A Soldier, a College Wrestler and a Canceled National Tournament

Imagine the obligations and time management skills necessary for a soldier in the U.S. Army National Guard who’s also a full-time student.

And a 40-hour-a-week worker at Target.

And the starting 133-pounder on his college wrestling team.

Meet Nathan McClanahan, who’s learned that even if you follow what every motivational speech touts — if you arrive early, stay late, and work hard — nothing, still, is ever guaranteed.

The senior 133-pound wrestler for Mount Saint Joseph University understood he might not qualify for the 2021 NCAA Division III National Championships at the University of Wisconsin-LaCrosse on March 5–6. Or, perhaps, he’d make it out of the regional but fail to win a match at nationals.

But maybe, just maybe, he’d qualify, battle to a top-8 placement, and earn the right to wear the All-American badge for the rest of his life.

McClanahan just wanted the chance.

Along with other NCAA Division III wrestlers across the country, McClanahan learned three weeks ago he wouldn’t be getting that chance, at least not the way he and other D-III matmen had hoped. For the second year in a row, the D-III winter sports championships were canceled due to concerns about the COVID-19 pandemic.

“When the news came, I just…”

McClanahan paused.

“It was a punch in the gut,” he said. “I’ve worked hard for this last chance. I couldn’t believe it.”

It’s not difficult finding stories of grit and perseverance abiding inside college wrestling rooms. This is just one, in the corner of southwest Ohio on the campus of MSJU, a few miles off historic U.S. Highway 50.

But, Nate McClanahan’s story is a good one.

After graduating from Elder High School in Cincinnati, OH in 2014, McClanahan joined the Army National Guard. He soon realized he missed wrestling more than he thought he would.

“I was at a base in Oklahoma,” he said. “I pulled up the tournament Elder was wrestling in to see how my friend Andrew (Taylor) was doing. The more I watched, the more I realized how much I missed it.”

Inspired, McClanahan emailed then Mount head coach Dustin Baynes. He wanted to find out what had to be done to be considered for the team.

“Whatever it was, I was ready to do it,” McClanahan said. “I just got this urge…I wanted to wrestle again.”

By his own admission, McClanahan didn’t fit the profile of most college grapplers. He wasn’t a star in high school.

Before his retirement in 2013, Dick McCoy was McClanahan’s high school coach at Elder.

“To be honest, Nathan’s story is how most high school athletes’ stories go,” McCoy said. “Most kids aren’t superstars. Most kids take part in their sport, graduate, and that’s it. That was Nathan. His path was pretty common.

“What’s uncommon is what Nathan’s done since high school.”

McClanahan finished training at the Oklahoma base and came home, excited about the prospect of walking-on the Mount’s team. McClanahan learned it was too late to enroll in school.

Undeterred, McClanahan lifted weights, ran, and attended every open mat he could find. Whether it was his high school mats at Elder or any other place offering free mat time, McClanahan became a gym-rat gypsy, traveling anywhere toil, sweat and dreams were welcome.

Picking up techniques from various coaching minds in wrestling rooms throughout southwestern Ohio, McClanahan honed his skills in live-gos with coaches, teammates or partners he’d met minutes before. His work began paying dividends. McClanahan was learning more wrestling than he’d ever known.

“My dad wrestled, so I got into it in third grade,” he said. “But, I don’t think I really dedicated myself to it in high school. I liked it, but I didn’t really work at it. I made a promise to myself that if I was really gonna do (college wrestling), I’d do it a hundred percent.”

In 2016, McClanahan was finally a Mount student, but uncertainty threatened the wrestling program’s future. A brief period of coaching changes saw the squad’s numbers dwindle.

“The team went down to two or three guys,” McClanahan said. “It was crazy. It was scary.”

Enter coaches Elliott Spence and Charles Mason.

Spence shifted into recruiting-overdrive, bringing the Mount’s numbers from less than 5 to over 30. Mason was hired as the Lions’ head coach in 2018.

On the brink of shutting down just a few years back, the Mount is now ranked 12th in the country. Mason — named the 2020 NCAA D-III Central Region Coach of the Year — says McClanahan is a big reason.

“Nathan was in (then Athletic Director Steve Radcliffe’s) office almost every day, asking questions, wondering what was going on,” Mason said. “It got to the point where Steve was telling me, ‘this guy is driving me crazy.’”

Mason laughed.

“But that’s how Nathan is. He stayed on the administration. He would talk to football players about joining the team. He did everything he could to make sure we had a team.

“His passion is one of the reasons this program was able to survive.”

After lumps and lessons learned in multiple defeats early in his career, McClanahan began finding his competitive bearings. More and more, his hand was raised in victory. His high school coach — retired from coaching but helping at a school a couple miles from his home — marveled at the strides his former wrestler had made.

“Nathan was a different wrestler,” McCoy said. “He’d come to our room certain days for some extra work, and he’d wrestle our best guy. It was night and day, the wrestler he’d become.”

McClanahan was 23–11 last year for the Mount, but missed qualifying for the national tournament. This year was to be his final shot.

A stroke of Irish Luck might provide some degree of balm for the senior business management major.

Shortly after the championships were canceled, the National Wrestling Coaches Association (NWCA) Division III Leadership Group rallied to organize an alternative national championship for D-III wrestlers. The NWCA will put on its own version of a national championship tournament for all D-III wrestlers interested in participating, slated for March 12–13 at the Xtream Arena in Coralville, Iowa.

McClanahan will be there. He’s grateful.

“It’s not what I’d planned, but I’ll take it,” he said. “I get to compete one last time as a college wrestler. It’s a consolation prize, but a good prize.”

Soldier.

Student.

Full-time worker.

College wrestler.

It’s not hard to see why his college coach is convinced his pupil will be fine.

“I know it hurt Nathan and his teammates, but our staff constantly preaches to control the controllables,” Mason said. “Nathan will do that; he always has, and I know he’ll be great at whatever he chooses to pursue. Whether it’s in business or coaching or both, I’ll be following Nathan. He’ll do well no matter what.

“That’s just how Nathan is.”