The Wolfpacker: An Independent Magazine Covering NC State Sports
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40 ■ THE WOLFPACKER BY NOAH FLEISCHMAN t sits on a wooden shelf just above eye level on the wall next to a closet inside his Raleigh apartment. He worked all his wrestling life, in- cluding redshirting his freshman year at NC State, to earn it, but the brown and gold NCAA champion- ship trophy isn't something for him to admire each day. Instead, it's there — not too far from a trio of larger trophies from the 2025 Wolfie Awards, where he won the H.C. Kennett, Rookie of the Year and Indi- vidual Performance of the Year honors — to keep Vince Robinson humble. Robinson, who claimed the 125-pound national championship last spring, walks in and out of his closet without paying too much attention to the crown jewel of his wrestling career to this point. But as he sits at his desk, he'll sneak a look at the trophy every once in a while. "It's like, 'Oh, I did that,'" Robin- son said with a grin. "That snaps me back into reality. I'm not that little boy that I was last year before I got on the scene." At this time a year ago, Robinson appeared to be the Wolfpack's second option at 125 pounds after losing a pre- season wrestle-off to Jakob Camacho. By contrast, going into the 2025-26 campaign, he's the nation's top wres- tler in his weight class. Ranked No. 1 by both FloWrestling and InterMat, the defending champion knows everyone in the nation is looking to knock him off his pedestal. Robinson's response to his dramati- cally changed circumstances has been to keep doing what worked last season. He still has a chip on his shoulder, act- ing as if he didn't finish on top of the podium in Philadelphia after winning five matches in three days. The redshirt sophomore enters the new campaign with the goal of repeating as national champion. Yet if you were to talk to him, you would likely never suspect that he was the top-ranked collegiate wrestler at 125 pounds. "A ranking is a number next to a name," Robinson said. "It goes up and down. I just want to keep stability. … You've got to prove that you're No. 1." No Surprises While Robinson is targeting another deep run through the postseason, he's still got four months of regular-season action ahead of him first. In some re- spects, it's uncharted territory for the returning champ. Robinson never won an Illinois state title during his high school career at Homewood-Flossmoor in suburban Chicago, settling instead for a pair of second-place finishes and a third-place showing. Now, he's going to get every challenger's best effort each night. He's no longer an under-the-radar wrestler like he was a year ago. Every competitor wants to knock off the top dog, and do- ing so against the defending title holder would be that much sweeter for his op- ponents. NC State coach Pat Popolizio said Robinson stands to benefit from his added notoriety in that he'll feel as if he's wrestling in the postseason nearly every night. He'll be seeing each op- ponent's best moves, and that familiar- ity could pay dividends in March when Robinson will be looking to repeat at the NCAA Tournament. "You've got to stay hungry and ag- gressive and know that you're going to get everyone's best effort," Popo- lizio said. "I think that's going to make him that much better. … That makes you better as a competitor, and you'll be more ready toward the end of the year because you saw everyone's best. You're not going to get to nationals and be surprised." Chasing History While this is a new feeling for Rob- inson, he isn't the only returning title holder in NC State's wrestling room. Former Wolfpack standout Nick Gwi- azdowski, who won the heavyweight national championship in both 2014 and '15 before placing second to Ohio State's Kyle Snyder in his final colle- giate match to cap the 2016 campaign, is on campus with the Wolfpack Re- gional Training Center. Assistant coach Zack Esposito, meanwhile, won the 2005 national championship at 149 pounds as a junior at Oklahoma State. Both of those former champions have been key assets for Robinson, helping prepare him for what he is bound to see on the mat this season. They've told him the second title will be harder, which Robinson fully expects to be the case. Esposito, who has coached 10 other NCAA champions in his career, said he believes Robinson could join the elite club of multiyear winners. "There are a lot of one-time national champs throughout the country. There are very few who have done it twice, let alone done it twice at NC State," Es- posito said last spring. "I think he looks at it more as an opportunity to not only be cemented in the history of NC State, but to make himself one of the best to ever come through here and one of the best ever in NCAA history." STAYING HUNGRY Vince Robinson Looks To Follow His Breakthrough Season By Claiming Title No. 2 Next March I " You've got to stay hungry and aggressive and know that you're going to get every- one's best effort." Coach Pat Popolizio on Robinson