Taylor's first head coaching job to come at one of the country's most historic and prestigious wrestling programs.
David Taylor, shown after winning his Olympic gold medal in 2021, has been hired as Oklahoma State's head wrestling coach. It would be difficult to think the conversation that Cael Sanderson generated when he announced in 2009 that he would be leaving his Iowa State job to become the head coach at Penn State wasn’t among the most — if not the most — jaw-dropping, head-turning news ever in college wrestling.
It’s the most high-profile hire since Penn State’s bold move in 2009 and certainly one that few, if any, saw coming. It’s a current wrestling legend replacing a former wrestling and current coaching legend in John Smith, who announced his retirement on April 11. Include enough verbs and adjectives and their combined accomplishments could fill a 300-page novel.
What comes off as most surprising is that Taylor’s only coaching experience is with wrestlers aged 6-18. Although he has stated that coaching collegiately was in his future, he’s coming in stone cold to a collegiate program that dominated the sport long before Iowa prior to 2000 and Penn State for the past 14 seasons.
Taylor also could keep some Oklahoma State ties but If he wants to go slightly younger, he could reach out to Mark Hall at Penn and Vincenzo Joseph and Frank Molinaro at Arizona State, each former Penn State NCAA champions. His brother-in-law, Jimmy Kennedy, an assistant coach under Sanderson at Penn State, also would be an option, among many others with Penn State roots or not.
Coaches will be able to contact next season’s rising juniors beginning July 1 and the Class of 2026 is incredibly talented, especially on the East Coast. The ripple effect the Taylor move could have is multi-faceted. It could range from little movement, with wrestlers staying put and Taylor concentrating on Midwest talent and an occasional Eastern star, to him being a national recruiter and concentrating on talent-rich states such as Pennsylvania, Ohio and the New York/New Jersey area.
Taylor has wrestled more on the international scene than Smith, winning of 152 of 173 bouts including Olympic gold in 2021 and three World titles. The odds-on favorite to repeat as gold medalist in 2024, Taylor’s bid to do that came to a sudden halt in the USA Olympic Team Trials, losing 3-1 and 4-1 to NLWC teammate and four-time Penn State NCAA champion Aaron Brooks.
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