Slightly more than six years ago, Jason McCroskey was a lanky 103-pound freshman at Soddy-Daisy High School. Even as a taller senior wrestling for the Trojans, he still was lanky at 145 pounds.
He wrestles in his second NCAA tournament late this morning in Omaha, Neb., as a 184-pounder.
“I knew he was still growing even when he graduated, but I never thought he’d be wrestling in college at 184 pounds,” Soddy-Daisy coach Steve Henry said.
McCroskey entered last year’s nationals as a 174-pounder and the Southern Conference champion. He got in this year’s tournament with an at-large bid after losing to Appalachian’s Austin Trotman in the league tournament.
“I feel good about how I wrestled. It ended up that he won,” McCroskey said. “That was one of the first times I really threw it all out there and the other guy won. It was a conflict of styles.”
He thought, though, that his season was over.
“I had wrestled some good people, but I also had some bad matches,” he said. “I had a somewhat inconsistent season; I didn’t think I was getting in. When I heard I got in, I thought here’s a second chance.”
Mocs coach Heath Eslinger said McCroskey being invited was no fluke.
“Jason has wrestled 10 guys ranked in the top 20 this season,” Eslinger said. “He’s wrestled against the best in the country.”
Eslinger cited McCroskey’s late-December Midlands match against Missouri’s touted Max Askren. The third-ranked Askren pulled out a one-point win with a reversal in the final 15 seconds.
That match came more than a month after Eslinger called McCroskey out in a post-match meeting at Virginia Tech.
“Part of his decision to go up (from 174) was based on academics,” Eslinger said. “He walked off the mat (at Virginia Tech) and said, ‘These guys are too big.’ He had to decide he was capable at the weight. And one of my proudest moments of the year was him buying in, believing me when I told him he could compete (at 184).”
McCroskey had been frustrated.
“Making that move was a scary deal with me. I didn’t have my priorities straight. I was dealing with grades and school and wrestling,” he said. “Last year I had moved up to 174, and here I was going up again. It was a huge relief when I bought into what he was saying. No more excuses that I wasn’t big enough or my conditioning wasn’t good enough.”
He began lifting weights five days a week with the football team.
“I know I have gotten bigger body-wise, but I had never had a chance to lift and work out and keep the muscle,” McCroskey said. “People say I have gotten bigger, but it’s finally to the point that I’m packing it on.”
He will wrestle a former national finalist in his first match, catching the winner of a pigtail bout between Central Michigan’s Mike Miller and Ohio State’s Mike Pucillo. Miller, a redshirt junior who missed part of the season with injuries, was the 174-pound runner-up a year ago. Pucillo, already a three-time All-American, was the 184-pound champion in 2008.
“It should be an advantage to us,” Eslinger said. “Jason is a smart kid, but a lot of times when we go to wrestle he doesn’t even know what city we’re going to. He doesn’t know much about either guy. He doesn’t ever want to know about his opponent, not even their name.”