The redshirt sophomore is unbeaten this season at 125 pounds, with matches rarely going the distance.
By ROMAN AUGUSTOVIZ, Star Tribune
MOST PINS
IN A SEASON
BY A GOPHER
20: Marty Morgan, 1989-90
19: Tim Hartung, 1997-98
18: Michial Foy, 1982-83;
Mike McArthur, 1976-77
17: Jason Davids, 1997-98
16:
Cole Konrad, 2005-06
15: Achieved by six wrestlers, including
Jayson Ness in
2006-07 and 2007-08
Pneumonia, bronchitis, allergies, asthma, even a scare after being misdiagnosed with cystic fibrosis.
Jayson Ness battled all those medical problems as a youngster, missing more than 20 days of elementary school one year.
And he was so small as a seventh- and eighth-grader that he could not wrestle on the varsity at Bloomington Kennedy High School because he was under the weight minimum.
But look at him now.
Ness, a redshirt sophomore, is the only unbeaten wrestler on a powerful Gophers team. Minnesota is the defending NCAA champion and ranked No. 6 going into this weekend's National Duals at Northern Iowa.
A year ago Ness beat three nationally ranked opponents in this rugged 16-team meet to help the Gophers repeat as champions.
Halfway through this season, Ness is 19-0 with 15 pins at 125 pounds. The team single-season record for pins is 20, held by assistant coach Marty Morgan.
"I am rooting for him," Morgan said. "If he breaks that record, it means he is getting six points for our team every time. And he can start setting his eyes on Big Ten and national records because I think he is a phenomenal pinner -- [one] that we have not seen here in quite some time."
Morgan said what impresses him most about Ness is his tenacity. He wants to pin everyone.
"[His attitude] is not only great for him and our team," Morgan said, "but it is great for wrestling because there is nothing better fans like than the pin."
Last month at the Southern Scuffle in Greensboro, N.C., Ness pinned all six wrestlers he faced, four of them in 2 minutes, 10 seconds or under.
He is ranked third nationally at his weight.
Taking a different path
Ness' father, Jay, was a hockey player at since-closed Minneapolis West and wanted his son to pursue that sport. He took him skating, built a backyard rink, but Bloomington did not offer organized hockey until third grade. By then it was too late.
In kindergarten, Jayson saw a flyer to join a wrestling program. Assuming it would be similar to the pro wrestling he saw on TV, he was excited.
"I was a little guy [37 pounds] and I thought I would go out there and learn how to be tough," Ness said. "It turned out to be something completely different. I didn't really like it at all. I hated going to practice, but I loved the meets."
He was 1-14 his first year. But after each match, both wrestlers had their arms raised and he made friends.
Jay Ness expected him to quit after so many losses. It didn't happen. The next season Jayson won more than 40 matches.
"It was a done deal then," said Jay Ness, who decided he better learn about the sport.
By Jayson's third season of wrestling, his father was head coach of his team, and the two were wrestling vagabonds, traveling to extra practices in Wayzata, St. Michael and Forest Lake on Monday and Wednesday nights.
Jay was taking notes how to run his own practices on Tuesday and Thursday nights, Jayson was soaking up tips and making more friends. Friday? It was workout night for Jayson with a friend in the Ness basement.
"On birthdays, we would have 15 wrestlers from all different communities," Jay Ness said.
In second grade, Jayson won his first of eight state titles in either freestyle or Greco-Roman.
The following year Gordy Morgan taught Jayson the half-nelson series his younger brother used to set the Gophers' pin record. Gordy Morgan met the Nesses working with the wrestling programs in Bloomington and later Forest Lake.
Jayson still relies on his half-nelson to set up most of his pins.
A half-nelson is a hold that involves slipping a hand under an opponent's arm, then pressing down on an opponent's head and turning him on his back by, as Ness told the Big Ten Network in a TV interview, trying to rip his arm off.
Trained to wrestle
By sixth grade, Kennedy coach Chuck Vavrosky was watching Ness compete.
"Even at that age, he was pretty technically sound," Vavrosky said. "I always worried how small he was. Luckily, he came around."
As a freshman, Ness was up to 94 pounds, allowing him to compete on Vavrosky's varsity team. Ness eventually won two Class 3A state titles and had a career record of 161-14 with 124 pins.
Vavrosky remembers Ness best for the willpower he showed one year while winning the Bi-State Invitational, a 54-team high school tournament in La Crosse, Wis.
"He was sicker than a dog, he had the flu," Vavrosky said. "I went to his dad and asked him, 'Do you want [Jayson] to wrestle?' He said, 'What do you mean? This is what we have trained him for.'"
That weekend,
Jayson Ness threw up before and after every match.
"He beat one or two Wisconsin state champions; it was one of the most phenomenal things I have seen," said Vavrosky, a coach for 28 years. "And I'm pretty sure he did pin everyone."
Last season as a Gopher, Ness was the Big Ten Freshman of the Year. He was 40-5 with a team-high 15 pins -- the same number he already has this season. He placed fifth in the NCAA meet.
Recruiting Ness, who still uses an inhaler for his asthma when needed, was not too difficult for the Gophers. Coach J Robinson sent him a letter and a Gophers wrestling T-shirt to the 8-year-old Ness, shortly after he was misdiagnosed with cystic fibrosis.
"Hopefully, one day you will wrestle for the Gophers," it read in part.
"I wore the T-shirt all the time and I still have it," Ness said. "It's a little worn out. You come and watch a Gophers meet and every single one of those guys is my hero. They are all the best and the greatest at everything."
And Ness might just pin his way into that group.
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