An Olympic silver medal, a Goodwill Games gold medal, four World Cup championships, six national championships and eight No.1 national rankings. This is just an introduction to the wrestling accomplishments of Penn coach Zeke Jones.
Jones has seen just as much, if not more, success as a coach than he had as a wrestler. As an Olympic freestyle coach, he has helped the U.S. wrestling team earn four gold, three silver and two bronze medals over the course of three different Olympics.
When Jones arrived on campus last year for the 2005-06 season, the wrestling team was enthusiastic about his arrival given his level of accomplishment. However, the lower-weight wrestlers were especially excited about his presence.
After all, Jones competed at 118 pounds at Arizona State and has seen great success coaching lower-weight wrestlers.
"I was real excited that we got a lightweight coach to work with us," 125-pound sophomore Andrew Gold said. "There's different body types, so it's nice to have a coach that can relate to you."
Jones insists that ideally all grapplers should wrestle the same way and that a coach's responsibility is to assist all weight classes. Yet in raw numbers, the Penn team has seen an especially marked improvement in the lower weightclasses since he has arrived.
The Quakers have won 252 bouts this season, and 127 of them have come in the 125-, 133-, 141- and 149-pound weightclasses. In fact, the Quakers have won 66.8 percent of all matches at these four weights, accounting for 50.4 percent of all the team's wins this year. There are 10 weightclasses in total.
The improvement at these weightclasses is probably not coincidental. The wrestlers are well aware of Jones' resume and say they are thus more likely to listen to his advice.
"When someone tells me something, I always take it with a grain of salt," 125-pound senior Mike Silengo said. "I'm not skeptical of coach Jones --- I pretty much trust whatever he says."
Gold believes this has dramatically improved Silengo's technique.
"Last year we wrestled together, we had some real tough bouts, we went back and forth, we both wrestled behind Mason Lenhard," Gold said. "This year he comes out and works with coach Jones a few times, he's ranked top-15 in the the country now looking to All-American."
Silengo is 15-5 and is currently ranked 18th in the nation.
Joining Silengo at the lighter end of the starting lineup this season is junior Matt Valenti (133) and freshmen Cesar Grajales (141) and Matt Dragon (149).
It could be said that Valenti, a returning All-American from two years ago, didn't need Jones' expertise that much. But it sure hasn't hurt, as the co-captain has jumped out to a 25-2 record and a No. 10 national ranking.
For Grajales and Dragon, the impact is more noticeable. They have both earned spots on the starting lineup and have been very productive there for the Quakers this season. Grajales is 20-8 while Dragon is 24-6, and the pair is looking promising for another three years at Penn.
Part of Jones' success with lower weights is his ability to demonstrate his thoughts on the mat.
"It is more transferrable because I can get onto the mat a lot easier with a lightweight than with a 280-pound heavyweight and demonstrate a move," he said.
While bigger wrestlers can benefit from Jones' technique, he concedes that different weights frequently wrestle differently at the collegiate level.
"Inevitably because of the body makeup, you will find bigger weightclasses wrestle more with position and power, where they just hold," he said. "They are like two bulls."
"You tend to find lightweights use speed -- they scramble, they to do more things wrestling."
The success at the lower weights should certainly continue under the guidance of Jones. Gold noted that having a great lightweight wrestler like Jones as a coach is an incredible recruiting tool for future lightweights.
