It's All Systems Go for Adam Coon
9/25/2014 12:00:00 AM | Wrestling
By Brad Rudner
In the 1980s classic, "Back to the Future," Michael J. Fox's character, Marty McFly, gives some great advice to his future father when he says, "You know, if you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything."
Now, that quote may have come from a fictional movie, but that doesn't mean the message isn't real, at least not to someone like sophomore University of Michigan wrestler Adam Coon.
Coon is a lot of things -- superior wrestler, budding engineer, stand-up guy -- but above all, he's a dreamer. He has goals, and lofty ones at that.
He wants to wrestle at the Olympics. After his wrestling career is over, he wants to give professional football a try. And then after that, he wants to go into space.
Sounds like a lot, right?
"I do want to do all of them. Whether I will, I don't know," Coon said. "Whether it's possible, I think so. I think it's possible for me to hit every single one of those [goals]. It's going to take a lot of work, a lot of faith and a lot of time."
After all that he's accomplished in the last calendar year, don't bet against him. After a solid freshman season, Coon won five titles and two medals this past summer, the latter of which came when we he won bronzes in both styles (Greco-Roman, freestyle) at the FILA Junior World Championships in Zagreb, Croatia. To illustrate just how rare that feat is, noted wrestling historian Bill May believes the last person to medal in two different styles at the same high-level international competition was Daniel Robin (France), who won silver in both at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City.
To even make the teams, Coon had to do some juggling at the World Team Trials in May. He won four matches in 90 minutes, going from freestyle on one mat to Greco-Roman on another, then repeating the process. At one point, he had only six minutes in between matches, but it didn't matter. He swept the best-of-three series in both styles, finishing with pins on both mats.
At Worlds, Greco-Roman was up first. In a twist of irony, Coon drew Stepan David (Czech Republic) in the first round, his workout partner from the day before the tournament began. During the workout, Coon remembers David telling him that he felt he was more of a freestyle wrestler. Coon pinned him in 45 seconds the next day.
Since all the matches take place during the same day, Coon was back on the mat rather quickly. He defeated Seungchan Lee (Korea) and Adam "The Wild Boar" Mertse (Hungary) to make it to the semifinals, where he ran into Russia's Sergey Semenov, who dispatched Coon in just 29 seconds.
"He was throwing me around like a rag doll," Coon said. "I was trying, but he was just quicker, stronger, and definitely a lot more skilled at Greco-Roman than I was. He kicked my butt."
Coon ended up walking away with the first of his two bronzes after pinning Arata Sonoda (Japan) in less than a minute. A good result, Coon thought.
He then had three days to switch gears and focus on freestyle. Though he changed styles, he found the same success, rolling through the first three rounds, defeating opponents from China, India and Azerbaijan, but like Greco-Roman a few days earlier, he was dealt a setback in the semifinals. Where his Greco-Roman semifinal match ended rather quickly, this one came down to the wire, as his opponent, Amar Dhesi (Canada), scored a two-point takedown with five seconds left to erase Coon's advantage and win the match, 7-6.
The loss hit him hard. He went back to his hotel to regroup, relax and reassess. The disappointment lingered, but he could only let those feelings simmer for so long, for he had another match to wrestle that evening. After a quick meal to get the energy back, Coon returned to the mat with the trademark ferocity that his opponents have come to expect. His movement was better and so was his technique, as he pinned Turkey's Yusuf Emre Dede in the first period to claim his second medal in five days.
He returned home with an 8-2 record -- with five of those wins coming via pin -- and two medals. To the few people that were unaware of his talents, be warned now. Coon, who turns 20 in November, is only beginning to scratch the surface of his enormous potential.
He grew up on a 10-acre farm in Fowlerville, Mich., a small town of about 3,000 people that can be found just off Interstate 96 in between Lansing and Brighton. He started wrestling at age four and grew interested in the sport largely because of his father, Dan, an all-state wrestler (and later head coach) at Fowlerville High School, who now serves as the state's USA Wrestling chairperson.
As a child, Adam was on his father's hip, following him to practices and tournaments, but simply being around the sport wasn't alluring enough. Though those experiences got him into the wrestling room, there would be times when young Adam would stop practice because he was worried the wrestlers that were sparring with his father were hurting him. When Adam started practicing himself, he couldn't make it through a full session without crying. He hated practice and just wanted to wrestle in real matches, but his father would only allow that after he finished a series of practices without any tears being shed.
Even then, he needed convincing to wrestle in tournaments. Well, whatever it was that got him to stick with it inevitably worked (Coon notes his father bribed him with food), because once he got going, he was rarely stopped. He amassed an amazing 212-3 record during his prep years at Fowlerville, winning four state titles, including two at 215 lbs. (2010-11) and two more at 285 lbs. (2012-13). InterMat anointed him as the second-best recruit in the entire country for the Class of 2013 and because of that, he was getting recruiting attention from nearly every program, including some from the gridiron, where Adam was an all-state lineman and linebacker.
At 6-5, 250 lbs., Coon had the prototypical size to do either in college, but he had to choose one. An obvious tough decision, Coon always kept coming back to the relationship he had built with the Michigan coaching staff, mainly head coach Joe McFarland and assistant Sean Bormet. McFarland was one of the many coaches that wanted Coon but notes he didn't do anything out of the ordinary to convince him. The focus of his pitches centered on how Coon could attain his lofty individual goals through wrestling, and more importantly, through Michigan.
"In the end, I think it was his love for wrestling and the camaraderie that comes with it," McFarland said. "The way he's wired, he's going to be successful at whatever he wants to do. He's the kind of student-athlete that all coaches here at Michigan want to have. They want to have people that are disciplined, focused, committed and mature. Adam is all of those and more. He's a very incredible kid."
Coon was as advertised as a freshman, leading Michigan in wins (32), including a 14-1 mark in dual matches. And some of his dual matches were huge, as he clinched team wins against Nebraska, Pittsburgh and Minnesota thanks to his victories at heavyweight in the final match. Despite giving up nearly 30 pounds to some opponents (the maximum weight for heavyweights at the college level is 285 lbs.), he won his first 23 college matches and was ranked No. 1 for a good portion of the year.
But the season is a grind, as Coon calls it, one he admits that he wasn't used to or ready for. Four of his five losses on the season came at the Big Ten Championships and NCAA Championships (two at each).
In retrospect, without those failures, he might not have found the same success over the summer. The motivation really stemmed from his first and only match in wrestlebacks at the NCAA Championships against Ohio's Jeremy Johnson, a 3-1 overtime loss that eliminated him from the tournament, one win shy of NCAA All-America honors.
Coon walked right off the mat and straight into the hallway near the locker room. He sat in silence for a few minutes, until Bormet came over to offer a few words of encouragement. Even then, Bormet remembers seeing the obvious looks of disappointment. His season, one that started with so much promise, ended before it should have.
"He was absolutely crushed and as a coach, you're crushed for him," said Bormet. "I think he was disappointed that he didn't fully attack the way he's capable of, and at that moment in time, I think he knew that."
"You only get one shot," added Coon. "After that match, I thought that if I could wrestle one more time, right then, I would've won. You can wrestle the same opponents multiple times, but at that moment, you have one shot. Anybody can be beaten on any given day."
After the season, he took a few weeks off, but the bad taste in his mouth never truly went away. To remedy that, he got back into the gym and lifted weights five times per week. He had never been more motivated. When he stepped into the wrestling room, he was going as fast and as hard as he could to make sure he never wrestled with regrets ever again.
He takes the same approach when it comes to his goals. We're less than two years away from the 2016 Olympics in Rio, and you better believe that Coon has that circled on his calendar. Even if he doesn't make the team in two years, he'll only be 25 at the start of the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, smack dab in the middle of his prime. Beyond that, Coon says he'll continue to wrestle for as long as his body will let him.
"I've known Adam for a long time," says fifth-year senior Chris Heald, "and I know that's his number one goal, to become an Olympian. He's going to get a gold someday. I don't really see why he can't."
When his wrestling career is over, Coon hopes to follow in the footsteps of Stephen Neal, a former NCAA champion wrestler at Cal State-Bakersfield. Though never playing college football himself, Neal picked up football after narrowly missing out on a spot on Team USA's roster for 2000 Sydney Olympics. He eventually latched on with the New England Patriots (Coon's favorite NFL team), where he played eight seasons and won three Super Bowls.
But the most ambitious of his goals will likely come after this athletics career is over. Ever since he can remember, Coon has been enthralled with space. He loved "Star Wars" and "Star Trek." Still does. At Michigan, he's majoring in aerospace engineering with the goal of one day becoming an astronaut.
A potential problem? His size. The prototypical astronaut isn't as big as Coon is. While he can do something about his weight, he cannot do anything about his height. No matter. He'll just design a more fuel-efficient shuttle, one that's big enough to hold him.
All-in-all, the future is certainly bright for Adam Coon, but like Doc Brown tells Marty at the end of the "Back to the Future" trilogy, "The future isn't written." Sure, a lot can change between now and the space shuttle, but until those circumstances change, it's all systems go.
"I'm waiting for someone to tell me I can't do it because that'll make me just want to do it more," he said. "Once I get my mind set on something, I go after it and attack it as hard as I possibly can. It's like, 'Oh, I can't do this? Watch me.'"
We will, Adam. We'll be watching.
Players Mentioned
