Kemmerer delivers on dad's expectations

There was one voice noticeably missing from Zack Kemmerer’s cheering section as he secured his first-ever All-America honors at the NCAA Wrestling Championships this past weekend.

So noticeably, in fact, that Kemmerer was asked about the absence of his omnipresent No. 1 fan — his father, David.

“Some people didn’t hear him in the stands as much,” Kemmerer said. “They asked me, ‘Where’s your dad?’ I’m like, ‘He’s there — he’s just keeping his mouth shut for once.’”

That would make once in a very long career for Kemmerer.

His father got him into wrestling when he was five years old and has been the driving force behind his grappling success for 16 years running.

“He brought me up the right way, he gave me the characteristics that I have right now,” Kemmerer said. “The determination, the work ethic — all that I get from him. Without that, I wouldn’t be here at school. I wouldn’t be doing the things I’m doing.”

David acted as the Mr. Miyagi to Zack’s Daniel LaRusso, and that tutelage yielded a great deal of victories before college.

In high school, Zack won two Pennsylvania AAA state championships, posted a four-year record of 199-18 and won the coveted Beast of the East tournament title.

There was no doubt that with those credentials — especially out of a historically strong wrestling state like Pennsylvania — Kemmerer was destined for glory on the next plane of competition.

But with those wins came added expectations.

David was a high-school state tournament place-finisher when he wrestled, but he never enjoyed any notable success at the collegiate level.

And there was a definite sense in which Zack had his dreams, as well as his father’s broken ones, weighing on his shoulders.

“Growing up, my dad was very…” Kemmerer paused. “He was tough on me. He expected a lot. He expected almost perfection.”

Zack was almost able to deliver just that in high school.

College, however, was a different story.

In his first two years, Kemmerer posted a 24-13 record while failing to break into the starting lineup or qualify for NCAAs.

All this did very little to lessen the pressure his father was putting on him: “He shows his support in a very different manner,.It’s very primitive, and a lot of people don’t understand it.”

But David doesn’t seem to have any reservations about the way he supports his son.

“Sometimes it helps him, sometimes he’s receptive to it. And sometimes he’s stubborn, sometimes maybe it puts pressure on him to succeed,” David said. “More times than not, I believe that I’ve helped him enough — seeing little things that he may not be seeing — to help him succeed.”

And last year, Zack indeed had success — posting 29 wins and a third-place finish at the EIWA tournament.

Still, he couldn’t deliver when it was most important, getting bounced from nationals in two bouts.

His All-America finish this past weekend proves that Kemmerer was finally ready to excel on the highest level, but he took a beating from wrestling elite competition for three days straight.

“I didn’t know it was gonna be this hard,” Kemmerer said, his knee wrapped tightly with ice, his face covered in welts and mat-burn. “Third day, you’re beat up, you’re hurt — my knee, my face, my body.”

In the end, though, it’s all worth it.

It’s worth a knee that feels like it is “in two pieces.” It’s worth a face that looks like it just got out of a one-sided confrontation with a meat grinder.

But most of all, it’s worth it to share the triumph with the one person who wanted it as much as Zack did.

“I called [my dad] up after I [made] All-American,” Kemmerer said. “He was in tears. He was like, ‘Best birthday present, best Christmas present. I couldn’t ask for anything else.’”

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