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New Columbia’s wrestling coaching staff inspires a culture of trust and a new path forward

Posted on by Pranco
New Columbia’s wrestling coaching staff inspires a culture of trust and a new path forward

Three months ago, on a wrestling mat in Paris, Columbia assistant wrestling coach Sebastian Rivera was seconds away from having his dream fade away.

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He trailed Tulga Tumur-Ochir of Mongolia in the Olympic bronze medal match 9-8 as the clock ticked down.

10. 9. 8.

Then Rivera dug deep. He charged into Tumur-Ochir, swung his body around him and pushed him to the mat with great force for the takedown. He found a way and in that moment his Olympic legacy was cemented: he was now officially a bronze medalist.

Rivera brings that intensity, that fire and that determination to never give up to his new role now with the Columbia wrestling program. After returning from Paris, he joined the school’s staff led by his former Rutgers head coach Donny Pritzlaff, who took the head coaching job earlier this summer, alongside Jeff Buxton, who coached Rivera in Paris, and Greg Bulsak, another Rutgers coach. Completely American.

It’s a unique staff with deep Big Ten roots that now works within the Ivy League, but Pritzlaff said it’s a staff he “trusts with (his) life.”

“I’m so proud of these guys, the way they develop relationships with the kids, and they push them, but they know how to back off sometimes, and it’s just a lot of fun to watch and be around,” Pritzlaff said in an interview with NCAA.com. “It’s so fun and wonderful to be able to work with them and see them every day. As we become more comfortable with the team, we will only get better.”

This is a group of leaders who hope to raise the level of Columbia wrestling and remain competitive in an Ivy League that officially separated from the EIWA this season and will compete for its own postseason conference title in March before the NCAA Tournament .

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It’s a new era of wrestling in Columbia, but it’s an era of great promise and excitement, both for the collegiate athletes and those moving on to the senior circuit.

Coaching confidence

Columbia wrestling has had only six All-Americans in program history. Half of them earned their national recognition before junior Kai Owen was born.

So it’s not surprising that Owen said he considered the feat something “out of reach” when he started with the Lions as a freshman, something that was “only reserved for the best kids in the country.”

But that has since started to change for the 141-pounder.

After qualifying for the NCAA tournament for the first time in 2024 and seeing his former teammate Lennox Wolak finish on the podium at 174 pounds, Owen is starting to believe this is a path for him.

The new coaching staff only helps him gain that confidence by wrestling with him in the room every day.

“I think getting those one-on-one reps with Sebastian Rivera, specifically for me because I’m a smaller guy, and getting those one-on-one reps with him, I think, helps build my confidence, Owen said. “But just experiencing what it’s like to wrestle an Olympic bronze medalist is of course incredible, and a great opportunity for me to see where I stand compared to such an elite athlete like him.”

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He is not the only one to benefit from these benefits. Nick Fine, a redshirt junior upperweight, said he has seen immediate growth in both the mental and physical aspects of his wrestling since the new staff took over.

“I get the opportunity to wrestle Greg Bulsack, who is also an All-American, and the confidence you get from working with these guys is so great,” Fine said. “And on the other hand, with Donnie and coach Buxton’s technique, I’m working on so many things at once, and every day in practice I really feel like I’ve made significant improvement.”

Returning leaders

Fine returns to the lineup this year at 184 pounds after a gap year training alongside teammate Cesar Alvan, a redshirt 165-pounder who qualified for the NCAA Tournament as a sophomore in 2023 at the New York Regional Training Center.

He explained that while he grew as a wrestler during that period, he also benefited from the opportunity to spend more time with Alvan, someone who Fine said “is a leader for a reason.”

“He works incredibly hard, but he’s also super disciplined in every way. He really lives and breathes it,” Fine said. “So being able to live with him for a year and just pick up a lot of things and then still be able to train, but be able to take a more reserved role in terms of not competing, and kind of take a step back a little bit, it definitely gave me a lot of perspective on where I was in my journey to becoming an All-American.”

The coaching staff has also been impressed with Alvan’s leadership and the values ​​he brings to the room every day, especially during this coaching transition.

“We didn’t really know who was going to make the move, but Cesar seems to have the respect of the team, and a lot of people look up to him and listen to him,” Rivera said. “It’s great that there is someone on the team who takes on this role.”

However, Alvan is not only known for his personal qualities. He had solid success on the mat this season, finishing second at the Princeton Open after posting wins against Richie Grungo of Lehigh, Cole McComas of Rider, Sean Sefeldt of Princeton and Joseph Cangro.

He will also have some big tests ahead of him, as he will likely face No. 13 Beau Mantanona on Nov. 17 when the Lions take on Michigan and No. 15 Tyler Lillard in Columbia’s Nov. 21 matchup with Indiana. before the Cliff Keen Las Vegas Invitational in early December.

However, the new staff is already helping Alvan believe he has the ability to compete with the best.

“Just in this first tournament, I would go out of bounds, or the period is over, and I look over my corner, and I let these guys coach me – it gives confidence in me,” Alvan said. “I could have wrestled the tournament the day after they were announced, and if they were in my corner at that time, it would make me so much better.”

Getting better is the goal, and the model is there.

Alvan said he, like Owen and the rest of the Columbia team, was inspired last season watching their teammate Lennox Wolak, now wrestling at Virginia Tech, earn All-American honors. Seeing Wolak achieve big goals has made Alvan confident that he too can finish on the podium.

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Wolak became the first All-American for Columbia in a decade when he placed sixth at 174 pounds last season. For Alvan, the win broke a barrier for him and his teammates and showed them what is possible. Alvan compares this to the phenomenon known as the ‘Bannister effect’.

“It is when a barrier previously considered unattainable is broken and a mental shift occurs, allowing many others to cross it,” Alvan said, reading the definition of the phenomenon on his phone. “This effect is named after the man who ran the 4-minute mile. I sent that to Lennox. Getting on that stage and becoming an All-American is, you know, it’s possible… but if it’s not done, or at least in a while, it’s very difficult to imagine it and think it’s achievable is. So for Lennox to accomplish that almost opens that door and barrier for us.”

The faith may have started with Wolak, but Alvan doesn’t expect it to end with him.

“We have two, three, four or five, a bunch of guys on this team that are very capable of getting on the podium,” Alvan said. “And I think that will definitely happen this year, in the years to come. come, and there are many thanks to many different people, but Lennox Wolak is definitely one of those names to be thankful for.

The coaching staff wasn’t willing to give names for guys to look out for, but Alvan and his teammates weren’t afraid to shout out their friends, including sophomore 125-pounder Sulayman Bah and senior Jack McGill at 174 pounder.

‘Don’t give up. Be tough.’

What will it take to help these guys develop into All-Americans like Wolak? For Rivera, the answer is simple: don’t give up. Be tough.

“It’s hard to learn, but I try to implement it the best I can by struggling a little,” Rivera said.

Coaching at the collegiate level may be new for Rivera, but he has an example in Pritzlaff and Buxton: mentors who helped him achieve his goals, and mentors who now support him in doing the same for the next generation of Columbia athletes.

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However, Pritzlaff believes that just having Rivera – and his intensity – in the room will elevate the program’s culture.

“We tried to get it into the minds of these guys that our culture is going to be a tough wrestling culture, where guys like Sebastian said they weren’t going to give up, they were going to keep pushing hard,” Pritzlaff said. . “And we’re trying to build that up, and we’re trying to keep it going throughout the season.”

Rivera’s credentials, and the fact that he is still active in the sport, give him the credibility to back up whatever he says, and he has already impressed guys like Owen, Alvan and Fine, who are looking to make leaps and bounds this year the new staff.

“When you think about an Olympic medalist, it’s hard to understand how someone can become so good sometimes,” Fine said. “And you know you almost think there’s some kind of secret method, but working with (Rivera) was really cool because it’s as simple as his intensity and… just the fact that anyone can really try to emulate that , just by trying to match his intensity, not only in competition, but also in practice, day in and day out.”

Every workout, every rep, every second is important because, as Rivera said, “You never know when something big can happen with ten seconds left in a match. You saw that at the Olympic Games.”

Whether it’s the biggest stage in the world or the Blood Round at NCAAs or somewhere in between, this mantra of ‘don’t quit, be tough’ will be part of the Columbia ethos as the team looks to add to the history books this season and battle to bring athletes to the podium with new confidence, both at the Ivy League tournament and at the NCAAs.