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50 Minutes of Hard Earned Lessons with Jacob Cardenas - Session 76
37 Plays11 days ago
Jacob Cardenas joins The Barn Session as he reflects on his college career and what he plans on moving forward. From his early days of getting started in the sport, wanting to be a WWE star, to striving to be an Olympic champion. Jacob talks about how to trust in his coaches, focus on the work, and staying composed no matter the challenge.
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Transcript
Introduction to Jacob Cardenas
00:00:00
Cokeley Brothers
Welcome back to another episode of the bar in session podcast. I am here with a special guest, uh, three time all American Jacob Cardenas out of Michigan, uh, formerly from Cornell.
00:00:10
Jacoby
So I'm good.
00:00:11
Cokeley Brothers
Jacob, how you doing?
00:00:13
Jacoby
How are you doing? I'm great.
00:00:14
Cokeley Brothers
Doing all right. Can't complain. Hey, um, so yeah, let's just jump right into it. You will, you will recently wrapped up your college career. You were two time all American at Cornell and you recently, uh, took fourth place out of Michigan. Uh,
00:00:28
Jacoby
Yeah.
00:00:29
Cokeley Brothers
Talk to me about it. Talk to me about your experience.
00:00:32
Jacoby
I hold like my college experiences in general.
00:00:34
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, tell me how you're feeling right now.
00:00:35
Jacoby
um
00:00:36
Cokeley Brothers
Like what are your immediate thoughts? Have you processed all of it?
00:00:40
Jacoby
Yeah, I guess. ah
00:00:42
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah.
00:00:43
Jacoby
I wouldn't say I really feel like, not not no like any ninety strong crazy emotions. it's ah I guess maybe it hasn't really kicked in there. But yeah, I had a good, fun college career. I mean, wrestling, is it was fun. Wrestling at the National Tournament, you know, placing three times, just being All-American.
00:00:59
Jacoby
Just always fun. It's not even that, just like, know, I've had a lot of good dual meets, a little, got a little, a whole bunch of good tournaments, you know, with the Vegas, you know, wrestled against Lehigh and then wrestled against Penn State, like all those good teams.
00:01:13
Jacoby
So
The Enjoyable Side of College Wrestling
00:01:14
Jacoby
overall it was a fun, fun experience for sure.
00:01:14
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah.
00:01:16
Jacoby
Better than, you know, I thought coming in when I was like 18 as a freshman. So yeah.
00:01:22
Cokeley Brothers
what What were your expectations coming in? You're like, man, it's just going to be a lot of hard practices and not like just a lot of suck, basically.
00:01:26
Jacoby
Yeah. I just thought I was, yeah I was going to say, as I thought it ah thought it would just suck all the time, which like I guess it kind of did.
00:01:30
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah.
00:01:34
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah.
00:01:34
Jacoby
It did ah at times, no of course. But I definitely had more fun than I thought, just like being with my friends.
00:01:37
Cokeley Brothers
Right.
00:01:41
Jacoby
like I got ah yeah really close with the Cornell guys. And then even at Michigan, even I was only here for a year. I got really close to the guys here. so Met a lot of people on the way. you know I was able to travel a lot through it as well. So that was really that was a good perk for it.
00:01:58
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah, you, ah um you know, you do you feel like with, you know, the experience, what what's going to be your biggest takeaway? Is it going to be those those experiences of, you know, coming up clutch in a duel or, you know, making a deep run through a tournament?
00:02:14
Cokeley Brothers
You know, what's what's going to stick with you the most?
00:02:18
Jacoby
I think there's like the traveling especially with like your friends too it's like know like the fun like airport memories or just like even when I went to Worlds like I traveled to Albania and Spain for like wrestling so like that was just cool that was
00:02:23
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah.
00:02:33
Jacoby
you know, fully like funded through like school, you know what I mean? Like it wasn't even like own expense.
00:02:37
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah.
00:02:38
Jacoby
So it's just the opportunity. I've met a whole bunch of people. um I meet people from all around the country and world. So I think just like, you know, brings people together, make some share memories together, especially like the teammates or even with the coaches.
00:02:50
Jacoby
So would say, would say,
00:02:51
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah. So for you, not necessarily just about the journey, but it's it's who you're with.
00:02:57
Jacoby
Yeah, i was, yeah, i was gonna say it's like, yeah, obviously the tournaments are fun and they're all cool. Like, you know, the dual meets or the big tournaments, but I just think like the people who were with you made it, made it way better than, know, it would
00:03:05
Cokeley Brothers
Mm-hmm.
Future Plans in Wrestling and Education
00:03:10
Jacoby
have been if you,
00:03:10
Cokeley Brothers
Right. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, you know, college is wrapped up. What, what is next for you? Are you going to continue to wrestle? Is it going to be team USA?
00:03:21
Cokeley Brothers
Can you wrestle for a different country? What's your next plan?
00:03:23
Jacoby
I don't think I can rest for a different country. I thought about that, but I think like since I did the u twenty three in the Worlds, there's like like a transfer fee.
00:03:27
Cokeley Brothers
Okay.
00:03:32
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah.
00:03:34
Jacoby
or just it's like It's more complicated since I've already wrestled for USA, so I would definitely continue pursuing like a world team for USA.
00:03:36
Cokeley Brothers
Something like that.
00:03:45
Cokeley Brothers
Okay. So you're taking taking this year off, kind of giving yourself some time to finish up school and...
00:03:49
Jacoby
Kind of, yeah. I mean, Yeah, I'm gonna graduate kind of hang out with friends. And then you know, once like the summer hits, you know, I'm kind of locked in. So
00:03:57
Cokeley Brothers
Are you still you twenty three eligible? You've been a staple on that team. Okay. i was going to say, because you you went second, third, second there, right? And so, yeah.
00:04:05
Jacoby
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:04:06
Cokeley Brothers
Okay. Yeah. um Well, so what does that look like? are you going to stick around with Michigan? Are you going train at their RTC?
00:04:13
Jacoby
Yeah, I'll stick around in Michigan.
00:04:14
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah.
00:04:17
Jacoby
I got to figure out where I'm living actually soon.
00:04:17
Cokeley Brothers
Okay.
00:04:19
Jacoby
my my My lease ends like a month, so I got to find a roommate.
00:04:22
Cokeley Brothers
Okay.
00:04:23
Jacoby
I'll stick around in Ann Arbor, yeah.
00:04:23
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah.
00:04:25
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah. So, yeah i mean, because you got Derringer out there. all i mean obviously all the guys in the college room. Is Amin still wrestling? He is, isn't he?
00:04:34
Jacoby
i don't think so. No, I haven't seen him in a while.
00:04:36
Cokeley Brothers
You think he's done?
00:04:37
Jacoby
yeah
00:04:37
Cokeley Brothers
Okay.
00:04:38
Jacoby
He's doing like his own little thing like on Instagram. like He's doing like this like entrepreneur little stuff.
00:04:43
Cokeley Brothers
I saw that.
00:04:45
Jacoby
It's pretty cool.
00:04:45
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah. Yeah.
00:04:45
Jacoby
and I don't know. I don't think he's wrestling. He might pop out in the room every once in a while, but don't think he's wrestling now.
00:04:50
Cokeley Brothers
Okay. Okay. Interesting. I mean, you know, Olympic medal. like
00:04:56
Jacoby
I
00:04:57
Cokeley Brothers
I could rest on that if I got that. So I get it.
00:04:59
Jacoby
ah i
00:05:00
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah.
00:05:01
Jacoby
ah love wrestling him. Me and him used to get some good scraps. and
00:05:04
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah.
00:05:04
Jacoby
He's good. He's really good.
00:05:06
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah. ah who Who else would you would you roll around with? Who who were your ideal or best training partners, the guys that pushed you the most?
Differences Between Big Ten and Ivy League Wrestling
00:05:15
Cokeley Brothers
Did you have any specific dudes or was it just...
00:05:16
Jacoby
I usually wrestle with Hayden, Hayden Walters. He was our, we registered this year, but he was our 97, like projected and being wrestled a whole bunch.
00:05:23
Cokeley Brothers
OK. OK. Mm-hmm.
00:05:29
Jacoby
And he was pretty good. Like me and him, he's like my perfect partner this year, to be honest. And then like, I just wrestled with a whole bunch of people.
00:05:34
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah.
00:05:36
Jacoby
I don't know. I'd wrestle. I mean, Heinzelman I wrestled with, he used to transfer this year and
00:05:40
Cokeley Brothers
Yep.
00:05:42
Jacoby
I used to kick my ass all the time in freestyle. I wrestled with Mason Paris, a whole bunch.
00:05:46
Cokeley Brothers
Mm-hmm.
00:05:48
Jacoby
There's a lot of guys I can name, but I guess my main partners were Hayden, Josh, Matt. you know I wrestled with Jayden. Jayden was our 84-pounder this year.
00:05:57
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah, yeah.
00:05:57
Jacoby
think those guys for sure.
00:06:00
Cokeley Brothers
did this So you reminded me of the question i was going to ask you. ah Should we, just ah just a quick aside, should we expect to see Mason Paris wrestle at trials?
00:06:09
Jacoby
I have no idea.
00:06:11
Cokeley Brothers
You have no idea? Okay.
00:06:12
Jacoby
ah you know haven I haven't been in the room since. I haven't practiced since Nationals, so I haven't been in the room.
00:06:16
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah.
00:06:17
Jacoby
So I have no idea.
00:06:17
Cokeley Brothers
I get taken little bit of time off. I get it.
00:06:19
Jacoby
Yeah.
00:06:20
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah.
00:06:21
Jacoby
ah Maybe. I don't know. i i would assume so, I guess.
00:06:25
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah.
00:06:26
Jacoby
No idea.
00:06:26
Cokeley Brothers
I was, I kind of gauged it off of whether or not he was going to be at the open and he wasn't there. And so i was like, okay, I guess we won't see him.
00:06:31
Jacoby
was surprised. I didn't see Gable there. thought Gable would wrestle.
00:06:35
Cokeley Brothers
No, he's set to do and of ah ah Brazilian jujitsu event with Craig Jones.
00:06:36
Jacoby
Yeah.
00:06:42
Jacoby
Oh, that's pretty cool.
00:06:42
Cokeley Brothers
I don't, I don't know what cable is doing. I don't think, i don't know if anybody knows. So,
00:06:46
Jacoby
Yeah, that's fair. That sounds pretty cool.
00:06:48
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah. um Back to you. ah You spent some spent your time at Cornell, graduated, had a year at Michigan. You had a lot of different experiences ah in terms of the coaching. yeah Because even at Cornell, you went through, you know, the coaching staff was in in flux ah pretty much year over year.
00:07:08
Cokeley Brothers
You know, what what was important to you for what you got out of your coaches or, you know, that um relationship that you had with the guy in the corner?
00:07:16
Jacoby
i I think what was the same in my Cornell experience, Michigan experience is I trusted my coaches a lot. like I didn't really question or like talk back on anything that they like told me to do or anything. like even like but like Even during match, it's not like they would say something and I would kind of ignore it. I'd always like take everything into account and just like, even at practice, like even if I thought like these drills or like what we were doing was like pretty stupid, like I would just be like, you know what?
00:07:44
Jacoby
Like these guys are better than I am. So I would just, I definitely like listened.
00:07:48
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah.
00:07:50
Jacoby
I was very, and um I think I'm a very coachable person. So, I mean, that's kind of the reasons why I picked the schools is like, you know, if I believe in, I trust the coaches, like I'm most likely going to be like wrestling for your program, you know?
00:08:04
Jacoby
So i would say put my faith and trust in trusting them.
00:08:04
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, right.
00:08:08
Jacoby
Julian's calling me. I'll call that guy later.
00:08:11
Cokeley Brothers
Julian. I'm trying to get him to come down and run a clinic and do an episode with him too. So, yeah. um Yeah, so with with that, ah in in your mind, at least for you, the fit is trust trust my coaches, trust them inherently.
00:08:30
Cokeley Brothers
um you know, don't think about what they're having me do. Just do it.
00:08:34
Jacoby
Yeah, for the most part, yeah.
00:08:35
Cokeley Brothers
Pretty much.
00:08:36
Jacoby
Yeah, I think just you know not really questioning what they're doing. Both programs, Cornell and Michigan, have been successful programs throughout history. So whatever their recipe believe it.
00:08:50
Jacoby
i believe it you know
00:08:52
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah.
Mental Preparation and Impact of Wrestling
00:08:53
Cokeley Brothers
Okay. So do you feel like you can kind of give some, some comparisons between your time with, you know, the best Ivy league program and a top level big 10 program, you know, both of them are very successful, but you know, are there some key differences or their pros and cons to either.
00:09:07
Jacoby
Yeah, there's definitely differences. I feel like Michigan, it was very, it was a lot more like drilling and like conditioning. I wouldn't say we didn't do that.
00:09:17
Cokeley Brothers
Hmm.
00:09:18
Jacoby
I wouldn't say we wouldn't do that at Cornell, but I'd say like we definitely had more like, I'm pretty sure like, like at Michigan, I didn't really know what our practice going look like every day, like every day, but it was like kind of like, it could have been something different, you know, but like at Cornell, I think I remember like,
00:09:34
Jacoby
like Thursdays being like, you know, all right, like we're definitely gonna like spar around like roll, like a power hour, I think is what we called it.
00:09:38
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah.
00:09:41
Jacoby
Like we would just like get sweating. And then our our day before weight cut was a little different. Like we would kind of do our own thing and like, you know, get what you need. But Michigan was very like, like, all right, like coach told us what we're gonna do before practice.
00:09:55
Jacoby
Like we didn't know, like if it was a Thursday practice, we wouldn't know until Thursday right before practice. And like, usually but would just be like a lot of drill.
00:10:00
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah.
00:10:02
Jacoby
Like we would hit like specific areas. Like, I swear, I probably done like, a snap, go behind, re-attack like a billion times this season. Like that was like our main drill.
00:10:12
Jacoby
So it wass like, we knew like exactly the drills we were gonna do.
00:10:13
Cokeley Brothers
yeah right
00:10:15
Jacoby
and it was like the same exact drills pretty much like every day. And like sure, we did have like a couple like technique days. And of course, like, you know, we didn't drill every single day, but I would say it's more fast paced.
00:10:25
Jacoby
And I feel like my conditioning, just like, not even like, like a cardio condition, just literally like conditioning my body on like the techniques and like just like a muscle memory type of thing.
00:10:35
Cokeley Brothers
yeah
00:10:36
Jacoby
i would say that's like the biggest, at least for me, had the biggest takeaway, just like the, and just like the schedule too. The Big Ten schedule is kind of like insane.
00:10:44
Cokeley Brothers
Not fun.
00:10:45
Jacoby
Yeah, not fun.
00:10:45
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah.
00:10:46
Jacoby
i did I did not expect that at all.
00:10:46
Cokeley Brothers
no ah my My last year at Indiana, we were on the road at one point for 10 days with three away duels.
00:10:48
Jacoby
Just like Friday, Sunday duels every weekend for like five weekends in a row is just like crazy.
00:11:02
Cokeley Brothers
And it was like they were spaced out to where you made weight and you couldn't really get back up because you had to cut back down within the next two days. it It was...
00:11:11
Jacoby
Yeah.
00:11:12
Cokeley Brothers
They're not fun.
00:11:13
Jacoby
You know, I cut way more weight this year than I did last year for sure.
00:11:13
Cokeley Brothers
It is not a.
00:11:18
Jacoby
Just because it's Friday, Sundays, you know.
00:11:18
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah. Mm hmm. They're not fun. um But that is interesting, you know, because I definitely did recognize that going from Cornell to to Indiana where like.
00:11:32
Cokeley Brothers
cornell tuesdays were rtc practices and they were they were you know not fun and then wednesdays it was like sparring you're probably just going to get with a partner and just you know know in mind like have in mind what you want to focus on and just work on technique uh and then you you know you have your different structure and it's broken out within a week structure but then indiana was like yeah i mean we might get a message right before practice that we need our running shoes and we're going to go run so yeah yeah
00:11:36
Jacoby
Hard. Yeah.
00:11:45
Jacoby
Yeah.
00:11:56
Jacoby
Yeah, no, exactly. Exactly. We at Michigan, we do like these like sprint workouts. It's actually I was so I was caught off guard by we do the sprint workouts like towards like the postseason. i don't know if it it might be like a week or two before postseason but like yeah maybe like February mid-February we do these like track workouts like 6 And I'm just like, what?
00:12:17
Jacoby
Like, why? Like, why are we doing this? ah that That's what I was going to before.
00:12:21
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah.
00:12:22
Jacoby
I kind of just, you know, I did it. And, you know, they ended up doing really good for you.
00:12:24
Cokeley Brothers
Right.
00:12:25
Jacoby
They were like very quick workouts. We like sprinted for like 20 minutes and then did another like 20 minute circuit. It's basically kind of like our lift for the morning. And then we come back in and do drilling.
00:12:33
Cokeley Brothers
Okay. Yeah.
00:12:35
Jacoby
So yeah, definitely look different more like fast faster pace.
00:12:36
Cokeley Brothers
No.
00:12:40
Cokeley Brothers
Okay. Yeah. And so... Yeah, the Big Ten schedule is definitely a different animal. you know um I feel like that what you explained in terms of...
00:12:51
Cokeley Brothers
you know i have i've hit you know We focused on this drill specifically for you know so many repetitions throughout the year. That kind of works in in line with what you mentioned in terms of...
00:13:03
Cokeley Brothers
you know I don't really have to think a whole lot about what I'm doing. Especially even when I'm in a wrestling match. I've been in this
Development from High School to College
00:13:07
Cokeley Brothers
position. I know snap go behind.
00:13:08
Jacoby
Yeah.
00:13:08
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah. Yeah. That, so those work in tandem for you and that, so it makes sense why that was a good fit and yeah.
00:13:15
Jacoby
It just gives you like more confidence. I feel like it's like, you don't really gotta to like que double, double take anything. It's kind of like, all right, he shoots you're snapping and you're and you're running a leg, you're running a leg attack.
00:13:21
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah.
00:13:24
Jacoby
So I think it just like builds into your like preparation and your confidence.
00:13:29
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah. Yeah. So, um, you know, you had your, your various training partners.
00:13:30
Jacoby
Yeah.
00:13:35
Cokeley Brothers
Did you have like a guy on the coaching staff who was like, your go-to guy, you always liked having him in your corner or anything like that?
00:13:39
Jacoby
Yeah, I mean, when I first got here, me and KJ, like that was that was the my first, I guess, like coach before like the season started.
00:13:44
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah.
00:13:47
Cokeley Brothers
Mm-hmm.
00:13:48
Jacoby
So me and KJ just did like a whole bunch of one-on-ones during in the summer. Cause I was taking summer classes last year too for like my my master. So I had class from like, don't even know, i think like noon to like five or six, you know, it was like a big block.
00:13:54
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah.
00:14:01
Jacoby
So me and KJ would go in the morning, would, you know, grab grab somebody and then we would do drills and, you know, technique or some live.
00:14:02
Cokeley Brothers
Mm-hmm.
00:14:08
Jacoby
And, you know, KJ coached me, like, individually until Worlds. And then once Worlds hit, like, I took a week off, I think, and then went back to the practice. And, you know, Sean, Josh, Debo, like, they are they all coached me.
00:14:20
Jacoby
You know what mean? But I guess the most coaching I've gotten was through KJ.
00:14:21
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah. Yeah.
00:14:26
Jacoby
I did a lot of one-on-one KJ.
00:14:26
Cokeley Brothers
and Okay.
00:14:27
Jacoby
So he's he's the man. He's very really good.
00:14:30
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah.
00:14:30
Jacoby
really good coach.
00:14:32
Cokeley Brothers
Okay. So, so walk me through this, this last season for you, you, you had, um, you know, a great start. won the CKLV, winning all your duels, you take a loss to Josh Barr and then you get into the post season and you win big tens. Right. And so, so tell me how that process was for you or or that experience ah leading up to NCA's and then what NCA's was like for you this year.
00:14:54
Jacoby
I mean, yeah, nothing really, i wouldn't say anything like changed differently. Yeah, i had a good like a regular season. guess took a loss. Penn State kind of brushed that off.
00:15:07
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah.
00:15:07
Jacoby
yeah We had an ex after that, but like. Yeah, it kind of felt like a while, honestly. It felt like, you know, wrestled Penn State and then Big 10s kind of like went, kind of came just like that, you know? So 10s, kind of just like, don't know, not to like downplay it or anything, but to me it was like, I guess it was fun.
00:15:17
Cokeley Brothers
yeah yeah
00:15:25
Jacoby
Like i got to look got a cool little belt and like was on TV, you know?
00:15:28
Cokeley Brothers
yeah
00:15:29
Jacoby
I understand like it was a pretty big tournament, but don't know, to me it kind of just felt like, and I just won a couple matches, you know? and it Like, yeah, I wouldn't say it was like a huge thing for me.
00:15:41
Jacoby
I'm trying to put the right words into it.
00:15:42
Cokeley Brothers
yeah
00:15:45
Jacoby
I'm like downplay it. But like, yeah, don't know. Like it was a cool experience. But, you know, I just had to – it was just like I had like four more matches that weekend just like any other thing. And like same thing with NCAAs.
00:15:54
Cokeley Brothers
no
00:15:54
Jacoby
It's just like I guess maybe NCAAs is a little different because, you know, the environment kind of – know, like matches are just different NCAAs. Like everyone can agree to that. Yeah.
00:16:03
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah.
00:16:03
Jacoby
But same thing, I would say like my preparation, like all season has just been like the same. I didn't change it up for like big tens or I didn't change it up for nationals. I kind of just, you know, got my weight down, made sure I felt good, make sure i was putting the right things in my body, you know, post weigh-in.
00:16:20
Jacoby
stuff like that. So I wouldn't say I changed a lot.
00:16:21
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah.
00:16:23
Jacoby
It was a fun year though. Like looking back on it, like I did win big tens. I was cool. I got a cool little belt. Now I got some of that big tens beat the number one guy and the nationals, you know, made it to the semi.
00:16:28
Cokeley Brothers
Mm-hmm.
00:16:34
Jacoby
So it was a pretty, pretty fun year.
00:16:36
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah.
00:16:37
Jacoby
think.
00:16:38
Cokeley Brothers
I think that... that mindset, um how you frame things out in terms of it's just another set of matches for the weekend. I do think that kind of helps you stay level-headed. You know, you don't get flustered.
00:16:50
Cokeley Brothers
Plus, you know, you I think for some people, if you go, if say you go from, you know, wrestling a SoCon schedule to a Big Ten schedule, you know that's going to be a little bit of a jarring change, right?
00:17:04
Cokeley Brothers
But like EIWH for you was was beard and stout.
00:17:04
Jacoby
Yeah.
00:17:07
Cokeley Brothers
and And, you know, it it was like, it wasn't easy.
00:17:08
Jacoby
That's true.
00:17:10
Cokeley Brothers
So, you know having that, yeah, having having that change from, you know, already tough to maybe a little bit tougher, not earth shattering.
00:17:10
Jacoby
Yeah. Yeah,
00:17:19
Jacoby
yeah that's what I'm saying.
00:17:20
Cokeley Brothers
So.
00:17:20
Jacoby
Like, I don't know. I think I didn't really think i didn't think about it like too deeply. i think it was just like, all right, like I have bar, I got to beat him. Like I got to get my, get to get my lick back. And then Buchanan in the finals, I was like, bro, like this is perfect.
00:17:33
Jacoby
If I beat him, I'll be number one. So like, don't know. I didn't, I guess.
00:17:37
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah.
00:17:39
Jacoby
Yeah. I didn't really think too much of it. I think I just ah kind of went out there and, you know, just obviously tried to win. So yeah.
00:17:45
Cokeley Brothers
Okay. Yeah. So, i mean, you're, you're, you're coming off as this guy who's like able to kind of take wrestling or take an approach on wrestling. That's just very, you know, everything is very okay.
00:17:55
Cokeley Brothers
You know, it's not super, you know, you're, you're not letting your emotions get too high.
00:17:58
Jacoby
yeah
00:17:59
Cokeley Brothers
You're not letting anything get out of hand. You know, what was your, what was your biggest challenge collegiate, like it during your collegiate career?
00:18:02
Jacoby
Yeah.
00:18:06
Cokeley Brothers
And like, what helped you overcome that?
00:18:09
Jacoby
I guess like, I guess kind of that, like, I think when I was younger, I would like get too caught up in the moment or I would like get too anxious and too stressed.
00:18:16
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah.
00:18:18
Jacoby
And like, I think it's just already stressful enough, you know, cause like it's just bound to happen. Like everyone like gets like, like a little like nervous or at least I think so. I think you're supposed to, you know what I mean?
00:18:28
Cokeley Brothers
yeah
00:18:29
Jacoby
Everyone's supposed to like feel a little like tension or like, like you know, um I guess like ah anxiety, I guess I wouldn't say anxiety, but ah you know, you're supposed to feel something. And I think just like making it harder than it already is.
00:18:42
Jacoby
Cause wrestling is already a hard ass sport, bro. Like a lot of people like mentally, physically, you know?
00:18:46
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah.
00:18:47
Jacoby
so So like you kind of treat it like any other sport.
00:18:48
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah, absolutely.
00:18:50
Jacoby
Like you wouldn't go to like, people get nervous before a baseball game or a basketball game, but like, you know, once they're playing, it's kind of art, it's kind of just fun. You know what I mean? they They kind of forget about it when they're, you know in in their flow state so i think uh i guess the more i mature the more i realize it's just like all right dude like whatever like yeah i gotta wrestle this guy but like it's not the end of the world you know it's not win or lose it's not the end of the world like nothing's really gonna change that much um depending on whether you win or lose you kind of wake up the next day you got i had class that next morning you know what i mean like nothing was gonna change outside of wrestling so like it's just very small compared to like the grand scheme of things and um
00:19:02
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah.
00:19:21
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah, right. right
00:19:28
Jacoby
Yeah, i would say, and before my matches, I'm pretty, you know, like, you know, you feel you feel attention, but like I'm pretty locked in and pretty calm. Like, i'm you know, I'm not really shaken up much. Like, I guess when I used to be when I was younger, like freshman, sophomore year, so.
00:19:43
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, uh, I think this is probably a good time to kind of, to pull it back and and look at, uh, your, your start in wrestling and just say like, like, how did you get started in the sport?
00:19:56
Cokeley Brothers
And, you know, what was your experience? When did you like, you know, let's just start with, how'd you get started?
00:20:01
Jacoby
Yeah, I started when I was like in second grade, me my buddy, were watching, I think it's a pretty common thing, but me my buddy were watching WWE on like a Friday or something. And I was just like, yo, dad, yeah, I want to join.
00:20:10
Cokeley Brothers
Nope.
00:20:13
Jacoby
And then I actually, I didn't really like it the first couple years or just like the first couple times I went to practice, I was just like, this is like kind of lame.
00:20:14
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah.
00:20:20
Jacoby
Like it's not what I thought it was.
00:20:21
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah.
00:20:21
Jacoby
And then don't know, kind of just stuck with it. I've always been like pretty good at it. Goodbye, dad. So my dad always pushed me to do it too. He's like, hey man, if you started it, you can't really quit now.
00:20:32
Jacoby
So, you know, every year I joined and always kind of hated it once that's like the tougher part of the season.
00:20:34
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah.
00:20:37
Jacoby
And, you know, I was also just a kid, man. My dad would always make me, oh I was a pretty big kid too. My dad would make me wrestle like, don't know, was in sixth grade, 140 pounds, 150, I think.
00:20:48
Jacoby
So like I would always wrestle like fricking eighth graders or like high schoolers. So I'd always get my butt kicked.
00:20:52
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah.
00:20:53
Jacoby
So that's why I kind of stuck. But then, you know, I think my sophomore year of high school, it's my freshman, sophomore year of high school is when I started to get like good. Like that's when i started getting like ranked in the country by flow. And then by the end of my senior year, I think I was number one in the country.
00:21:03
Cokeley Brothers
Mm-hmm.
00:21:06
Jacoby
And then once Cornell recruited me, I kind of just like, Cornell has been my dream school. Like since I was a kid, I used to go to their camps all the time. So when Cornell recruited me, I basically just like stopped all like recruiting process and kind of just committed right away.
00:21:18
Jacoby
And then that's pretty much how I got to college.
00:21:18
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah.
00:21:20
Jacoby
And then once I got to college, you know, I just, I think I got way better in college than I was in high school. So.
00:21:27
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah. So, so yeah, what, like what moment along that path, right? Cause mean, you start off and you're like, I'm like, I'm going to WWE superstar, but you realize wrestling is a little different. Right.
00:21:38
Cokeley Brothers
So like what, what part, you know, along that process did you like fall in love with the sport basically?
00:21:38
Jacoby
Yeah. um I would say like, I knew I was like, going to commit to it like when I got to high school like once I went to like a private high school to wrestle like went to private high school Queen of Peace um do you remember you know Queen of Peace it was kind of like yeah like Enrique me and Enrique were on the team together and um yeah me and Enrique were on the team together and like once I like went to private school instead of like my local public school to wrestle I was like all right like this is kind of like
00:21:52
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah.
00:21:57
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah. Yeah.
00:22:02
Cokeley Brothers
That's, that's who I was thinking of. Yeah.
00:22:13
Jacoby
yeah I'm doing this for a reason. My parents are going like paying tuition for me to like be good at wrestling, go to college.
00:22:18
Cokeley Brothers
Right.
00:22:19
Jacoby
So like, that's when started like getting like dedicated to it. That's when I started like, you know, going to a lot of tournaments. I went to all like the national open tournaments in the summer, or at least most of them. And then, know, trained all this.
00:22:31
Jacoby
I got trained all the time in high school. Like I just, as everyone did, like anybody at D1 was like, you know, locked in and ready to go. You know, that was their goal to go D1. So, mean, yeah, I ended up just like
Aspirations for Titles and Life Beyond Wrestling
00:22:43
Jacoby
being pretty good.
00:22:43
Jacoby
The the more I, I think like the more got older just the more like, as I went through my college career, the better I got. So, and then once I got to college, once I got to my freshman year, like
00:22:52
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah.
00:22:55
Jacoby
Gabe did like crazy things to us practice wise and like got us like really good, got really tough. So, you know, I like broke that wall, you know, once I was wrestling with like Max and Gabe and I was like kind of beating them up a little bit, you know, as like a freshman, I was like, all right, like, you know, I guess that was kind of like my breakthrough.
00:23:02
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah.
00:23:13
Jacoby
And then, yeah, I guess, you know, my sophomore year, all American. So I guess that's kind of, kind of the way I i remembered it at least.
00:23:18
Cokeley Brothers
yeah
00:23:23
Cokeley Brothers
Right. Yeah, it is. I mean, i I think I remember the first time I remember seeing you was I think you came up for Cornell and you were wrestling around with Barry Esa. ah And then and then the next time i think like I heard, OK, he committed like good, good get for Cornell.
00:23:34
Jacoby
um
00:23:40
Cokeley Brothers
And then ah I saw you wrestling Wyatt Hendrickson in the Super 32 finals.
00:23:45
Jacoby
Yeah.
00:23:46
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah. And then so I saw that and.
00:23:47
Jacoby
that all I tell people that like when he, like, especially after won national, i was like, yo, you know that guy?
00:23:49
Cokeley Brothers
Huh?
00:23:53
Jacoby
Like, I beat that guy in high school.
00:23:55
Cokeley Brothers
Dude, I can tell people the same thing, and it's my it's my favorite thing to do.
00:23:55
Jacoby
Wait, who was it?
00:24:01
Cokeley Brothers
Wyatt.
00:24:02
Jacoby
Oh, you beat Wyatt before?
00:24:04
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah, he's he's from Kansas. we like I wrestled him when I was a junior and he was a freshman.
00:24:07
Jacoby
way.
00:24:07
Cokeley Brothers
He was he was still 160 pounds. like He was still a little guy.
00:24:11
Jacoby
Dude, I was beating him, like, 9-0 in the first period. I ended up winning the match, like, 9-8. Like, I just got cast.
00:24:16
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah, he's... Yes, he does. He does that to people. He he did not like he didn' his freshman year. He didn't qualify for state. And then the next year he's in the state finals. so
00:24:26
Jacoby
Yeah, no, it's...
00:24:26
Cokeley Brothers
ah He you this is him. His his trajectory.
00:24:29
Jacoby
Yeah, he's really, really good.
00:24:30
Cokeley Brothers
So.
00:24:32
Jacoby
But it's funny. and with He's huge now, bro. I don't even know how much he weighs. like, when I see him...
00:24:32
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah.
00:24:36
Cokeley Brothers
Dude.
00:24:36
Jacoby
I love Wally, but every time i see him, it's always, like, a funny, happy time.
00:24:40
Jacoby
And, uh... I can't believe we were the same weight at one point.
00:24:40
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah, he's.
00:24:41
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah.
00:24:44
Jacoby
Crazy.
00:24:44
Cokeley Brothers
All right. oh You know, you got, you've wrestled a lot of great guys. And I mean, I do want to know, like, who, who did you look up to, you know, as you were growing up?
00:24:55
Cokeley Brothers
Like, were there any big names that you were like, I want to wrestle like this guy, right? I like watching this guy wrestle.
00:25:00
Jacoby
Yeah, i mean I guess growing up, I always watched a lot of like Jordan Burroughs. I watched a lot of like college Kyle Dake. I didn't really watch him.
00:25:11
Jacoby
I wasn't really a big fan, not a big fan, but I didn't watch a lot of like freestyle Dake until like I was at Cornell and the when i was training with him.
00:25:18
Cokeley Brothers
Mm-hmm.
00:25:18
Jacoby
and I watched a lot of JB. I watched a lot of Nashawn Garrett. ah guess I guess that was in high school. I watched a lot of Nashawn Garrett. watched Gabe Dean a lot. um I liked Yanni a lot.
00:25:30
Jacoby
Yanni was one of my favorite guys before I got to Cornell. I'm trying to think who else. I guess there's a whole bunch people, but those are my main guys for sure. And then once I got to Cornell, I was just around a whole bunch of like great people. like dean game The Deans were there.
00:25:44
Jacoby
Yanni. Even like kids in my class, like freaking Foka and Julian, and like those guys, like my freshman year, like they were just way better than I was. And like, I had to catch up, you know? So like, I would always like look up to them and I would wrestle them a whole bunch.
00:25:56
Jacoby
So I would say maybe kind of like Cornell catered a couple, like I like Delgado.
00:25:58
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah.
00:26:03
Jacoby
Delgado was good. David Taylor, of course, everyone watched. So I like Cody Brewer.
00:26:08
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah.
00:26:08
Jacoby
That's a lot of people don't really know about Cody Brewer, but was a big Cody Brewer fan.
00:26:11
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah. yeah
00:26:12
Jacoby
That was Cade Brock I watched a lot of. Cade Brock was nasty. um Yeah, I guess those are the guys that kind of looked up to the most, I guess.
00:26:21
Cokeley Brothers
I get that you said Jordan Burrows and Nashawn Garrett. I'm like you've modeled, yeah mean, your double leg is, you know, it's pretty dang good.
00:26:26
Jacoby
Yeah, that's where I got from, man.
00:26:28
Cokeley Brothers
So like, I get that. Yeah.
00:26:30
Jacoby
Yeah, just like athletic build, strong and fast, you know.
00:26:31
Cokeley Brothers
um
00:26:35
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah, I do not want to be ah on the receiving end of of one of those those.
00:26:37
Jacoby
Yeah.
00:26:38
Cokeley Brothers
Those don't look fun. So ah we're going to take, I'm gonna take a second here.
00:26:40
Jacoby
We're
00:26:43
Cokeley Brothers
I'm going send you a link.
00:26:44
Jacoby
good.
00:26:45
Cokeley Brothers
I want you to check this out. Okay. Go to this. Go to this website. Have you ever played Wordle before?
00:26:56
Jacoby
but did you email it to me?
00:26:58
Cokeley Brothers
texted Go to the chat in this in this little Zencast thing.
00:27:01
Jacoby
Oh, oh, in this thing. Okay.
00:27:03
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah.
00:27:04
Jacoby
Googlegame.com.
00:27:05
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah.
00:27:07
Jacoby
Oh, is this like, guess a wrestler? No way. Is this like college kid?
00:27:10
Cokeley Brothers
Yes. So this is all 330 NCAA wrestlers from this year's
00:27:16
Jacoby
Fire. So I got to guess first and last name.
00:27:19
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah, but so you can type out, like if I type out Tyler, I can see Tyler Ferrara, Tyler Wells. um And so what happens is you guess and then you get little feedback.
00:27:30
Jacoby
Yeah, no.
00:27:30
Cokeley Brothers
So it'll tell you.
00:27:32
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah, yeah.
00:27:33
Jacoby
And it's it's different.
00:27:33
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah.
00:27:34
Jacoby
it's different every we day.
00:27:35
Cokeley Brothers
Different every day. Different every day.
00:27:38
Jacoby
ah this is This is dope. I like this.
00:27:40
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah. Yeah.
00:27:41
Jacoby
ah Okay. Shit. Let me go. don't want to go. I'll go.
00:27:48
Cokeley Brothers
Today's is not an easy one. I'll say that.
00:27:51
Jacoby
I was going to put Jesse Mendez. let let me but Let me go somewhere crazy. Let me go like.
00:28:00
Jacoby
Nah, I'm not going to Cornell. don't know. Let me try. like He just won. Luke Stannis. Oh, he didn't wrestle this year.
00:28:06
Cokeley Brothers
I didn't wrestle this year.
00:28:08
Jacoby
Luke style. i'll go Luke style. Fuck it. Uh, so what, so yellow means I'm like close.
00:28:17
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah. So if like if you get, if you guess a weight and it's yellow and it's pointing down and it's like the next weight class below basically is the wrestler.
00:28:25
Jacoby
So if I could run a 16 means down, that means like run it.
00:28:29
Cokeley Brothers
He was a national qualifier instead of, you know?
00:28:31
Jacoby
Okay. Okay.
00:28:33
Jacoby
Okay.
00:28:33
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah.
00:28:33
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah.
00:28:34
Jacoby
So he placed top 32. Damn. Okay. I got the conference wrong. Everything. Okay. Let's try. Let's try. Maybe so Nebraska. Let me try Brock Hardy.
00:28:47
Jacoby
Oh, he is 141. Okay. Not the big 10 though.
00:28:50
Cokeley Brothers
There you go. Yeah. yeah
00:28:52
Jacoby
He's below a junior. winning Damn. Brock Hardy's winning percentage is 87. That's pretty good. Oh, maybe like this past year.
00:29:04
Jacoby
um So he finished. yeah Damn. Round of 32. 141 pounder.
00:29:15
Jacoby
Who's that guy from Navy? Yeah, he a 41 pounder or is he 49?
00:29:21
Cokeley Brothers
Coderhant?
00:29:22
Jacoby
Oh, is Oh, damn.
00:29:25
Cokeley Brothers
He's a 41-pounder, but he he finished on the podium.
00:29:29
Jacoby
ah you for he all american
00:29:31
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah.
00:29:35
Jacoby
Frick, dude, I don't know. Who's 141?
00:29:40
Jacoby
141, round of 32, like it's, I have no idea.
00:29:44
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah. what If it's like if it's a guy who... isn't on the podium or close to it, it's going to be kind of tough.
00:29:53
Jacoby
Hard, yeah.
00:29:53
Cokeley Brothers
um ah Jacob Frost was 141.
00:29:54
Jacoby
What about Evan Frost? The Frost Brothers? Who's?
00:30:00
Cokeley Brothers
he He placed.
00:30:02
Jacoby
Oh shit, okay, so I got the year sophomores right. He's a sophomore, 141. Not the Big 12 either. Like, what the frick, dude?
00:30:11
Cokeley Brothers
but what What other conferences are you thinking?
00:30:14
Jacoby
guess I guess maybe Pac. Who's like their Stanford? 141. Is that Valencia? No. Who was at 141? Let me try.
00:30:23
Cokeley Brothers
I was Jason Miranda.
00:30:27
Jacoby
Okay. Oh, so it's in the ACC. 141, ACC.
00:30:34
Jacoby
Oh, he didn't, this guy didn't even qualify.
00:30:36
Cokeley Brothers
No, he qualified.
00:30:38
Jacoby
It says
College Life and Friendships Outside Wrestling
00:30:39
Jacoby
NQ. What does that mean now?
00:30:40
Cokeley Brothers
Is it green?
00:30:41
Jacoby
Yeah. That
00:30:42
Cokeley Brothers
That's in queue is national qualifier.
00:30:46
Jacoby
makes sense. I'm dumb.
00:30:50
Jacoby
National qualifier, ACC 141. There's only so many ACC teams. I don't know. Who's Virginia Tech's 141? Latona?
00:31:02
Jacoby
it might be Latona.
00:31:02
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah, I believe that was Latona.
00:31:08
Jacoby
I'm dumb because he has to be a sophomore and he's a senior. um Yeah, Latona didn't.
00:31:13
Cokeley Brothers
She got Latona, Miranda.
00:31:14
Jacoby
Actually, I remember that.
00:31:16
Cokeley Brothers
Sedano beat Latona, but I think Sedano's older than a sophomore.
00:31:20
Jacoby
was older than a sophomore.
00:31:23
Cokeley Brothers
What, Jaden Scott for UNC, right?
00:31:31
Jacoby
Okay, so very, very close. i have I guess I have two more guesses. So it's not at North Carolina. It's not. Oh, what about NC State? Who's at 141 pounder before?
00:31:41
Cokeley Brothers
Was Koi Biscons, right?
00:31:45
Jacoby
i need to i should I need to be up to date. Is his name Cade? Cale?
00:31:50
Cokeley Brothers
Koi. Koi.
00:31:53
Jacoby
I spoke Coy. No, I don't think so.
00:31:55
Cokeley Brothers
K-O-Y.
00:32:03
Jacoby
Nope. He's 149. yes. All right. Who at 41? Hey, won. Let's go. It was fun. I'm going do it today.
00:32:06
Cokeley Brothers
Ow. What about Pittsburgh?
00:32:11
Jacoby
who was a forty one
00:32:14
Cokeley Brothers
I think his name was Briar priest, right?
00:32:22
Jacoby
produce hey i won let's go
00:32:29
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah.
00:32:29
Jacoby
fun i
00:32:30
Cokeley Brothers
I, so it's, it's fun.
00:32:31
Jacoby
yeah
00:32:33
Cokeley Brothers
It can, it can be kind of tough if it's, you know, ah guy who, you know, did not.
00:32:38
Jacoby
I have no idea.
00:32:40
Cokeley Brothers
Right.
00:32:41
Jacoby
this guy's been from my fifth year, so I definitely love this guy.
00:32:41
Cokeley Brothers
um
00:32:44
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah. Let's, let's, ah let's stay, you know, off like your competition and your training and all that. And let's just, let's talk about like what were, you know, it was great to, you know, take away the friendships that you had from, from your college experience, but like what experiences, what memories do you have that, that, you know, you're are going to kind of stick with you? Like did, did you spend summer in Ithaca?
00:33:07
Cokeley Brothers
Was that something that you did?
00:33:09
Jacoby
I do that every year, yeah. At least for the most part.
00:33:11
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah.
00:33:11
Jacoby
I had an internship one summer in New York, so I went back home and like worked in the city for one summer.
00:33:11
Cokeley Brothers
Like,
00:33:17
Jacoby
But um yeah, for the most part, I i stood in Ithaca for the summer. Did a job, side job there, then practice, and then in Ann Arbor, I stood for the summer too.
00:33:27
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah. So like, you know, what's that experience? Just being able to not have to worry about school and just spending college being a kid.
00:33:33
Jacoby
Yeah, that's I thought, yeah, I think summer, like summer's in Ithaca too. Like I was just, all my homies were there too. Like the entire team was over in Ithaca. So we'd go to the gorges, we'd go cliff jumping, and we'd go hiking, we'd go freaking driving to Syracuse for basketball games.
00:33:49
Jacoby
Well, not basketball games, but like, I don't know, just like anything. You know, it was just like, don't know.
00:33:52
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah.
00:33:53
Jacoby
like a side quest summer pretty much just like always. it's just like, it's always nice to just like, just to focus on like wrestling, you know, at the time, maybe you're just like, oh, I don't want to go today. But like, when you look back at it, it's just like, those are the times, you know, that you you kind of never forget. So.
00:34:08
Jacoby
I would say ah I always I didn't mind. and never really liked going home for the summer even when i worked in the city like going home is just like don't know, kind of in the house all day or just like, you don't really I guess you're not really close to your friends that much. So I always enjoyed like staying in Ithaca for the summer.
00:34:24
Jacoby
um ah Even during COVID like when COVID like the day we were allowed to go back from COVID like I was in Ithaca, like the day after so I mean, I always liked my homies, you know, being like in a college town setting so
00:34:33
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah.
00:34:38
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah. Yeah. That's, uh, uh, I always encourage people like any, any of the guys at, uh, Cornell, like, Hey, I get it. Like during the college year, you're around this town where it's just snow and cold and wet all the time.
00:34:54
Cokeley Brothers
But when the summers happen, it's a great experience. So just stick around at least once, at least once.
00:34:57
Jacoby
so
00:35:00
Jacoby
Yeah, you need summer. need one summer in Ithaca. That's what I always tell everybody. Hopefully people do it.
00:35:05
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah.
00:35:06
Jacoby
It's nice little vibe.
00:35:07
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah. So, you know, uh, what do you, is there anything that you want to do?
00:35:09
Jacoby
A little indie movie.
00:35:16
Cokeley Brothers
You know, let's say, let's say you wrestle for the next, uh, the next cycle, you wrestle 20, 28, maybe you even wrestle all the way up to 20, 32. Uh, but then you're done with that. Do you, do you just want to stick around in the sport and coach? Do you want to, um, do you have a a job in mind like a, or career field?
00:35:34
Jacoby
No, I don't, not really. I mean, I've always like said, like, I don't, I'm not really, don't really like coaching. Like, not I've never really coached before, obviously, but like, I don't know. I feel like coaching isn't really in my ah areas of like expertise.
00:35:48
Jacoby
You know, it's like, I don't know.
00:35:49
Cokeley Brothers
not your wheelhouse. Yeah.
00:35:50
Jacoby
Yeah, like I don't know. Like a lot of lot lot people like that. You know what Like, like Johnny and like Julian, like they want to be coaches when like they're done wrestling.
00:35:57
Cokeley Brothers
No.
00:35:58
Jacoby
And like, I'm not sure what i want do i just know that like, I like wrestling now and like, you know, if I were to quit, I feel like, uh, I thought about just not even wrestling
Post-Wrestling Career Paths
00:36:07
Jacoby
after this year. Like I said, it's a way tournament kind of just like go home and kind of start like my own career somewhere somewhere else in another field. But like,
00:36:13
Jacoby
I'm also just like, I'm still young. Like I still really enjoy doing it. And like, I'm fairly pretty good at it relative to other people. So like, I think, you know, right now I definitely just want to win like world and Olympic medals for sure.
00:36:27
Jacoby
I want to win what do i whenwhile win a couple of world titles. And then when, um you know, the Olympics are in the United States this year. So that's like perfect. like
00:36:35
Cokeley Brothers
yeah yeah yes
00:36:36
Jacoby
when like in your home country like that's that's something that's something else like that's just like these i'm just like smiling thinking about it like that's just like something you don't really get to an opportunity very slim you know chance of that opportunity happening again so right now i'm not really sure what i want to do maybe i'll go 32 i definitely want to stay for 2028 so not really sure not really looking past that honestly just kind of focused on
00:36:57
Cokeley Brothers
no
00:37:00
Jacoby
I'm actually just focused on next year. to win Worlds next year. Win a couple of world titles before the Olympics. And, you know, I think I'll be in pretty good seat.
00:37:10
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah, I would, you know, personally, I would encourage anybody who's healthy and and enjoys the sport to compete for as long as they are able to, because you there will be a day when you are done competing and and you will look back and wish you had done more.
00:37:18
Jacoby
Yeah.
00:37:24
Cokeley Brothers
So, yeah.
00:37:24
Jacoby
Yeah. Yeah.
00:37:27
Cokeley Brothers
um Well, so, you know, what what is going to be, so you know, coaching is not your thing and you're only going to compete for so long. So what what career are you going to be diving into?
00:37:37
Jacoby
I don't know. Like, have a business degree. i just got my master's in business here in Michigan. I studied urban planning, real estate, like business. I took i took a couple of business classes at Cornell. And like, my internship was in like like banking.
00:37:52
Jacoby
I did a banking internship in finance. But like, I don't know. I didn't really like, um don't think anybody really enjoys finance, man. Honestly, like, like, i mean, you do, like you do in like some ways, but it's also just a very like rigorous, like hard, fast paced, like environment to like work in.
00:38:01
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah. no
00:38:08
Jacoby
So, I mean, i don't know.
00:38:09
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah.
00:38:10
Jacoby
I don't know what I would do. Maybe something similar to that. Maybe something similar to like business or finance. Yeah. yeah I don't know. Definitely something like corporate. I feel like I'm more of like a corporate guy than like a entrepreneur, like start my own thing.
00:38:23
Jacoby
So don't know.
00:38:23
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah. Yeah, I mean, did kind it kind of matches your your style in terms of like, I don't want to have to, you know, think about, you know, what's what's the what's the best thing, you know, just just put me in front of something and have me do it, you know, like in terms of your coaching.
00:38:36
Jacoby
Yeah, kind of. I could be pretty good at anything like I put my mind to. So, you know, it's kind of, you know, it's like, if I know what I'm doing, I know my role is like, I'll i'll be pretty good at it.
00:38:42
Cokeley Brothers
Right, yeah.
00:38:48
Jacoby
So yeah, I don't know.
00:38:49
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah, exactly.
00:38:49
Jacoby
how I don't know exactly what I would land in. I know couple my buddies are in real estate, my buddies, you know, the networking is just like, you know, really great at both schools I was at. So, you know, I can pick pick from a lot of people.
00:39:01
Cokeley Brothers
Right.
00:39:02
Jacoby
So guess we'll see.
00:39:03
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah, definitely.
00:39:03
Jacoby
don't know.
00:39:06
Cokeley Brothers
ah All right. I'm going to throw off some quick questions here. What what was your what was your ah playlist while you're warming up this year?
00:39:14
Jacoby
That's funny. Let me see. had a couple of minds. I had a couple songs in mind. At Nationals, it was heavy on... Let me see. Where is it at?
00:39:25
Jacoby
No, this is Barbados. Nationals. I was listening to two songs on repeat. It was... Big 10s, it was Show Me Love. You know this song? Show Me Love. It's like, you got to show love.
00:39:36
Cokeley Brothers
and don't think so.
00:39:38
Jacoby
Nothing.
00:39:38
Cokeley Brothers
Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:39:39
Jacoby
Yeah.
00:39:41
Jacoby
have All Big 10s. ah And then once Nationalist came around, it was kind of like house music-ish. It was, fuck, where is it?
00:39:41
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah, yeah.
00:39:55
Jacoby
Maybe I'm just making it. Maybe I didn't have it like on my recents. I listened to Soul Survivor. Folk put me on to that song and I was listening to the song called Kisses. It's just like, it's it's another like house on a song.
00:40:05
Cokeley Brothers
Okay.
00:40:06
Jacoby
It's like a techno house song.
00:40:07
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah, yeah.
00:40:08
Jacoby
I don't know. I also don't really listen to music like before my matches.
00:40:09
Cokeley Brothers
Just... just Okay, yeah.
00:40:13
Jacoby
Like I ah i will, but once I'm like, maybe like in the hole or like a couple out from in the hole, like I'll take them off and I'll just like start pacing. It's usually just like headphones while i'm just like laying down and taking a nap. I'll press like shuffle.
00:40:25
Jacoby
But the two songs that were on repeat were like Soul Survivor. i wish I could find it. It was this song. i don't know if you know this one. Do you know? It's like an Akon song. Akon and Young Jesus.
00:40:40
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:40:42
Jacoby
It's like...
00:40:44
Cokeley Brothers
That's good throwback music. That's quality.
00:40:46
Jacoby
I was listening to that all weekend. ah
00:40:50
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah.
00:40:51
Jacoby
Yeah, I heard like Foka warming up too and i was like, bro, what is that song? Like I didn't even know that song. I just heard it, but um yeah, I mean, I'm not like, I'm not a big music guy, at least like closer to my matches.
00:40:56
Cokeley Brothers
Right.
00:41:02
Jacoby
I like just press kind of shuffle on whatever, who I'm like taking a nap, like post way in, you know? But um yeah, I guess, I guess that's, I'm more of like a house guy, house music before matches, if anything.
00:41:07
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah.
00:41:11
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah. Yeah. House music, house music is good, especially for the gym. Like that's, that's something I'll put on just to keep the, keep the energy high.
00:41:17
Jacoby
ah I was cutting weight. It was just straight like house, like party, like dance music. Like,
00:41:23
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah. Cause you're not feeling good at as, it as it is. So you got to have something else lifting you up. I get it.
00:41:27
Jacoby
I know. Yeah. gotta go Get a little song, a little pick me up or something,
Memorable Moments and Challenges in Wrestling
00:41:31
Jacoby
you know?
00:41:31
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah. Speaking of speaking cut away, what was your go to like first thing right after weigh in? Like obviously you're going to water, but like what's your what's your guilty pleasure?
00:41:41
Jacoby
Yeah. Um,
00:41:45
Jacoby
What did I, oh, I would have, I guess it depends, but like usually I think I had like a peanut butter and jelly. I'd have a peanut butter and jelly right after Wayne's. Like definitely on the road, like at home we had a little different, like at home we'd have like, you know, we were at home so we can like bring our, I can bring my own food or whatever, but on the road or like nationals or big tens, it was slam some ah electrolytes first.
00:42:05
Jacoby
And then um if I could before Wayne's, like if I was like cutting and weight the morning of, like i would have like a good banana before the Wayne's, a banana, like a yogurt, just put something in me. And then butter and jelly. And once the peanut butter and jelly is done, my favorite thing ever was the yogurt bowl this year. It's like my first time really like doing it. This yogurt bowl, basically put like Greek yogurt in a bowl with like a whole bunch of fruit, whole bunch of granola and like shit ton of honey.
00:42:29
Jacoby
And that would take me like, it was a huge bowl.
00:42:30
Cokeley Brothers
No. All
00:42:31
Jacoby
It was like maybe like a pound, pound worth of food. Like it's like all fruit, all like these like simple carbs and like you know It was just like a dessert bowl pretty much.
00:42:41
Jacoby
It was an acai bowl.
00:42:43
Cokeley Brothers
right.
00:42:43
Jacoby
And then once I finished that, I'd maybe have like, oh, we did like soup this year. This is actually kind of a, this was different for me this year too. They had like, Michigan has like Campbell's soup.
00:42:54
Jacoby
They have a little like portable, like it's like heater, like a pot. And like what it helps, at least for me, what it helped doing was like, you know sometimes you get bloated after weigh-ins or it's like your stomach is like so, so small that when you eat like it like hurts.
00:43:04
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah.
00:43:07
Jacoby
I think the soup, anything hot in general like helps like expand your stomach a little bit, kind of like settles it in a little bit.
00:43:07
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah.
00:43:13
Jacoby
And just like Campbell's soup is pretty good too.
00:43:14
Cokeley Brothers
Okay.
00:43:16
Jacoby
So I wouldn't do too much. I would only have like ah know a couple ounces of it like in in a little bowl. But that's pretty much my post-Wayne. It was peanut butter and jelly, some bananas,
00:43:27
Jacoby
um yogurt bowl with some fruit and granola and honey. And then if I was like feeling pretty bloated or maybe I take a couple of sips of like the soup and that would be pretty much, that'd be pretty much my, yeah.
00:43:36
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah. Something simple. Nothing too crazy. I gotcha.
00:43:40
Jacoby
And then post.
00:43:40
Cokeley Brothers
All right. ah I was going to steal this question from Mike Mal because he asks his guys this question whenever interviews them.
00:43:44
Jacoby
you hit me?
00:43:51
Cokeley Brothers
if you could If you had a magic wand you could wave and change one thing about the sport of wrestling, what would it be? It could be literally anything. It could be a one rule. It could be, I don't want this person to be in the sport. It could be
00:44:04
Jacoby
ah
00:44:04
Cokeley Brothers
the but Whatever you want it to be.
00:44:07
Jacoby
I don't know. I wouldn't say like, I guess I'll give two answers. I feel like what I would change about wrestling is just having it like more like exposed, like just like a bigger like fan base to like reach out.
00:44:18
Cokeley Brothers
More popular.
00:44:18
Jacoby
Like, at least yeah you know what I mean? It's like, like, for instance, like the draft the other day, like the NFL draft, like everyone's watching that. Like no one's really watching the NCAA tournament like that.
00:44:25
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah.
00:44:28
Jacoby
You know what mean? Like, oh my God. Or like, I don't know, transfer portal, this person went this way and it's like huge breaking news. im Like, sure, it is breaking news like the wrestling community. But like, I guess like, don't know.
00:44:36
Cokeley Brothers
no
00:44:38
Jacoby
It's like, and like, this is how it is. Like, I don't really like necessarily think it's a bad thing, but like, I feel like, let's say like, all right, who's number one pound for pound right now? Is that like Carter Starachi?
00:44:50
Jacoby
It's like the difference between like Carter Starachy's exposure versus Cam Ward, who just went number one of the draft pick.
00:44:50
Cokeley Brothers
Sure.
00:44:56
Jacoby
It's like, that guy it's like not no like, no disrespect.
00:44:57
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah. 100%.
00:45:00
Jacoby
It's just kind of like how the sport wrestling is. Like that guy is like, everybody knows who Cam Ward is, but like you ask the person random a person on the street who Carter Starachy is and like, they probably won't know.
00:45:03
Cokeley Brothers
Yes.
00:45:09
Jacoby
And it's like crazy because like, if anything, like, I think Carter Stryze is probably a better athlete than Cam Ward is, you know? It's like, he's like a freaking, he's literally a killing machine, but like, you know, and and not that it's important or anything, it's like, you know, in the grand scheme of things, like followers, it's like, you know, exposure and popularity doesn't really matter in our sport, but it's just like, something cool to think about, you know what I mean?
00:45:16
Cokeley Brothers
one hundred percent yes
00:45:31
Jacoby
ah Or like, if wrestling had like a pro league, you know, if I were to like, went first round, I was like the 20th pick first round, like, that's like a huge deal in football.
00:45:39
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah.
00:45:39
Jacoby
In wrestling, it's just like, there's, that that doesn't That doesn't exist. So I guess it's like, um I guess I've always wished wrestling was like a bigger bigger sport than it really is.
00:45:43
Cokeley Brothers
Right.
00:45:48
Jacoby
Because if it kind of it deserves it, man.
00:45:49
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah.
00:45:50
Jacoby
Like, no one really, no one gets it. No one gets our struggle, bro. But like, you know, it's a
00:45:57
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah.
00:45:58
Jacoby
if i if I were to change one thing about wrestling, definitely want it to be like more more popular, at least in the US.
00:46:04
Cokeley Brothers
and Okay.
00:46:05
Jacoby
Yeah.
00:46:05
Cokeley Brothers
So did you have two things or that, was that it?
00:46:08
Jacoby
I guess that was that's something you can't really like, that's not like about the sport. Like you can't really, cause if we had the answer on like how to make popular, how to make wrestling properly, we would have done it already. you know, that's just like,
00:46:19
Jacoby
a hopeful thing. And I guess like in wrestling, I don't know. I think, I think the stalling rule is kind of dumb. ah At least like, I don't think the stalling rule is dumb. I think the way it's called is kind of stupid, especially like this year.
00:46:30
Jacoby
It's like, I don't know.
00:46:31
Cokeley Brothers
right
00:46:32
Jacoby
It's like, just because like, you just fuck, you squeeze somebody and you push them out of bounds. Like, it's like a, you need like good discretion for it. I feel like you can't just like call it because like, all right, the person went out of bounds and he didn't circle as hard as he should have. It's like,
00:46:48
Jacoby
you got you have to understand when someone's actually stalling or when someone's like actually like trying to work. Cause if you're trying to work, but like someone puts you out, it's like, that's why there's out of bounds.
00:46:53
Cokeley Brothers
yeah
00:46:56
Jacoby
You know what I mean? If anything, like, like in freestyle, it's a point, what mean? If you to make it a point, like make it a point. So, so people know not to go out bounds, but it's like, don't know, especially like if you're, if someone's on a leg and you're on the circle, it's like, bro, I'm going to go out of bounds.
00:47:11
Jacoby
Like if I'm i'm not going to try and stay bounds,
00:47:12
Cokeley Brothers
yeah
00:47:14
Jacoby
inbounds with this guy my leg. And i don't I don't think that's stalling. You know what mean? and that's I think that's just like high IQ mat awareness. It's like, I'm on the edge and he has my foot. There's 30 seconds left. Like I'm gonna try and run.
00:47:26
Jacoby
You know what mean? Like the same thing you would if you were in the center of the mat. like If someone had my leg in the center of the mat, I'm trying to like kick away and like, you know, I'm trying to kick away, get them off my leg. But like, if we just happen to be on the
00:47:36
Cokeley Brothers
total
00:47:38
Jacoby
we happen to be in the of this match and like I kick away and now it's stalling, it's like it's just like it's not really treated the same just because I'm on the edge or vice versa.
00:47:42
Cokeley Brothers
right
00:47:46
Jacoby
You know what I mean? It's like I feel like stalling is – it's just weird.
00:47:47
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah.
00:47:51
Jacoby
i feel like refs don't really understand like what it really means, but how it should be called.
00:47:54
Cokeley Brothers
No, that refs get pressure from the fans and the coaches to call it a certain way. And then they have this rule book and they have to kind of lean on both. And it's not a good situation.
00:48:02
Jacoby
Yeah, that's what I'm saying.
00:48:04
Cokeley Brothers
I totally get it.
00:48:04
Jacoby
Definitely, like, you're telling me, like, you didn't get a call you didn't hit a stall call on match, but now the last 30 seconds you want to call stalling. It's like, just because there's 30 seconds left doesn't mean it's stalling, you know?
00:48:16
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah, right.
00:48:16
Jacoby
you know well Some people do stall the last 30 seconds, but...
00:48:20
Cokeley Brothers
Definitely.
00:48:21
Jacoby
yeah
00:48:21
Cokeley Brothers
All right. You know, we've reached, we've reached pretty much the end of our time. Do you have anything that you can plug right now? I don't know if you have like a shoe deal or if you're running camps or clinics or anything like that.
00:48:31
Jacoby
Yeah, I'm looking to book some clinics this summer. I got a couple. I just posted on my Instagram the other day. So, yeah, honestly, anywhere on the East Coast, Midwest, I'll go West Coast.
00:48:38
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah.
00:48:41
Jacoby
like i I would love to travel. So, you know, anybody looking to do camps, I'm willing to open. more than happy to work with someone, get something through.
00:48:48
Cokeley Brothers
Yeah.
00:48:50
Jacoby
So that's pretty much it.
00:48:51
Cokeley Brothers
right. Well, if you're, yeah, if you're still listening, hit up Cardenas for some, uh, quality camps and clinics.
00:48:52
Jacoby
Yeah.
00:48:58
Cokeley Brothers
So,
00:48:58
Jacoby
my Instagram, Jacob X Cardenas or my number, my numbers, my Instagram as well.
00:49:01
Cokeley Brothers
yeah, perfect.
00:49:02
Jacoby
So whatever.
00:49:04
Cokeley Brothers
Perfect. All right. Well, thank you people for listening. Hope you have a good one.
00:49:08
Jacoby
appreciate it.
00:49:09
Cokeley Brothers
Goodbye.
00:49:09
Jacoby
Thank you.
00:49:10
Cokeley Brothers
Yep. Yep.