From Harmonies to Headlocks: Virginia Tech Wrestling Gets Creative With Set of Matches at Moss Arts Center

There's little chance a college wrestling match would ever be confused with fine art.

Yet even with all the grunting, sweating and shouting, Virginia Tech's wrestling team will get a chance to perform their craft in a space normally reserved for concert pianists and symphony orchestras.

Tech's Moss Arts Center, which first opened its doors in the fall of 2013, is inviting the team to use its massive performance stage in February for a trio of matches, giving head coach Kevin Dresser's athletes a chance to show off the artistry behind half nelsons and headlocks.

Virginia Tech Moss Arts Center

"Good wrestlers are individual in nature and really good wrestlers are performers," Dresser said. "They love to be out on the big stage, they love to be out on the big stage by themselves, they want everybody watching them and only them. I've got a lot of guys like that, and what better place to showcase that."

After months of preparation, the matches will kick off on February 1 against hated rival Virginia, followed by contests against Pittsburgh and N.C. State on February 6 and February 8, respectively. It's the latest effort by Tech's athletics department to attract attention with an unconventional decision.

"I know this is a business, and we're all serious about it, but it's OK to have a little bit of fun every now and then too," said Whit Babcock, Tech's athletics director. "I like some of the creative stuff that breaks the mold and some unique things to draw attention to our sports."

But the move to the Moss Arts Center isn't just some publicity stunt happening in a vacuum. Rather, it's part of a concerted effort by the department to promote a program that is suddenly among the top teams in the entire country, even if the community is only just starting to realize the team's quality.

"You Guys are Crazy"

The idea for the trio of matches, promoted as "Ancient Arts Meets Modern Art" by the athletics department, isn't quite the first of its kind, but pulling all the various threads of the project together still took extensive legwork from a number of VT employees.

The genesis of the event traces all the way back to the end of 2013.

Bryan Johnston, the director of content strategy in Tech's athletics communications office and the main media liaison for the wrestling program, first made the connection when he noticed a similar program at the University of Missouri.

"I saw that Missouri did something similar, but on a much smaller scale, in 2013," Johnston said.
On December 6 of that year, Mizzou hosted the Ohio Bobcats for a meet in the auditorium of the school's historic Jesse Hall, a prime destination for the arts on campus that was first built back in 1892.

Johnston liked the idea, but wanted to take it a little further.

"I told my wife (Katy Baker), who is the house manager at the arts center, that it would be cool if we could do something there," Johnston said. "She loved it and we approached Ruth Waalkes (the center's executive director) at the 2013 Christmas party."

Waalkes was still finalizing plans for the center's performance schedule at the time, but gradually it became clear that Johnston's idea could eventually become a reality.

"We'd just been putting together all our rental information and figuring out the facility use and scheduling and all of those things," Waalkes said. "As we kept developing those things, we saw a real interest in athletics and went 'yes, that could actually be a possibility,' and we took a serious interest in it."

With the center's staff coming around to the plan, Johnston took the proposal up the chain in his department. He reached out to Jon Jaudon, the associate athletic director overseeing the wrestling program who has since left the school, and they started the initial prep work.

"I went to Jon Jaudon, who did the legwork in communicating with Ruth and her group," Johnston said. "We started hammering out dates, times, contracts, etc."

But Johnston also had to sell Dresser on the matches to make it all work.

"They came to me, and I said 'no, you guys are crazy,'" Dresser said. "But they said 'you need to check it out,' so I checked it out, and the wheels started turning and I said 'man, I can make this work.'"

As the project was developing, change rocked the athletic department. After two months of searching, Babcock was chosen as the school's new AD in January 2014, and the group worked to bring him into the fold on their arts center plans.

"They brought it to me soon after I was hired and I really liked it," Babcock said. "It's really cool and it's such a unique setting, I just thought it was great from the get go."

With the boss on board, the trio visited the site several times to get a feel for the area. But Jaudon ended up leaving the department in late May as Babcock shook up the staff, with Chris Helms stepping into his shoes.

Since then, it's been Helms that's worked closely with the center's staff as the point person for the project.

"They've been walking us through how they see the project and we've been able to give them our insights and the athletic perspective," Helms said. "It's just been a nice conversation ever since we started having them."

"Their Eyes and Their Jaws Were Wide Open"

But even with input from the Moss staff, Dresser and company still wanted an up close and personal look at the space, just to figure out exactly how this would all work.

On August 13 of last year, Dresser and Helms took along two of the squad's most talented wrestlers, redshirt senior Devin Carter and redshirt junior Nick Brascetta, to take a closer look at the center.

"We took a couple wrestling mats over, positioned them on the stage, messed with some lighting, started actually taking this concept and started to make it real," Helms said.

This wasn't just a logistical dry run; the team also got some sparring in on the stage.

"We laid out a mat had them spar, had them drill a little bit, do some combat," Dresser said.

Even with just a small taste of what the February matches with bring, Carter and Brascetta walked away incredibly impressed with the center.

"I think their eyes and their jaws were wide open, they couldn't believe how incredible and unique that environment was," Helms said.

That started churning the rumor mill within the team's locker room, as the anticipation for the matches finally began to build.

"Once those wrestlers came back the rumor started to spread and momentum picked up amongst the wrestlers themselves," Helms said.

But even with the whispers about the matches starting to pick up, the event itself remains a bit mysterious for the other 30 wrestlers on the team.

"I think it's still a mystery a little bit to most of them," Helms said. "There's only a couple who have literally seen it."

"The Space is Huge"

So what will the center look like exactly when it's fully outfitted for a major ACC wrestling match?

Waalkes says that even though the performance taking place on the stage may be changing radically, the space will largely remain the same.

"I think there's nothing technically or stage wise that had to be adapted, it all fit pretty easily," Waalkes said. "The space is huge, so in terms of (setup), the wrestling teams bring their own mats and that will fit easily on the stage."

The average college wrestling meet requires a mat defined by a circle that stretches between 32 and 42 feet in diameter, so it's not as if a match can go just anywhere. But the center's Anne and Ellen Fife Theatre boasts a stage 50-feet-wide and 60-feet-deep, removing the potential for any size concerns.

Even still, there will be plenty of heavy lifting required to get everything in place for the matches. Luckily, the center's staff are no strangers to that sort of task.

"We have dance companies come in and put in a special floor and take it down, so I think it's probably not that large an impact in terms of original setup," Waalkes said.

The staff even plans on doing a quick change in between the team's second and third matches on February 6 and February 8.

"In fact in the middle of the matches, we do have a concert program one night, so we'll be changing it over for the concert, and then back again for their setup," Waalkes said.

The center will be hosting a group from the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing on February 7, a collection of performers that's a bit more representative of the stage's normal occupants.

But it's not all business as usual for the center's staff, particularly for the effects team.

Waalkes notes they'll be using cameras to show the matches on a big screen, helping to compensate for the fact that the audience will all be facing one direction instead of surrounding the mat. They're also hoping to stream the events live, something Waalkes calls an "experiment" for the staff.

Yet even with these new wrinkles, Helms notes that he quickly realized that the center was abundantly equipped to handle the matches, which are traditionally pretty low-tech.

"The infrastructure is far more complicated and sophisticated than what a wrestling match needs because they're putting on shows and doing events that are far more complicated than a wrestling match," Helms said.

To compensate for the extra work that both sides did have to undertake, Babcock decided early on that these matches wouldn't be completely free.

"Our ticket price is a little high, it's 15 to 20 dollars, but all of that money will be re-invested back into the wrestling program, after we pay our bills there," Babcock said. "But nobody has balked at the price, there's a lot of excitement."

But Babcock didn't want to see that money coming from the student body, at least not entirely. The department is making 100 tickets available to students for each match via a lottery system. Students will get an email this week about the offer, then they just have to sign up to win, not unlike the system for football and basketball tickets.

"We don't want our students to be paying 15 or 20 bucks. We're not trying to get rich off of them, and they'll add some atmosphere here," Babcock said. "One of the best sporting events I've ever been to was our wrestling match when we beat Ohio State. We had two or three thousand people, and it was one of the most exciting athletic events I've ever seen in any sport at any school, and if we can come close to replicating that, which I'm confident we can, it'll just be a really unique and special situation."

No. 10 Virginia Tech defeated No. 4 Ohio State 19-18 | Virginia Tech Athletics \ Dave Knachel

Waalkes notes that the capacity of each of three matches is set at 1,000 seats, so even selling 900 of those seats each time would bring in plenty of cash.

Dresser says the more intimate environment will likely have a different feel than the squad's dates in Cassell Coliseum, but the change in the audience is worth noting too. Instead of just impassioned supporters, these matches will be a test of how many paying customers the program can attract.

"We're averaging over 2,000 to 2,500 in attendance, so the venue's smaller, but for the first time ever wrestling fans are going to have to actually pay a little bit of money to go watch a wrestling match, so this will kind of be a test year in terms of price point," Dresser said.

As of January 20, the program says it only has 125 tickets remaining for the opening match against UVA, so it would seem the community has thoroughly embraced the events so far.

While part of that is certainly driven by an ever-present desire to see the Hokies try to beat the Hoos, the rest likely comes from team's incredible run of success dating back several years now.

"Our Best Chance to Win a National Championship"

These three high-profile matches at the center coincide perfectly with the wrestling program reaching news highs nationally, and, accordingly, generating tremendous attention in Southwest Virginia.

Dresser's bunch was plenty successful these last few years. They're coming off back-to-back ACC titles and posted their highest NCAA Championship standing in program history with an eighth place finish last year.

Virginia Tech Wrestling, 2013 and 2014 ACC Champions | Virginia Tech Athletics \ Dave Knachel

But this year they've sustained the success in a big way, knocking off the then-fourth ranked Buckeyes and becoming a fixture in the national polls.

An 8-1 start to the year pushed the Hokies as high as sixth overall in the National Wrestling Coaches Association/USA TODAY polls, before a road loss to Iowa State pushed them back to ninth in the nation with a 9-2 record.

"I feel like right now we're a top 10 team on a good day. And that's where we always want to be," Dresser said. "I think if we progress we have the potential to be a top five team, and that's what we want to do and we've really done a good job progressing."

Many outside of Blacksburg might not know much about the team's success at this point, but Babcock took some time to look into the championship-caliber program he'd be inheriting once he took over as AD.

"I did some homework before I got here, so I was aware of it," Babcock said. "It's certainly nice to walk in the door and have a couple of your teams win championships."

But while he may be thrilled with the way the team is performing right now, Babcock is also casting his eyes down the road to how Dresser's squad might help Tech meet one certain elusive goal.

"Wrestling right now is probably our best chance to win a national championship," Babcock said. "That's going to be tough to do, but they're knocking on the door, and we want to win one of those."

That's a big part of the reason why Babcock's tried to throw every possible bit of support he can behind the program.

"I think he recognized that we had a good thing going and he's been supportive and very helpful," Dresser said. "I think you'll see as we go forward that the athletic department is really going to get behind this Moss thing. I think they see, and, I think Whit really sees, that this is going to be a really cool deal."

Yet promotion is just one part of the Moss matches.

UVA is ranked 14th in the nation heading into the contests, while Pittsburgh is 10th and N.C. State is receiving votes in the national poll as well. The team certainly needs a good showing on the big stage to keep up with the rest of the country.

"It'll just be a really unique and special situation, but we need to win the wrestling matches too, and I know our wrestlers and Coach Dresser are doing everything they can to make that happen," Babcock said.

If they are able to pull off some wins and vault even higher up the rankings, they should be able captivate even more eyes in the area.

"They're Going to be Hooked"

Dresser's program has earned its fair share of wins since he took over back in 2006, so it's no surprise that more people have started paying attention to Tech's wrestlers.

"I think winning helps, and we obviously have won quite a bit in the last couple years," Dresser said. "There's an old saying that people like to follow winners, so we're trying to win and if we keep winning, we feel like our crowds will keep growing."

That success is starting to build momentum in the region that's sending more attention Dresser's way, even to the point that it's getting hard for the head Hokie to handle.

"It's getting to the point where it's kind of overwhelming, but I guess it's a good overwhelming," Dresser said. "It's hard, just because I'm one of those kinds of guys that likes to answer every email."

Some of that extra attention is coming from beyond just Tech's campus. Interest in wrestling is steadily growing in the area, thanks not only to Tech's burgeoning success but also to Christiansburg High School, a program that's won 12 straight state titles with several coming under Dresser's leadership as head coach in his days before joining the Hokies.

"Wrestling fans are incredibly loyal, and with the success of Christiansburg High School, there's definitely some local interest there," Babcock said.

But the area still has a long way to go to in many respects when it comes to the sport.

"People that don't understand wrestling are waiting for somebody grab a chair and whack somebody in the head," Dresser said. "So the people that don't understand amateur wrestling, that's a stigma that we have to overcome."

Beyond just picking up a few wins, Dresser hopes these Moss matches draw the enthusiasm and the knowledge in the region just a little bit closer to his small Iowa hometown.

"If you grow up in Pennsylvania, if you grow up in Iowa, you know how cool it is and how much fun it is to come to a wrestling match," Dresser said. "There are going to be people showing up at the Moss Arts Center that ain't never seen a wrestling match, they're going to be wondering what the hell is going to go on, so there's going to be a lot of people scratching their head there. But what happens after scratching their head is they start wanting to learn it, and when they want to learn it, they never miss a match."

By setting the match in a space normally frequented by patrons of the arts rather than college wrestling fans, Babcock is specifically hoping to reach a whole new demographic to truly expand the program's reach.

"We feel like it will pull some people into our matches that don't normally come to us and once they come they're going to be hooked," Babcock said."A lot of people, when they go watch our kids compete, they watch it for the first time and they keep coming back, and repeat customers and repeats fans are the best thing."

"At the End of the Day, It's a Game"

But will these three matches be the public's only chance to see some wrestling at the center?

Babcock hopes it'll be only this year will be just the first of many times his department partners with the center, but they will still be evaluating the success of these opening matches.

"I'm confident that it will go well and that people will want to do it year after year. But we'll evaluate it," Babcock said. "We talked about 'hey, we don't need to be learning as we go, let's get it right from day one and put on a first class event and people will come back.' And the financial piece, is it important? Yeah, but that's down on the list. It's more about awareness and excitement and drawing attention to this great team."

Yet Waalkes cautions that any future matches will have to be weighed against the center's jam-packed schedule of performances going forward.

"We'll have to see, our schedule is pretty tight with the programming that we have," Waalkes said about the possibility of future matches. "In the center, we put the priority on the fine arts programs."

Even if the wrestling team is never able to make it back to the Moss Arts Center, Babcock's made it clear that he values taking chances in his department, and this could prove to be a springboard for some other creative venue choices going forward.

"You always want to have as many events on campus as possible, but at the end of the day it's a game and it can be fun," Babcock said.

And if members of the VT community pack the house for these matches, it will certainly make it easier for Babcock to justify getting more creative in the future.

So from now until the first event kicks off February 1, the department will be waiting on pins and needles to see if their gamble to bring such a down and dirty sport to a very prim and proper stage pays off with the attention they feel the program so desperately deserves.

"We're taking a step with this one and we'll see where it leads," Helms said.