Wrestlers Prone to Attitude Droughts Through All This Craziness

STILLWATER – There is no doubt that the wrong guy is pictured for this story, but Oklahoma State’s unbeaten 165-pound and No. 3-ranked Travis Wittlake is the one we had comment and that is appropriate. Wittlake was one of three Oklahoma State wrestlers including returning and No. 1-ranked 133-pound Daton Fix that claimed individual championships last Sunday in the inaugural Cowboys Challenge Tournament. Those two along with heavyweight Austin Harris, that took advantage of a light bracket of heavyweight wrestlers beating his own back-up Konner Doucet in the final, were the only Oklahoma State champions that waived the unique trophy of Cowboy hats when it was over.

Oklahoma State Athletics

John Smith watching in the bleachers was overall disappointed with his team last Sunday.

Head coach John Smith had the idea of the tournament and West Virginia, Missouri, and Wyoming came in and had about as much success as any opponents due inside Gallagher-Iba Arena. Smith was in a foul mood afterwards. Now, later this week talking to Smith and Wittlake in advance to the second Bedlam and the final dual of the season this Sunday, Smith admits that this has been a very challenging season for his wrestlers.

Oklahoma State is still 9-0 in duals and tanked No. 3 by Intermat, but between COVID-19 and all that the pandemic brought down on athletes and the artic weather and subzero temperatures. It’s all been kind of crazy to deal with. That may go double or triple when you are wrestling with three true freshmen in your line-up.

“You’re right on Robert. Yeah, you know it’s just that for everybody it’s been a long time at home. “You’re spending a lot of time on the computer, spend lotta time sitting,” Smith said of what we’ve all experienced. “You just worry that, you know, people like you said are just kind of going through the motions a little bit. I think we had a little of that last week. You’re thinking that it’s okay, because it’s  another long week with one day of wrestling. I thought we had a little bit of that, but I’ll tell you this we responded pretty well on Monday and Tuesday. I like with what I saw from them and let them know when I thought about last weekend and their response to it.”

Wittlake is not one of those guys that John Smith had to address, although I’m sure he heard it because the whole team did. Wittlake is really grounded. He goes through his routine the same every week. He did it that way last season and in the midst of an 11-0 start is doing it the same now. He doesn’t fear competition, the native of Coos Bay, Ore. wishes for it, wants it right in his face. He is grounded and he is as good an influence on a team, on three freshmen as any wrestler could be.

“It’s a team where everybody, we all hang out with each other and stuff,” Wittlake said. “We, you know, conversate a lot with each other, especially the freshman. They are a good group of guys.We’ve got the best coaches, so if it is wrestling they need to go to the coaches. “Espo (Zack Esposito) and I will work with Dustin Plott and I wrestle with Dustin some every week. Sometimes we may work after practice with Mastro (Trevor Mastrogiovanni). They have the best coaches in the world to go to, so if a freshman is going to come to one of us or me for advice then it’s likely going to be something mental.”

Oklahoma State Athletics

Daton Fix is more an an example than a hands on leader. He’s as good as it gets for a winning example.

Exactly, and Wittlake is a good teammate for that. You go to Daton Fix and you will get that ultra-competitive approach, a good choice but sometimes you need more. In the meantime, Boo Lewallen is also a good sounding board, but some of the others are kind of in need of pushing, explaining, rationalizing, something to climb over competitive or a living funk that causes that going through the motions.

If there is anybody in the world that is going to have major, make that monster issues, with just going through the motions it is John Smith. It didn’t take much, and with the combination of this being Bedlam, the last dual of the season, senior day, all of it rolled into one. Smith is fired up.

”You’re exactly right, you know what you’ve got to say is, ‘Okay we’ve got a month left, we’ve got 30 something days left in the season,’” Smith said raising his voice. “’Let’s put out best, really refocus on our intensity, because in the end the attitude that we had, maybe, in this past tournament is not gonna get us anywhere.’  “I’ve been watching and a good attitude adjustment these first two days is what I’ve seen.”

We’ll find out just how good the attitude adjustment is and how well this group fights off the pandemic and weather doldrums that we are all subject to. For this wrestling team the time has to be now.