OSU Wrestling: A Look at John Smith’s Coaching Tree

Last week, the Cowboys traveled to Wyoming and John Smith took on one of his former wrestlers and assistants, Wyoming head coach Mark Branch. This was the second time Smith has coached against one of his former wrestlers this year after he opened the season with Coleman Scott and North Carolina. He’ll do it again in their next dual when they take on NC State and Pat Popolizio in Italy on January 5th.

As impressive as his resume is as a coach, an often overlooked contribution to the sport on Smith’s part is what he’s done to groom other coaches.

At the Division-I level in wrestling there are currently seven head coaches that either wrestled at OSU or coached under Smith and that’s not…