SI's Male College Athlete of the Year: Kyle Dake

Link.

“The longest writing project of Kyle Dake’s Cornell career spanned 144 pages and exhausted two ballpoint ink cartridges, but it earned him zero credits toward his status as an academic All-America. This was a voluntary thesis, on the subject of making wrestling history. It took 3 1/2 years to complete and consisted mostly of variations on one line, handwritten 2,978 times in a spiral notebook with the university logo embossed in gold on its red cover. Once in the morning and once at night as a freshman Dake wrote, 2010 141 lb DI NCAA National Champion. Twice in the morning and twice at night as a sophomore he wrote, 2011 149 lb DI National Champion. Thrice in the morning and thrice at night as a junior he wrote, 2012 157 lb DI National Champion. Four times in the morning and four times at night as a senior he wrote, 2013 165 lb DI National Champion. Early on March 23, the day Dake would become the first wrestler to have won an NCAA title in four weight classes, he sat in a Des Moines hotel room and filled four full pages of the notebook with his final affirmation. He didn’t want to risk losing sight of his goal, and he had nothing better to do.”

This dude is truly phenomenal. Right up there with greatest of all time in the sport. Only one other guy can match him, and that would be Cael Sanderson, who went 4 straight years as an undefeated national champion. Dake has 4 losses, all of which were to guys not of his caliber, and in his freshman and sophomore years. Still, truly an outstanding individual and I predict he will win olympic gold one day.

That assumes that (a) there’s going to be wrestling in the Olympics after 2016, and (b) that Dake can adjust to the “five matches in one day” system that the Olympics uses.

Still, I can’t think of anyone who deserves it more. The NCAA even changed the championship tournament so that his final match would be last (in the past, championship matches were always in weight class order from lightest to heaviest).

There’s going to be Olympics. The push for it is stronger than ever. Wrestling is getting more media publicity than it ever has.

I don’t think he should have trouble adjusting to the 5 matches in a day. None of the other wrestlers do.

Honestly, the biggest thing I see standing in his way would be Jordan Burroughs, who is simply phenomenal at this point. I don’t think Dake could beat Burroughs, but if he went a different weight class he would be in good shape.