Penn's own Andrei 'the giant'

"It was one of the greatest comebacks in the history of Penn wrestling." -- Penn coach Roger Reina The date: March 9, 1997. The place: the EIWA Championships. As the referee raised the right hand of Penn sophomore Andrei Rodzianko, the Palestra crowd erupted. In front of a hometown crowd, Rodzianko -- out since January 5 with a rib injury -- had achieved the impossible, pinning Syracuse's Doug Joseph in overtime to claim the 190-pound title. Two months earlier, Rodzianko lifted North Carolina's Scott Stay off the mat in a Penn-UNC dual meet. A victory would have secured the Quakers' first-ever win over the Tar Heels. But as Rodzianko slammed Stay to the mat, he suffered an excruciating cartilage tear in his ribcage. With the injury default, the Quakers lost the match, 24-15. After two months out of action, Rodzianko made his return just in time for the EIWAs. The No. 5 seed, Rodzianko reached the semifinals, where he defeated Cornell's Carlos Eason -- the fourth-ranked wrestler in the country -- in double overtime. Skeptics wondered whether Rodzianko had emptied his tank in his 8-7 win over Eason. But even after two months of rehabilitation and two full days of intense competition, Rodzianko knew he could summon all his remaining energy for the championship match. In the final, Rodzianko and his opponent, Doug Joseph of Syracuse, wrestled to a tie in regulation. Sudden-death overtime awaited the exhausted wrestlers. The winner would earn the coveted trip to the NCAAs. Rodzianko did not back down. He pinned Joseph 38 seconds into the overtime to claim the championship. Today, almost two years after the win over Joseph, Rodzianko's EIWA title has become the stuff of legend. "On the first day of practice all I knew about Andrei was that he cracked his ribs the previous year and came back to win EIWAs," Penn sophomore Yoshi Nakamura said. But Nakamura soon found out what his teammates already knew -- that Andrei Rodzianko is more than just a wrestler. Much more. He plays the violin and the piano. He was recruited in three sports -- lacrosse and football, as well as wrestling. And then there's academics. His friends and teammates have called Rodzianko, a senior in the Management and Technology program, everything from "brilliant" to "a genius." "I'll take classes with him," teammate Brett Matter said, "and the professor will ask a question. I'm sitting next to Andrei and I hear him whisper an answer under his breath -- he won't raise his hand -- and what's amazing is he's always right." Not everything has come so easy to Rodzianko, however. Proud of his Russian heritage, he sometimes found it difficult as a child to deal with the misconceptions and stereotypes that the other kids believed about Russians. "Being Russian is something that's important to our family," Rodzianko said. "But here it was kind of misunderstood. People assumed we were Communists just because we were Russian." Rodzianko himself grew up in a suburb of New York, but his grandparents and great-grandparents went through some difficult times in their exodus from Russia. His family had been Whites, those displaced by the "Red" Bolsheviks after the Russian Revolution. Forced to leave by the new regime, they ended up in the United States after brief sojourns in Germany and the former Yugoslavia. Motivated by his heritage, Rodzianko chose to study abroad in Moscow last semester. He was far from alone in Russia. "My family and my oldest sister are currently in Russia," Rodzianko explained. "But I also wanted to improve my language skills and see how Russian history is taught differently there than here." Rodzianko returned from Russia just eight days before one of this season's biggest tournaments -- the Midlands Open at Northwestern. Most people questioned how well the senior tri-captain would wrestle after more than nine months away from wrestling. Most people not wearing Red and Blue, that is. "I was working out with the guy Andrei met in the finals [Zack Thompson] over the break and he wanted to know how Andrei would be affected," Penn senior heavyweight Bandele Adeniyi-Bada said. "I told him that the layoff wouldn't hurt him. He's so mentally tough he can will pretty much anything. That kid [Thompson] knew he wouldn't have an easy match." And he didn't. Rodzianko defeated Thompson 3-2 in the finals to become the first Quaker ever to win a Midlands championship. He showed no letdown three days later in the Aloha Classic either, dominating his three opponents. Currently undefeated, Rodzianko is ranked first in the EIWA and fourth in the nation. Rodzianko has not achieved wrestling stardom in the usual way, however. While fellow tri-captains Matter and Mark Piotrowsky have been around wrestling all their lives, Rodzianko started at age 11. Matter's father is a two-time NCAA champion and Piotrowsky's dad is a wrestling coach in New Jersey; Rodzianko's dad wrestled one year in high school. And while Matter and Piotrowsky were nationally known recruits, Rodzianko had only qualified for one state tournament before coming to Penn. "[Rodzianko] was underrated coming out of high school," Reina said. "Unlike a lot of highly recruited wrestlers, he didn't spend all year wrestling. He played in different sports and participated in a lot of activities." Free to concentrate solely on wrestling while at Penn, Rodzianko has transformed himself into a potential All-American. Want evidence of just how much Rodzianko has improved? Take Rodzianko's quarterfinal match at Midlands this season against Nick Muzashivili. The Michigan State star had twice beaten Rodzianko in high school -- including the state finals in 1995 -- but the Penn 197-pounder finally got the better of him last December. Though Rodzianko will be working as an investment banker by the end of the year, his wrestling career is not over yet. Rodzianko gets a chance for his second EIWA title on March 6-7 at West Point. Last year, Rodzianko lost in the EIWA finals -- to another Cornell wrestler, Joel Holman -- but in typical Rodzianko fashion, avenged the loss with a 2-1 win over Holman at the NCAAs two weeks later. A mere six weeks before EIWAs, Rodzianko -- gunning for his third NCAA appearance -- is favored to capture another individual championship. Once again, Rodzianko could be facing a Cornell wrestler in the finals, as the Big Red's Bob Greenleaf is the 2nd-ranked 197-pounder in the EIWAs. Only this time, the Quakers tri-captain won't need a comeback to go out with a bang.