Mark WiedmerJared Johnson thought he would feel differently. More subdued. More melancholy over his athletic life at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga turning to its final chapter Sunday afternoon.
Soaked with sweat, the senior heavyweight wrestler said after a 9-0 victory over The Citadel's Joe Bexley in the final dual meet of his college career: "I thought I'd be kind of sad. But I was just really excited. Excited over the career I've had."
They've all had pretty good careers, these six seniors UTC coach Heath Eslinger said good-bye to prior to the 36-11 Southern Conference win over the Bulldogs, a victory to make the Mocs 5-2 in the SoCon and 7-9 overall. Next up is the individual-based SoCon tournament March 4 in Charleston, S.C., and the NCAA tournament in St. Louis later in the month for those who qualify.
Not all of the senior Mocs have been as successful on the mat as Johnson, who's ranked 10th nationally and finished sixth in UTC's Southern Scuffle last month. But along with Johnson, Clay Dent, D.J. Franklin-Smith, Austin Gould, Sean Mappes and Barrett Walthall are either on track to graduate or are already taking graduate courses, which is what college is ultimately supposed to be about.
"I am very proud of all our seniors," Eslinger said. "They have meant so much to our program and have been outstanding representatives of this university throughout their careers."
College wrestling isn't like basketball or football. You can't really even dream of going pro in wrestling unless you coach or find a way to make a little money training for the Olympics. For those lucky enough to receive a scholarship, it's pretty much a chance to remain an elite athlete for four more years as you earn a degree that will hopefully benefit you for the rest of your life.
"I'm more mature," said Mappes, a 174-pounder who won by technical fall Sunday, regarding how he's changed in four years of college. "I live by myself. I have a fiancée. I work 20 hours a week at McKee in corporate wellness."
Said Dent, a Piedmont, Ala., native who has wrestled at 197 this year and is majoring in business management: "I feel like I'm a lot different (from freshman year), just from working hard."
Then there's Johnson, who already owns a degree in chemical engineering and is now working on his MBA.
"I feel like an old man right now," he said with a weary smile. "My body's falling apart. But it's been a great experience. It came down to here or Oklahoma coming out of high school (in Jefferson City, Mo.). But this is such a great wrestling community, all the alumni support, my teammates."
And despite working on his master's degree and wrapping up his sterling wrestling career, Johnson also has found time to be a chemist intern at Zeco, which is part of the Vincit Group. So would he, much like Dent, consider making the Tennessee Valley his permanent home, despite Jefferson City being a nine-hour drive from the Scenic City?
"Depends on a job," he said.
Of course, all these wrestlers have parents who consider it part of their jobs to support their sons, which meant their lives also changed dramatically Sunday.
"I just appreciated how they've treated my son," Samantha Dent said. "Clay got a great education, and this is a family-oriented school. They took care of him, and that makes me a proud mom."
Added Clay's dad Ira: "They helped him grow up."
Asked if they'll miss the one-hour, 45-minute drive from Piedmont, Ira said, "I'll miss Champy's. And we liked to come up here and shop for Mocs gear."
For Steve and Tina Johnson, the drive from Jefferson City could have been a huge drain. But that wasn't what he talked about as he stood on the floor of Maclellan Gym.
"This day is bittersweet," he said. "We've had a tremendous run. Coach Eslinger has been good to us."
It is likely bittersweet for wrestler and parent alike.
"You feel like you're getting new brothers every year," Dent said of each recruiting class that arrived during his time at the school. "These guys will be my best friends for the rest of my life."
He also called UTC "a very unique place. A lot of fans show up every week to support us. We always have a good team. It's special."
Wrestling has always been special in the Tennessee Valley, both high school and college. Eslinger's ability to hype the Southern Scuffle into one of the best regular-season tournaments - if not the best - in college wrestling has made it more so.
But at its core, what may best serve the Mocs and the city's wrestling reputation are the people who work so hard to promote both.
After discussing the "many an hour we spent at Jefferson's watching Jared eat hot wings," and talking about how he and his wife were "so impressed with so many things here," Steve Johnson was asked if he wasn't at least a little happy to be rid of those nine-hour drives from Jefferson City.
"This place and this team always welcomed us with open arms," he said. "That makes the drive pretty short."
And that answer makes it a lot tougher to say no to Eslinger for any high school recruit wrestling with whether to pick UTC as his college of choice, now or in the future.
Contact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com.