USA Wrestler Photo Contest Top left: Fourth-grader Trevor Lorin of the Bel Air Junior
Wrestling Team hits a nice headlock at his 60-pound match in the End of Year League Tournament. Aaron Lorin photo. Top right: Payson Creese of Apple Valley, Minn. hits a throw in a match at Novice 60 pounds at the Greco and Freestyle Duals between Minnesota and Wisconsin. Eric Creese photo. Bottom left: Ryan Adams stacks his opponent for a pin at the Berkeley Bash Wrestling Tournament. Christian Dailey photo. USA Wrestler is seeking your best wrestling photography for publication in a future issue of the magazine. Other photos may be posted on
TheMat.com, in USA Wrestling Nation, or on USA Wrestling Weekly. USA Wrestling reserves the right to publish all materials submitted for the Photo Contest with no restrictions! Mail photos to: Gary Abbott, USA Wrestling, 6155 Lehman Dr., Colorado Springs, CO 80918. E-mail photos to:
gabbott@usawrestling.org.
Continued from page 32
That hard work paid off in 1998, when Marianetti won the U.S. Open and the World Team Trials to make the World Championships at 167.5 pounds. The World Championships were held in Tehran, Iran that year, and is something he will never forget.
“I was fortunate to be part of something so few people had a chance to experience. When we got to Iran, there were hun- dreds of people at the airport to greet the USA team. They gave us so much respect. The fans were wonderfully knowledgeable, passionate and kind. On the mat, I had one match where I was disqualified for blood time. It was incredibly frustrating to get there and be disqualified. Competing was a frustration, but being on that World Team was amazing,” he said. Marianetti wrestled through that Olympic cycle, falling short of his goal of making the Olympic team. It was another transition time for him. His goals changed to finish grad school, raise his new child and take the next step in life. “I enjoyed being an assistant - teaching and working with those young guys. In 2000, I had to make a decision. My wife got a great job offer up here in Elmhurst. We also wanted to be closer to our families. We moved to the west suburbs, I didn’t have a job, and then the Elmhurst job became open,” he said. Marianetti applied for and was hired as the head wrestling coach at Elmhurst College, a Division III program near his new home. “I left a team that was fifth in the nation at Illinois, and came to a program that couldn’t field a full team. That was a big tran- sition. There were a lot of growing pains, understanding the phi-
losophy of what being a Div. III coach meant. In time, it became an enjoyable and fun place to coach. It isn’t quite so year round and absolutely your whole life. There is room for guys to have other things in life. There are guys who come in without the cre- dentials of the Div. I guys. As coach, you can really make a huge difference with a lot of guys,” he said. After 11 years in this part of his journey, Marianetti has built Elmhurst into a Div. III power, taking second at the 2013 NCAA Div. III Nationals and coaching two individual champions, Joe Rau at 184 pounds and Mike Benefiel at 197 pounds. Five Bluejays earned All-America honors, setting a single season record for Elmhurst. “We were working to get to the point where we had senior leadership. We had battle-tested guys. We had the addition of Mike Benefiel transferring in. Joe Rau had been with us. It was his tournament to win and was amazing to see him do that. I coached Mike Benefiel’s brother and worked with him when he was younger. We had a smooth transition with him also,” he said.
Marianetti was named Div. III Coach of the Year, his assistant John Jung was named Assistant Coach of the Year and his team was awarded the NCAA second-place trophy. Shortly after, Marianetti got a call from his college coach, Mark Johnson. “Mark always talked about the goal of winning that trophy when we were at Illinois. He called to talk about that. It was 11 years after leaving there, that we got one here at Elmhurst. That is always the goal of all coaches. I still look at it that way and I try to develop the individual guys. If we do that well, we can win the national title,” he said.
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