Road to Rio: Molinaro masters Olympic waiting game

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Behind the wrestling mat in Istanbul, Turkey, off in a back room, Frank Molinaro couldn't keep his emotions in check.

His Olympic dream shattered during a loss at the last-chance qualifier, there was nothing any coach could say or do, the sting of defeat still fresh in his mind. For 45 minutes the former Penn State All-America honoree, a 2012 NCAA champion whose toughness and scrapping on the mat brought him this far, laid down and cried.

“I was crushed. I was just completely broken,” Molinaro said Monday afternoon in the Lorenzo Wrestling Complex. “I can’t even describe the feeling because I’ve never really felt that before. I’ve always been able to kind of come out in those moments when it mattered and that was the first time that I really kind of fell short.”



Stepping on the mat again for a chance at third place didn’t even cross his mind. Too distraught to think about anything other than the loss, Molinaro started taking off his wrestling shoes when U.S. coach Bruce Burnett and Penn State associate head coach Cody Sanderson helped put Molinaro’s dream back together.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuFayTD_NME

Within the next two matches and the following three days Molinaro’s athletic career would forever be changed.

“[Burnett] said, ‘I love you kid, but if you have any chance of qualifying you need to get up and win these two matches. You got Belarus and Kazakhstan,' ” Molinaro recalled. “I was like, ‘Okay, I’ll put my shoes back on.’ And he goes, ‘Yeah, hustle up too. You’re on deck.’ I was like, 'What?' Not to sound dramatic, but at the time I felt like I couldn’t even stand up and walk back to the place where we were sitting.”

That sequence turned into one of life’s defining moments for the 27-year-old Penn State assistant coach. Molinaro picked himself up off the floor and wrestled his way past the two competitors, competing in a fistfight of a match to take the bronze, which was “probably the ugliest wrestling match I’ve ever been in,” he said.

It didn’t matter how much scratching and head butting took place in that final match to get the bronze — and by Molinaro’s estimation there was a lot — because two days later Molinaro was rewarded with an Olympic berth when two 65 kg wrestlers were banned because of doping.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__FpuAOiOjA

“How easy would it have been to say, ‘Oh, my shot’s over. I give up,' ” Cael Sanderson said Monday. “But he battled back, won some tough matches, gave himself a chance because, at the time, I don't think they knew there were going to be failed drug tests. That’s a character thing and something I’m really proud of Frank and it’s just a great lesson for our team and really anybody. You always finish as well as you possibly can, because who knows what could possibly happen.”

It’s the latest part of Molinaro’s remarkable journey to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil for the 2016 Olympic Games, one that started 3 1/2 years ago and was fueled by the possibility of wrestling being dropped from future Olympics. His underdog-to-championship run through the loaded weight class at the U.S. Olympic Trials and then failing to qualify the weight in Mongolia and Turkey made last week’s addition as an Olympian with a qualified weight all the more rewarding for him.

“The beginning of this year, it was a really dark time because I wasn’t really winning anything,” he said. “I was having injuries that were kind of lingering and I just kept working, kept believing that something good was going to happen and then the Pan-American Championships happened and that was kind of the turning point for me. It was a really big win. I beat a guy who tech-falled me a couple years before, so moving from Pan-Am to now, it’s been a steady climb of getting better.”

He knew there was a possibility he’d represent the U.S. in Rio as rumors of the other competitors' failed drug tests swirled, but even then after that third-place finish -- where he needed to place in the top two to qualify the weight --  Molinaro said he emailed as many people and googled as much as he could to learn more about the qualifying procedures.

He didn’t find much.

He was restless and unsure, told it could take a week or two before he’d know for sure whether or not he’d compete in Rio or just be there as a training partner.

“I had to kind of refocus my perspective and try to stay balanced and, to be honest, I didn’t do a really good job of it,” he said. “I was kind of just staring at the walls, wasn’t sleeping much and I just kept praying and praying and I really believed that I was going to get it, but I didn’t want to get my hopes up.”

Molinaro prides himself on being more balanced as a human being and as a wrestler, crediting being a husband and a father with helping him mature. He’s relied on his faith during this journey too, saying he gave his testimony at church the week of the Olympic Trials and continued to pray that somehow, someway, his bronze medal would be his golden ticket to Rio.

Seeking a distraction while he returned to State College and waited, Molinaro played golf at the nearby Mountain View Country Club where four pars in a row kept him from looking at his phone.

But then a text message from a friend caught his attention.

“It just said, ‘You’re the man.’ I was like, ‘What?’ ” he said. “Then I hit the menu button and my phone died. I sprinted back to my car, plugged it in and I had about 20 messages. I was pumped.

“It was a great surprise. Middle of the round.”

He never finished the round and rushed home to celebrate his Olympic berth with his wife, who along with coaches, friends and former teammates all tried notifying him when his phone died.

Molinaro took a four-day trip to Florida with his family, soaking up the last bit of downtime he’ll have for the next few months. He’ll head to the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colo. in two weeks for training camp, then head to Los Angeles and wrestle in next month’s World Cup. He'll follow that by wrestling in Germany, then leave for Rio a month early where he’ll have more training and time to acclimate.

Monday afternoon while he readied to hit the mat, several former Nittany Lions sat in the bleachers waiting to do the same. Among them were reigning NCAA champion Nico Megaludis and 2012 Olympic gold medalist Jake Varner. Coach Cael Sanderson was rolling around on the mat as usual and dishing out pointers. This summer, the Lions’ next wave of college wrestlers will arrive full of Olympic aspirations, too.

Molinaro, who is also a resident athlete in the Nittany Lion Wrestling Club, said his success is a testament to Sanderson’s program and to his wrestling partners. While Molinaro wants to enjoy the remaining time he has on campus with these wrestlers before his busy summer, his example and success adds to what Penn State wrestling and the Nittany Lion Wrestling Club have accomplished since Sanderson’s arrival. The wrestling club will also be represented in Rio by Olympian Franklin Gomez, who will wrestle for Puerto Rico.

“It just shows how big the pedigree is for Penn State wrestling,” Molinaro said of the Lions' collegiate wrestlers. “It just gives them a level of success to chase. It’s not like they’re coming in and the expectation is to be an All American. Some programs that is the expectation and there’s nothing wrong with that, but here it’s to be the best that you can possibly be and we have a lot of good role models around here and I think that when guys come here with big dreams, they know it’s possible.”

Of course Molinaro is now one of those Olympic role models, too.

“He can win a medal. He’s just got to be himself and compete hard,” Cael Sanderson said. “He’s had an incredible story up to this point, but the story is not yet complete.”