Evans’ path to gold medal a long, winding road
Waynesburg University heavyweight wrestler Jake Evans looks for back-to-back NCAA Division III titles this weekend.
Courtesy John Yates
Dave Miller, ADM Photography
Jake Evans of Waynesburg has Lane Evans of Wartburg on his back in the heavyweight semifinals of the NCAA Division III Wrestling Championships in Cleveland. Evans won an 8-6 decision.
Jake Evans’ wrestling career has been made up mostly of pins and wins.
The last one made him an NCAA Division III champion.
Evans bore in on a double leg takedown and decisioned James Bethel of Oneonta State University in New York, 10-5, in the heavyweight finals at Cleveland’s Public Auditorium last weekend.
Evans’ four victories in this event made him the first NCAA Division III wrestling champion in Waynesburg University’s history.
“I would say it still hasn’t sunk in,” said Evans.
The path Evans chose to the top of the medals stand was not the norm for most wrestlers. Evans is 29-years old and still has another year of eligibility remaining.
He graduated from Elizabeth Forward in 2006 with a modest resume, a third-place finish in the section tournament at 189 pounds. While he worked out frequently, he didn’t wrestle much in any type of tournament.
“I really don’t feel any signs of aging,” Evans said. “It helped with my maturity. And with my work ethic.”
The junior arrived at Waynesburg University three years ago after a stop at community college. Prior to that, Evans didn’t do much but work out after graduating from Elizabeth Forward High School.
“I definitely knew I wanted to do college wrestling some day, but I didn’t think it would take this long,” Evans said. “My parents were very patient with me. I just worked out every day and didn’t have a plan.”
Once Evans finally decided he wanted to attend college and resurrect his wrestling career, he began to look at colleges and liked what he saw at Waynesburg. That was 136 wins and 68 pins ago.
“It was close,” Evans said. “They have a really nice wrestling room and I thought the coaches were nice. That’s why I went there.”
But it was hard to gauge Evans’ interest because he was so quiet.
“I don’t think he said more than two words,” said Yellow Jackets’ head coach Ron Headlee. “But his dad called me back and said, ‘Jake liked what he saw. He liked the room, the campus and thinks he’d like to go there.’ That’s how it all began.”
An interesting side story was this was not the first time the two met.
“He told me, ‘You know I lost first round to Corbin Semple at WPIALs,’ said Headlee, who helped coach Semple at Waynesburg High School before taking the job at the university. “I would have been coaching against him then.”
Headlee saw potential and brought him in mainly as a workout partner for another heavyweight in Greg Kumer. Headlee was surprised when Evans beat Kumer in eliminations.
“I just grew into heavyweight,” Evans said. “I didn’t want to cut down to 197. I would have lost my speed advantage. I weighed in at 233 for nationals and that was my lightest weigh-in all season. I think it gave me a speed advantage.”
Evans received the fifth seed in the weight class in Cleveland and began the tournament with a 6-4 decision over D’Andre Johnson of Wisconsin-Plattville. He followed it with a 3-1 decision over Isaiah Bellamy of Wesleyan, Conn., in the quarterfinals.
He beat his namesake, top-seeded Lance Evans of Wartburg, 8-6, in the semifinals.
“He picks things up really quick,” Headlee said of the oldest wrestler he’s coached. “He doesn’t get intimidated like a lot of high school kids and early college kids, who look at the bracket and are still looking at names they wrestle. They get really nervous. I don’t think it bothers him that much. Sometimes it does but most of the time he’s pretty good about that.”
Evans and Nick Carr of Washington & Jefferson, who won the 157-pound title at the 2015 Division III Championships in Hershey, are the only two national champions from the Presidents’ Athletic Conference since 1983.
“It was a lot of fun watching him,” said Headlee, who has coached nine All-Americans and now one national champion.
“This is what you work for, what you preach to your guys. When you see someone work so hard, and see someone accomplish this, it’s really great to see.”