Six years ago Julio Santiago was working in Boston and had been out of the wrestling game for a year.
Being involved in wrestling virtually his entire life, he jumped at an opportunity when USM head wrestling coach Joe Pistone called him and offered him the assistant coaching position for the Huskies’ wrestling program. It was then the program turned the corner and started an era that would see success.
Coach Pistone, who went to middle school with Santiago, was setting up a tournament with the State University of New York-Oneonta head coach. When they spoke, the Oneonta coach gave Pistone Santiago’s number (Santiago is a SUNY-Oneonta alumni), and the rest was history. Five years later Santiago is a key member of a team that is turning heads in Division III Wrestling and won his first New England Wrestling Association Assistant Coach of the Year Award at last Sunday’s NEWA Championships in Springfield, Mass.
“Julio is such a vital part of our team, and it’s great to finally see all his hard work being recognized,” Pistone said.
Along with Santiago’s well-deserved award, five USM wrestlers earned All-New England Honors at the Championships including USM’s first ever wrestling All-American, senior Mike Morin (Fryeburg), and newcomer junior Matt Ulrich (Garfield, N.J.), who punched their tickets to the 2010 NCAA DIII National Wrestling Championships in Cedar Rapids, IA on Mar. 5 and 6.
Morin defended his two-time 165-pound championship and Ulrich notched the 141-pound title insuring his first trip to nationals. The other USM placers included seniors Doug Christensen (Middletown, N.Y.) who placed fourth at the 149-pound mark (and will be the team’s NCAA alternate), and freshmen Peter Gilman (Alfred) and Travis Spencer (Waldo) who took fifth and sixth in the 157 and 197 pound weight classes while the Huskies captured sixth place and put up 82 points, the highest point total in USM history.
The recent success is the result of a lot of hard work from Pistone and Santiago over the last five years, whose goal is to make USM a household name in DIII wrestling.
“When I got here coach Pistone and I sat down and told ourselves, ‘we need to make a change. We need to make a run for this and make this team work together to develop the program,” Santiago said. “My experience at USM has been amazing, mostly because of the guys. We’ve brought in some great kids. You have your ups and downs when coaching but to have the outcome we’ve had with the kids in the program, it makes it all worth it for me.”
Developing a program is exactly what Pistone and Santiago have done. The team has sent at least one wrestler to the DIII Nationals in the last four seasons. This year USM has two national qualifiers for the first time since becoming a varsity sport.
Morin, who became the Huskies first All-American last year when he captured fourth in the DIII Championships, had another tremendous season in 2010 and is focused to turn heads at the competition this year. The senior has a season record of 40-3 and a career record of 129-19 and is currently ranked third in his weight class. Morin’s goal is something much bigger than a New England Championship.
“Mike has his eyes set on a National Championship. We recruited Mike hard out of high school and he was a good wrestler, and as a coach you are always wondering, is this kid going to be the kid that turns it on when he becomes a college athlete? Well he did,” Santiago said. “He’s become a complete student of wrestling. Going into the New England Tournament last weekend he was poised, he was ready, and focused to become the best.”
Santiago also mentioned that individually, Morin hasn’t lost to a New England opponent in over two years. He is also the highest placer in his weight class in the national brackets right now. When he’s on the mat he has a “go-go-go” mentality and always gives his all whether it is in practice, matches, or in the classroom.
“Mike is as close to a perfect student-athlete as you can get,” Santiago said. “He has a 3.5 plus GPA, and when he’s on the mat he gives 110 percent whether it be his work ethic or inspiring his teammates to work harder.”
Morin believes that focus is the key to having a good tournament in Cedar Rapids.
“I believe I’m capable of winning. I have to be strong mentaly and if I do that I will have a good two days at nationals,” he said.
Ulrich was a member of the USM wrestling team during the 2008-2009 season but had to leave for family reasons. He came back to USM at the beginning of second semester this year ready to go and was poised to help USM in their quest to become a nationally known program.
The team went to a tournament in Las Vegas and Ulrich turned in a unbelievable performance as he beat the number one, number two and number eight ranked school’s wrestlers in his weight class, proving that he is a top-notch college wrestler even after all that time off.
“I saw it in his eyes when we got to the tournament,” Santiago said. “He wasn’t overwhelmed by the atmosphere; he was just focused and ready to wrestle. In every single one of his matches he wrestled until he forced his opponents to break. It was absolutely amazing.”
These two wrestlers are so technically sound and have so much pride in their wrestling that it rubs off on their teammates. Being around wrestlers like Morin and Ulrich motivates the rest of the team to work even harder and that motivation has been a huge factor in the success the team has experienced this season, especially considering the lack of wrestlers they have.
This year’s team was cut down to 14 wrestlers and due to injuries, grades and other minor problems, only nine of those 14 competed in last Sunday’s NEWA Championships. The team was also short a weight class as they didn’t have a 125 pounder. Still, five of them placed — direct evidence of the hard work that Pistone and Santiago put into their jobs as coaches and the team as wrestlers. The 82 point-total the team put up in the NEWA Championships is a huge accomplishment considering their shortage.
“When you have that few guys, you have to get through the injuries and the mental aspects of the sport. To be able to field an aggressive team every week is really asking a lot of the guys and for them to produce the way they have, it’s been unbelievable,” Santiago said. “We told them this past weekend we’re going in with nine guys and we’re looking to place all nine of them, and to place more than half of them, we couldn’t really ask for more.”
College wrestling has the longest season of any NCAA sport and competes for five months out of the year. For the team to stay focused the whole way through with that few competitors is unheard of. This is especially mind boggling in a state not necessarily known for its wrestling. Coach Pistone and coach Santiago have done a good job bringing in Maine kids, with two of them (Gilman and Spencer) placing at the NEWA’s. Gilman has competed at four weight classes this season, and Spencer, who transferred in this year, has had a tremendous year.
“Our coaches have done a great job recruiting in-state kids,” Morin said. “We’re the only program in the state so it’s hard to recruit. Coach Pistone and coach Santiago are getting Maine kids though, and are keeping them in and developing them.”
USM also takes pride in their city recruiting which is done by their other assistant coach, Joe Narvaez, who lives in New Jersey. Through this outlet the Huskies landed Christensen who has been a rock for them all season. USM also reeled in New Hampshire native, junior Billy Cole (Madbury, NH), who is on pace to break Morin’s career win record.
Coach Pistone and coach Santiago have a lot of responsibility as it’s only the two of them that handle the everyday work for the team. All of the hard work and dedication was well worth it. It proved that Santiago rightfully deserved the Assistant Coach of the Year Award he received on Sunday.
“This award was huge for me. Coach Pistone and I kill ourselves day in and day out, and as any coach knows this is a 24 hour a day job,” Santiago said. “I was pretty excited and it really puts everything into perspective. Not only was it big for me but it was big for our program because it legitimately means your program is getting recognized for what it’s doing.”
Santiago mentioned that if it wasn’t for USM’s other two coaches, he wouldn’t have been able to garner such an honor.
“I consider my award for myself, coach Pistone, and coach Narvaez. There’s not one person that does more than the other.”
USM’s up and coming program is developing strongly as a direct result of the persistence and dedication of its wrestlers and coaching staff, and it can only get better.
“We’re on the right track,” Santiago said. “We’re trying to build a pretty nice dynasty hopefully here in the next couple of years.”