A former Penn State wrestling national champion is getting into coaching.
Less than a month after leaving his shoes in the middle of the mat— the universal sign of retirement— at the U.S. Olympic Trials held in Happy Valley, Oklahoma announced the hiring of Mark Hall as Director of Operations.
We're excited to welcome Mark Hall II as our Director of Operations!
📝: https://t.co/6H15xfD3jH#BoomerSooner☝️ pic.twitter.com/2NIDNcq97v
— Oklahoma Wrestling (@OU_Wrestling) May 15, 2024
This isn’t quite the biggest news relating to a Penn State wrestling legend and the state of Oklahoma.
Earlier this month, Oklahoma State announced the hiring of David Taylor as head coach in a move that could change the face of college wrestling. But this is still a big change for Hall, who’s only 27 and had been a member of the Nittany Lion Wrestling Club since leaving college.
Add Nittany Sports Now as a preferred source in Google! Click here to add us.Hall won a national championship and added two more runner-ups as a collegiate wrestler with PSU. He had a chance to win a second championship, but nationals were not held in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. He also won three Big Ten Championships.
As a freestyle wrestler, Hall won a gold medal at the 2018 Pan American Games, the 2022 World Cup and the 2021 U.S. Nationals.
Before getting hired by Oklahoma, Hall had been an assistant coach for the University of Pennsylvania. Although Hall was born in Michigan and grew up in Minnesota, he’s spent a good part of the past decade in Pennsylvania.
This has been an eventful spring for past Penn State wrestling greats, with Taylor being at the forefront. Along with Taylor and Hall retiring from active competition and moving to Oklahoma, two-time national champion Vincenzo Joseph, who’s around the same age as Hall, retired from active competition
