things help win big-time matches. He pushed the technical aspect of freestyle wrestling on me. Your competitors make you great. When you have Zeke Jones, Sammie Henson, these world class guys who make you know you have to work. Now at 43, I appreciate all those guys more. When you are doing it, you wish you had a few less competitors in the thick of things. Edinboro, making me their volunteer assistant coach, and allow- ing me the time to train and focus on working out, was big. They gave me the flexibility to go to different environments to train. It was getting around world-class coaching and a training environ- ment where I can compete with the best.
USA Wrestler: In 1996, you beat Jones in the U.S. Open, then went on to win the Olympic Trials. What were the key fac- tors that brought you to the top of that weight class that sea- son?
Rosselli: 1995 set the stage. I won the U.S. Open. The com- petition was stiff. You knew if you could win the U.S. Open, you could jump up on the stage and compete with the best of them. We had a lot more competitive matches. You go overseas and wrestle seven or eight club or National teams. When you win overseas, you are a world-class athlete. That set me up for the 1996 season. The training was rigorous, making sure you made weight right, there were a lot of variables that set up that sea- son.
USA Wrestler: At the Trials, you needed three matches to beat Eric Akin in the finals series, who beat Jones in the Mini- Tournament. What made the difference in that series, and what were your emotions when you made the team? Rosselli: It is always a great thing to win. At the time, I thought I could have wrestled better. I didn’t have my best day ever that day, but I got the job done. I lost the first match in overtime. I came back and won 5-1. We came back in the third match. I was winning 2-0 but ended up getting turned and had to come back and get a takedown. Eric Akin is a stud. Everybody at that level thinks they have it. It worked out right for me. But at the time, I didn’t think I performed to my capability.
USA Wrestler: What are your memories of the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, held on U.S. soil? Rosselli: Being in Atlanta was nice. Any time you are on your home soil, you get to compete in front of your fans and you are not in a foreign place. You get the normal things that you eat and the way that you train. I had a group of 30 or 40 people there that came out to the Olympics because I was in them. That’s what made it special, the people that come to watch you and support you through all of this, through thick and thin. Not everybody gets to be part of the Olympic Games. It was nice to have that support.
USA Wrestler: At the Olympics, you lost the first match to the eventual champion, and then won two matches. You broke your elbow in that last win and couldn’t continue. Explain the disap- pointment of that injury, and how you look at it now. Rosselli: It was incredibly disappointing. It’s one thing, if you are at a high-profile tournament, you get beat out, you did your best and he was better than me that day. It was a little tougher to know that I won two matches in the wrestlebacks and had a few more to go. The bronze medalist, I beat like 5-0 earlier that year. I felt strongly that I could have come back and taken the bronze. Not being able to compete, you will never know. That’s the toughest part. As you go through it, all these things that hap- pen, you use in your coaching career. You understand wrestling isn’t fair. You’ve got to win when you can win. This is the time
now. It helps mold your philosophy when you are working with your athletes.
USA Wrestler: You continued during the next Olympic cycle, winning a World Cup and a U.S. Open title, but not making another U.S. team. What were your biggest challenges at that time?
Rosselli: I never really got back to 100%. I never felt I got back to where I was in 1995 or 1996, when I was starting to separate myself a little bit. The field was so tight anyway. Getting hurt set me back a ways. The rules were a little differ- ent. Par terre was a big part of the sport. I wrestled a few years, won nationals in 1999. It was the slightest margins. I lost to Eric Akin on a referee’s decision and I knew it was time. I had a job, had a kid. It was time to move into another profession.
USA Wrestler: How did serving as assistant coach at Edinboro help you to develop your coaching skills? Rosselli: At a small program like Edinboro, Tim Flynn and I would do everything. You don’t have the support staff you have at Ohio State. There are things here in place here that makes your job easier at some levels. If you want to promote your pro- gram at a small school, you have to go get the photographs, you have to hang it up, you make sure the signage is in your wrestling room. The job is just different. It prepared me to take on any role. That really helped me. Learning how to grind when you are young, when you have that energy that you need to get after it, that really molded me.
USA Wrestler: When Tom Ryan became Ohio State coach, you became his top assistant. Why did you take this opportunity, and what was different coaching in the Big Ten? Rosselli: It is a more high profile opportunity. You still coach the same way. You still work with people the same way. Really, that is what our job is, to help people, develop them, recruit some people. I felt it was a good opportunity. When Tom first called me, Ohio State was not as strong as it is right now. Ohio State is a great place to be employed. It is a different job than what I had at Edinboro. Every program has their own things they have to handle. At Edinboro, when Tim Flynn was fifth this year, he did a great job and it was incredible. If we are fifth, sometimes it’s not looked at the same way. Expectations and standards are different. I like the pressures of the Big Ten. People expect you to do well. Our staff and I expect us to do well.
USA Wrestler: At Ohio State, the Ohio Regional Training Center was created to train wrestlers for the Olympics. What were the key factors in the Ohio RTC becoming perhaps the most successful RTC? Rosselli: I give a lot of props to our alumni base who fund it. having the resources and the ability to get the resources to get the world-class athletes here is a big part of it. The other part of it is that over time, we have had success. We’ve had 11 World Team members and a Olympian over the last five or six years. It has attracted some really good guys. It all started with Tommy Rowlands and Joe Heskett, that first year we got here, they won the U.S. Open and made a World Team. Then Shawn Bunch came. The training regimen is good, the structure is good. I think it attracts them here because we have been successful. What makes a good RTC is having a good coach, the resources to support these guys and success. Integrating our world-class athletes with our college guys is what we are trying to do.
Continued on page 33 25 USA Wrestler
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