Josh “The Silent Assassin” Zupancic spends a lot of time stalking invisible opponents around the big white circle on the big red mat in the wrestling room. He lunges, then retreats, tucks his head and lunges again, grappling with unseen legs. Shadow wrestling, they call it.
“It helps you hone in on movements you want to make in your match,” the American studies major says. “A lot of wrestling is muscle memory, and [shadow wrestling] is what you can do when everyone else is done and you kind of want to do more.”
That extra effort paid off for Zupancic and teammate Tanner Gardner, this year’s Pac-10 champion of the 125-pound weight class. Both juniors came away from the NCAA tournament in March with All-American accolades—the first time Stanford has had two such wrestlers since 1967. This year five wrestlers on the squad qualified to go to the NCAA championships in Auburn Hills, Mich., and their teammates stood in line to help them prepare.
“We’ve got guys who were second string saying, ‘Hey, whatever you need, let me know and I’ll be there. I’ll get up early or stay late,’ “ says head coach Kerry McCoy. “That was really good, but at the same time you could see them thinking, ‘Man, I wish I was going.’ ”
“One of the great things about this sport is that if you talk to anybody who’s won a national championship, or a world championship, or an Olympic title, they’ll say, ‘Oh, I did okay.’ We did okay.”
A two-time Olympian, four-time World Cup champion and three-time NCAA All-American, McCoy has only to raise an eyebrow to get his squad’s attention. As he prepares to demonstrate a technique, all eyes are on his, waiting to see who will get the nod.
McCoy selects a wrestler, gestures toward the mat and puts him in what appears to be a singularly tight clinch. “Head outside,” he instructs. “Turn the corner. Head down. Leg back. Cover his head.” The coach abruptly twists in a different direction, talking his way through the movements he’s making. “Get him on his hip,” he says. “Stretch his leg out.”
Then it’s “Okay. Go!” And another practice drill is launched. The room echoes with the whump of bodies hitting the mats, then scrabbling back to a starting position. Bright red mouth guards flash as wrestlers brace for each new round.
“I’ll get in and roll around, fill in if a guy says, ‘Coach, I need a partner,’” McCoy says of his hands-on approach to practices. He paces the team through conditioning designed to build a strong cardio base at the beginning of the year, with weightlifting, running and swimming. In midseason he works on techniques, and by March wants his athletes to taper off and let their bodies recover and prepare for competition.
Gardner went to the NCAA tournament hoping for a national title, and found a challenging draw. The No. 3 wrestler rode an emotional roller coaster from day to day—losing a shot at the title, then coming back strong to secure an All-American position. In his final match, Gardner pinned his No. 5-ranked opponent, securing seventh place in his weight class, finishing the season with a 42-5 mark and tying the Cardinal single-season win record.
“He was fired up and got a pin, and that was huge,” McCoy adds. Gardner, in wrestler-speak, played it down. “You can never be disappointed with an All-American finish, but at the same time it’s a little disappointing that I didn’t achieve my goals.”
At 157 pounds, the unseeded Zupancic beat the No. 8 and No. 9 seeds, but lost to the No. 1 seed by one point in the quarterfinals. “It was real back-and-forth—he’d score, then I’d score, and to be able to win a match like that, to hold on, was cool,” he says of the 11-10 decision in which he nailed a seventh-place finish, ending the season with a 37-12 record.
Senior Brian Perry, sophomore Luke Feist and Pac-10 Freshman of the Year Zack “The Beast” Giesen gained valuable experience at the tournament, McCoy says. As the coach looks at the returning roster—plus a recruiting class that includes Christine Cunningham, the first woman to wrestle for Stanford since former Olympian Patricia Miranda, ‘01, MA ’02—he is aiming for a top-three finish in next season’s Pac-10 competition. More than okay.
