Nov. 7, 2008

Editor's Note: Throughout the course of the 2008-09 wrestling season, two Missouri wrestlers, senior Michael Chandler and freshman Nick Gregoris, will be giving their perspectives on varying topics, including practice, dual meets, academics and more. 

 

Chandler, a three-time NCAA qualifier is making his final run at an NCAA title, while Gregoris, a newcomer from Mebane, N.C., is experiencing tournaments and Missouri practices for the very first time.  The different perspectives should prove interesting for TigerStyle fans.

 

Fans can read Chandler's journal entry every Monday, while Gregoris will contribute on Friday's. 

 

With that…here's a word from freshman Nick Gregoris…

 

Hi everyone I'm Nicholas (aka Nicky) Gregoris and am a freshman here at Mizzou. This is my first time out in the Midwest other than for the occasional tournament.  I come from Chapel Hill, North Carolina where I spent my last two years of high school.  My first two years were at a smaller private school in Raleigh. I won three state titles between these schools.

 

I hail original from a little town called Porterville, California but shortly after I was born my parents and I moved out to the east coast to Mebane, North Carolina. This is when I first started wrestling the summer between kindergarten and first grade at a local high schools wrestling camp and shortly after join the Orange County Parks and Recreation department's wrestling club, we practiced in a carpeted basketball gym but it was soon taken away from us to start another basketball league. This is when I first got introduced to the town of Chapel Hill (where I would later go to high school) my Dad and another local wrestling coach, Mike Kendal, both got involved with the new assistant coach at the University of North Carolina, C.D. Mock. He allowed us to take two clubs there, one for younger kids (Carolina Grapplers) and one for elite high school kids in the state (Cardiac Kids).  I wrestled in both of these clubs and owe a lot to all three of these men. 

 

This brings me to where I m today, Columbia, Missouri. Preseason was kind of a shock to the system for me.  Most of the guys started working out on their own at open mats as soon as school started. I jumped right in there with them trying to get in shape and get a jump on the season to make life a little easier, but boy was I wrong.  It wasn't the fact that all the preseason work outs where back breakers and I couldn't walk out of the room after. It was just the consistency of hard work. Lifting then the seven miler Monday's, then wresting, then the stadiums and more lifting and more wrestling. After it was over I could really see why Coach Smith did this. I feel like it parallels the way the guys at Mizzou wrestle, always in your face and attacking.

 

The official season has started now and we haven't slowed down a bit but I do believe I've become more accustomed to the way things work around here, so I'm not as tired during the day as I was before but I will occasionally take a nap in between classes.  The live wrestling in the room is a little frustrating from time to time when you're in a three man group with Mike Chandler and Nick Marable and you don't get a takedown for 45 minutes. I know this is only making me better and it's not everyday I get beat up this bad.  There are few days when I'm on my A game and me and Mike have some battles back and forth.

 

I'm really excited to start the tournament season with the other redshirts.  I really think it's going to bring us together as a class. We all are very talented wrestlers who have done some big things on the national level and it's going to be exciting as we transfer that over to the college level. We wrestled hard at the Lindenwood Open this past weekend but I think we all had some let downs as well.  I don't think any of us are used to losing, but we call can grown from this and I guess that's what being a freshman is all about.