South Fayette grad Carr one of best at 141
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Mike Carr was born into a wrestling family. His father, Mike Sr., coached him in the South Fayette youth wrestling program, and his older brothers, Nick and Seth, were standout wrestlers for the Lions. Nick won WPIAL and PIAA titles and Seth was aWPIAL and PIAA finalist.
The youngest of the Carr boys would eventually go on to become the family’s most decorated high school wrestler. Mike won three WPIAL titles and back-to-back PIAA titles as a junior and senior, going 89-0 over the final two years of his high school career.
TheCarr family made Hershey an annual winter destination with nine consecutive trips to the PIAA tournament, starting with Nick in 2008 and ending with Mike’s final appearance in 2016. Watching his brothers compete for state titles when he was in elementary school and middle school were indelible moments for young Mike, but his first exposure to wrestling was just as impactfulin his development.
South Fayette youth wrestling has a mentoring program where older wrestlers come back to offer their expertiseto toddlers just getting started in the sport. Mike’s “big helper” was Mark McKnight, who won a PIAA title for South Fayette in 2003 and later was an All-Americanat Penn State.
“Ican remember watching Mark wrestle on PCN at the state tournament,” Mike said.“I was 3 or 4 years old.”
Allof Mike’s mentors went on to wrestle in college. Nick started at Kent State and finished at Washington & Jefferson, where he won a Division III national championship. Seth wrestled at Clarion. Now Mike is excelling at the University of Illinois, where he has quickly become one of the top 141-pound wrestlers inthe country.
Carr is ranked 11th in the nation by FloWrestling. He has beaten three ranked opponents in the past few weeks — Chad Red of Nebraska, Nate Limmex of Purdue and Cole Weaver of Indiana — to soar to the precipice of a top10 ranking. Only two other freshmen are ranked ahead ofhim.
Illinois coach Jim Heffernan thought Carr might burst onto the scene last year, but an injury during training in the summer of 2016 ended his season before it began. Carr tore the PCL and LCL in his right knee and took a redshirt.
“I think he’s just now starting to catch up to where we thought he would be,” Heffernansaid.
Carr will carry an eightmatchwinning streak into the Big Ten championships next month, but his freshman season didn’t start the way he envisioned. His first college match was against Missouri’s Jaydin Eierman, who will be among the favorites to win an NCAA title next month. Carr lost that first match by a 20-11 majordecision.
Carr took three more losses in the next few weeks, but he has gained national recognitionfor his performances over the past month and should be among the top four seeds in the 141-pound weight class at the conference championships, which begin March 3 at MichiganState.
“For me, it was just getting over the nerves I had early on,” Carr said. “My first match was outdoors at Missouri, the next one was at Fresno State before 6,000 people when they brought back their wrestling program and the next one was at CarverHawkeye Arena at Iowa, which was packed to the gills. I didn’t wrestle my best because I was nervous. I was so nervous it was to the point whereI was freezing up.”
Carr credits his coaches for getting him in the right mindset. One of Illinois assistant coaches is Jeremy Hunter, who starred at McGuffey in the 1990s and later was an All-American at Penn State. After some conversations with Hunter about the right way to channel his emotions, Carr finally settled in and began wrestling to his potential.
“Once I beat Chad Red, who was ranked eighth at the time, that gave me some confidence,” Carr said. “I was like, ‘OK, it’s just wrestling now.’”
Carr is balancing his wrestling career with a difficult academic course load. His goal is to go to medical school with his sights set on a career as a gastroenterologist, urologist or pediatrician.
But before he becomes Dr. Carr, there is the matter of winning more wrestling matches, with preferably several more in his first college postseason. After the Big Ten championships in the first week of March, the NCAA championships are the followingweekend in Cleveland.
“Mike understands our expectations for him are really high,” Hefernan said. “And he has high expectations for himself. He was probably caught up in those expectations early in the season. But the way he trains, the way he lives his life, his love for the sport, we are expecting a lot outof him.
“That’s what the next three weeks are all about [before the Big Ten and NCAA championships]. We want our guys to get better in some way every week. For Mike, maybe it’s controlling his emotions and channeling them in the right way. I know one thing ... with Mike, we’re always going to gethis best effort.”