Blue White Illustrated

A recap of Mason Manville's wrestling accomplishments be- fore attending Penn State is at once massive and remarkable. And his lofty goals after Penn State are to compete in the U.S. Army's World Class Athlete Program. But right now, in the midst of an anticipated five-year stay at Penn State, he's a bit busier off the mat than he is on it. Manville, an accom- plished Greco-Roman and freestyle wrestler with international ex- perience, is part of a talented Nittany Lion squad that has more national champions in its lineup than any other team in the country. And his potential weight classes of choice – 165 and 174 – are manned by juniors Vincenzo Joseph (champion in 2017 and '18) and Mark Hall (champion in 2017, runner-up in '18). Barring some sort of injury or misfor- tune, that doesn't bode well for Manville being the man at either of those weights. Like most wrestlers, though, he gets it. "You just keep a good mindset and just realize everyone is working toward the same goals," said Manville, a Virginia na- tive who graduated from Wyoming Sem- inary, a preparatory school in Kingston, Pa., where he won two prep national ti- tles. "It's just the expectation of the room. You're expected to have a champi- onship mindset." When he does become a part of the lineup, possibly during the 2020-21 sea- son as a redshirt junior, no one will ever say he hasn't faced top-caliber competi- tion. "It's great," he said. "It's really enjoy- able to wrestle against really good guys really hard every single day, so it's a lot of fun." It's no easy task for any competitor to sit, and the Penn State coaching staff is well aware of that. Manville's situation is an anomaly because most other weight classes on the Nittany Lions' roster are not nearly as talent-laden, but it's some- thing about which the staff must be mindful. "I think that's one of the main respon- sibilities of our coaching staff, to make sure the guys continue to make progress and they're enjoying their time and let them know that they're working toward something," Penn State associate head coach Cody Sanderson said. "And if they're doing things right, good things happen for them. "You can't always say when or where that will be, but when guys come in here and they train their tails off, good things eventually happen for them." Manville's good with that. It's not as if wrestling is the only thing in his life. He has a double major in history and philos- ophy, and he's a member of the campus Army ROTC program, which prepares young adults to become officers in the U.S. military. "After my service, I plan on either going into politics or teaching," Manville said. "There are some conflicts of schedules, but I work it out; I talk to both sides often. I have class [ROTC] two times a week and lab once a week and physical training three times a week and extracurricular activities like field training and doing odd jobs for the Army." That's on top of the double major out- side the wrestling room and the double arm bars inside, and it doesn't include planned entries into freestyle and Greco-Roman tournaments. He picked up those two styles while in second grade, he said, and stuck with it and en- joyed it. "I just thought that it was the most straightforward way of getting on a World team and an Olympic team and I liked the challenge and I wanted to compete in that," Manville said. He was a Cadet World Freestyle cham- pion in 2014 and was a bronze medalist at the Grand Prix Zagreb Open in Croatia in 2015. He was also second in the 2015 ASICS Greco Junior Nationals in 2015, a year after he won them in 2014. Toss in a first-place showing at the FILA Greco Nationals and a first at the Cadet Greco Pan-Ams, along with other titles, and it seems as though that thought process worked out well for Manville. His next big Greco-Roman tourney is the national event at Las Vegas in April, but he hopes to compete in at least a cou- ple of freestyle tournaments prior to that. And while it's a few years off for the sophomore with redshirt freshman eligi- bility, his immediate future is already planned after graduation. "It depends on what MOS [military oc- cupational specialty] I earn during my fall semester of my senior year," Manville said. "I have to serve four years after I graduate. It could entail any job that the Army has. "I plan on applying for the Army World Class Athlete Program [which Penn State hosts], the Olympic sports teams for a couple of years, and go on and do my ac- tual job in the Army." Until then, wrestling with champions and dreaming of becoming one will have to do. "I have been competing – not as much folkstyle as I've been wanting to, but I've been doing Greco, and every day in the wrestling room is a fun time and I'm en- joying the process," Manville said. ■ W R E S T L I N G WAITING GAME Patience is a virtue as Mason Manville awaits his opportunity to join a stacked PSU lineup | MANVILLE

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