To get the new board started, we solicited questions from fans that they would like to ask Keith Gavin. Here were his answers:
is eli seiple over his injuries and can he wrestle this year - warriordan
Gavin: “I got here and he was on the permanent medical list. He’s a good kid, though, and he does our video now for matches. So he’s still around but he was, I guess probably last year; it was before I got here - he’s permanent medical.”
I'd like to know what his beliefs are in regards to his style of coaching and teaching and how he handles his team. Also, what some of his favorite drills for maintaining proper fundamentals?- persp
Gavin: “We do a lot of things that - I don’t know if they’re necessarily drills, but we do a lot of - to work on our defense, we do like a game where the first guy to get his hand locked around your leg three times wins. Stuff like that. We try to have the guys compete a lot. If we’re working on positioning, we do some hand-fighting stuff. We do a lot of sparring type of things. When we drill, a lot of the drilling is, if we’re going over something new, if I’m introducing a new technique. To reinforce fundamentals, we do some type of competitive sparring stuff.”
Does he feel like if he is recruiting the way he thinks they should and they can would more than 3/4 of his starting lineup come from in-state recruits? - DevilDog42
Gavin:“I just want my starting lineup to be really good. So I don’t care if they come from - if they’re from Mars, we’re going to put them in the lineup. If they can wrestle and they’re the right kind of kid that we want, then I don’t care where they’re from.
“Obviously, we’re surrounded by such great talent, clearly a lot of our team is going to be made up of PA and Ohio kids because we’re going to see those kids a lot. But we’ll take a guy from anywhere.”
Which guys have the best shot at an ACC championship? - Pantherguy4
Gavin: “Obviously, the guys who have already won: Taleb and Dom. But Ryan Solomon, he’s got a tough kid at his weight from Duke, but he’s beaten him before so I think we expect a lot out of Ryan in his senior year. And we have a lot of guys that I think have the ability to do well, and we’ll see what they can do. The ACC is tough. It used to not be that way, but now in wrestling, it’s gotten a lot better. The ACC is a very good conference right now. Obviously, Virginia Tech won it last year and they were a top 10 team in the country. So it’s very competitive, which is great, because it means our guys will be ready for nationals when they go through the ACC Tournament.”
What upgrades are in the works to the workout facility and how far away is funding the full 6 athletes for RTC? - Ryno53
Gavin: “The facilities are coming along nicely. We took an office and knocked down a wall and made the cardio and strength area bigger. And we added some graphics to the wall, which are going to look nice. We really needed to redo the floor, so we leveled everything out and made it more functional.
“The RTC thing, we have two resident athletes right now, which is pretty good. I wasn’t sure if we were going to get any in the first year, but we have two guys who reached out to us about joining, so having two is pretty good and we’re going to look to continue to grow it. We’ve got a lot of very passionate people in the Pittsburgh wrestling community that are helping with the fundraising efforts. How close we are to six, I don’t know; we’re looking to add one each year and we’ll see how it goes. But right now, we’re happy with the two we’ve got. I think we’re off to a great start and we’ll look to continue to build it.”
What can the fans do to most help the program? - Goalieman
Gavin: “Anybody that wants to help the program, come to the matches, first of all. Come support us, support our guys; they’re working hard and they’re trying to put out a good product. So come support us, give us some time and we’re going to, hopefully, make everybody proud of what we’ve got.”
What is the likelihood that the NCAA will adopt the Blue Ribbon Panel's proposal for a single-semester season with a dual match championship a month after individual championships? How does he feel about the proposal? - Kreitzer
Gavin:“I don’t know what the likelihood of them adopting that is. That would require the NCAA to grant us two separate championships, which seems like a big ask. But I do know that our sport is one of the money-makers for the NCAA, as far as the championship tournament goes, so maybe they would be open to that. I don’t know. I’m not as close to that to make that call. There are some people on that Blue Ribbon task force that are working tirelessly on that.
“As far as what do I think about the proposal, I’m for it. I’m for trying it. I think it doesn’t really affect what we have going on right now. I think our individual tournament is pretty special. I’ve wrestled in tournaments all over the world and wrestled in the world championships, and nothing compares to the NCAA Tournament, as far as the fans engagement and the excitement. So we’re not going to lose that and I think that’s great. And then if we can add a dual-meet championship, yeah, I’m for giving it a shot. If it doesn’t work, we can always just go back to what we’ve been doing. But yeah, I’m all for giving it a shot.”
Can/will the RTC bring in Army WCAP athletes to improve the "room"? Does the Army pick up the salary for those guys? What does it cost the wrestling club? - Kreitzer
Gavin: “You’re talking about the World Class Athlete Program for the Army. They don’t have a lot of freestyle wrestlers; there’s only a couple and those guys train at Penn State. They used to train at Colorado Springs at the base out there, and then they moved. Because of the lack of training partners, they moved to Penn State, where they train, and the Army pays those guys; Penn State doesn’t. But it’s not a thing where - there’s not a bunch of guys where some could come to Pitt or…The answer’s no, you can’t, we’re not going to do that, just because there’s not that many. There’s like three athletes that do it.
“I don’t know how that worked out but somehow Penn State and the Army World Class Athlete Program worked out a deal because I think those guys needed somewhere to train.”
is eli seiple over his injuries and can he wrestle this year - warriordan
Gavin: “I got here and he was on the permanent medical list. He’s a good kid, though, and he does our video now for matches. So he’s still around but he was, I guess probably last year; it was before I got here - he’s permanent medical.”
I'd like to know what his beliefs are in regards to his style of coaching and teaching and how he handles his team. Also, what some of his favorite drills for maintaining proper fundamentals?- persp
Gavin: “We do a lot of things that - I don’t know if they’re necessarily drills, but we do a lot of - to work on our defense, we do like a game where the first guy to get his hand locked around your leg three times wins. Stuff like that. We try to have the guys compete a lot. If we’re working on positioning, we do some hand-fighting stuff. We do a lot of sparring type of things. When we drill, a lot of the drilling is, if we’re going over something new, if I’m introducing a new technique. To reinforce fundamentals, we do some type of competitive sparring stuff.”
Does he feel like if he is recruiting the way he thinks they should and they can would more than 3/4 of his starting lineup come from in-state recruits? - DevilDog42
Gavin:“I just want my starting lineup to be really good. So I don’t care if they come from - if they’re from Mars, we’re going to put them in the lineup. If they can wrestle and they’re the right kind of kid that we want, then I don’t care where they’re from.
“Obviously, we’re surrounded by such great talent, clearly a lot of our team is going to be made up of PA and Ohio kids because we’re going to see those kids a lot. But we’ll take a guy from anywhere.”
Which guys have the best shot at an ACC championship? - Pantherguy4
Gavin: “Obviously, the guys who have already won: Taleb and Dom. But Ryan Solomon, he’s got a tough kid at his weight from Duke, but he’s beaten him before so I think we expect a lot out of Ryan in his senior year. And we have a lot of guys that I think have the ability to do well, and we’ll see what they can do. The ACC is tough. It used to not be that way, but now in wrestling, it’s gotten a lot better. The ACC is a very good conference right now. Obviously, Virginia Tech won it last year and they were a top 10 team in the country. So it’s very competitive, which is great, because it means our guys will be ready for nationals when they go through the ACC Tournament.”
What upgrades are in the works to the workout facility and how far away is funding the full 6 athletes for RTC? - Ryno53
Gavin: “The facilities are coming along nicely. We took an office and knocked down a wall and made the cardio and strength area bigger. And we added some graphics to the wall, which are going to look nice. We really needed to redo the floor, so we leveled everything out and made it more functional.
“The RTC thing, we have two resident athletes right now, which is pretty good. I wasn’t sure if we were going to get any in the first year, but we have two guys who reached out to us about joining, so having two is pretty good and we’re going to look to continue to grow it. We’ve got a lot of very passionate people in the Pittsburgh wrestling community that are helping with the fundraising efforts. How close we are to six, I don’t know; we’re looking to add one each year and we’ll see how it goes. But right now, we’re happy with the two we’ve got. I think we’re off to a great start and we’ll look to continue to build it.”
What can the fans do to most help the program? - Goalieman
Gavin: “Anybody that wants to help the program, come to the matches, first of all. Come support us, support our guys; they’re working hard and they’re trying to put out a good product. So come support us, give us some time and we’re going to, hopefully, make everybody proud of what we’ve got.”
What is the likelihood that the NCAA will adopt the Blue Ribbon Panel's proposal for a single-semester season with a dual match championship a month after individual championships? How does he feel about the proposal? - Kreitzer
Gavin:“I don’t know what the likelihood of them adopting that is. That would require the NCAA to grant us two separate championships, which seems like a big ask. But I do know that our sport is one of the money-makers for the NCAA, as far as the championship tournament goes, so maybe they would be open to that. I don’t know. I’m not as close to that to make that call. There are some people on that Blue Ribbon task force that are working tirelessly on that.
“As far as what do I think about the proposal, I’m for it. I’m for trying it. I think it doesn’t really affect what we have going on right now. I think our individual tournament is pretty special. I’ve wrestled in tournaments all over the world and wrestled in the world championships, and nothing compares to the NCAA Tournament, as far as the fans engagement and the excitement. So we’re not going to lose that and I think that’s great. And then if we can add a dual-meet championship, yeah, I’m for giving it a shot. If it doesn’t work, we can always just go back to what we’ve been doing. But yeah, I’m all for giving it a shot.”
Can/will the RTC bring in Army WCAP athletes to improve the "room"? Does the Army pick up the salary for those guys? What does it cost the wrestling club? - Kreitzer
Gavin: “You’re talking about the World Class Athlete Program for the Army. They don’t have a lot of freestyle wrestlers; there’s only a couple and those guys train at Penn State. They used to train at Colorado Springs at the base out there, and then they moved. Because of the lack of training partners, they moved to Penn State, where they train, and the Army pays those guys; Penn State doesn’t. But it’s not a thing where - there’s not a bunch of guys where some could come to Pitt or…The answer’s no, you can’t, we’re not going to do that, just because there’s not that many. There’s like three athletes that do it.
“I don’t know how that worked out but somehow Penn State and the Army World Class Athlete Program worked out a deal because I think those guys needed somewhere to train.”
