AU Wrestling Coach Mark Cody Leaves for Greener (Corn-Filled) Pastures

Former AU Wrestling Head Coach Mark Cody

The sad reality in college sports is that success and personnel retention don't often go hand-in-hand. With the exception of the Division 1 power conferences, if a player, coach, or administrator hits it big, they'll most likely be snapped up by someone with a bigger budget, better facilities, and a household name faster than you can say "Once an Eagle..."

This scenario played itself out at American University yesterday, as Wrestling Head Coach Mark Cody was hired away by Big 12 power University of Oklahoma. For those in Eagles Nation who follow the wrestling program, you know Mark Cody is the man hired to save a program on the brink of elimination. He turned a struggling, underfunded, and forgettable program into a national powerhouse in less than a decade. 

When AU came close to permanently cutting Wrestling from its athletics repertoire in the early 2000's, a number of alumni and boosters stepped up and provided enough funding to conduct a national search for a head coach who could help save the program. That search resulted in the 2002 hire of Mark Cody, an assistant at Oklahoma State. In the past nine seasons, he turned AU Wrestling into AU's third fully-funded sport (when he came in, there were only 4.5 scholarships). His squad has been ranked in the Top-25 for six consecutive years, and in the Top-10 for almost the entirety of this past season. He produced AU's first National Champion in any sport in four decades with Josh Glenn's 2007 title. Within three years, he produced the program's first-ever All-American, and since 2005, turned out 15 more. Add 21 Academic All-Americans to that resume (with multiple national-high team GPAs and that same distinction expected again this year), as well as a program-best 5th place finish at the NCAA Tournament after sending a program-high six wrestlers, and this year's NWCA Coach of the Year award, and you have one hell of a resume. 

So, really, it's incredible Cody stuck around Tenleytown this long, right? When the position at OU opened up after the retirement of 18-year head coach Jack Spates, many close to the Sooners program expected assistant Sammie Henson to be promoted. Instead, they went with Cody, almost insultingly hailing his success "despite limited resources" in their press release as one of his biggest accomplishments.

Despite spending the last decade or so in DC, Cody is no stranger to the Big 12. In addition to his stint at Oklahoma State, he spent 12 years at the University of Nebraska, and wrestled for Missouri. Additionally, AU Athletic Director Keith Gill spent three years at Oklahoma before being hired by AU in 2007. Whether or not Gill's prior affiliation with OU played a role is unknown at this time.

This morning OU released a transcript of a teleconference Cody held announcing his decision (audio can be found here). Per usual, AU Athletics has remained tight-lipped and has not announced anything regarding Cody's new position, or any preliminary plans to search for a new coach.

The timing of Cody's announcement was also a bit unfortunate, as it came only a day after The Eagle ran the following cover story:

The Eagle's story, which in this blogger's opinion was one of their best-written sports stories this year, included inspiring quotes such as:

"Cody is happy with his team’s performance at the championships but not satisfied. He is still in the hunt to be number one is the nation in wrestling and academics, and his goal is to achieve both in the same year."

Unfortunately for the Eagles, it looks like he'll be pursuing that goal in Norman, Oklahoma next season. It is this blogger's hope that AU is able to recruit someone even half as successful to fill the incredibly large shoes Cody is leaving behind. Although we now have a legacy of success as a program, hurdles such as inadequate facilities will certainly make it more difficult to find someone else of Cody's caliber. Most importantly, I hope we can find someone respected enough to keep our student athletes from also seeking greener, corn-filled pastures.

But hey, at least we still have Jeff Jones.

Pro Deo Et Patria,

Josh

P.S. - I know many readers are likely wondering why I'm reporting on this and not Vlad's recent success in the Portsmouth Invitational and All-Star games. Simply put, I'm pretty bogged down at the end of the semester and this seemed like more breaking news. Fear not, more of The Impaler is coming soon! As always, thanks for reading, everyone.