State of the Program... (Photos by Purdue Athletic Dept.)
A conversation with Purdue's Head Coach Scott Hinkel after his first year as head coach of the Boilermakers. Coach Hinkel spent fourteen years as an assistant at Purdue after an All-American career in West Lafayette. He is attempting to lead the Boilermakers back into contention in the Big Ten and nationally. In the three years prior to Coach Hinkel's hire, the Boilermakers finished tenth, ninth, and tenth in the Big Ten and combined to win three Big Ten duals. Purdue heads into the 2008-09 season with a young, but experienced squad that will be more competitive in the Big Ten.
D1CW: First of all Coach, how would you rate the team's performance this past season?
Scott Hinkel: We looked as this season as a step in the right direction. We had Big Ten dual wins, and more points in the Big Ten Tournament than the prior season. Not a higher position, but more points. We also scored more points at Nationals. There were a lot of changes to our lineup as the season progressed; from the start we lost our first three guys in the lineup to injuries (125-Brandon Tucker, 133-Cameron Doggett, and 141-Kevin Lipp). Overall, I'm happy with the progress, but we are nowhere close to our goals.
D1CW: This was your first season as head coach after spending fourteen years as an assistant and prior to that, a wrestler at Purdue. What kind of adjustments did you have to make to your approach?
SH: There were a lot of administrative things that I haven't had to do before, so that was different. I've learned to delegate some of my duties. That was hard and took some getting used to. In the past, I had been the one who had been delegated duties. My personality hasn't changed though. I'm the same way that I have always been in practice. In general, the change of titles from assistant to head coach has not been too difficult.
D1CW: When you took over as head coach, was there one thing or maybe a series of things that you felt needed to be addressed, in order to be successful?
SH: That question was one of the key points I needed to address when selling myself for the position, being that I was an assistant on a team that had not done all the things that we should have been doing.
I think that I have been more open and positive with the wrestlers. I also wanted to be more open with our technique. I don't want to have a team full of guys who all are trying to wrestle the same way and I think our guys have benefited from that.
The positive atomosphere we have created has been more productive. I try to have some fun during practice, and do a lot of team building excercises. The team really appreciates the unpredictability that we have in the room from day to day.
D1CW: What needs to be done by you and/or the team in order to consistantly finish in the top half of the Big Ten?
SH: Recruiting is the biggest thing. We need to bring in the elite wrestlers in the nation. We want guys that can come in right away, or after a redshirt season, and can compete with the best in the nation and that is in the Big Ten. There isn't a whole lot the wrestlers themselves need to change, they have been wrestling most of their lives and train very hard. We just need to continue providing the resources for them to excel. One way we have done that is by keeping some of our former wrestlers around. Chris Fleeger and Ben Wissel are both back with us and are club coaches for us.
As I said before, recruiting is big. If we can finish in the top half of the Big Ten, things will work themselves out at Nationals. The teams that finish in the top half of the Big Ten are always in contention at Nationals.
D1CW: You have to been encouraged for next year and the future in general, as all four of your NCAA qualifiers return (3 of which are freshman)...
SH: Yes, we have all of our point scorers from Nationals back. In addition, we have three others (Jake Murphy, Colton Salazar, and Justin Fraga) who have won matches at Nationals in the past. We just have those guys bunched together at the same weights. That's a good and bad thing. You'd like to get them all out on the mat, but you also have good training partners. Next year, we have ten wrestlers who have placed at the Big Ten tournament wrestling for us. Only one of our wrestlers from this season was a senior (Sean Schmaltz). I'm excited for our guys that wrestled at Nationals to come back and provide leadership because of their experiences. That is something we have lacked in the past, aside from Jake Patacsil. He had an excellent season this year, he just has been in the middle of some really tough weight classes. He should have a big year next season.
D1CW: Can you tell us about your incoming class of recruits? It looks very promising so far...
SH: We are still waiting to hear from a few kids who are attempting to get accepted by Purdue. But so far, we have 2x Pennsylvania State Champ, Kegan Handlovic, 3x Ohio State Champ, Ryan Gambill and 2X Oklahoma State Champ Matt Bryan. Those are all multiple time state champs from big wrestling states. However, the best of the bunch could be a one-time state champ from Indiana, Brennan Cosgrove. Brennan may get overlooked in the national rankings because he hasn't done a whole lot of freestyle, but he made the semi's of Senior Nationals before getting hurt and defaulting to sixth place. Earlier in the tournament he soundly beat the third place finisher, and beat the runner-up (Vince) Ramos of Illinois a few weeks before that. We also have a transfer coming in, Orrin Kleinhenz from Columbia. He is orginally from Indiana and should help out in the upperweights. Overall, I think we've done a good job of filling our needs.
D1CW: On the topic of recruiting, what are your selling points to recruits looking at Purdue?
SH:The first point is the education. Your education goes with you the rest of your life and the chance to get a world class degree speaks for itself. A lot of students look to Purdue because they are interested in engineering or our school of Pharmacy. If you are interested in getting a world class degree, we have all the resources to help you do so.
Next is the wrestling. The recruits know what they are getting, as we are in the Big Ten and compete with the nation's elite all year. We also are able to provide resources needed to become a successful wrestler, a tough schedule, coaches/club coaches, an administration that is fully behind the team and a wrestling room that is only a few years old.
D1CW: You touched on this earlier, but describe your style of coaching...
SH:I'm very hands on. I run practices, get on the mat and still roll around. Off the mat, I like to get to know each of the wrestlers and see what makes each of them tick as a person. I want to know about their families, where they are from, and how things are going with their girlfriend. During practices I can get pretty intense, but there is always a reason behind it. I like to do things different and keep the wrestlers on their toes. Some days I'll come in yelling on a bullhorn, other days I will have forwarded them all a funny email.
D1CW: Is there anything else that people should know about you, the team or the school?
SH: Our wrestlers and coaches are doing a great job of selling the program. We are retaining our wrestlers, which hasn't always been the case in the past. The school itself is not in a big city, so we don't have a whole lot of distractions. We are just looking for guys who want to be wrestlers. We have a coaching staff that really cares about our wrestlers and wants them to succeed, in the classroom and on the mat. Guys who come in here and work hard for four or five years are going to be set for life in whatever they choose to do.
D1CW: Thanks Coach!! Good Luck next season.