Late in 2013, as Frank Molinaro set out on a walk with his wife, Kera, and his dog, he was an ex-wrestler and an assistant coach at Rutgers.
By the time the Molinaros made it back to the house, Molinaro had decided to kick-start his wrestling career and his thoughts turned from his coaching job in New Jersey to a return to his collegiate wrestling roots in University Park.
That fateful day laid the foundation for the Nittany Lion assistant coach’s improbable run to a spot on the U.S. Olympic Freestyle Wrestling Team that he earned on April 9 in Iowa City, Iowa.
“It just felt like I had left some potential out there and some opportunity. I felt like I was going to regret it. When we were on that walk we talked about it, my wife and I, and I decided that I was going to do it. I told her what my goals were and I told her what it would take,” Molinaro recalled.
“By the time I got into the house my mind was already thinking about I might miss a day of training tomorrow. I was immediately thinking about finishing the year strong there but, more importantly, getting back to Penn State because I knew this was going to be the best place to train. I knew this was the mindset I needed to win and to get through the storm that was ahead of me. When I decided that, it was a race to get back here.”
It required a leap of faith from Kera, who was an assistant gymnastics coach at Rutgers.
“She knows I’m crazy. She thought about it, but she supported it. She’s an athlete; she’s a coach. She knows that it would probably be harder to live with me with regret than me being content where I was. She was all on board.
“It was definitely a big sacrifice for her to leave her job and come back here and not know what State College was going to be like,” Molinaro said.
Molinaro, Penn State’s fifth four-time All-American and a national champion, was a Nittany Lion from 2008 to 2012. He returned to that championship pedigree as he walked methodically through perhaps the most loaded weight class — 65 kilograms/143 pounds — in that weekend’s U.S. Olympic Freestyle Wrestling Trials in Iowa City, Iowa.
He defeated two-time NCAA champion Kellen Russell, four-time U.S. World Team member Brent Metcalf, four-time NCAA champion Logan Stieber and two-time Junior World medalist Aaron Pico on his road to gold.
As a Nittany Lion, Molinaro had always enjoyed a fiery demeanor on the mat. In Iowa City, though, the 27-year-old husband and father was calm and calculating, oftentimes using his new on-mat demeanor to turn his opponent’s aggression into points.
“It’s really changed my perspective and kind of rearranged my priorities. I think definitely more so my perspective with God has changed the direction of my life more than anything. This is not my identity any more. I don’t put all my stock in my achievements, I don’t put all my stock in losing or winning, it’s not really built on that anymore,” Molinaro said.
“This is more about developing my character and serving God in any way I can. I try to do that by being a good example and making it to that platform so that I can honor God and hopefully change some other people’s direction.”
One person who noticed Molinaro’s transformation up close is also a key contributor to his success — Penn State coach Cael Sanderson.
“Frank really committed to being the best he could possibly be. He has always been an extremely hard worker and clear on what he wants, but he took that above and beyond anything he’s done in the past,” Sanderson said.
“The big difference in Frank at the tournament is he’s very calm. Normally, he’s not quite that calm. He’s a guy you have to calm down throughout the tournament and throughout the season. He was at peace. I think a lot of that comes from knowing he did everything he could to be successful. I think a lot of that comes from his relationship with God. It’s something that he’s talked about. It’s a peace you’re not getting from any other way. I think that was probably the difference.”
For Molinaro, winning the weight class at the Olympic Trials was only half the battle if he wants to wrestle in the Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. Olympic wrestling rules dictate that each country perform at a high level in the intervening international competitions between Olympiads in order to preserve that country’s slot in that weight class for the Olympic Games. The United States hasn’t done that yet for 65 kilograms/143 pounds.
That’s why Molinaro and Penn State associate head coach Cody Sanderson boarded a plane bound for Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, to try to place in the top three at the first World Olympic Games qualifying tournament on Sunday, April 24. If he comes up short there, and he said point blank he won’t, he can try again in Turkey two weeks later.
Molinaro’s trek to the top of the weight class, while arguably the biggest surprise of the trials, didn’t come without precedent. He had won three international tournaments in the past two years, but had still languished in the middle of the ladder at his weight class. He entered the trials seeded ninth.
The foundation for Molinaro’s success was built when he returned to Happy Valley 18 months ago as not only an assistant coach under the Sandersons, but also as a competitor again.
“It wasn’t easy. He did those little things that probably most people would think this doesn’t make a difference. It obviously does make a difference,” Cael Sanderson said. “Then he went out there and battled. You still have to battle. That’s something that some kids miss. They think you can work so hard that everything’s easy. You have to work hard and fight for what you want and that’s what Frank did.”
Molinaro deflected to credit to the Sandersons and the rest of the program.
“Just being around the guys I’m around now on a daily basis, the kids on the team, the coaching staff, people God put in my life and just being able to listen to them and hear what they’re saying. Constantly getting better. Being a national champ isn’t nearly good enough to win the Olympic Trials. When I started two years ago I learned that lesson real fast. I think it’s more of an attitude and coach Cael preaches it all the time,” he said.
“My heart was always full of hope and I always thought if I kept doing the things that I was doing, kept grinding it out, not cutting corners and doing all the small things that it would pay off eventually. It had proven to be true previously in my life for other goals that I had set.”
Knowing that he had made the changes he needed to make and had done the work he needed to do engendered a calming effect.
‘The closer I got to the tournament was the most prepared I ever felt. I think the hardest part was just accepting that I was going to do it. Once I accepted that, that I put the time in and it was my tournament to take, I just kind of went out there and had fun,” he said, even with the gauntlet that lay ahead.
“We looked at the brackets and I was excited. It didn’t surprise me beating them. I expected to beat them 100 percent. I was happy I was able to compete with composure and get it done.”
He plans to replicate that same approach in Mongolia.
“I’m not going to do anything different with my approach, with my balance, with my mentality. I’m going to focus on the things that have gotten me to this point and continue to make sure that my priorities are straight and that I feel good going into the tournament,” he said.
“I’m not going to get better, per se, from this week to next week technically, but I will make sure that my body and my mind are 100 percent.”
Preparation, Molinaro said, was the key to his success in Iowa City.
“I think the biggest thing was it was the first time in my freestyle career that I wasn’t going into a tournament still trying to figure stuff out. Still trying to figure out what I could do. Figure out what could be good for me. Or figure out what would make me have a little bit better chance to win,” he said.
“It was more, the work was done, the taper had begun and it was about peaking and, not anticipating problems, but anticipating how awesome it was going to be to compete out there, how awesome it was going to be if I did win the tournament instead of anticipating what I had to figure out.”
He’ll take that same approach to Mongolia.
“I saw the entry list. I’ve wrestled a lot of the guys. There’s no one in there that’s not beatable,” Molinaro said. “It’s just a matter of being the most prepared and having a strategy when I go out there against some of these guys because they’re obviously different wrestlers.
