Matt Azevedo grew up in sun-baked Las Vegas and played baseball year-round in a city that has sent several of its native sons to the Major Leagues, including phenom Bryce Harper of Washington. Azevedo played the sport regularly, but when he was in middle school his uncle introduced him to wrestling. By the time he was in high school, Azevedo decided to focus on the mat and not the bat.
“I enjoyed the one-on-one aspect and the fact that I could control my own destiny. I was a lightweight; as a sophomore in high school I knew baseball was not going to be my future,” he recalls.
“We always set our goals high. We plan to be a Top 5 team in the conference this year.”
— Matt Azevedo
Azevedo was a college wrestler at Arizona State and Iowa State, and graduated from the latter in 2002. He advanced to the NCAA tournament three times and continued wrestling after college, and won the 2008 U.S. Open National Championship.
He was named the eighth head coach of the Drexel wrestling program in April 2011. He replaced Jack Childs, who retired after 35 seasons.
Earlier this year he was named the Elite Level Sports Marketing Social Media Coach of the Year at the National Wrestling Coaches Association during its conference in Florida in June.
Azevedo lives with his wife, Brooke, and two young sons in Bryn Mawr, Pa. The former Cal Poly and Cornell coach spoke with Drexel Magazine about Drexel’s wrestling program.
Although the International Olympic Committee (IOC) recently voted wrestling back in as an event for the 2020 games, are there other general challenges the sport faces at the grassroots level and specifically at the Division I level in which Drexel resides? At the grassroots level wrestling has the highest participation it has ever had. It doesn’t figure to be a bigger concern at this level. Our big concern is at the Division I level. That is where we have lost some programs over the past 15 or 20 years. At the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics level it is growing. At the Division II and III level it is very strong. At Division I we are working very hard to maintain the programs we have and to try to add some more. Grand Canyon University has added Division I. The IOC vote in September was huge for the sport of wrestling. The Olympics are the pinnacle of wrestling. We don’t have pro wrestling; if you’re going to go pro, you’re going to the Olympics. The vote meant everything for our sport.
When you recruit student-athletes to Drexel, what are some specific selling points you tell them about the university and the wrestling program? Our No. 1 selling point is our academic program and our co-op program, where our kids are working three out of their five years. They work in a job that is in their field of study. It is the only Division I program that has anything near that. Our kids are going to learn on the job. They are going to gain real-life job experience.
Talk about the new league (the Eastern Intercollegiate Wrestling Association) that Drexel will join for wrestling and some pre-season goals for 2013-14. We are very excited about the move to the league, which currently holds all of the Ivy League, Patriot League and the two Colonial Athletic Association schools, Drexel and Hofstra. It is a great move. It is the largest conference in the country and it produces the second-most All-Americans on a yearly basis, second to the Big Ten. It gives us a better chance to qualify on the national level. We will have to raise our level immediately. I would say we are in the middle of the pack. We always set our goals high. We want to be a Top 5 team in the conference this year. We have not had an All-American since 2007 and that is one of our goals.
How would you describe your coaching style and who are and were some of your mentors? I am a technique junkie. I love technique. We preach to our guys to be aggressive. We can work with technique. You can’t instill that aggressiveness. My first coach and the person who had the most impact on my life was my dad, Mark Azevedo. My uncle was my coach in high school and I was his assistant at Cal Poly. Bobby Douglass was my coach at Iowa State. I worked under Rob Koll at Cornell. I have been around a lot of great guys.
What do you enjoy the most about coaching at Drexel and what are some of the challenges of being a Division I head coach? The challenges are managing a business. There are so many moving parts. Coaching is a very small part of that in many ways. You are recruiting, you are fundraising, you are promoting your own brand. Having good assistant coaches is very important. I love the wrestling part of it; that is my favorite part. I wrestle every day with the guys. I love coaching guys at the highest level.
Who are some Drexel wrestlers to watch in the upcoming season? Brandon Palik is a two-time NCAA qualifier and was ranked 16th in the nation last year. He is poised to be an All-American. He has beaten a number of ranked wrestlers. Kevin Devoy Jr. had a great redshirt season. We think he has a good chance of being an All-American. And we have a heavyweight who has been plagued by injuries who is probably our best athlete on the team, Jamie Callender. It is incredible the things this kid can do.
Wrestling is such a one-on-one contest. How do you foster team chemistry? That is a challenge. It is an individual sport, and you have to treat them as individuals. Ultimately we create a team philosophy. We hold everybody accountable. That is how you create your team chemistry. When they start seeing the results it is a team effort.