DELAYED GRATIFICATION
After an injury-plagued start to his career, Nick Nevills is on a roll
W
hen Nick Nevills needs a drill
partner for his afternoon workout
at the Lorenzo Wrestling Com-
plex, he's often stuck choosing between
great, greater and greatest.
Nevills is Penn State's starting heavy-
weight, and there are few people in the
room who have the size and strength to
match him punch for punch. But there are
a few who have the experience. They are
the coaches: Casey Cunningham, Jake
Varner and Cael Sanderson. Sometimes
out of necessity, other times out of desire,
Nevills tests himself against one of those
competitors as he works to-
ward his goal of becoming a
national champion.
"When you wrestle guys
like that and the guys we have
on the team, you're always
going to continue to im-
prove," he said. "As long as
you want to go out there and try to get bet-
ter, I think you will every time."
For Nevills, the benefits of this approach
have been evident on the mat.
He won his first 12 matches in
a row, including four by fall,
and by mid-January he had
broken into the top five of the
285-pound rankings. With a
24-9 technical fall over Rut-
gers' Randy Normandia,
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W R E S T L I N G
A LEG UP
Nevills takes
down Bingham-
ton's Connor
Calkins earlier
this season.
Photo by Mark
Selders/ Penn
State Athletics
