And at age 21, no less.
It was an incredible thing watching J’den Cox on Saturday and realizing that a) from a physical standpoint, he was as impressive as anyone in his weight class at the damn Olympics, and b) this local story we’ve been following for so long (great high schooler turns into great college wrestler turns into Olympic medalist) was no longer local anymore.
Cox has become just about the perfect representative for the University of Missouri: hard working, insightful, introspective, unique. He is his own cat, and he is brilliant.
Some Cox links from the weekend:
With the medal, Cox becomes the seventh University of Missouri athlete to win a medal at the Olympics – and the first since 2008 – joining Brutus Hamilton, Jackson Scholz, Dan Pippin, Dick Cochran, Natasha Kaiser (Brown) and Christian Cantwell in the exclusive club.