Technician: What were your thoughts when you first heard Debbie Yow was N.C. State’s new Athletic Director?
Jordan: The only thing I knew was that Maryland had more support from their athletic department for their wrestling program than any other team in the conference. I was pleasantly surprised at the announcement and excited about the attitude she would bring down here.
Technician: Describe your first interaction with her and how you felt after meeting her
Jordan: I was blown away when I met her. She was just electric at the luncheon. You could tell the presence she had and the command she had with everyone there. Her ability to work the room and talk to everybody there was very, very impressive. When we met, the first thing out of her mouth was “I love wrestling.” She said that three times. I counted. I can promise you that is the first time I have ever heard that at N.C. State.
Technician: What have you learned about her from conversations with people who have worked for her?
Jordan: The first thing I did was I called up Pat Santoro, the coach at Lehigh. He left Maryland three or four years ago. He was the guy she went out and hired to come turn their program around. He told me he almost did not take the wrestling job at Lehigh because of Debbie Yow. The Lehigh wrestling job is almost like the Notre Dame football job. Pat Santoro is one of the most respected coaches in the country in our sport and he could not say enough good things about her.
Technician: Talk a little bit about what Yow did for Maryland’s wrestling program.
Jordan: They went from nowhere to 10th in the country in seven or eight years. They had the full complement of staff and budgets and all that stuff for the last 10 years. She did a phenomenal job. She assessed it, attacked it and hired the right people. She gave them what they needed. They won their first conference championship in more than 30 years in 2008. Pat Santoro was the coach, and then he left. Then the following year, they finished 10th in the country and we finished 18th. Last year they were ranked in the Top 10 all year long, and just didn’t have a very good national tournament, and finished about 20th.
Technician: How excited are you about the impact you anticipate her having on your program?
Jordan: This will be the first time in the history of N.C. State wrestling that we will have a full complement of staff. When you have the budget you need and the complement of stuff, then you can attack every aspect of your program. I think she will do everything in her power to give us what we need. It may not be there right now, so it will depend on what resources are available. Her track record is to give the programs the resources they need to be successful, and then demand results. And that is why we are in this business. That is why kids compete at this level. To be competitive at a national level, you have to be at a position financially, with staff and budgets, to be able to recruit the way you need to recruit, to manage a team the way you need to manage it, and to have a staff to put the man hours in to be successful.
Technician: Overall, how do you feel about Yow and the decision to make her State’s athletic director?
Jordan: I fully expect that she is a woman that says what she does, does what she says and will give us the best opportunity that we could possibly imagine to be successful. That might be in increments, I don’t know. But I tell you what, I’m all in. After eating with her and speaking to her a little bit and talking to people that know her, I’m ecstatic. It was a brilliant hire. It was out of the box, but if you look at it, she can hit the ground running. She knows what it takes to win and she knows what it takes to win in the ACC.