Matt Lindland GARY ABBOTT’S MATSIDE CHAT WITH...
Matt Lindland became USA Wrestling’s fourth full-time National Greco-Roman coach, following Dennis Koslowski, Mike Houck and Steve Fraser in the post. Like his predecessors, Lindland was one of the greatest U.S. Greco-Roman wrestlers in history, and has developed into an outstanding coach. An Oregon native, Lindland won a Junior college national title
at Clackamas and went on to star at the Univ. of Nebraska. He was one of the early U.S. Olympic Training Center Greco- Roman resident athletes. He returned as an assistant coach at Nebraska, and went on
to win a 2000 Olympic silver medal and a 2001 World silver medal.
Lindland had a successful career as a Mixed Martial Arts ath-
lete, coach and promoter. He returned to coach Greco-Roman in recent years, and took the National Coaching post this spring. We visited as he was training the 2014 U.S. World Team.
USA Wrestler: When you were young, equestrian was an Olympic sport which you thought you might master. How did you go from riding horses to a contact sport like wrestling? Lindland: My coach was an Olympian on the 1980 Olympic
team, Kathleen Smithwick, and that is what inspired me to pur- sue Olympic sports. Equestrian eventing takes a lot of money. You need to have a wealthy family. It is an elitist sport. My fami- ly was middle class. I was blessed to have horses and animals and be around that. I was the best age-group guy in our state, but to compete at the next level was beyond our means. I did a three-week wrestling program in our junior high, and didn’t think much of it. When I got into high school, we had a PE coach who ran a wrestling section again and encouraged me to come out for the team. Honestly, I fell in love with the sport.
USA Wrestler: Who were your early influences in wrestling? Lindland: I have been blessed to have some of the best coaches in the world from day one. The only coach who was not a world-class coach was my high school coach. I am very grateful he did one thing that changed my wrestling career. He gave me a flier about going to post-season freestyle and Greco. We didn’t know anything about that. I wrestled both Junior and Cadet age-groups as a freshman and got kicked all over the mat. I found out where those kids were training and started training with those guys. Mark Fuller was an Olympian and one of the coaches. Dan Mello was an Olympian and one of the coaches. Pavel Katsen, who was at the time the Olympic coach, was one of our coaches. Coach Marc Sprague was the director and head coach of that program and is still a mentor of mine. Oscar and Isaac Wood, Billy Zadick and I all trained together all summer with Marc. To have three guys who are out there come out here and become World class coaches is a big honor for Marc. We are sharing the knowledge to the next generation.
USA Wrestler: When did you begin to set high goals as an athlete?
Lindland: Coach Sprague was adamant about setting goals and dreaming big that we could become Olympians. Even
24 USA Wrestler
Matt Lindland captured Olympic and World silver medals for the United States in Greco-Roman wrestling.
though I was not a state champion in high school, he encour- aged us to set high goals, aim high and shoot for the Olympics. I believed him. I wasn’t that level of an athlete coming out of high school. I went to a junior college. My third year at Clackamas, I won a national title. It gave me a little exposure to be recruited to a big-time NCAA program.
USA Wrestler: How does attending a junior college help improve a wrestler? Lindland: I have encouraged some of my young prospects to
go to Clackamas, go two years there and come out here to compete. One of my athletes I coached at Clackamas, Jacob Mitchell, was a national champion for us. He wrestled one year at Div. II and was a finalist. He’s out here at the OTC now. There is no wrong path. I stayed focused on my goals at Clackamas, of pursing the Olympic dream. At junior college, guys go both ways. They use it as a stepping stone or that’s the end of the road for their wrestling career, especially during that generation. Now, Josh is adamant about grades and getting kids on to a four-year college and finishing up their education.
USA Wrestler: At Nebraska, you did not reach your goal of winning the NCAAs. Looking back, how do you assess your time in Div. I wrestling? Lindland: I liked everything about Nebraska. I liked they
wanted to help me reach my goals. They had a great team, had a ton of support on the athletic and academic side of things. I loved the coaches. Mark Cody was an assistant coach and remains a great friend and mentor for me. I built a lot of relation- ships there. Nebraska was one of the top programs my senior year. We beat Iowa in a dual meet, and finished second in the nation. I was with quality guys. Rulon Gardner was on my team two years. I was going to focus on collegiate wrestling for those two years and then pursue Olympic style wrestling. At that time, I didn’t know if it would be Greco or freestyle. I was finally figur- ing things out. I was 36-0 after the Big Eight Championships
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