This season, the wrestling team has welcomed not only 17 new freshman wrestlers, but also a new assistant coach, Steve Anceravage. Anceravage graduated from Cornell, a top-five wrestling program, in May 2009 and was a two-time All-American wrestler and four-time NCAA qualifier who finished his career with a fifth-place finish at 174 in the NCAA Championships last year.
The young new coach has already made an impact on the team, according to head coach Carter Jordan.
“Every time you hire a new guy you bring a new perspective to the team,” Jordan said. “He’s from a completely different area and from the Ivy League. As an individual, he brings great energy, high standards and terrific ambition.”
Anceravage never thought he would go right into coaching after college. He had a real estate job lined up, yet it fell through when the economy tanked. He then got a job with J.P. Morgan, a Wall Street firm. That job was set in stone until his coach at Cornell, Rob Koll, came to him with an offer he couldn’t refuse.
“I was sitting in the locker room, in Columbia, with my head coach,” Anceravage said. “He was talking about how much he loves coaching. I told him if I had an assistant coaching job that could pay enough money for me to support myself, make my payments on my student loans and live reasonably comfortable, I think I’d take it. It would be something interesting and something I would be good at. He then told me that he had just got a call from the head coach at N.C. State looking for potential assistant coaches.”
The rest was history. Anceravage quit J.P. Morgan and started working with the team in June. As a young coach right out of competitive wrestling, he brings a lot of new techniques to the team, according to redshirt senior Taylor Cummings.
“It’s just awesome having someone here that knows what wrestling is like in Pennsylvania,” Cummings said. “He really adds a lot of structure to this team that we have needed in the past. He’s just fresh off competing so he’s very ambushing. You can just feel the energy.”
Cummings and Anceravage have had a long history. They are from the same hometown, Bloomsburg, Pa., and the two wrestled at rival high schools.
“I’ve known Taylor and his brother Garrett for as long as I can remember,” Anceravage said. “We went to rival high schools, so I grew up with those two. The one thing I was worried about when I first got here was there had to be that line drawn, because we used to be buddies, but now I’m his coach too.”
Anceravage said he has had to play the mean coach role in order to set the boundaries required for him to get the respect needed as a young coach.
“That was the biggest battle I had when I first got here,” Anceravage said. “It may have been more in my head than with the guys, but I had to be kind of a mean coach at first. I had to draw that boundary because we are the same age. Now that I have that respect from these guys, I can relax that boundary and become more personable.”
Jordan said the transition from college wrestler to college coach is not something easily accomplished, but Anceravage has already made the evolution.
“[The team] really respects him,” Jordan said. “He’s got ambition and goals far beyond assistant coach. He wants to get his MBA while he’s here and eventually be a head coach. You can tell right away if someone’s fit for that and he certainly is once he gets some experience.”
Anceravage said he really enjoys staying within the wrestling world and not having to stay in competitive shape.
“I’ve been enjoying my freedom, not having to make weight or be on a diet,” Anceravage said. “Yet I still get to go out on the mat everyday. I’m really enjoying being a coach.”
With Darrion Caldwell out and Taylor Cummings the only senior in the lineup, the wrestling team has some challenges ahead of it. But Anceravage said he has high expectations for the young team.
“I expect really big things,” Anceravage said. “The inexperience is the only thing I see holding us back. We have so much talent on this team it’s ridiculous.”
