Former Sooners National Champion Reunited With Coach Jack Spates <\/p>\n
NORMAN, Okla. ” The University of Oklahoma wrestling program announced recently the hiring of assistant coach Robbie Waller. A standout OU wrestler and former 174-pound NCAA national champion, Waller replaces former head assistant coach Barry Weldon who resigned in March. <\/p>\n
After graduating from OU in the summer of 2003, Waller served as the Total Person Program Graduate Assistant for the University of Missouri during the 2003-04 season and was hired as an assistant coach with the Tigers in 2004-05. At Missouri, Waller helped lead the Tigers to their best NCAA finish in 20 years (11th), and coached three All-Americans. <\/p>\n
Waller recently discussed the move with The Wrestling Mall. <\/p>\n
“The University of Oklahoma is a special place that has done so much for me both athletically and academically,”\u009d says Waller. “Coupled with a tradition-rich wrestling program, the University of Oklahoma is at the forefront of successful college athletics. “<\/p>\n
Waller will be reunited with his collegiate head coach “Jack Spates. Spates also wrestled with Waller’s father and uncle at Slippery Rock University in the early 1970’s. <\/p>\n
“They became lifelong friends and I have known coach Spates since I was young,”\u009d says Waller, a native of Latrobe, Penn. “Coach Spates and I had a wonderful wrestler-coach relationship while I competed for him and I expect it to be no different working under him. He is an incredible coach and an even better friend. “<\/p>\n
Along with assisting the Tiger wrestlers, Waller was attending graduate school and working towards a Master’s Degree in English at Missouri. He leaves a Missouri program, led by coach Brian Smith, that has emerged as a consistent top-15 program on the verge of becoming a perennial national power. <\/p>\n