Alumni Bulletin - Fall 2007 - (Page 13)

wrestling • women’s crew • men’s basketball SPORTS wrestling DAVID’S A REAL WRESTLING GOLIATH After David Craig wrestled with perfection in high school (a 179-0 record, four straight state titles), the people in his hometown of Brandon, Fla., assumed that the no. 1 high school wrestling recruit in the Class of 2006 would attend Iowa State—where he’d be coached by Cael Sanderson, the 2004 Olympic gold medalist and four-time NCAA champion. Imagine their shock when the wrestling wunderkind chose to wear a Lehigh singlet instead. “People back home literally had no idea where Lehigh was,” Craig says. Craig was confident in his decision because he had sized up his five finalists (Lehigh, Iowa State, Oklahoma State, Virginia Tech, and Michigan State) with the same attention to detail he uses to size up opposing wrestlers. Craig and his dad, Skip, presented each school with an extensive recruiting questionnaire—asking for information ranging from the staff ’s coaching philosophy to the program’s medical redshirt policy to the business school’s ranking. Lehigh coach Greg Strobel gave the questionnaire to then-assistant coach Chris Ayres ’99— knowing that Ayres, the former All-American and now head coach at Princeton, would attack the assignment with unmatched vigor. “He spent countless hours to make sure he answered each question in great, great detail,” says Strobel. During a campus visit, the Craig family was further sold on the combination of Strobel’s Olympic-level coaching and Lehigh’s top-ranked business school. “It was the best school academically of the ﬁve I visited and the smallest school,” Craig says. “It’s only twice the size of my high school, so it would be easy for me to adjust.” Also comforting was Strobel’s coaching style, which is similar to that of Craig’s high school coach Russ Cozart, who worked with Craig since he was 4. “Both Coach Strobel and Coach Cozart really get to know their wrestlers and coach each of them differently,” Craig says. “Whereas some Big Ten schools, for example, have a certain style of wrestling, and that’s how each of their wrestlers is going to wrestle. “Coach Strobel’s approach is better, in my opinion, because each wrestler on the team has year and the next two years will be to win a national championship. Why have anything else as a goal?” Strobel thinks it’s realistic. “David was considered the best 18-year-old wrestler in the country,” Strobel says. “So if he keeps working hard and getting better, it stands to reason that he’ll win a national title while he’s here.” That would impress even the ﬁne citizens of Brandon, Fla., whose high school wrestling program hasn’t lost a dual meet in three-and-a-half decades and has produced a couple of Division I All-Americans: Tennessee-Chattanooga’s Brett Gustafson, a ﬁfth-place ﬁnisher at the 1991 NCAAs, and Oklahoma’s Josh Lambrecht, who took seventh in 2001, second in 2002, and third in 2003. Craig ﬁnished just one win shy of All-American honors last season. a slightly different approach, which makes preparing to face Lehigh a little tougher.” The 184-pound Craig (31-11 record) thrived in his ﬁrst season, tying for the team lead in wins as a freshman, reaching the round of 12 at the 2007 NCAA Championships, and ﬁnishing one win shy of All-America honors. “This year, I feel a lot more conﬁdent,” says Craig, who will wrestle at 174. “My goal this “We’ve never had a Division I wrestling champion come out of Brandon High School,” Cozart says. “David certainly has what it takes to become our ﬁrst. He’s tall and lanky so he has great leverage, he’s a master technician, and he’s wrestling for one of the best wrestling coaches in the world in Greg Strobel. “That’s a pretty unbeatable combination.” —Bil Doherty fall 2007 13 PHOTO COURTESY OF LEHIGH ATHLETIC DEPARTMENT

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Alumni Bulletin - Fall 2007

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