Snacks

This week's Snacks come from Cary Kolat: 4X High School State Champion who went undefeated throughout his entire high school career (137-0). In college, he competed for Penn State and Lock Haven, becoming a 4X NCAA All-American and 2X NCAA National Champion. At the senior level, he earned a World Silver Medal, a World Bronze Medal, and represented Team USA at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, Australia. He is a Distinguished Member of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame and currently serves as the Head Coach at the United States Naval Academy.

Below are some excerpts from our conversation, along with key takeaways and tips that can be applied to improve yourself as a Coach, Athlete, or wrestling Parent.

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Origin Story Tip: Many wrestlers—and people in general—believe they have to follow a traditional, linear path to reach big goals (like “you have to win a state title before you can be an NCAA champ”). Cary's mindset shifted after reading about Jimmy Carr making the Olympic team at just 17 years old. It showed that you don’t have to wait for the “right” age or milestone to dream big. Don’t be afraid to have big goals and to challenge yourself early.

"I don't really know what happened to me. I've always been a driven person. I think my parents will tell you that. I had a lot of energy, so they put me in wrestling.

I grew up in PA, so everybody wrestled... I started wrestling, and my first year, I got beat up. I think that’s when the competitive nature started. There was this kid in practice in Little League who just beat the hell out of me all the time.

The second year, I caught him. That year, my dad introduced me to freestyle. He said, "Hey, you can do this." You couldn't do any folkstyle back in the '80s. It was all freestyle after March. I got put into this new type of wrestling and somehow made it to the AAU national tournament.

I tech-falled a kid in a front headlock by rolling him across the mat a bunch of times and got 20 points. I thought, "Wow, this is cool." I was wearing Dan Gable shoes and wondered, "What's this name on my shoe?"

That’s what started it all. I wanted to do this and that and everything. I just got driven. Freestyle changed it for me.

I won a national title at seven—which we all know isn't really a national title. I think there were six kids in the weight. But at the time, it was a positive motivator. At that point, it just took off.

At eight, I set my goals. Then I read about Jimmy Carr being 17 years old on the ’72 Olympic team. That unlocked my mind. A lot of people feel like you have to win a state title to become an NCAA champion.

I thought, that's not true. Those are mental barriers people put on themselves. There are growing pains, but you can skip a lot of them.

Reading about Jimmy Carr showed me it’s been done. I wasn’t trying to be the first guy to break the four-minute mile. That pushed me to wrestle guys older and bigger than me, and I just kept going.

That was it. At 12 is when I really started to train. I knew you had to train to do these things. From 8 to 12, there was this little gap. Then at 12, I started picking it up."

Parent Tip: One of the greatest gifts you can give your child is independence, and they can’t develop it if you’re still holding their hand at 17. Teach them what hard work looks like, then step back and let them take the lead. Support them in the background—but don’t micromanage their journey. Growth happens when they start solving problems, managing their training, and owning their path.

"Independence and work—absolutely, they instilled that. The foundation of all success comes from believing that if you want to be good at anything, you can do it. Never, in my house, was there something brought up that I was not capable of doing.

I had this very positive environment. You could be anything—an astronaut? You can do it. Is that what you want to do? I had this foundation of work. I never miss a rep. I'm 52, working out and doing push-ups, and if we say we're doing 50 and I get to 49 and take a break, I'm still going to do the last rep.

It's mind-boggling to me to ever see anyone miss a rep—whether that’s a drill or anything else. That foundation was instilled. That’s just how you did it. I guess that was growing up in rural PA—that was the upbringing.

Then the next thing was independence. I was very independent of them. Everyone thinks my father was totally involved. He was involved, like a dad could be, but at 14, I told him to take a hike because he was getting too involved.

If I'm going to do it, it's up to me. That’s what he taught me my whole life—if somebody wants something, then go after it. This is what I want, and I don't need you standing there watching me.

When I'm recruiting, I’m always looking for kids who are independent. Is mom or dad doing all the talking, or is the kid? We have quiet kids, and we read that as well, but are they independent? Is this really what they want?

There’s too much micromanaging of kids. I don’t understand parents micromanaging high schoolers. It makes no sense. Be supportive, help them find resources—but don’t stand over them making them do it.

Let them start becoming independent. Let them micromanage themselves and grow up a little. Some of the best kids I’ve ever recruited learned to be problem-solvers early...

Teach your kid to be independent of you. Be supportive in the background. If you’re still guiding him at 17, guess what? He’s not doing it himself. You haven’t allowed him to start thinking about his training.

They need to be involved in their training and thinking about planning it—not with you holding their hand. They should know what work is. You should have taught them that by now. Now back off. You help them by backing off."

Coaching Tip: Don’t skip the fundamentals. In a highlight-driven culture, athletes often chase flashy moves before mastering core positions. As a coach, your responsibility is to build a solid foundation first. Teach the basics—sprawls, head position, hand fighting—and reinforce them consistently. The athletes who win at the highest levels usually aren’t doing more—they’re doing the basics better.

"What I would tell you is more about the parents. There's no better situation than having a solid home-based training setup. Somewhere that says, "These are the 20, 26, or 32 moves we are going to teach every single year," right in the fundamental positions.

Then you mix in some high-level stuff. A solid foundation from your elementary program to your middle school to your high school that can connect—if you have the ability to do that. Then you can explore elsewhere to get some different stuff.

Going from one place to the next place isn’t always the answer. People get caught up in that. Before you know it, the kid doesn’t have a solid fundamental foundation. They've got some moves, they can win some matches, but then they can’t win at the high level—and they can’t figure out why.

I’ll give you a good example. Every kid now thinks defense is rolling around. We’ve all seen Kyle Dake. Social media and YouTube have been great for learning, but the highlights are always these crazy scrambles.

But Kyle Dake had a sprawl before he started rolling. These guys had solid fundamentals. Now, kids start a match, a guy gets to their leg, and they immediately start rolling. Then they wind up in a bad position.

There’s some caution to that. You need to make sure you still have that foundational, fundamental wrestling."

Athlete Tip: Progress doesn’t come from doing something once or twice—it comes from doing simple things over and over. Build a system of habits—drills, warm-ups, movements—that you never skip, no matter the day. Over time, those small, repeated actions will stack up.

"One thing I figured out with the help of my parents, was having four to five consistent things that you do on a regular basis during the week that you never miss. I had this drill where every time a guy touched me in a different tie-up, I’d clear the tie, get inside, hit my high crotch, then hit my double from there, then my single, and then my snap-and-spin from there.

It was a warm-up drill for me at competitions. It was a warm-up before practice. Sometimes it was a cool down. Shadow wrestling was always a cool down. I was always doing plyo jumps all the time.

I didn’t sit in a sauna. Back in our day, you could be in the sauna all the time, but I didn’t sit in it. It was always the same system of calisthenics in the sauna, because I couldn’t just sit there—it drove me crazy.

But over time, that stuff added up. Over a 20-year career of wrestling, those things made me feel good, and I needed those things that made me feel mentally good. I developed my own strength program with the help of a strength coach when I was 14, and I did it until I was 27.

I never changed it. I'm not saying that’s a good thing—you should mix things up—but it was a consistent program. It kept my body in the right frame and kept my weight at the right place. I always had things I never missed. I consistently did them, and I could see the value.

Something simple, like doing a round of 100 different types of jumps in the sauna two to three days a week, added up to a lot of jumps over a 20-year career. I saw the value in long-term thinking.

A lot of people are short-term thinkers. “Hey, let’s try this,” and you’ve probably seen it too. “This will fix it—do this every day,” and the kid does it for two to three days, maybe four, then you don’t see it anymore.

So yeah, if I was fixing something, I stayed consistent until it was fixed. And I stayed consistent with things that helped me move my hands and feet, set up my attacks, and finish up."

Negative Impact Tip: Poor parent behavior—arguing in the stands, berating officials, or blowing up on social media—has a ripple effect across the sport. It drives away quality referees, damages the athlete experience, and turns a developmental environment into a toxic one. Wrestling is already tough. Let’s not make it harder by letting adult emotions take over what should be a growth-focused environment.

"Well, I think winning is important. I think talking about winning—that's what sports are about, right? But the most important part is, how do I get there? We get caught up on that. What I'm saying is, the character building and all that stuff comes through the process of getting there and knowing that it's about winning.

We're not going to win every time. We'd all be undefeated if that were the case. Failure is part of it. The question is, what do you do after that failure? The biggest negative impact I see in today's world is definitely parents. It's insanity. You can go on anything and catch parents fighting in the stands and everything else. This is nuts to me.

When you compete, you compete technically, physically, mentally, and aggressively. When it's over, there's no humility anymore. It's gotten insane. So there needs to be a harnessing and a reeling in of parents. Coaches can't control everybody, but there needs to be some kind of correction. If your kid's not competing, if you can't control yourself, then don't come.

I see that as the biggest negative. I don't think we're getting the right experience out of it with the way they've taken it—to social media and everything else. We're losing officials like crazy. There are some good officials. We know there are some awful officials. But nobody wants to do this sport anymore.

That guy can’t even go home without being beat up online for making one bad call. We've all seen officials make bad calls. We've seen good ones make bad calls. And now the guy’s making $200 for the day, working a youth tournament all day, and then he’s beat up online. People are posting about him.

I don't think there’s a fix to it because I don’t think we can control the human nature of where people are at in society. But that is a negative impact."

Wrestling Growth Tip: While Division I opportunities might be shrinking, the sport is growing at the D2, D3, and NAIA levels. If you truly want to wrestle in college, don’t get tunnel vision and overlook the opportunities right in front of you. Wrestling is still wrestling at every level. If you truly love it, you’ll grow and progress through the sport—regardless of the division.

"Well, I think at the college level, we definitely should shorten the season. I think we should move to second semester and make it more beneficial for the athletes—get away from March Madness basketball. We’ve said this so we can get even more visibility on TV and streaming networks at that level.

At the youth level, I think wrestling is growing. I don't think we have an issue there. Our issue is at the top level, but that remains to be seen. With the whole NIL situation, athletic directors are going to be hesitant to ever add another program. Now they’ve got to pay athletes and deal with revenue sharing.

I think we’ll definitely see growth at the Division II, Division III, and NAIA levels—and it is growing there—but at the Division I level, it’s kind of dropping. We need to help people recognize that wrestling isn’t really dying. It’s growing in certain areas.

Wrestling is still wrestling. If you don’t get a Division I offer, there’s no shame in wrestling D2, D3, or NAIA. It’s still wrestling, and athletes need to be open to that.

We’ve seen the stats. A very small percentage of athletes make it. There are about 2,800 guys on Division I rosters right now, and next year that number will be even lower.

So keep your eyes open. The opportunities are out there. If you can go compete and wrestle at the next level, don’t pass up offers—unless you know for sure you’re a Division I guy. Don’t sit around and wait. Take one."

Growth Bite

This week's Growth Bite comes from Marcus Freeman, Head Coach of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish:

Community Treat

This week's Community Treat comes from one of my favorite clips by NCAA All-American and comedian Greg Warren. It's a hoot—make sure to give it a listen!