How Penn State wrestling is embracing the ‘powerful’ atmosphere of Iowa’s Carver-Hawkeye Arena
Mark Hall took a minute Tuesday to recall his first collegiate wrestling match, three years ago when his redshirt was taken off against Iowa at Carver-Hawkeye Arena.
“I couldn’t feel my legs,” he said. “Like bottom half from my hips down, it was like Jell-O. It was bad.”
While the Nittany Lion started off strong, notching the first takedown, the Cadet and Junior World Champ who had been the top-ranked recruit in his class, lost his first match, 7-5, to a wrestler ranked outside the top 10.
He got “Carver’d,” as Iowa fans affectionately call the effect that 15,000-plus black-and-yellow-clad screaming fans can have on opponents. And those Iowans aren’t the only ones who swear the effect is genuine.
Having called about 150 matches in Carver-Hawkeye over the past 34 years, Big Ten Network wrestling analyst Tim Johnson, who will be calling Friday’s match along with broadcast partner Jim Gibbons, says he has “no doubt” the effect is real, having seen it that day and many times before.
But the No. 2 Nittany Lions aren’t letting the fact the 15,500-capacity arena has been sold out since December get to them ahead of Friday’s battle with top-ranked Iowa. In fact, they’re embracing the noise.
“I don’t block it out; I kind of enjoy it,” junior 141-pounder Nick Lee said. “You only get four years of this, so enjoy it. Take it all in.”
While it all worked out for the Nittany Lions last time — they won the dual 26-11 and Hall went on to win a national title as a true freshman — Penn State will certainly have its hands full Friday. The Nittany Lions have been depleted by injuries and lost a pair of generational wrestlers to graduation last season, while the Hawkeyes are firing on all cylinders and are favored in seven of the 10 bouts.
And there’s no doubt the Hawkeyes will have an 11th man on the mat Friday — the fans.
With a broadcast career spanning over three decades, there’s only one other place where Johnson says the crowd intensity matches that of Carver’s — Rec Hall. The difference? About 8,300.
“There are 15.5 (thousand) of a partisan bumblebee crowd, that’s very powerful,” Johnson said. “You got to have ice in your veins, and then circumstance cannot bother you, because these circumstances are like none that you’ve been in before.”
Having already paid his dues to the beast that is Carver-Hawkeye, top-ranked Hall said he’s not nervous this time around — even with wrestling No. 2 Michael Kemerer. He can’t be. With him and fellow senior Vincenzo Joseph as the only two Nittany Lions in the lineup to have experienced wrestling at Carver-Hawkeye before, Hall said it’s his duty as a leader to set an example for the younger guys on the squad.
“I just want to show them that we went through it, we did it. It was a great experience, and it’s not dangerous to your life,” he said. “You’re going to go in and you’re going to go wrestle. We’re going to wrestle hard and it’s going to be over with.”
But what makes Carver-Hawkeye such a difficult place for opponents to wrestle? According to Johnson, the same thing that gives opponents nightmares at Rec Hall or the Bryce Jordan Center — a knowledgeable fan base.
Fans who come to Carver-Hawkeye or Rec Hall don’t just come to watch, he said, they believe it’s their personal duty to make noise.
“Some venues save the better part of applause until their guy’s hand gets raised, but at Carver-Hawkeye, if a wrestler gets a takedown, rides out a period or gets a mat return, he might get a standing ovation before the match is half over,” Johnson said. “If an opponent shows any hint of stalling, they’ll be in the official’s ear.”
Hall has grown accustomed to fans who know a thing or two about wrestling, having been at Penn State for nearly four years now. For him, having knowledgeable fans, whether they’re at Penn State, Iowa or anywhere else, enhances the sport.
He, for one, is looking forward to getting another shot at wrestling at Carver, which was voted by fans in September as the “best place to watch college wrestling” in an NCAA poll. Rec Hall was No. 2.
“It’s big and loud, a lot like our place, a lot like the BJC or even Rec Hall. It’s just big and loud, and like I said, their fans know wrestling,” Hall said. “You can go places where fans don’t necessarily know a lot about the sport. But then you go to places where fans really know what wrestling is all about and positions and scrambles and things like that, they’re almost a part of it as well. I think it’s awesome, I think it’s good for the sport.”
Johnson — who grew up about 50 miles outside Iowa City — echoed that sentiment, hinting that the crowd should be up even more for Friday’s match.
“They believe the sport of wrestling is Iowa property, that they have the most storied history and they are upset because there are too many trophies over there in Pennsylvania,” he said. “So it’s been a long coming for the Iowa fans. It’s been over a decade of drought.”
Penn State skipper Cael Sanderson knows what it’s like to wrestle at Carver, having done it a few times himself as an Iowa State student-athlete. To him, there’s no inherent magic about the arena. The electric atmosphere is a testament to the passion of the fans — and the quality of the product.
Lee shares his coach’s mindset. He’s wrestled in a lot of record-crowd environments and faced many high-pressure situations, so Friday is nothing new for the two-time All-American.
“Pretty much everywhere we’ve been has been pretty sweet,” Lee said. “Big Ten wrestling is a big deal, and our dual at ASU was a big deal, Penn came and wrestled us and that was fun. I think just the level that we’re wrestling at is so high. So I think it’s silly to try to block out big crowds like that, you know, because not a lot of people get that opportunity.
“So I try to tell the young guys just to enjoy this. It doesn’t come for everyone. Very few people get to enjoy that. So take it all in.”
This story was originally published January 30, 2020 at 1:14 PM.
