JACKSON - Monday is the first day for high school wrestling practice
and one Jackson County Central wrestler enters his senior season
knowing where he’ll be going to college next year.
Travis Rutt has signed a national letter of intent to attend the University of Wisconsin and wrestle for the Badgers.
Travis says Wisconsin actually entered the picture kind of late in the recruiting process.
"I always looked at the Gophers because I'm from Minnesota and I always
watched the Gophers and went to their matches when I was growing up,"
Rutt said. "And then I was looking at Northern Michigan because they
have a great Greco program, it's an Olympic training center."
Rutt said he also got calls from the Iowa schools and Oklahoma State and then received a call from Wisconsin.
"Throughout the fall I'd see people signing there, so I got excited
when they called me because they had a really good scholarship offer
and they have a good recruiting class coming in, so I figured I could
be part of that."
Rutt says he's heard a lot of good things about Wisconsin coach Barry
Davis, who was a two-time Olympian, including earning a silver medal at
125.5 pounds at the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles. Davis was also a
member of the 1988 U.S. Olympic team that competed in Seoul, South
Korea.
Also, Badgers' assistant coach Donny Pritzlaff is currently competing
for world and U.S. teams at 163 pounds, which is a similar weight class
to Rutt's.
Rutt won the state Class 2A title last year with a 47-1 record. He
enters the season 12th on Minnesota's all-time win list with a record
of 214-19.
Former Barnesville wrestler Kirk Anderson leads the all-time list with 246 wins.