Immediately after defeating Jeremy Goree in the 130 pound finals of the Senior

National Championships in Virginia Beach, Va., Dale Shull’s phone was ringing off the hook with calls from coaches of nationally prominent wrestling programs across the United States.

Shull said it was the honesty and persistence with which Coach Carter Jordan recruited him well before his national championship victory that made the multitude of phone calls from suddenly interested coaches easy to disregard.

“All the other coaches I talked to, they would talk to me but then they would stop and leave me hanging,” Shull said. “But Jordan was always persistent and he always did what he said he was going to do. I liked that as a wrestler, because if your coach is that honest right away, I am guessing he is going to be like that the whole time. So I knew I wanted to go there two weeks after we first talked in January.”

Wrestling coach Carter Jordan said because N.C. State had been recruiting him well before Shull’s national championship victory, the multitude of coaches suddenly interested in Shull were wasting their time trying to recruit him, as he had already decided to sign with State.

“Believe it or not, there weren’t a lot of schools recruiting him.” Jordan said.

“[After his junior year,] He sent his DVD out along with a letter to all the top 25

programs from last year and we were the only Division I program that responded. Then bing bang boom – he goes out [and wins] nationals and every coach in the country wants him now. I think he got 17 calls [from college wrestling coaches] the day he got back, but the deal was already done. He committed to us when he got back to Colorado the next day.”

Because he was from Colorado, a state not well known for high school wrestling,

Shull was somewhat lightly recruited prior to his head-turning national championship victory in Virginia Beach.

But Jordan said he and his coaching staff knew from Shull’s tape that other

coaches were overlooking a tremendous talent.

“He wasn’t a top-10 guy in the rankings, which doesn’t mean anything a lot of times.

Obviously this is a case where it doesn’t mean anything. He is a three-time state

champion from Colorado, and he beat some world beaters out there at the national

tournament,” Jordan said. “We watched him on film, so we knew he could wrestle.

Certainly he is very talented and very dangerous.

Shull said he knows he has room for improvement and he is looking forward to continuing to get better as a part of what he feels is a special team.

“I am pretty good right now, but I know that I have a lot to work on,” Shull said. “It is kind of cool because I know what I need to work on and I will get that much better. Being on a really good team, that’s something I have never been a part of and I am just looking forward to the opportunity.”

At State, Shull will join fellow high school All-American Andrew Tumlin of Harrison

(Ohio) High School in the wrestling team’s already impressive incoming class for the 2009-2010 season. Tumlin was ranked No. 6 in the nation at the 189-pound weight class by WrestlingUSA’s Web site and was also named the Buckeye Wrestler of the Year by HACKS magazine. He also won the Cadet freestyle national championship in 2007 and wrestled freestyle in Beijing, China, during the World Junior Games in 2007.

Jordan said these are just two examples of the standout recruits that will wrestle

alongside perennial national powerhouses. Junior 149 pounder Darrion Caldwell’s

national championship victory March 21 has spurred some of this interest.

“It certainly didn’t hurt, and it has changed things. I am turning kids away right

now, and this is the first time in the 12 years that I have been here that we are

turning kids away,” Jordan said. “It is usually hard to get those guys, because

those kids are typically talking to the traditional powerhouses, but when something

like [Caldwell’s win] happens, it puts you in that group.”

And while it may seem as though an outstanding recruiting class for next season is

already complete, Jordan seems confident Shull will not be 2009’s last

top-notch recruit. Another national championship winner at Senior Nationals,

heavyweight Eloheim Palma of Cary, and 145-pounder Kendrick Sanders of Florida are two of several highly touted recruits that reportedly have State near the top of their lists.

“We are not done. We are after three or four more national champions right now that we are recruiting,” Jordan said. “We feel very fortunate because we have a group of kids coming in next week and another the next week, and we are going to be able to pick who we want.”