John Smith's Top 25 Moments: 15-11

In this series, Oklahoma State's wrestling coach John Smith, who enters his 25th year at the helm of the program, reflects on some of his top moments during his coaching career. Here are moments 15-11.

15: Jordan Oliver signing with the Cowboys
"We knew that Jordan Oliver was one of those kids that you know would be an immediate impact on our team from the standpoint of having a lot of skill and having a lot of potential to separate scores. You don't see those kids often, but when we signed Jordan, we knew we had something special. He went on to be a four-time All American and two-time national champion. It was an exciting day when we got his signature."

14: Tommy Chesbro taking over for the Oklahoma dual
"In the 1991-92 season, for the year I took over as the head coach along with Kenny Monday, we had to leave because that was an Olympic year and we had to get some matches in overseas before the trials. We left after the Minnesota match and Coach Chesbro stepped in as the head coach for just that one match against Oklahoma. As we were overseas we were following by phone, and the Cowboys shutout the Sooners 43-0."

13: Defeating Iowa in 2012
"That meet in 2012, it appeared to be a really tight meet in Iowa City and Jordan Oliver got beat, which was not expected. In an intense environment, several guys came through for us to go on and win that dual meet, 17-16. It was just a memorable dual from several wrestlers that weren't expected to win."

12: 1994 NCAA Championship team
"I mean, what an exciting time. It was my first NCAA championship as a head coach. Of course that '94 team was great with Alan Fried, Pat Smith and Mark Branch winning championships and Nick Purler, Jacob Newby and JJ McGrew becoming All-Americans. Those six guys put us in position to win and we won my first NCAA Championship as a coach."

11: Record crowd for Bedlam in 2001
"Well it was exciting one in 2001. It was the Bedlam match here in Stillwater, and we had our largest crowd here ever to see a wrestling match at Gallagher-Iba, setting that record at 10,800 people. What a match it was with Johnny Thompson, Shane Roller, Tyrone Lewis and Daniel Cormier as well as Mark Munoz leading the way. We ended up winning six matches against four and it was just exciting from the standpoint of doing something for the first time in this program, and sometimes it's hard to do. Setting that attendance record was exciting."

Oklahoma State University Athletics

Related News

Related Videos