{"id":41860,"date":"2017-05-08T19:52:19","date_gmt":"2017-05-09T00:52:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/?p=41860"},"modified":"2017-05-08T19:52:19","modified_gmt":"2017-05-09T00:52:19","slug":"zain-retherford","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/w41860\/zain-retherford\/","title":{"rendered":"From frail kid to national wrestling champ – Zain Retherford’s journey"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Zain Retherford\u2019s father didn\u2019t think the sport of wrestling was meant for his son.<\/p>\n

At least not at first.<\/p>\n

Retherford\u2019s father, Allen, still remembers Zain sobbing uncontrollably at the age of 5 when a much bigger kid pinned him in almost no time at all. \u201cHe came up on the bleachers and he was crying,\u201d Allen said. \u201cI didn\u2019t like that. I figured that it\u2019s not for him. I said, \u2018The sport\u2019s not for you; you\u2019re going to quit. We\u2019re not doing this.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n

Quitting, though, isn\u2019t part of the Retherford family genes. The family owns a farm in Benton and usually works from sun up to sun down. That mentality kept Zain Retherford motivated to get better at a sport he came to deeply love. It motivated him to transform himself from a once-frail grade-school athlete into a muscular college student whose trophy case is already bursting with honors such as the NCAA Most Dominant Wrestler award and the Hodge Trophy, which is regarded as the wrestling world\u2019s Heisman.<\/p>\n

Retherford couldn\u2019t quit wrestling for good, even as a distraught preschooler, but it was a long road to success \u2014 starting with those tears when Retherford\u2019s best effort wasn\u2019t enough.<\/p>\n

Five years after that incident, when Retherford turned 10, a stranger approached Retherford\u2019s father at a tournament and told him to get Zain to the Nittany Lion Wrestling Club \u2014 about a two-hour drive down I-80 \u2014 to train with Ken Chertow.<\/p>\n

That summer, Allen signed Zain up for a one-week camp. That\u2019s when the story of Zain Retherford, arguably the most dominant wrestler in any college weight class, truly began. That\u2019s when Zain discovered he had a knack for the sport he loved. With a little training, he grew into a nearly unstoppable force.<\/p>\n

\u201cComing into that season, I saw stuff,\u201d Allen said, alluding to the winter after his training. \u201cI was like, \u2018What is that?\u2019 The legs started. The competitive dad-on-dad thing started. I started getting sized up. I didn\u2019t intend on it, but when a 10-year-old kid rips the face off another 10-year-old kid, it\u2019s war.\u201d<\/p>\n

That kind of dominance never truly went away; it just grew. A year later, Zain finished seventh at the Pennsylvania Junior Wrestling state tournament after losing to the defending champ by one point in the first round. From that point on, Zain didn\u2019t want to stop training until he reached state champ status.<\/p>\n

Before he was even a teenager, Zain would hit the floor three times a week and perform 50 push-ups. He was admittedly weaker than most of his opponents, and he swore that wouldn\u2019t always be the case. Eventually, he worked his way up to 1,000 push-ups three nights a week.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s tough to break Zain Retherford,\u201d said one of Zain\u2019s high school coaches, Russ Hughes. \u201cHis mental toughness is by far one of the best I\u2019ve ever seen.\u201d<\/p>\n

His work ethic was clear on the mat. As a high school freshman at Line Mountain, he went 40-1 and won the state title. He finished third his sophomore year and then faced adversity his junior year when the PIAA forced him to miss the entire season after transferring to Benton.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe paid the ultimate price,\u201d said Hughes, the Benton coach. \u201cI took him under my wing and said, \u2018You are going to sit beside me every dual meet and every match, so you are going to study the sport.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n

Retherford did exactly that. According to Chertow, he became \u201can encyclopedia of wrestling.\u201d He used that learning to his advantage.<\/p>\n

As soon as he was reinstated by the PIAA, that much was evident. He reached the finals of the Super 32 tournament, won a Fargo (N.D.) Junior National title and punched his ticket into the USA Junior World Championship team by winning the FILA Cadet National Tournament. To top it all off, he then won a FILA Junior Cadet World Championship.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe trained extremely hard for that,\u201d Hughes said. \u201cIf you asked his parents, it was probably border-line abusive for a kid that age \u2014 but he wanted it. I treated him like a college kid. Those workouts were extremely tough for a high school kid. I think he may have shed one tear out of his eyes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hughes said his phone started ringing \u2014 and wouldn\u2019t stop \u2014 soon after that world title. College coaches, such as Oklahoma State\u2019s John Smith, wanted a word with the small-town kid with the big dreams. Iowa coach Tom Brands even popped up in the small Pennsylvania town when it celebrated Zain\u2019s world title.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had a float for him. Basically, you get on a fire truck and you go around town and blow the horn,\u201d Hughes said. \u201cI look over and I see Tom Brands and his assistant standing on the corner. I\u2019m like, \u2018What are they doing in town?\u2019 They met with Zain that night.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zain was just getting started. He then went on to a 47-0 senior year of high school and his second PIAA title. Then he took his talents to Happy Valley. That\u2019s when he became a household name among wrestling fans in the Keystone State.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love this place,\u201d Zain said, referring to Centre County. \u201cThis is like a second home to me. When I\u2019m at my house in Benton for too long, I get antsy and I\u2019ll come back here. … I\u2019m glad I\u2019m at a place where it feels that way.\u201d<\/p>\n

The rising senior is currently on a 67-match win streak after going undefeated the past two years. His recent victory in the NCAA finals \u2014 his second straight title \u2014 marks 100 wins overall for his Penn State career.<\/p>\n

Retherford has lost just three matches to those 100 victories. And all three came during his rookie campaign. Four-time NCAA champion and Hodge Trophy winner Logan Stieber can say he\u2019s the only person so far to beat Retherford twice in college \u2014 although Retherford shocked the champion in the Nittany Lions\u2019 dual with Ohio State in 2014. Retherford\u2019s last loss \u2014 and possibly final loss of his Nittany Lions career \u2014 came to Centre County\u2019s Mitchell Port.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know what the secret is. He\u2019s a tough kid,\u201d said Port, who edged Retherford 3-1 in the 2014 NCAA championships and finished third for the Edinboro Fighting Scots. \u201cEven then, it was hard to beat him and that was three years ago. He just keeps getting better, it seems like.<\/p>\n

\u201cI see him out there against those other guys, and he looks like a monster. Maybe that\u2019s just because I see him winning and beating up on everybody.\u201d<\/p>\n

As Retherford enters his final season with Penn State, he looks to collect his third straight NCAA title and possibly his second Hodge Trophy.<\/p>\n

Not bad for a guy who almost quit the sport when he was 5 years old.<\/p>\n

BY NATE COBLER<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Zain Retherford\u2019s father didn\u2019t think the sport of wrestling was meant for his son. At least not at first. Retherford\u2019s father, Allen, still remembers Zain sobbing uncontrollably at the age of 5 when a much bigger kid pinned him in almost no time at all. \u201cHe came up on the bleachers and he was crying,\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":41861,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41860","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wrestling"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":6}},"acf":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/zaneretherford.jpg?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2B7Di-aTa","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41860","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41860"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41860\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41861"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41860"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41860"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41860"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}