Drew Pariano (right) served as the head coach at Cornell College in Mount Vernon, Iowa for two seasons before returning to his alma mater and joining Tim Cysewski's coaching staff at Northwestern in 2005 (Photo/Danielle Hobeika)For starters, many coaching careers begin with staying on at one’s alma mater, working as a graduate assistant or volunteer coach as they complete their degrees or the aforementioned graduate degrees. Others set a course for smaller programs in order to build their resume and get a head job. Some many end up back at their alma mater.
Northwestern head coach Tim Cysewski has a little bit of both on staff -- associate head coach Drew Pariano, who coached in Division III before resurfacing at his alma mater and new assistant Matt Storniolo, fresh off a two-year stint from his first coaching position at Old Dominion after he placed as a sophomore and junior as a competitor at Oklahoma.
Pariano was a four-year starter for the Wildcats and after his career on the mats ended, a new one began in the corner. He set off for his native Ohio, as an assistant at Cleveland’s John Carroll University.
It was at John Carroll where Pariano found the itch to make coaching his life.
“Kerry Volkmann's been there for a long time,” said Pariano. “They've had two head coaches in the history of John Carroll wrestling. You're working with a guy who knows the ins and outs of Division III wrestling.
“There was a time when JCU was beating Cleveland State in duals when CSU had formidable teams. The thing that Kerry let me do was he let me take the reins. Starting freestyle in the spring. Once I got to do it all and I tasted that, I can do the recruiting, I can do the coaching, I can do the motivation, I can do the off-season practices, I don't know if it was the power of it, but it just grabbed a hold of me. I'm dedicated to this.”
It was Pariano’s new appreciation for coaching which caused him to change his focus in his graduate program, since class was getting in the way of Ohio Athletic Conference dual meets.
After that three-year run at John Carroll, Pariano landed a head coaching job at Iowa’s Cornell College.
“I was looking at Division I jobs at that point and didn’t want to be a volunteer or second assistant and the Cornell job came up,” explained Pariano. “I figured, it’s in Iowa, I’m 15 miles from Iowa City. I can draw off the Hawkeye Club, I can draw off Iowa City.
Drew ParianoWith 32 new wrestlers brought into the program in his two years, Pariano didn’t see his time in Iowa coming to an end until a phone call to his old coach at Northwestern.
After Tony Ersland left Northwestern, Pariano called Cysewski to drop some names for an upper weight coach to fill the void in Evanston. Penn head coach Rob Eiter, who was an assistant at Northwestern at the time, called Pariano back and said “Why not you?”
Now Pariano was presented with an opportunity that is common for assistant coaches, sitting in the corner at their alma mater, but his road to get there -- two Division III schools -- isn’t the most common highway.
“There’s always a fear when you switch divisions,” Pariano said. “Can you re-enter Division I?”
Pariano did and finds himself constantly busy, because as he puts it, being a career college wrestling coaches isn’t just about putting on shorts and a t-shirt and wrestling with kids every day.
“If you want to be a good coach, you have to work as many hours as possible during the day,” he said. “If I can work until the coffee wears off, I can get a lot done in a day.
“At Cornell, you could find me sleeping in the office if we had a 6 a.m. workout the next day,” he said.
Chris Heilman“He has a strong work ethic,” said Heilman. “He knows how to run a room and he loves getting the school name out there. He does a lot for his wrestlers on and off the mat.
“I worked with him as a work study student for the athletic department and there are not many coaches who will work as hard to make sure his wrestlers are getting everything they need,” he said.
It was during his time at Cornell where Pariano had an epiphany, if you will.
“You have to convince guys to buy into the coaching plan for them, it’s not for you, it’s for your athletes,” he said. “In Division III, guys have varying interests and commitment levels. When you deal with that, compared to when you jump back into Division I where guys have that instinct to win and do everything you expect them to ... if you can instill that in Division III and motivate those guys to stay on a team and start winning, then you can motivate anybody.”
“I knew Drew when recruiting him and the process and his brother Tony (an All-American at Northwestern), so it was a good relationship from the beginning,” said Cysewski. “I’d watched his progress. He’d call me out of the blue every once and a while and ask for advice.
“(With Drew) there was a certain level of familiarity with the program,” said Cysewski. “He grew up in our program and sees the positives that he got out of coming to Northwestern. He wanted to be challenged at a higher level. He had a background in getting good kids to those other colleges and at Northwestern, it’s getting the higher level kid to come here and wrestle in the Big Ten.”
With Cysewski and Pariano running the ship at Northwestern, an opening arose on staff and Storniolo came knocking on the door.
Storniolo reluctantly landed his first coaching job out of college at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Va., and it wasn’t exactly what he envisioned after not placing as the second seed at the 2007 NCAA Championships.
Matt Storniolo (left) spent two seasons coaching at Old Dominion with Steve Martin (right) before being hired at Northwestern in July (Photo/Danielle Hobeika)“(ODU) was an excellent program for me to start off with, I can’t say anything bad about my time there. It gave me the chance to end up with a guy like Ryan Williams, who got me on to that finals stage that I didn’t get as a competitor and it opened up doors in getting me into the Big Ten.”
Williams became the first Monarch to reach the NCAA finals since 1992 and only the second in the program’s history at the Division I level. Storniolo was a big reason as to why.
“The first time we wrestled, he took me down and rode me for 30 minutes,” said Williams, who is settling into his first season as a graduate assistant at ODU. “I laid on my stomach for 30 minutes. For me, bottom was one of my best positions ... and there’s this guy. I knew he was definitely going to help me ride on top.”
Cysewski found Storniolo’s personality and immediate plus, not to mention, a need for a coach to work more closely on the mat with the Wildcat middle weights.
Williams can speak on personality first hand.
“A lot of it was a confidence thing with me,” Williams said. “Matt is a great coach. He’s good on breaking down and looking at your wrestling and knowing what you need to do. The biggest thing he did was put scrambling into technique for me. (Coach) Martin is big on technique and Matt broke it down for me so I could understand it.”
“He's the right weight class,” said Cysewski. “We need some good people in that area to work with the middle weights. He's excellent on his feet and a great communicator. We've had the guys work with him already and just the way he communicates with the guys.”
Matt Storniolo“I’m really excited to have the opportunity to roll around with Jason,” said Storniolo. “He’s my favorite to wrestle because our styles are really similar. I wish I could video tape practice, because it’s really fun to watch. We’re like two ferrets attacking each other.”
“It'll help Jason reach his goals in being a national champ here,” said Cysewski. “It can really help guys like Jason, he's got good basic stuff, but has the funky stuff too. Matt can definitely help him in certain areas and when to pull the trigger in certain situations. Andrew (Nadir) is going to be great, Robert Kellogg is going to benefit. It's one of those things, he'll coach anyone who wants to work with him.”
Storniolo’s impact on Welch is already expected to be with the athletic scrambling style the California native brings to the mat.
But with school just starting up, Welch’s first tussle with Storniolo didn’t go the same as Williams’ did.
“It would have been,” said Welch. “But (Storniolo) let me go because he was getting bored on top. I feel some of my weaknesses are his strengths and that’s going to benefit me. It wasn’t bringing in a coach whose strengths were the same as mine, but it’ll be great for me the next few years.”
Jason Welch (Photo/Tech-Fall.com)“I’ll be redshirting and then I’ll hopefully come back and win (the NCAA Championship) three times,” said Welch, who also mentioned rumors of a transfer were “blown out of proportion.”
“As far as the wrestling goes here (at Northwestern), it’s awesome,” Welch said. “The only downfall for me is it snows and it’s far away from home, but everything else is cool. I’m excited Storniolo is here now.
“I was really excited because I heard a lot of good things about him from (Jake) Herbert and (former Penn State All-American) Mark McKnight. They had a lot of good things to say about him. He surfs, too,” said Welch.
Pariano thinks Storniolo has the tools to make a good college coach and they were tools he noticed long before an application came across Cysewski’s desk.
“He really took that experience that was given to him at Old Dominion and made the most of it,” Pariano said. “I saw it at The Midlands when he was real passionate about things. There were some seeding issues first thing in the morning and he was barking.
“If you didn’t care and it wasn’t your life, you’d just roll with the punches and he doesn’t do that. It’s not just the NCAA tournament (with Williams), you have to view what a guy is like in the room,” Pariano said.
Pariano’s already had a lot of time with Storniolo, helping groom the former Sooner for his first paid coaching position.
“Matt and I have gone through with a process on exactly how to do things. He’s wide-eyed and ready to go every day. You have to have people that are ready to learn and they’re ready to move up in the ranks and Matt has. He has very quickly. With Williams last year, you saw the drive (Storniolo) had,” said Pariano.
“You can see it in a guy’s eyes. I want guys like Matt, guys like myself. They make wrestling their lifestyle. Matt said in his interview, ‘I want this to be my profession’, and that was it for us,” said Pariano.
“There are a lot of things I bring to the table, and there are a lot of guys here eager to learn and they’ve already started picking my brain,” Storniolo said. “I know the guys at ODU really enjoyed my personality and how I treated them and I’m going to bring that same approach to Northwestern.
“(The kids) are not just a number or a weight class to me, I’m going to invest myself into them,” he said.
Unlike Pariano who started out in Division III, Storniolo would prefer to stick to the Division I coaching ladder.
“I really enjoy working with the Division I athletes,” he said. “Not to take anything away from Division II or III, but I wrestled Division I and that’s where I started coaching and that’s where my passion lies -- being on the big scene with the top athletes.”
But should more success come Storniolo’s way, will he be looking to jump ship at the better offer after one or two seasons?
“I’m really excited about my current position at Northwestern and I plan on being here quite a while, but down the road, you can’t rule out any opportunities. I love it here. Tim and Drew are a thrill to work with and we have a lot of fun in the office,” said Storniolo.
Storniolo’s living situation is also ideal. He’s in what Pariano calls “a grown up wrestling house.” It’s Herbert, Storniolo, volunteer assistant Will Durkee and his former Virginia teammate Tim Foley, McKnight soon to enter the fray -- or as the guys call it -- the hallway. It’s four blocks from Wrigley Field. There’s even some loose change on the floor with a note that reads “Tim Foley’s life savings.” So maybe five 20-somethings isn’t exactly fully grown-up, but there’s a lot of wrestling knowledge under one roof and in the practice room in Evanston.
Pariano still puts much praise on his former coach and current mentor, Cysewski.
“Working with Tim is phenomenal,” said Pariano. “I know certain guys have done it, but I don't think it's that common, you wrestle for a guy, then you go off, get your Masters and get a head coaching job and get some experience when you're in charge of things, then you come back and you're working for him, it's a rare situation.”
But as the NWCA Coaches Leadership Academy explained at the Convention, Pariano’s sentiments about coaching as a profession are filled with passion.
“You have to be organized, you have to be intelligent,” he said. “It's no longer a sport where you're just ramming your head against the wall and the coach is just saying work harder. It's not about ramming your head, it's about being smarter than your opponent. If you're not trying to watch video and pick up technical aspects of the sport as well as knowing when your athlete needs to push harder and once in a while, take a break, you're not doing your job right.
“I laugh when a lot of kids say they just want to be a coach, they have no idea,” said Pariano. “Matt knows how much goes into it. The organization, the recruiting, the organization of recruiting, keeping countable hours, it’s so much further than just working out.”
If you want to be a college wrestling coach, Northwestern’s program proves there’s more to the work than just working out.
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