 Coach Grihalla's welcome back south man. Hey, it's a human and warm enough here for you and Georgia. Yes You can tell I'm sweating a little bit already. We haven't even started the session. So I'm a little used to it But you know, I enjoy the heat. So you guys you come down from and you fly down from St. Louis Mm-hmm. I saw you what SUIE that's IUE and do it, right? But you guys are about 25 minutes out of St. Louis, right? Yep. We have about 25 minutes east of the city Real easy flight for me to get down here today, you know about an hour and a half So not a bad trip at all. You know, we talked about recruiting. We talked about getting guys You guys was a Dori got it done two years ago for you guys kind of kept the door in had a great national tournament You're on staff then but you know, you want you want your next risen Dori, right? You're looking for that next guy when you come through a recruiting event like this You know, you're the top guy in the country coming out of high school, you know, you're the guy It was you and David Taylor. I remember and you know coming out being a touted recruit a lot different than the guys You're looking for where you guys are, right? What are you guys looking for when you're looking for? You know, it's hard because there's a lot of different aspects and You know a big thing for us is getting guys that that want to be national champions want to be all Americans You know and so when we come out to things like this, you know What we're looking for is are the guys that are that are really genuinely interested in curious With the technique or you know things like that that there aren't just here to be here You know, they're they're here trying to learn trying to get better On top of having the the abilities themselves You know looking at your career, you know, it was we're always waiting always wait When's this one's gonna turn into corner when when's Grahal is gonna get it done, right? That was something that you know, there was a lot of pressure on you I thought we'd get Michigan, right? But you know finally you got it done You take third in the country as a senior What's that pressure like and how do you like what do you tell like? How do you relate to a kid who's probably feeling a lot of pressure who is a good big recruit coming in and maybe they're not having The career they want to have how do you relate to that now as a coach from an athlete? Yeah, you know, it's an interesting dynamic You know good you've taken these these young men. They're anywhere from 18 to 20 years old You know first couple years in college And like you said, there is a lot of pressure and for me I struggled a little bit in those middle years in college But I really started to turn the corner around Junior towards the end of my junior year senior year at the beginning But a big thing for me was understanding what why I was doing what I was doing, you know And I had I had kind of gotten into this cycle of just you know Focusing so much on winning and and succeeding and lost a little bit of why I was doing it You know, so I started to turn my focus and to really start to try have fun with it Enjoy what I'm doing enjoying every moment every every victory for what it was every loss for for a learning experience And so I you know for me, you know something I try to Relate to the guys I have now and the incoming guys is you know, what we do is hard You know, there's not many things that are as hard in life as college wrestling, especially at the D1 level So, you know, I want I want them to constantly remind themselves of why they're doing what they're doing You know, are they having fun? Are they enjoying it? Are they you know looking at it the right way? And if they're not you know, maybe take a step back and rethink how they're going about things So, you know, I look at a guy like you I can tell you my nephew He really likes being a coach more than you like being an athlete Would you say that's true for you? Do you like being a coach more than you like being an athlete? That's a tough question to be honest, you know, I going into coaching I had no idea what to expect You know go throughout my career as an athlete. I never expected coach, you know It just wasn't something that I really had Had a thought of and then we might win this opportunity to present it itself, you know, like I said I didn't know what to expect I Had a contract to the end of the school year. I was a late hire, you know, like an emergency hire kind of thing And I figured I'd just give it a chance. So I went started it and right away. I fell in love You know, so to say that I enjoy it more might be a little bit of a stretch, but it's it's real close You know, I don't know. I don't know which one I would really prefer You know, there's some days that I must rather be the coach You know when I when I've seen guy our guy succeed and seeing them achieve what they're trying to achieve But other days, I'm sitting in the corner of man like man, I wish I was out there. I wish I could help them You know, I wish I could be me, you know I I understand what I should do in this situation kind of thing. And so I still get that itch a little bit sometimes But like I said, I enjoyed a lot What's your sister do my sister's a lawyer? Caesar is running my helping run my family business Business grad yes, and now you got you What do you know, like, what do you think ultimately you didn't know if you wanted to do this, right? So now where do you go from here? Do you want to be a head coach? Do you want to go work in the business? What do you want to do? Um, I'm not too sure yet. You know, I just finished up my second year as a coach And for the time being this is what I want to do You know, I can't really say what I want to do down five ten years down the line Just because I don't feel like I really have had enough experience With this yet to know if this is what I want to make a career of but it's definitely something I've been considering a lot more the weight weight now that I really am starting to enjoy it You know, I I'm trying to figure out if this is this is the career path I want to take or if I want to you know, you maybe use this as a springboard for something else But luckily at SIUE they have a great great system You know if I wanted to I could you know get try to get my masters and in a field that would help the coaching Or a different field if I wanted to lead it into something else. Okay, I'm stealing a lot of your time You got to put your shoes on your store. We're probably gonna see some unconventional Eric Rallis things Maybe we'll get to see the slow walk back to the center. I don't know had a great night Good night with you last night. You got anything else for me? Nope. Go Cougars, man. Hey, good luck Move forward top coach Bates. I said hi and I'm gonna enjoy some technique. All right. Thanks, man