Army wrestling coach Kevin Ward chalked up the Army-Navymatchup as the greatest dual in college wrestling.
After listening to his reasoning, it’s hard to argue. The Army-Navy football game is a standalone event; well it was a standalone event.
Perhaps the matchup on the wrestling mat should be too based on how Ward described what the atmosphere was like.
“It’s the best dual meet that you’ve ever been a part of,” Ward told On3. “Like as a fan, as a competitor, as a coach, I mean, it’s the best just because not that in other dual meets you don’t care but you know, in sports, you’ll hear people say sometimes it just means a little bit more. Well, this encapsulates it means more.”
Army won 18-17 last season in a razor thin matchup. Ward’s turned around the rivalry since he became head coach 10 years ago.
“The thing about it is like both institutions want to win no matter what it is,” Ward said. “So kind of the way I describe it is back in the day when I was at Oklahoma State, we had really good teams. Our biggest rival was whoever was ranked second in the country. You know, it could have been Minnesota, could have been OU, whoever was ranked second country, that was our rival. We’re at a place now where like you have this institutional rival every year no matter what/ It doesn’t matter what you’re playing. You can be wrestling, Ultimate Frisbee, handball, I don’t care, whatever the heck it is.
“Like both teams and fan bases and administration, everybody really wants to win. How many times do you get to be in an event like that where there’s so much riding on it and so many people care? That’s special, not a lot of wrestlers get to do that. We get to do it. And we just do it every year.”
What will happen next season? Well you better tune in or get there to find out. It’ll be the same intensity as “America’s Game.”
“It’s not everything and my approach to it is probably a little bit different than some others,” Ward said. “Like it’s not everything to me, but I do recognize that it’s everything to a lot of people. So I don’t downplay it, but it’s the most intense like passionate, the intensity, just these guys want to win so freakin’ bad. When they’re out there, both guys, neither side is going to give an edge and so you know whoever wins is going to be the person that goes up there just absolutely takes it because nothing’s been handed to him.
“When you see that 10 times in a dual meet. That’s a lot of fun. It’s the greatest dual meet in college wrestling.”
The post Kevin Ward calls Army-Navy ‘the greatest dual in college wrestling’ appeared first on On3.