Going into the 2024–25 season, expectations for UChicago’s Varsity Wrestling team were uncertain. Beyond their exploits on the mat, the Maroons were wrestling with a new reality: competing without longtime head coach and reigning National Wrestling Coaches Association (NWCA) Coach of the Year winner Leo Kocher at the helm.
Coach Kocher’s decorated 45-year tenure produced tremendous team and individual successes, including one NCAA Division III champion wrestler, 32 All-American wrestlers, and 18 University Athletic Association (UAA) team championships. While finding a successor with Kocher’s pedigree and extensive experience was an impossible task going into the 2024–25 season, the team struck gold with rookie head coach Matt Gentry and continued to excel in Gentry’s debut season.
While the team’s numerous visible accomplishments throughout the season included a runner-up finish and All-American nod at the NCAA Division III national championships for then third-year Sean Conway, national championship qualifications for then third-year Gunnar Garriques and then fourth-year Darian Estevez, and a UAA Most Outstanding Wrestler commendation for then second-year Jackson Rustad, perhaps their biggest achievement came from the intangibles. Specifically, the team’s sizable gains in confidence, experience, and directed focus as the season progressed.
Based on early indications from this offseason, it seems that UChicago’s Varsity Wrestling team is prepared to continue leaning on these intangibles as they reach for even greater heights in the 2025–26 season.
For no wrestler is this approach more pertinent than team captain Sean Conway. Coming off a season in which he became the Maroons’ first wrestler to reach the national championship bout in 33 years, Conway acknowledged that he would not have the same “luxury of being an underdog” in his senior season as the second-ranked wrestler in the nation, expecting other wrestlers to “strategically game-plan” against him. While this season’s goals include a shot at redemption in the national championship bout where he hopes to “make some noise,” having only narrowly missed out on a win last season, Conway is embracing a new approach as he looks to get his hands on the top prize.
With the input of the team’s new mindset coach Coyte Cooper, a former Division 1 NCAA All-American wrestler at Indiana University, Conway has adjusted his aims for the season, highlighting a commitment to find his “purpose and continue to be growth-oriented to take my game to the next level.” For Conway, this purpose will be found by emphasizing growth “as a wrestler and as a person” over any outcome; a guiding message he is hoping to impart on the rest of the team as captain. Luckily for Conway, this growth-oriented mindset is already being echoed by fellow teammates and coaches as the season nears.
For Rustad and Garriques, who are returning to the mat with nationals and All-American bids in their sights after stellar 2024–25 seasons, narrowing their focus on consistent self-growth has also become a key feature of offseason preparations.
Ahead of his junior season, Rustad described his incorporation of “an innovative mindset training and performance program” into his offseason training, counting on this new approach “to improve preparation and execution during matches” as he seeks his first nationals appearance with the team.
Similarly, for Garriques, the sixth-ranked wrestler in the nation, an early exit from nationals did not detract from a season that fulfilled his lifelong goal of competing on the biggest stage of Division III Wrestling. Heading into the upcoming season, Garriques hopes to continue putting less emphasis on results and more emphasis on a nonnegotiable focus on self-growth and effort. “My expectations for myself are to leave the mat knowing I gave my all with no regrets,” Garriques told the Maroon.
Another key promoter of this program-wide, growth-oriented mentality is Gentry, whose own reliance on personal growth has fueled tremendous success across his decades-long career as a wrestler and coach. As a former Olympian and NCAA Division 1 national champion wrestler, Gentry has brought valuable lessons from his past mistakes to the Maroons, echoing those sentiments upon taking up the head coaching position last year.
“It is easy to get outside yourself and distracted by the events instead of continuing to stay focused within yourself on the things you can control in order to give yourself the best possible chance of a great outcome,” Gentry explained.
Accordingly, his decision to prioritize individual “ownership and responsibility” as a rookie head coach proved to be a fruitful one, yielding both team success and NWCA Rookie Coach of the Year honors. “Keeping the team focused on our growth and process without getting too high [or] low about any specific win or loss helped them continue to improve throughout the year,” Gentry reflected.
Beyond improving as individuals and wrestlers under Coach Gentry’s direction, the team’s senior leaders are also seeking to foster a strong team culture, with Garriques citing last season’s showing at nationals as a source of “confidence that [the team] are being led by a strong and experienced senior class, a powerful and brilliant coaching staff, and a unified team body.”
While Conway’s physical preparedness of staying in shape, practicing technical improvements, and prioritizing active recovery contributed greatly to last season’s championship bout appearance, perhaps his biggest asset was the surrounding support cast he had throughout his run. With the input of three Maroon coaches including former coach Kocher, former All-American Maroon Ryan Fleck (A.B. ’23), and veteran training partner Cael Saxton (A.B. ’25), Conway fed off his team’s support to excel. “Nationals was the best I have ever felt mentally, and it was also the most relaxed I have felt at a competition,” Conway explained. “[My team’s] collective energy and advice put me in the best mindset to compete.”
Thus, continuing to foster trust and support throughout the team’s ranks will be just as essential as physical preparedness for the Maroons in the season to come.
On the mat, Garriques expects his teammates “to elevate each other, being inspired by each other’s wins and spurred onward by each other’s losses.” Off the mat, however, Conway expects the team to grow as a unit by competing for slightly different silverware, emphasizing collaboration in the team’s pursuit of Intramural Championships in Flag Football and Softball.
Most importantly, Conway is also hoping his teammates will zoom out from the pressure of competition and enjoy the season’s moments, allotting time at each event to “take a deep breath and smile.”
While UChicago’s Varsity Wrestling team will be tested throughout the 2025–26 season, no longer capable of flying under the radar in the wake of last season’s success, the Maroons remain unfazed. The program-wide adoption of a growth-oriented mindset, the guidance of veteran leadership and a star-studded surrounding cast of coaches, and the bonds uniting the team’s individual wrestlers seem set to power the Maroons in their pursuit of greater heights.
