Sunday Sit-down with Mizzou wrestling legend Keegan O’Toole
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
ABC 17 Sports Director Nathalie Jones caught up with Mizzou wrestling legend and assistant coach Keegan O'Toole in this week's edition of Sunday Sit-Down, as the pair broke down O'Toole's recent decision to retire from competition.
You can watch ABC 17 Sports Director Nathalie Jones' full chat with O'Toole in the video player above.
You can also find a full transcript of the interview below.
Nathalie Jones: "Welcome back everyone. It is Sunday Sit-down time. We are joined by the Mizzou wrestling legend Keegan O'Toole. Keegan, how's the summer been?"
Keegan O'Toole:"It's been busy. I've been traveling, wrestling some RAFs, and guys were here June and July, and now it's a little bit of a downtime before school ramps up. I'm actually going back to grad school, so. It's going to be busy."
Jones:"Well, yeah, you've had a busy, I would say, couple of weeks here, obviously very big announcement announcing that you're retiring from competition. Just take me behind that decision and I guess the emotions behind that as well."
O'Toole:"Definitely not an easy decision. I would say coming back from injury, I wrestled a couple of RAFs and leading up to the US Open, I kind of felt like I'm not enjoying the training as much and why am I having these doubtful feelings and I couldn't really tell if that was something that would just go away naturally or if it was something that I had to address and so I would talk to my wife about it pretty consistently and that would help a little bit, but at the same time she wasn't a wrestler. She hadn't gone through a similar experience, and so it eventually got to the point where I'm like I need to talk to someone. And so the first person I sat down with was Coach Maple, and we kind of talked through it and it felt like a weight lifted off my chest once I talked to him about it and right there I was like, OK, US Open is my last tournament. Whether I win or lose, and then I got sick before the tournament, and I told myself I said, well, I could go and wrestle sick, but I don't really care to do that if it's gonna be my last tournament. And then I got a few opportunities to wrestle at an RAF and so the one in Saint Louis was fantastic. Then they're like, oh, we're going to Milwaukee. Do you want to do that one? And I was like, oh, I don't know if I could turn that down. So Saint Louis, right, you know, in the same state where I went to college, and then Milwaukee, which is where I'm from, and then obviously having Ben Askren wrestle on that card with me and Aeoden Sinclair it was like, OK, I can muster up one more month of training to do this match, and then after that I can be done."
Jones: "Did that feel just like a perfect bookend to everything that you've done?"
O'Toole: "Yeah, 100 percent. I couldn't - I've told a couple people I couldn't have drawn up a better way to have my last match literally in the city that I was born, where I grew up. I lived there until I was 12 and then we moved like 30 minutes west, but still I would be in Milwaukee area very frequently and to have my coach who coached me growing up who almost died last year and then watch him wrestle and then also have one of the athletes that I coached and who had been his coach wrestle as well. And to have that crowd, family, friends, there were kids that, or there were people there that I hadn't seen in 10, 15 years that were there watching me. Kid I went to middle school with, a kid who I wrestled in my first youth state tournament was there and said hi to me. I'm like, I don't know how I remember you, but I do. And so it couldn't have been a better last match in my opinion, and I think that was just God's way of saying, yeah, this door is closed and we're opening these other doors."
Jones: "Yeah, what was, I guess, the thoughts and emotions when you walk onto that mat and you knew that that that's going to be the last time?"
O'Toole: "Very freeing actually, I think. I cried the tears that I was gonna cry. I think I had those hard conversations with my family, my coaches, and the people who were closest to me, and I had already kind of went through that phase of like, man, this is real. And so when I walked out on the mat, it was, man, just enjoy it, right? Obviously try to win the match, wrestle as hard as you can, and so that was awesome that I was able to get the win and but ultimately like I said it was very freeing. I didn't feel nervous really at all and then walking off the mat, it was a it was a little surreal. I'm like, man, it's the last time I'm going to compete. Then, I went over and Ben [Askren] was right there in the corner, I gave him a high five and I hugged him. For like five seconds straight, I could tell both of us were just crying because he obviously knew it was my last match as well and it was his last match as well too. So, being able to wrestle in the same card...[knowing] that I technically retired with, you know, my coach that trained me and the legend Ben Askren, it was pretty awesome. There's nothing but joy. There's a little bit of bittersweet sadness knowing that that that phase is over, but if I look back I can confidently say that I wrestled for Mizzou, I wrestled for Arrowhead High School, for Askren Wrestling Academy, Team USA, as hard as I could. I gave it everything I had, and I wanted to be done and I wanted to go out on my own terms. While I know I still have the capability to compete at a high level, I know it's just not in the cards for me anymore. Making that choice was hard, but once I made it, I knew it was the right choice, and I'm extremely at peace."
Jones: "What has the journey of wrestling and all the ups and downs and the awesome moments that you have, what has it meant to you and what do you think it's taught you about yourself?"
O'Toole: "Well, it's taught me so much. I think you fail a lot more in life, than you succeed. If you are a high-goal setter, you are a high performance individual, I think you should set unrealistic goals, and it's a scary thing. But, I think if wrestling's taught me anything, it's that consistency is the most valuable tool in life. I know that I wrestled for 19 years and I think of all the workouts I've done, I think of everything that I've ever done, just the consistent daily pursuit is what makes it fun, worth it, and also the thing I remember most. I remember most those feelings of really hard workouts, trips with the guys, very hard stadium workouts with Coach Smith practices, you know, when I was in high school that were so fun. I don't really remember the feelings and emotions of winning big moments that those are fleeting, unfortunately. I wish they would stay around, but there's nothing you can do about that. I would say just the consistency of life and if you're going to try to pursue something, you pursue it with excellence, and it's a daily agenda to do small mundane tasks that add up over time because I know I'm starting a new venture with coaching and you know, grad school. I'm starting to get into that and it's new for me. It's a brand new. I feel like I'm six years old starting wrestling and it's like, man, I have so much to learn. I want to know it now, but that's just not how it works, right? It's gonna take years upon years upon daily conversations with mentors, Coach Smith, Maple Dom, reading books, having conversations with other coaches outside. I was just at the coaches convention this past weekend in Maryland and like I did a leadership academy. I got to learn from some amazing coaches and so it's just like wow, these guys put in years and years of work and all of them had the same theme. It was, what are you doing every day to improve those small little mundane things add up over time and I think that's what wrestling has taught me the most. Then, also I think resilience is the biggest one. I think those are the main things that wrestling has taught me that are I will for sure carry the rest of my life, pass on, you know, hopefully to my spouse and then also my kids and also the guys that I'm coaching right now."
Jones: "You mentioned what's next. I mean, you talked grad school, obviously staying here and helping the guys here, but what are your hopes and aspirations for what's next?"
O'Toole: "I love Columbia, Missouri, so I don't plan on going anywhere anytime soon. I love being a part of this program, it's given so much to me, and I have an opportunity to give back. So, I plan on coaching here, I plan on doing the youth club, you know, Mike Flanagan has done a great job for 30+ years at Columbia Wrestling Club, and then obviously, Jarrett Jacques, he does his own practices too here. So, I plan on being there for those to help the younger guys in Columbia get better at wrestling and then put as many guys on the All-American stage and National Champion stage as I possibly can. Then, obviously, I'm going back to grad school. I'm pursuing a master's in accounting, which is by no means going to be an easy thing to pursue, but I love it. I don't know why I like it, but I do, and I want to figure out a way to blend those two together. I would love to have firm ownership one day, whether that's starting my own firm or taking over a firm. So, I love the idea of having that while being able to coach wrestling and so how those two blend together, I'm not exactly sure right now, but my job is to coach the best that I can, build up this program, and essentially get the best grades I possibly can. I have a bet with one of the guys on our team, Aeoden Sinclair, who we're in the same classes together that cumulative GPA in the classes together throughout the semester, the other person has to buy them a milkshake if they get worse grades."
Jones: "So competition never ends."
O'Toole: "Yeah, it's part of Tiger belief compete one more expect to win. We're going to be competing real hard."
Jones: "Well, the coaching aspect of this, what has been just so fun about the last year kind of shifting from being, you know, the legend that you were in this program to now, you know, helping teach the up and coming ones, right?"
O'Toole: "Well, I have, I guess you would say I have a lot of wisdom to pass down to the young guys on, you know, you know, things where I think I did right and things where I think I did wrong. And so I am able to Coach Smith always talks about telling stories. Telling stories are the best way to explain things and teach lessons. And so just telling stories of, you know, me doing things that I thought were like I probably could have done it differently or things are like I know this is right and here's why. Then, on top of that, I think coaching is so different because when you're a competitor, you have so much ability to control when you go out there and compete. I don't really have control over the outcome, I sometimes can't even control how well I perform, but what I can control is I can control my thoughts, I can control what I tell myself, I can control how I warm up, I can control how I cool down, I can control how I train. But, as a coach, I don't really have that control and so it's a little bit...in a way it's harder, right? So, I'm like trying to explain to someone to do something or to think some way or to positively affirm them in a way it doesn't mean that they're gonna think it, say it or do it. How do I, as a coach, almost in a way manipulate the way I'm communicating to that person to get them to buy in or to believe what I'm saying. So, learning that has definitely been fun, to be in relation with these athletes and you're almost liable for them as a coach you know you're you're somewhat responsible for their successes, their failures, their good grades, their bad grades, the relationships outside of wrestling, and so it's very unique. It's a unique experience. It's very rewarding. It's fun.
Jones: "What do you hope these guys can learn from just the way you've kind of approached this whole journey even now into retirement here?"
O'Toole: "Learn. I hope they learn the bad things that I did to not do. I hope that they learn the value of consistency, the value of belief, the value of honestly just Tiger Style, in general. I think it's such a simple model that you can apply to everything like belief, compete one more, expect to win. Like, if you truly believe in something and you believe it's important to you, you're going to find a way to make it happen. If you don't find a way to make it happen and you fall short, who you became along the way is significantly more important than the outcome you reached. I can say that upon experience. Like I said, I remember more of the hard workouts in the process of training versus winning national titles, winning world titles, being a part of conference championship teams, being part of Top-10 teams in the country. I remember those hard workouts with those guys much more than I remember those accomplishments. So, I kind of just hope they learn from me the positives that I can pass down and then the negatives that I did to try to avoid them, right? The hard part is we're all human. We're flawed individuals, we have deceitful hearts, we're gonna make mistakes and how you handle those mistakes is ultimately more important than the mistakes that you make and so how to have. That resilience like I was talking about and how to bounce back and how to approach solving problems and how to not lose that belief."
Jones: "Yeah, Keegan, it's been an absolute pleasure coming over the years. Glad you're sticking around in Columbia."
O'Toole: "Oh, I'll be here for a long time.
Jones: "Thanks for hanging out with us."
O'Toole: "Yeah, thank you."
Jones: "For the rest of you guys, we'll be right back after the break."
