Cal Poly athletic director Don Oberhelman is just a few months into the job, but he may soon make his first big move since coming to campus: finding a successor to wrestling head coach John Azevedo and co-head coach Mark Perry.
Azevedo, whose name within wrestling circles is synonymous with knowledge and experience, announced earlier this year that the 2011 season would be Proxy-Connection: keep-alive
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s last, after 10 years of building the team up to one of the school’s most prominent programs.
Primarily under Perry’s watch last season, the Mustangs had one of their best seasons to date. They went 9-2 overall and 4-2 in the Pac-10, and sent Boris Novachkov to the NCAA Championship match in the 141-lb. weight class.
That was one of the main reasons, following Azevedo’s retirement, Perry was expected to take over. However, Perry accepted a coaching job at the University of Illinois, leaving Cal Poly wrestling momentarily without a leader to pick up where the promising team left off this year.
Oberhelman said this was an unexpected double whammy.
“Azevedo did a great job here for a long time,” he said. “It’s kind of the perfect storm that he retires (and) at the same time Mark leaves for Illinois.”
Oberhelman said he is conducting a national search for a new coach and has received some impressive résumés.
“We are whittling our list down,” he said. “We’re going to be doing phone interviews, hopefully, by the end of the week. I am very, very pleased with the applicant pool. We’ve got some great coaches out there that want to come to Cal Poly.”
The team has been increasingly successful over the past few years, finishing the 2011 season with one of their best dual meet records and sending four wrestlers to the NCAA Championships. Part of Azevedo’s legacy is having a Pac-10 Champion and an All-American competitor every year.
Oberhelman said the program’s reputation is aiding in finding a qualified new coach.
“Knowing what kind of program a guy like (Azevedo) can build just makes it more marketable to people,” he said. “They’re probably looking at it thinking, ‘I may be able to build on what he’s already done.’”
Azevedo said furthering the team’s success is going to require work both on and off the mat.
“Any of the wrestling coaches that they’re going to be looking at can teach wrestling skills,” he said. “There’s a lot of things here at Cal Poly that you have to have skills in because of the situation with the finances and the budget. You have to have somebody that can organize fundraising campaigns.”
On top of helping the program get endowed by alumni and supporters, the new coach will have to keep players on track with the school’s academic standards, Azevedo said.
“It’s a tough school,” he said. “Holding them accountable academically during the season is very tough when they’re working out twice a day.”
Junior Ryan DesRoches said Azevedo has had a knack for keeping the team in line school-wise.
“(Azevedo) knows how academics work,” he said. “A lot of coaches, when they come in new, they don’t know how Cal Poly is. We want a coach that wants us to succeed in life as well as (in) wrestling.”
DesRoches also said he wants a leader with expectations as high as his own.
“I think that we could have at least three All-Americans (next year),” he said.
Novachkov, a returning senior, said he wants the new coach to be someone he can grapple with.
“I just hope that it can be somebody I can wrestle,” he said. “A younger coach that’s my weight.”
Novachkov also said he hopes whoever is chosen will carry on Azevedo’s ability to know the needs of individuals.
“(It’s important to) be on the same page as the team (and) know exactly what your athletes need,” he said. “I hope we find out soon; it’s been a long wait.”
Even students who are not on the team are anxious to see who fills the position.
Biomedical engineering junior Adam Altman wrestled all throughout high school and said he knew Azevedo by reputation long before coming to Cal Poly.
“He’s not just a wrestling coach,” Altman said. “He really does good at all the other stuff behind the scenes. It’s definitely going to be hard to replace him.”