Flynn: I thought individually that I fell short. There is so much pressure by the time you are a senior. I had been ranked pretty high my junior and senior years. There was pressure to get on the stand, John Smith was at the weight. I beat some guys who placed ahead of me. Individually, I felt I didn’t get done what I wanted to get done. As a team, we had seven or eight All- Americans and were third. We fell a little short, got a team tro- phy, and it was a special year. We had a huge match at Penn State, where they turned away hundreds of people at the door, and we beat Iowa. There were lots of special memories.
USA Wrestler: Why did you decide to pursue coaching, and what was it like as a grad assistant at Penn State? Flynn: When you don’t know exactly what you want to do, and you can get more education, it’s always a good thing. I got my masters in business. I enjoyed it. I wanted to keep working out. MMA wasn’t big then. You didn’t have another avenue for people who wanted to continue to train. Somewhere deep inside, I knew I would always be involved in wrestling. You are going to these classes, and everybody wants to be a millionaire and go to Wall Street. I said, yeah, it sounds good. I knew that wasn’t me. I needed to be at practice at 3:30 p.m. I graduated, went and got a job with Prudential and it was OK. But mid-after- noon came around, and I was like, this is not right.
USA Wrestler: How was it that you became an assistant coach at Edinboro, on Bruce Baumgartner’s staff? Flynn: I was real fortunate. Coach Lorenzo called me. At the time, I was done with Prudential. I moved home. I was working for the local newspaper as a district manager. I didn’t know what I wanted to do. Coach Lorenzo said that there was an assistant job open I would be perfect for. It was closed, but he said he’d call if I was interested. He got somebody to take my application late. I was lucky. I got the interview. Even then, Zeke Jones was their first choice, and he wasn’t sure he wanted it. I was gung- ho to get back into wrestling. I got lucky to fall into it.
USA Wrestler: What did you learn in your years coaching with Bruce Baumgartner, and how did that shape you as a coach? Flynn: It was awesome coaching with Bruce. I needed to be with another person like Coach Lorenzo, who was very moral and had integrity. I don’t know what I would have done if I worked somewhere else. You look back, I was really fortunate to have these people as my mentors. One of the biggest things I learned from Bruce is that everyone is different. I thought every- body, all they do is work out. Fritzy had all this energy. I learned people were different and sometimes you have to tweak things for certain people. There are other ways to do things than what I had grown up with and been a part of at Penn State.
USA Wrestler: When Bruce moved to AD and you became head coach, what goals did you have for the program? Flynn: When I first got here, we weren’t really good. It was a struggle. I came from Penn State and we were third in the coun- try, and we had good teams when I was grad assistant. It was an eye-opener. I remember thinking I’m not going to be here long. Losing was so hard. It slowly turned around. When I took over, I didn’t have specific goals in mind. I wanted to get more kids on the podium. At the time, we hadn’t won an EWL title. We had some good teams towards the end of Bruce’s tenure. That became the first big thing, the EWL tournament. And then trying to get some kids win the nationals. Like you saw this year. I felt we had four outstanding kids and they all fell short. It is way harder than people think. That has always been a goal, to help
kids reach their goals.
USA Wrestler: Edinboro competes in Div. II in all sports besides wrestling. Is that different than if the program were in a place like Penn State, which is Div. I in all sports? Flynn: We try to sell that to our recruits. It is a little unique. No matter how big you are on, say, Iowa’s campus, I am sure football and basketball prevail. Here, we are looked at different- ly. We are the big-time athletes. It is nice to have that for your kids. People watch TV. They watch Ohio State football and understand that our wrestlers are those guys. They appreciate it.
USA Wrestling: Wrestling is a big deal in the state of Pennsylvania, which produces many great college stars. How do you explain what makes Pennsylvania such a wrestling hotbed? Flynn: It’s a hotbed because of tradition. It’s the little kids pro- grams growing up, the junior high states. There are good kids and they bubble up. They want to be good. Other kids see them and they go to college and want to be coaches. The quality of coaches in high school is high. Wrestling is a huge sport in Pennsylvania.
USA Wrestler: Your first NCAA champion was Josh Koscheck in 2001. What were the ingredients that made him successful? Flynn: What made him great is he was just tough. He didn’t make excuses. His toughness is unbelievable. How blunt and honest he was with himself… when he’d lose, he would call himself out. He is one of the people who helped turn the pro- gram around. When you have a guy who has that kind of suc- cess and is that tough, it was like having another coach. He did- n’t put up with crap from the kids or let them make excuses. He raised the level of expectation among the teammates.
USA Wrestler: In 2005-06, Edinboro had an unbeaten dual season and cracked the Top 10 at NCAA’s, placing eighth. What was special about that milestone? Flynn: Here’s how I always pictured it. To have success, you have to win locally, let’s say the PSACs. Regionally would be the EWL, and then nationally. We wanted to start building to where top 10 was the expectation, but never quite got in there. It’s hard to get over the hump. I remember when Koscheck final- ly won. You start wondering if you can get it done. Then he smashed everyone, and it was like, yes, we can get it done. We were so close with so many kids. To get the team in the top 10 is the same thing. If you are 14th or 15th, you have a solid pro- gram. For most smaller schools, it’s a great thing, a feather in your cap. We put too much work in to settle for that. Once you poke into the top 10, you feel this is where you belong, and you set your goals even higher.
USA Wrestler: In the last decade, Edinboro has finished in the top 10 at NCAAs five times. What do you credit for that kind of consistency? Flynn: Your expectations grow. Your recruiting gets better.
You become a better coach, and learn from your mistakes. You learn to deal with different types of kids. It’s a learning curve. It is all of those things. It’s expectations of the team itself. They say we did this, and next year we can do more. For instance, we have a tall order to replace the kids that left this year and the kids here have been hearing that Edinboro will take a big dip next year. Maybe we will, but the kids here don’t want to
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