TEMPE, Ariz. -- Zeke Jones calls them "the first believers," five wrestlers in his inaugural and top-ranked recruiting class who gambled on an Olympic coach's ability to resuscitate a once proud program, rather than placing safer bets with the schools that were already littering the NCAA Championship podiums.
"The team was ranked 61st in the country when I got here," said Jones, the third-year Sun Devils coach who took over fresh off a gig as the United States Olympic freestyle coach. "There were good kids here; hard workers, but if we were going to compete for championships then we needed to get the type of kids that wanted not just to be the best in the country, but to be the best in the world.