It's definitely a huge adjustment in terms of both
wrestling and strength. Everything is so different. I thought I had the
technique down pretty well in high school and then I got here and
pretty much had to start over and relearn everything. It's the little
things that make the difference in college. It's the finer points of
the basic technique, which you do not get in high school because you do
not have to have it. You can muscle through a lot of kids. In college,
the littlest things are going to win or lose you a match. One point in
college is really hard to come back from. In high school, one point
seems like nothing. Five points seems like nothing. In college, five
points is a blowout.
Do you feel like you’ve had to start over even though you are wrestling pretty much the same weight:
Yes, big time. In high school, you might wrestle a tournament and have
one good kid a day. If you wrestle in college, it does not matter if
you are Division I, II or III, you are going to be tough. You do not
wrestler in any level of college unless you are good. Every match you
are getting a good kid. You are getting someone that loves wrestling,
wants to work hard and knows what they are doing. Every match is a
dogfight.”
You are redshirting this year, what is the biggest challenge of being a redshirt?
It's real hard to stay focused. The coaches are obviously in there and
will work with you. Our coaches are really good there. You ask them to
come in and they will work out with you whenever you want. The extra
workouts are what make the big difference. Practice is great and you
learn a lot, but you have to have something else if you really want to
improve. Our coaches are real good about that, but it's real hard to
get motivated. When you get here, everyone is real competitive, so your
competitiveness has to go up just to stay alive here. You are not on
varsity. You go from high school being a stud and you come up here and
you are not even the low man on the totem pole. One year makes such a
big year in college. It's hard to stay focused when you know you are
not wrestling at nationals. You are not the top dog. You are not the
one the coaches are constantly on. It's harder when you are wrestling
for yourself in every tournament.”
What is the biggest thing you’ve had to adjust to on or off the matt here in Nebraska?
It has been on the mat and it has been forgetting. Every day is a new
day and that is the biggest thing that I have had to learn. I am just
starting to get that. I mean literally the last month I have started to
learn to make myself think that way. It used to be, I would come in at
the beginning of the year and I would get destroyed. I would think
about that every day for the next month and then the next day I would
get beat and then the next day. It's like a never-ending hole. The
varsity guys and coaches have all told me that you have to have
short-term memory. You are going to get beat in this sport. You have to
get over it. Every day is a new day. That is the biggest thing because
everyone in wrestling is good. One out of a million guys is going to go
undefeated. Realistically, you are probably not that guy. You have to
get used to getting beat and coming back from that and come back
stronger. That is the biggest adjustment is getting beat and being able
to say forget about it and come back harder the next day.”
You have competed in some open tournaments. What has been the biggest difference/adjustment in your matches?
I know the first two I wrestled in, I got real upset about because, the
first two tournaments I went 2-2 in, but I felt like I wrestled really
bad. I was not ready for competition. I thought being from Nebraska and
being in a Division I room, I was going to be head and shoulders above
all these other younger guys because they are at junior colleges. Then
I got there and wrestled them and I learned the hard way. You have to
walk out on every match and take every match really seriously. The
beginning of the year, I expected to go and really score a lot of
points in a match. When I did not, I got frustrated and my defense
would go. Now I walk out and I focus on my defense. I realize I am only
going to take three good shots a match, but one of those has to take
them down. Whereas before I might take five bad shots because I want to
run up the score. That is what you did in high school. Once you got a
takedown, you just started taking kids apart. Once you felt like you
were dominating, you just started opening up on them. Not that you can
not open up in college, but you have to hand fight, you have to be
patient. When you rush things, that is when guys open up on you and
they take you hard.
What’s it like being a part of a top level division I program?
In high school we were real competitive. Our room was pretty tough. We
had two or three kids go Division I and a couple go Division II. Our
group was pretty competitive. Being here is a whole new level. Every
kid is out for blood. Our practice room is harder than pretty much
every kid I wrestle on the mat. It's nice now, but it took me a while
to realize that. My confidence has really been boosted by being here.
You take a kid down in our room and you are taking down probably a
three-time state champion. The majority of the kids here are senior
national champions or multiple time state champions. These kids are the
best of the best. They are the most competitive. It's intense. I really
like the intensity level. I thought I came from a real intense room in
high school, but this is so far beyond anything I have been in before.
Brian Litch is another freshman on the Nebraska team and also wrestled with you on Wayzata, has having him here helped you?
It's nice to have someone there that knows what you went through in
high school and knows what you are going through now. Here the
wrestling team is so close that you hang out with all wrestlers. I have
gotten to know him better since I have been here.”
Junior Chris Oliver wrestles ahead of you at 157 and qualified for
nationals last year, how much has he taken you under his wing?
Chris has helped me so much. I met him this summer when I came down
here to train. We both lived with Jon May this summer and both those
two guys have taken me under their wing a lot and have really helped
me. That is one thing our team is really good about. They are not real
stand offish with us. Any of them are willing to help you anytime. That
has been a huge help for all the freshmen. Chris has really helped me a
lot. He has really mentored me. He is probably the biggest guy to
always stress to me to have a short-term memory, because most of the
time it's him beating up on me in the practice room. He always tells me
to forget about it and just go on to the next day. He had kind of the
same thing. He wrestled with Jeremy Kline all the time when he was
younger. Kline was a two-time All-American from here. Kline was real
tough and he used to wrestle with Kline all the time. It's real
similar. He wrestles with me and beats me real bad, but he encourages
me after. When we get on the mat, we are not buddies. We go after it,
but when we get off the mat, he is mentoring me and telling me how to
improve. He is helps me when we drill and work out.”
On having fellow Minnesotan Jon May here at Nebraska with him.
It's great to have Jon here. He really watched out for me this summer,
because I lived with him. He let me come down and train with him. We
were actually from the same section in high school. I remember, when I
was in 8th grade, I would watch him wrestle in our section. I remember
watching his state semifinal match against Trevor Laws his senior year.
They were No.1 and 2 in the country and I was amazed by it. It's kind
of cool that now I am on the same team as him. I would have never
though that. It's fun having him from Minnesota. We joke around a lot
that Minnesota is the Promised Land.”
