Coach Brendan Byrne talks about his transition from athlete to coach.

I am sure most of Maryland alumni, fans, and supporters know by now that I have joined the coaching staff as the volunteer assistant.  I am going into my ninth week in the position and the excitement continues to build for the first week of competition. In some ways I don’t know what has been more exciting, competing or the anticipation of seeing how the guys I am coaching compete.  Maryland Wrestling has a chance to do something really special this season and I am glad I got the opportunity to stick around and be part of it.

It’s kind of funny that I say I am glad I get to stick around and be part of it because I would have been part of it had I chose to come back for my fifth year.  I have had plenty of questions about the situation of choosing to graduate and move on to coaching opposed to staying and competing.  The question people probably ask the most is why didn’t I give it one more shot and try and win that National title or become an All-American.  I do think about it once in a while but every time I come to the same conclusion that I have made the right decision.  Everyone would love to go out as a National Champion or an All-American, but I think what reassures me of my decision is that I didn’t fail to accomplish my goals because of lack of effort or hard work.  I put everything I had into accomplishing my goals and I fell a little short.  I can live with that because I have received so much more then an All-American trophy during my time as a student athlete at the University of Maryland.  Developing these relationships with different athletes, friends, fans, supporters, professors and coaches has helped shape me into the person I am today.  Without these experiences I would not be able to give back to the younger guys I am trying to help achieve their goals.  I think this is what makes me realize that I made the right decision, although it would have been nice to go out as an All-American or National Champion haha.  That is enough talk my choice to wrestle or coach.

A lot of people probably think that the transition from athlete to coach is really easy.  For most cases this is probably true if you leave and coach at another school.  It is not such an easy transition when you are coming back to coach guys who you were on the team with.  It is easy to relate to things that guys on the team are going through because I was in their situation less then a year ago.  On the other hand you do run into some awkward situations in the beginning and it is hard to deal with.  There are guys on the team that I have lived with, trained with, and we have been through some difficult situations together.  With that being the case it was pretty hard at points to tell them what they should be doing or telling them something is wrong when I was by their teammate six months ago.  What made it difficult I think in these situations is that I used to maybe not agree with certain workouts as an athlete and they remember this.  But when you see it from the other side, the coaches side you see it looks a lot different.  For me to be telling them to stop complaining or to do something that I may have complained about was hard for them to accept.  The other situation would be trying to tell a guy who has been an All-American what they need to do to become a National Champion or to be more success then they were last season.  You get looked at like you are crazy.  I am sure they wanted to say who is the one with the All-American plaque here, not you.

After the first couple weeks that changed, I began to become comfortable with this situation.  The guys on the team I think started to respect me as a coach as well as a friend and previous teammate. At the same time I think they realized that as much as I may have complained or not liked a workout I still got it done and worked my butt off the majority of the time.  Even though I may not have made All-American honors I still know wrestling, and I still can help them become a National Champion or get onto that podium.  They realize that I only want the best for them and if they succeed we all succeed as a team.  Before taking this position Kerry told me this would be something that I would encounter as a first year coach coming back to my Alma Mater.  My response to him is that I am always up for a challenge and I think I can take it on.   After getting by this hurdle it has been pretty smooth sailing but initially it was an obstacle that was somewhat hard to overcome.

It is a pretty nice thing to be able to wake up every morning and look forward to going to work, and this is truly how I feel.  Dan Gable said “Once you have wrestled everything else in life is easy” well in some ways I think this is true. I no longer have to worry about making weight, or putting pressure on myself to win or not let the team down.  Now my job is to do everything I possibly can so these 40 guys on the team can reach their maximum potential.  I still get the pleasure to wrestle everyday but I get to be creative and try to figure out new ways to beat the best guys in the country.  Like I said earlier I have been waking up every morning with a great feeling, we are about a week and a half away from our first competition.  March is still five months away but it will be here before you know it.  I am going to do everything I can to make sure these guys are ready and get the results we are looking for.  I was a wrestler on the team that finished tenth in the nation a year ago, but my goal is to be a coach on the team that will win the National Championship in 2010.  A wiser man then myself once said “Train hard and smart” if we do this all year we will accomplish our goals and come home to College Park with that National Championship Trophy.

Thanks for your time,

Brendan Byrne

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 22nd, 2009 at 3:08 pm and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.