At this time last year, Oklahoma State’s Izzak Olejnik and Iowa State’s Will Feldkamp were gearing up for the MAC tournament, an event which they would go on to win at 165 and 184 pounds, respectively.
They would ultimately finish on the podium at nationals as well for the first time in their college careers to earn All-American honors, but, by May, both athletes had transferred from their previous schools — Northern Illinois and Clarion — to a Big 12 team.
Feldkamp ended up at Iowa State, while Olejnik went to Oklahoma State. They represent two of the almost dozen athletes in the top 10 nationally across all weight classes who found a new school ahead of the 2023-2024 season, and they are both examples of how relocating and re-embedding with a new team, in this case even a new conference, can help an athlete jump levels.
krikya18.com spoke with Feldkamp, Olejnik and three of the five Michigan All-American transfers about how they made this adjustment, their mindset heading into their final college wrestling season and any advice they have for future transfers.
"It's just wrestling"
Adjusting from a school of 4,000+ undergraduates in Pennsylvania to a school of 25,000+ undergraduates in Ames, Iowa could have been a difficult transition for Feldkamp. He had to uproot his life, meet a new set of teammates and adapt to a different coaching staff in just one year.
But, at the end of the day, Feldkamp explains that the transition went smoothly because "it's just wrestling."
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"It's the same practices at the same time...everything's been very similar," Feldkamp said. "The overall aspect of going to school and practice is all the same."
The only difference? Now, when he competes in a home dual for Iowa State, he's competing in front of thousands of fans instead of, as he said, "only like 60 people" at Clarion.
This spotlight has been a change for Olejnik too. At Northern Illinois, the graduate student Cowboy said he had maybe a couple hundred people in the stands at his home duals. The crowds he sees now are between 4,000 to 14,000 people every week.
But that's why Olejnik came to Oklahoma State — he wanted to test himself against the best on a big stage before the national tournament.
"The crowd and the fans have been awesome throughout the whole year and just showing up, from the first home dual to the last," Olejnik said. "We've we've had a tremendous turnout and fans, and it's just been a really cool experience for me."
Olejnik has shined bright in that spotlight too. The Cowboy All-American is 19-4 with wins over No. 3 Julian Ramirez and No. 10 Cameron Amine, and he's gearing up to make another run at the top of the podium in one of the deepest weights in the country.
He feels ready for this challenge too, thanks to leadership from veteran teammates Daton Fix and Dustin Plott, guidance from assistant coaches Chris Perry and Tyler Caldwell as well as new insights from associate head coach Coleman Scott.
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An Oklahoma State alum himself and a 2008 NCAA champion, Scott returned to Stillwater this fall after eight years as the head coach at North Carolina. His impact on the Cowboys has been immediate, as the team has skyrocketed from 17th at last year's national tournament to now fourth in the latest NWCA rankings. This is a group that can win a team trophy.
Olejnik believes the Cowboys are only getting better and better too, both as a team and as individuals, thanks to this coaching staff.
"The addition of Coleman Scott has been has been great for for me personally because he's such a slick wrestler, and we've kind of gone over some some things with ankle picks and just fine-tuning some things that, you know, I've done in the past, but, he he sees it a different way."
Scott embodies Cowboy wrestling, and Olejnik said he hopes people say the same thing about him at the end of this season, even though he's only been with the program for a year. He's built a home in Stillwater, and he's proud to wear the orange singlet of Oklahoma State.
Everything is in the details
The improvements that Olejnik's made because of new looks from different coaches is a big reason why athletes transfer generally. Much like Oklahoma State, Michigan has had the benefit of attracting new talent in the room because of fresh shifts in the coaching staff over the last few years, particularly the addition of assistant coach Kevin Jackson in 2021.
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Jackson arrived in Ann Arbor from Ames where he was serving as the head coach of Iowa State before now head coach Kevin Dresser. Michigan All-American transfers Austin Gomez, Michael DeAugustino and Shane Griffith say Jackson, affectionately referred to as KJ, has been a key aspect to their improvement as experienced athletes.
"Being around Kevin Jackson — he's a coach that I originally committed to when I was originally going to Iowa State, he was the head coach at the time — his guidance and his mentorship, I think it helps me keep my mind calm," Gomez said. "Being able to have him in my corner, and basically just telling me that, like, you know, I'm one of the best guys in the world...,helps me go out there and wrestle with just a lot of confidence."
Gomez, a 2022 Big 12 champion for Wisconsin at 149 pounds and former 133-pounder starter for Iowa State, knows what a difference an impactful coach can make — he's had plenty of them in his college career. What makes Jackson great, he said, is his attention to detail.
DeAugustino, a former Northwestern All-American and now Michigan starter at 125 pounds, agreed.
"He's really analytical with some of this stuff, so it kind of opens your eyes a little bit some newer type of coaching," DeAugustino said.
So while "it's just wrestling" and so much of the training may be similar, these kinds of small changes on the technical side can make a noticeable difference.
Michigan saw the results of that change on Feb. 2 when the Wolverines, with Griffith, DeAugustino, Gomez and fellow transfer Lucas Davison in the lineup, topped No. 2 Iowa 24-11 in Ann Arbor.
That was the moment DeAugustino said he really felt like he was a Wolverine, a true Michigan Man.
"It just felt good to go beat those guys, especially for Michigan," he said. "That was something cool to do in the one year we're here."
Putting the 'student' in student athlete
But these athletes aren't just studying their technique, watching film or taking down rivals at their new schools. Griffith, DeAugustino, Feldkamp, Gomez and Oljenik are all graduate transfers, taking graduate classes. They're students in addition to all of the hours they put in on the mat.
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And some of them, like Gomez and Griffith, are working on their second graduate degrees. This balance can put extra stress on an athlete, but Griffith and Gomez said their previous experience in the classroom prepared them for this year. After all, this is far from their first year in college.
"It's interesting, you think like you're done with school, and then you come back and have to do something all over," Griffith said. "Being able to take classes that I might be more interested in, rather than doing it for hitting a certain standard for graduation, I think has been unique, but at the same time, you know, sometimes you struggle to still stay focused in school while you have bigger ambitions on the mat."
Griffith is earning a real estate degree, while Gomez is picking up another degree in social work.
Gomez said he has managed to schedule most of his classes online, as has Feldkamp at Iowa State, and this structure allows them to work around their wrestling commitments. School, though, was still something Gomez considered when deciding whether or not to come back for his final year of eligibility.
After finishing in the Round of 16 last year at the NCAA tournament while nursing an injury, Gomez announced that he would retire from college wrestling and focus on trying to make the Olympic team for Mexico at 65kg. He moved to Ann Arbor to train with the Cliff Keen Wrestling Club and transitioned into freestyle training. Being in that environment meant that he was often wrestling with some of the Michigan college athletes, and so when he did decide to come back to college wrestling and officially transfer to the Wolverines, the wrestling adjustment was easy.
Adding classes back into his routine was not as appealing.
"I was like, dang, do I really want to come back?" Gomez said. "Because that means I have to do more school. But I mean, it's fine. You know, school is not hard."
Gomez said he'd like to coach after his collegiate career, and he believes all of his advanced education will benefit him in that role.
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In the short term though, he wants to go win a national title, individually and with his team. It's a goal shared by all of these transfer athletes. This is their final shot, they've put themselves in the best training environment possible, and now they get to put it all out on the line.
Making a statement
A national title is meaningful on its own, but, Gomez said, winning a title while representing this Michigan team would be particularly sweet because it would "quiet the haters."
He, DeAugustino and Griffith admit that it's been frustrating to hear the critiques of transfer athletes in the NCAA.
"It's a new thing we're doing. I think whenever something new happens in the world, there's always gonna be people critiquing it," DeAugustino said. "But one way or another, they're not the people out there wrestling, you know, most of the people you hear are people who've never wrestled before, or never gotten the level that we're at. They're just keyboard warriors. We're the real warriors on the mat going for it."
These five warriors — Gomez, DeAugustino, Griffith, Olejnik and Feldkamp — now take the mat again at their conference tournaments next week with their bid to nationals on the line.
Gomez and DeAugustino will wrestle in the Big Ten tournament, much like they did at their previous institutions, while Griffith will compete in his first Big Ten tournament after transferring from Stanford. Feldkamp and Olejnik, those two MAC champions from last year, will now make their mark on the Big 12.
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Legacies will be cemented in these last two weeks of the college wrestling season, and all of these athletes will have the chance to re-write their own record books with a new team that has become family, even after just one year.