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Freshman Heads To NCAAs With Ultimate Inspiration In His Corner
March 17, 2010 | Wrestling
He was fumbling over a word, and it was clearly bothering him. The saying was on the tip of his tongue, but it wasn't coming out.
Garrett Frey sat on a chair in front of a Princeton Wrestling banner, an hour before he practiced for the 2010 NCAA Championships. That alone is a feat, as no Princeton wrestler had reached nationals since 2005.
But he wasn't thinking about that, nor was he thinking about becoming the first EIWA finalist since Greg Parker in 2003 – a feat he achieved two weeks earlier.
Instead, he was thinking about a saying. He probably could have paraphrased it, but that just wouldn't do. He ultimately remembered that he typed it into his phone, so he pulled it out, scrolled through his applications until he finally found it.
“The key to life is to find the balance between having the softness to be understanding to others,” Frey said, “while having the mental toughness to expect more from yourself.”
The words in the quote are meaningful enough, but it was the process of saying them correctly that showed just what they meant to him. And it isn't hard to understand why.
He learned them from his brother, Adam Frey.
Garrett and Adam, the only sons of Jerry and Cynthia Frey, were both highly recruited wrestlers from prep powerhouse Blair Academy.
Adam was a member of four national championship teams and was an individual national champion as a senior. He was a two-time national prep champion, as well as a five-time freestyle and Greco-Roman All-America. In 2005, he was a freestyle and Greco-Roman national champion.
As the nation's top-ranked recruit at 130 pounds, he chose to attend Cornell University and compete for its nationally ranked wrestling program.
“He was a superstar in high school and was way, way better than me,” said Garrett, who forged quite a successful high school career of his own. “Even as a freshman in college, he was way better than me. He was 26-2 and ranked third going into the NCAA tournament. He was that good.”
On March 25, 2008, Frey was in a bad car accident at Cornell that left him in the hospital. The doctor marveled at his ability to walk away from an accident that could, possibly even should, have left him dead.
Unfortunately, the doctor followed that up later with the terrible results of his CAT scan. While there were no long-term issues from head and neck injuries, doctors discovered three tumors on his lung, liver and between his kidneys.
Over the next 21 months, Frey fought a courageous battle against cancer. He set up a blog, began his own radio show and created his own cancer research foundation. He spoke of his illness to his parents, minister and friends.
With Garrett, he talked about anything else.
“We never talked about it once,” the younger brother said. “I guess it was kind of better that way. I didn't really want to think of him as a cancer patient. I wanted to think of him as my big brother.”
* * *
Like his big brother, Garrett decided to pursue an Ivy League education. He was heavily recruited, and not just because of his big brother's success.
In his last three years at Blair, the same prep school that once produced Princeton head coach Chris Ayres, Frey went 101-14 and placed in the top three at nationals each year. Twice, he reached the finals, and twice he helped his squad to a team national title.
Winning was a given at Blair. And while more successful Ivy programs like Penn and Columbia pursued him, Frey chose a school were winning was the furthest thing from a given.
“This is where I felt most comfortable,” Frey said. “I knew some background of Coach Ayres from my high school coach. My coach was a big fan of this program. I started to look at it and fell in love with the place.”
Frey, an all-academic team selection at Blair, appreciated the fact that wrestling would be part of his overall experience at Princeton, but it wouldn't be the entire experience. And, while his competitive drive helped him to Princeton's best freshman season in more than a decade, the fact that he could help build a winner instead of continue a winning program was a big draw.
“It's exciting to be the underdog for once, and just be around some guys where it's not all about wrestling,” Frey said. “There is more to life than that.”
Make no mistake, though. He loves to wrestle.
And he's really good.
He made quick headlines at the season-opening Binghamton Open by winning the 125-pound bracket. It was the kind of success unseen at Princeton in years, but it actually proved to be more hindrance than help for the freshman.
“His best performance of the year was his first one, in Binghamton,” said Ayres, who has guided Princeton from zero wins in 2007-08 to nine wins two seasons later. “He was very free in his wrestling. He wasn't restricting himself, he was just going out there and making it happen. Throughout the season, he began to tighten up, like he was just trying to survive for the win.
“I think after he won Binghamton, he thought he had arrived,” Ayres added. “It was like he was defending something, instead of going after something. He got cautious.”
Even with the cautious nature, Frey won 24 of 30 matches, easily the most on the team. He earned All-Ivy honors and helped Princeton to its first winning Ivy season since 1987.
But Ayres knew he needed to do more at EIWAs. So the week before the conference meet, Ayres sat Frey down and asked him what he had achieved in college wrestling.
“Nothing,” Frey said.
“That's right, nothing,” Ayres responded. “So you have nothing to defend. You still have a lot to prove.”
His chance to prove something would come at EIWAs. The top four at his weight class were guaranteed spots at NCAAs, and Frey was seeded seventh. Outside of Cornell's top-seeded Troy Nickerson, the reigning NCAA champion, the field was pretty open. To reach the finals, Frey knew he would have to beat two men seeded higher.
It was a hint of adversity for a young man who had dealt with far worse already.
* * *
After dual matches against Bucknell and Drexel on Dec. 18, Frey's mother came up to Garrett and said she had to leave immediately. Adam was in the ICU after having surgery to remove fluid from his heart.
When Garrett came home, he got a sense of just how bad his brother's condition was. He visited him in the hospital room, but Adam was hooked up to a ventilator and couldn't speak. He nodded and pointed to letters or words in order to communicate.
“All of the sudden, he just started shaking his head,” Garrett said. “My mother asked what was wrong, and he just kept shaking his head. He pointed at me and pointed at the door. My mom asked if he wanted us to leave, and he said no. She asked if he wanted me to leave, and he said yes.
“He didn't want me to see him like that,” Garrett said. “That's how it was like the whole two years. He didn't want me to see him like that. And I didn't want to see him like that.”
At 2:21 p.m. on Dec. 26, with Garrett and his parents by his side, Adam's valiant battle ended.
His Princeton teammates, along with Adam's Cornell teammates, joined Garrett for the memorial services in Pittsburgh. When he returned, he just asked his teammates to not treat him any differently. He needed normalcy. He needed to be one of the guys again.
In return, he never stopped remembering his brother for who Adam was: one of the toughest young men you could ever meet.
“Even when he was doing chemo, he would still come into the room and just crush me,” Garrett said. “He would get tired quick, but he would still… it was unbelievable what he would do and just how tough he was.”
* * *
When you deal with that, facing a No. 2 seed at the EIWA Championships is no longer all that daunting.
Actually, it wouldn't turn out to be a terribly long match, either.
Frey opened the 2010 conference championship meet against second-seed Joe Langel of Rutgers. Frey, who heeded Ayres words and wrestled without the burden of expectations, scored a quick takedown to open a 2-0 lead. After an escape, he scored another takedown and put Langel on his back.
For a moment, Langel escaped the fall. Seconds later, he found his head scissored and his shoulders pinned (which can be seen in the linked video above). To Ayres, it was the kind of moment that epitomized Frey's early collegiate success.
“Most high schoolers come in with technique, but not the feel for college wrestling,” Ayres said. “Frey came with that feel. He gets on the mat and he figures it out. In time, we'll fine tune some techniques, but you can't just coach that feel.”
To guarantee a spot in both the EIWA finals and the NCAA championships, Frey needed to avenge his first collegiate loss. In the finals of the 2009 Keystone Open, Frey fell 5-3 to Jasen Borschoff of American University. The third seed held a significant edge in riding time four minutes into a scoreless match.
Then Frey took over.
Following an escape, Borschoff was called for an illegal hold during a scramble; seconds later, Frey had a deep single and worked it until he scored the takedown. What was once a scoreless match was now a 4-0 Frey advantage.
Borschoff cut the deficit to 4-1 with an escape, but Frey took advantage of another scramble to score a third-period takedown and secure a 6-1 victory.
“The way I was taught to wrestle was to think outside the box,” Frey said. “It's a feel thing. It's a lot like a puzzle. You have to figure out which pieces go where. That win felt great.”
Frey was pinned by Nickerson in the third period of their Sunday final. The Princeton freshman escaped one pin attempt in the first and stayed aggressive, but a third-period attempt was caught and used by the experienced Cornell senior.
Frey felt like he took plenty away from his match with Nickerson, who wrestles a similar style to Frey, specifically the way he rides legs. Regardless of that outcome, Frey impressed more than just the Orange and Black faithful in the Lehigh stands.
“Garrett did an amazing job just to get to the finals of this very difficult tournament," Cornell coach Rob Koll said in an interview with InterMat. "He should be very proud of that.”
Nickerson will enter the NCAA championships as the second seed at 125 pounds. The top seed will be Indiana's Angel Escobedo, who went 33-0 on the season. Care to guess who Escobedo drew in the first round?
“I had a night class with a few buddies, and we were there a little early,” Frey said. “One of them said the brackets came out, so I looked to see who I got. I just started to laugh. It's the same thing as wrestling Nickerson. You just go out there and wrestle.”
The NCAA championships begin Thursday at 11 a.m. at the Qwest Center in Omaha. Frey will be a long shot to earn All-America status, but Princeton was a far longer shot to win nine matches this season and send a freshman to the EIWA finals.
Make no mistake on these two things.
First, Frey will wrestle free, the way his coach wants.
Second, Frey will wrestle tough, the way his brother would expect.
And whether it is fighting for every point on the mat or correctly reciting a quote about winning in life, Garrett is not about to disappoint his big brother.
by Craig Sachson
• to learn more about The Adam Frey Foundation, please visit here
• read InterMat's feature on Garrett Frey here