Martin quickly has Monarchs wrestlers competing with elite

ST. LOUIS

You could say Steve Martin is obsessed with wrestling. And that would be true. It would be just as true, however, to say Martin is addicted to building.

He built Great Bridge into a national high school powerhouse. He’s building Old Dominion into a college contender.

It would be equally accurate to say Martin is mad about geography. That is, putting himself and his program on the map.

Once the Wildcats were widely considered the best public school team from coast to coast, Martin moved on to an almost laughable task. When he took over the Monarchs five years ago, you could say his new passion became astronomy – launching ODU into the center of the college wrestling universe.

The Monarchs, he promised, would rise. His little, unknown East Coast squad – short on tradition – would, he swore, go toe to toe with the historical giants in the Midwest. Watch out Iowa and Oklahoma State, he said.

“People thought that was funny,” Martin remembers. “When I started here, no one knew who we were. I would go to recruit a kid and his parents would ask, 'OD-Who?’ But I knew we could do it. Back then, we were selling dreams. Now, here we are.

“The dreams are starting to come true.”

There Martin was on Saturday night, standing on a wrestling mat in the middle of a packed house at the Scottrade Center. Indeed, in the middle of the wrestling universe.

He had coached senior Ryan Williams all the way into the NCAA Division I finals, just the second time any Monarch had ever reached such rare air. Everyone who cares about wrestling – and some who don’t – watched Williams scrap for a national championship. More than 16,000 in attendance shared Martin’s moment, as did a national ESPN audience.

“This is huge,” Martin said. “Huge. You’re gauged by how you do at this tournament. This means we’re in that league with the big boys. This makes people notice. We just needed that one guy to break through.”

The Monarchs were already breaking through, though. Williams’ efforts likely supercharged the pursuit of national notoriety, but Martin had been building steadily toward that goal the last two seasons.

He qualified six Monarchs for the NCAA championships last season and coached a freshman, James Nicholson, to All-America honors. He got six more to nationals this weekend. All of them won at least a match.

Old Dominion climbed to an all-time high No. 16 ranking in the national polls this year. Martin has taken the team on the road to wrestle the likes of Michigan State, Iowa, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State.

People were paying attention even before Williams landed ODU on center stage.

“We definitely know Old Dominion,” said Steve Becicka, an Iowa fan who has traveled to the NCAA tournament from Cedar Rapids since the mid-1980s. “It seems like they’re popping up more and more. They’re coming into Iowa and recruiting. Their coach wrestled at Iowa. Yeah, we notice.

“Those ODU guys wrestle so hard, I catch myself rooting for them – when they’re not wrestling an Iowa guy. Five years ago? I don’t know if I would’ve known a thing about them.”

It registers on the radar when a no-name school from the other side of the country – from a town non-locals have trouble pronouncing – starts stealing state champions from wrestling’s heartland. Nicholson, last year’s All-American, was an Iowa boy.

His brother, a top-five national recruit, has also signed to wrestle for Martin. Such a thing was previously unthinkable.

“A kid that’s good in Iowa, he has three big wrestling schools in the state all looking at him,” Becicka said. “I think ODU would have to show them they’ve got something pretty special. I don’t know what it is, but they must have it.”

The Monarchs have Martin, a tireless teacher and worker and promoter. His wrestlers take on his obsessive traits. They grind out surprising victories, make overachieving an art form.

For this, they have not only earned a place on the map, in the universe, but they’ve also garnered a great deal of respect from some of the sport’s biggest names.

“They deserve what they’re getting, because you see them working for it,” said John Smith, a two-time Olympic champion who has coached Oklahoma State to five national team titles. “When you get a guy from ODU now, you respect him. You have to.”

Iowa State coach Cael Sanderson admits that he’d hardly heard of Old Dominion seven years ago, when he was polishing off his fourth consecutive undefeated season and NCAA title. He is the only wrestler in history to accomplish that feat.

The king of college wrestling didn’t know the Monarchs were in his kingdom.

Now a coach, however, Sanderson is well aware. Martin has given him – and everyone else – little choice.

Iowa State and ODU are recruiting in the same circles now. They’re sharing the spotlight at the national tournament.

“They’re really rising,” Sanderson said. “With success comes familiarity. Those guys are really on the ball, and they’re seeing the fruits of their labor.”

Trophies and TV time are the sweetest of those fruits. There’s another reward, however, for clawing toward the top of the heap.

Four years ago, when Williams was still an anonymous freshman on an anonymous team, his father traveled to the NCAA tournament. Eyebrows raised when he walked past fans from big-name schools.

They wondered: What did the “ODU” on his sweatshirt stand for?

“Nobody knew,” Ralph Williams said. “This year, people see our stuff and say, 'Old Dominion? Norfolk, right? Oh, yeah, you guys are good!’ Who could’ve imagined we’d be here so soon?”

Somewhere in the wrestling universe, Steve Martin is smiling.

Kyle Tucker, (757) 446-2374, kyle.tucker@pilotonline.com