SPORTSBEAT: by Pete Jakey–Keller gets win at CMU
At the collegiate level, wrestlers are competing against high school state champions both in practice and when they take on other schools. Rogers City?s only state champion, Andy Keller, into his second year at Central Michigan University, is proving to have the ability to not only compete, but win in college. To listen to him talk of his experiences, it?s been a long road, filled with setbacks and disappointments. But with a tenacious work ethic in the gym and in the classroom, Keller has persevered.
During the summer he worked on the mat and in the weight room, earning a spot in the starting lineup at 149 pounds as a sophomore this season. He won his first varsity match against an opponent from Princeton. Keller came away with a first period pin in the match, which he said lifted a tremendous weight from his shoulders.
?WINNING MY first collegiate match was exciting, but winning my first varsity match was a much bigger accomplishment,? Keller said. Keller?s first varsity start came at home against instate rival Michigan State in front of a big crowd. ?I was real nervous, a lot of my friends were there from Rogers City, which was nice,? said Keller. He lost was an 8-5 decision against Darren McKnight. ?Central ended up winning the dual, which was good,? he said.
Following his undefeated championship run in the winter of 2002, it was tough in the early going. Keller was a takedown artist in high school. He would take down an opponent, earning two points, let his opponent escape, giving up a point, but taking them down again. In most cases, coaches wouldn?t allow that to happen, but Keller was usually in control. The freshman wrestler struggled to get takedowns in practice, though, which was a bit of a surprise to the young man, but eventually he would get more and more. ?Now I can hang with most of the guys in the wrestling room,? said Keller. ?The biggest shock for me my freshman year was how much time wrestling took up.?
WRESTLING IS NOT your typical sport at CMU. Practice begins as soon as school starts and continues until school ends. ?We take a month, maybe two off during the summer and start wrestling again,? he said. ?Most of us live down here during the summer, so we can train.? The CMU program has between two and three practices a day on a regular basis. Freshmen are required to spend eight hours every week at study table (a computer lab and study room), so they can keep their grades up. After the first semester, the new students don’t have to go to study table unless their grades are bad.
Keller remembers his first tournament at the Eastern Michigan, where something unusual happened. ?I lost my first two matches and was out of the tournament, which I don’t think had ever happened to me in my entire wrestling career,? Keller said. Coach Borelli didn?t coddle the young wrestler when he saw him sitting in the stands: “0-2, huh. I bet that hasn’t happened in a while. Welcome to D-1 (Division 1) wrestling.? Keller said he ?was pretty upset after that tournament, but I knew that it takes awhile to adapt to college wrestling.?
THE NEXT TOURNAMENT was the Michigan State Open, where he lost his first match to an opponent from Michigan State, 2-1. ?I started to wonder if I was ever going to get a win,? Keller said. In the next match, he drew a wrestler from the University of Pennsylvania and won decisively, 17-2. Keller?s freshman season ended with a 15-11 record. He was third at the Muskegon Open and fifth at the Missouri Open. ?Wrestling at CMU is much harder than in high school,? he said. ?Everything is much more intense. The practices are a lot different, we never stop moving. I lost eight pounds in one practice wearing a T-shirt and shorts.
?A lot of wrestling in D-1 is mental, because everyone was a star at their high school and everyone was a state champ, so a lot of it comes
“KELLER, WHAT the heck are you doing? This isn’t Rogers City anymore! ? the coach has said. ?He says those kinds of things to all the freshmen because some of them need to be brought back down to earth because they still have their high school egos,? Keller said. Gaining experience, improving, and making noise at the national level are his current goals. He?s driven to prove himself further, but sometimes it can be mentally draining.
?I know it sounds negative, but in Division 1, wrestling isn’t really a sport anymore, it’s more like a job, and sometimes it’s not fun,? he said. Andy?s grades are good as he majors in journalism. He also has given some thought to Integrative Public Relations.