By Bailey McDonnell
Penn State Altoona will offer men’s and women’s wrestling programs starting in November, and plans are underway to hire a coach and begin recruiting. Athletics Director Conner Gilbert explains some of the questions brought up about the wrestling program being implemented at Penn State Altoona.
Gilbert explains the situation with the head coach position “They have not hired a coach yet; interviews are actually taking place right now. And we have to have a coach in place in the very near future. And then that person will be able to take the helm of the program, beginning with the recruiting process.” After that, Gilbert claimed, “Yes, the head coach will be for both teams, but there’ll be separate assistant coaches to help with each team.”
Moving on from the coaching, Gilbert pointed out some information on recruiting athletes, “Wrestlers have been reaching out to us on a rolling basis, actually over the past couple of months. Since we first announced the wrestling program, we’ve been in contact with a lot of prospective wrestlers. Once the coach is hired, that person will be able to have a more hands-on approach.”
Gilbert explained his thoughts on the first year of competing in the Allegheny Mountains Collegiate Conference. To which he responded, “the goal is to be able to put together a team on both sides for the first year.” Meaning the men’s and women’s teams. And he continued with “for them to be able to compete on a respectable level within the conference. Obviously, the coach of the program will have challenges going into the first year. Beginning a program from scratch, of course.”
Gilbert went into talking about home meets. “Yeah, there will be home meets. They’ll be located within Adler.” It is exciting for the team to gain fans and have home spectators. Going back to the coach, Gilbert talked about the head coach’s credentials and how they would be determined or needed for him to get the job. He responds, “Although I’m not involved in the search committee, I know that they’ve been looking at a pretty large number of applicants. They obviously value things like past coaching experience, especially collegiate career experience. Obviously, credentials as a wrestler themselves. So I think just with the sheer number of applicants that they’ve had, I know there’s a lot of quality within that. So they’ll be able to find a pretty good coach.” This information Gilbert provides makes for an exciting year ahead for the new program.