Chris Starocci was worried about his son, Carter
Carter had just finished eighth in the Pennsylvania State Wrestling Tournament.
Considering that Starocci was a true freshman competing in the same bracket against future stars such as Sammy Sasso (two-time NCAA runner-up) and Luke Pletcher (2020 Big Ten champ), finishing eighth of 24 competitors didn’t seem too shabby.
“I was happy for him because he was able to medal in that type of bracket,” Chris Starocci told Nittany Sports Now, “but he obviously had bigger goals and bigger sights for his future.”
People don’t become four-time NCAA champions by settling. Although nobody could have forecasted that Carter Starocci would reach that level of greatness while he was still too young to attain a learner’s permit, even back then, Carter knew he could be better.
So how did he handle finishing in eighth place?
He locked himself in his room for what Chris said was between 70 and 90 days.
This isn’t literal, of course, but not far from it.
As Chris remembered it, Carter’s routine during that time consisted of waking up, going to school and then disappearing.
Chris would make him dinner, and Carter would either not eat it or eat without him.
At first, Chris wanted to give him his space.
Then, he began to worry.
Eventually, he saw that his son was going to do everything he could to never finish in eighth place again.
“He told me exactly what he wanted,” Chris Starocci said, “and if I couldn’t adhere to what he needed, then he was going to move out and find a different place to live. He wanted me to jump on board with what he wanted to do, and I was all on board.”
What was the plan?
Fixing his diet was a big part of it.
Carter wrote a list of what it wanted: Green vegetables baked chicken, organic food, steaks and ground beef were all included.
Chris knew he wouldn’t always be home to cook the meals for Carter, so he taught Carter to cook.ย
When Carter was at Penn State, as Chris remembered with a chuckle, his teammates would come over to his house for food.
“He had a plan,” Chris Starocci said. “He loved wrestling, and he was going to go as far as he possibly could with some guidance from his loved ones and obviously his faith in Jesus. I knew he was on the right track for success for the long term.โ
“From A to Z, he was basically stripping down his entire life and what he was already doing,” Chris said. “In his mind, it wasn’t working and it wasn’t going to get him to where he needed to be. That’s basically what he did. He rebuilt himself up during that time in his room. I think that’s what he was doing; he was just finding himself.”
If all goes according to plan, Starocci will find himself somewhere no wrestler has ever been Saturday night in Philadelphia.
Three days before this year’s national championships, Carter Starocci reflected on that period of isolation.
โIt was one of those moments where it kind of awakens you,” he told reporters Monday. “For me, it was, โWhat am I going to do with my life? Am I going to pursue wrestling? Am I going to go do something else?โ If Iโm going to do something, Iโm not going to lose at it.
“I was figuring out what I was going to do. I broke myself down in all areas of life. When I came out of my room, I had a long sheet of paper and said, โIโm doing X, Y, and Z, and if youโre not down with it, Iโm going to have to move out because Iโm not losing again.โ It was a moment for me that it will never go away and it will help me the rest of my life.โ
‘UNHEARD OF’
Photo courtesy of Mike Hahesy
Mike Hahesy could have never foreseen this.
The Erie Cathedral Prep coach knew Starocci was good.
“He was beating kids that he probably shouldn’t beat,” Hahesy told Nittany Sports Now. “Kids that were good. Really good. He was beating these kids, and that tells you right there that he’s pretty freaking good.”
Indeed, Starocci was “pretty freaking good,” in high school.
After those months of isolation, Starocci, in the words of his father, “scaled the latter.”
As a sophomore, he finished state runner-up.
He never lost a high school match again, going 88-0 over his upperclassmen seasons and winning two state titles.
But a lot of guys have been “pretty freaking good.”
Some have been great.
Nobody has won five national championships.
Because Starocci came along during the “COVID era,” he’s had five years to compete instead of the traditional four.
So if Starocci wins it all this week, not only will he be the first to win five, he’ll be the only one to ever do it unless the NCAA permanently adjusts its eligibility requirements.
Hahesy never knew that “pretty freaking good” would become the understatement of the century.
“I don’t think I ever had that thought,” he said. “I mean, I knew he was good, but the level he’s at now is unheard of. I don’t think anybody knew that, to be honest with you.”
But Hahesy did know two things: Starocci was insanely competitive and equally confident.
Here’s how Hahesy knew about Starocci’s work ethic.
Considering Hahesy wrestled for Dan Gable himself at Iowa in the 1980s and then proceeded to win a Divison II national title for Edinboro at 158 pounds, he didn’t have a hard time wrestling the guys he coached.
“I could probably beat most of them,” Hahesy said. “If I couldn’t beat them, I would rough them up a little bit and they would kind of quit on you or pass out.”
Starocci wasn’t about to fall in line.
“Carter, he wouldn’t do that from Day One,” he said. “So I knew right then this kid was something different from the normal kid.”
What was also abnormal was Starocci’s belief in himself.
A lot of this came from his mother.
“Whatever Carter was doing,” Starla Starocci told NSN, “I would constantly boost his confidence by telling him heโs the best to ever do it.”
Carter Starocci believed his mother, and this was evident to his high school coach.
“I could say ‘Carter, you have Godzilla on Mat 3,” Hahesy said. “He’d go, ‘That dinosaur’s going down.'”
SOME PEOPLE DON’T LIKE IT…
Not everybody is a fan of Starocci’s confidence.
Case in point, last April’s Olympic trials.
After Jordan Burroughs– an Olympic Gold Medalist and six-time World Champ– beat Starocci’s teammate, Mitchell Mesenbrink, and slammed Mesenbrink’s head into the mat because of what he perceived as disrespect, Starocci let it be known what would have happened if it were he, not Mesenbrink, in that situation.
“I’d have spit in his face,” Starocci told reporters.
โI would have spit in his face.โ
Penn State wrestling star Carter Starocci wasnโt thrilled with Jordan Burroughsโ actions at the end of his semifinal bout against teammate Mitchell Mesenbrink last night. pic.twitter.com/TsNpKG6LEW
— Joe Smeltzer (@joesmeltzer775) April 20, 2024
Just as Starocci let his thoughts be known, the people of social media let theirs be known.
By the time Burroughs was ur age he already had a world title and Olympic goldโฆ. U should be spit shinning is shoes
— Den Doo Dinkins (@CartoonsPlural5) April 20, 2024
No offense to Carter but heโs in the same arena. Go find him
— DukePSU (@RJGreen417) April 20, 2024
Spit? Not the look of a champion.
— Mu-Man (@OriginalMuMan) April 20, 2024
Love it or hate it, Starocci is going to tell you how he feels if you ask, and his father wouldn’t have it any other way.
“I think it’s appropriate,” Chris Starocci said, “because for a lot of people in life that go through life and worry about what other people think of them. I’m proud of him for that fact. Because there are a lot of kids that go through school as we speak and a lot of adults as we speak that still don’t know who they are.”
Skip Chat was Starocci’s first coach, and from the time Starocci was 4 years old, he knew he had a good one.
While other kids were goofing off, Starocci, even at that age was working.
For Chatโ who is still close enough with Starocci to the point where he asked Chat to walk out with him for Senior Day in 2024, an offer Chat accepted– people who label Starocci arrogant simply don’t know him.
“A lot of people don’t like him,” Chat told Nittany Sports Now, “because he’s so cocky. But if you meet him, he’s not a cocky kid at all. If you sit down and talk to him and become friends with him, he’s not cocky at all. He’s a very enjoyable kid when you sit down and talk to him.”
For Chat, Starocci has earned the right to be self-assured.
“He’s cocky because he works so hard,” Chat said. “Every little kid says ‘I wanna be a national champion,” when they’re young. But saying it and doing what it takes to do it is another story.”
Carter Starocci being secure with himself is something his father loves.
“I’m really proud of him that he knows who he is,” Chris Starocci said, “and is comfortable in his own skin and he’s able to live his life.”
THE DRIVE FOR FIVE
Hahesy remembers a conversation he had with Penn State coach Cael Sanderson before Starocci’s redshirt freshman season.
Hahesy asked Sanderson if his former pupil had a chance to start for Penn State.
Sanderson confidently told Hahesy “yes,” and added that he thought Starocci had the chance to one day be a national champ.
Hahesy remembers thinking, at the time, that Starocci could become a champ by the time he left Penn State.
Now, he’s on the verge of being five times better than that.
Each of Starocci’s championships has been unique for a different reason.
He won the first one as a redshirt freshman who had yet to become a household name amongst wrestling fans and did so by beating a veteran in Iowa’s Michael Kemerer, who beat him in the Big Ten Finals weeks earlier.
He won the next title with a broken hand.
“I mean, who could win a national championship with a broken hand?” Chris Starocci said. “I know I couldn’t.”
Two years later, Starocci would accomplish something even more extraordinary.
Less than a month before nationals were scheduled to begin in Kansas City, Starocci suffered an apparent, serious knee injury.
It was severe enough that Sanderson held him out of the Big Ten Championships, and many wondered how strong Starocci would be for nationals.
All he did was beat two former national champs– Virginia Tech’s Mehki Lewis and Michigan’s Shane Griffith– en route to becoming the sixth man to win four.
For Chris Starocci, picking between his favorite one of Carter’s national titles is as complex as choosing his favorite “Rocky” movie.
“If you’re going to pin me down… I gotta say all of them,” he said. “I gotta say all of them, man.”
When Carter Starocci is asked about his favoritesโ memories, wins, etc.โ he likes to say “the next one.”
His father has a similar mindset.
“He hasn’t won five,” Chris Starocci said. “That hasn’t happened yet. So maybe that’s a better question for if and when he does do that.”
“It’s a great thing that he has an opportunity to do that, and he’s also had an extra year of college, which anybody who’s been to college, it gives you one more year to be a kid before you hit the real world. So a lot of it’s great, and a lot of it’s still yet to be determined.”
For Carterโs mother, Starla Starocci, it’s not a matter of if, but when he wins.
“When Carter becomes the first 5x national champion,” she said, “I will be elated to witness him receive the credit he truly deserves for the ‘All Day Work’ he puts in behind the scenes.
We won’t know until after Philadelphia what Carter Starocci’s full legacy in college wrestling is.
Where he’ll be ranked vs. other greats such as his head coach, his former teammate and close friend, Aaron Brooks, the great Dan Gable and his namesake, Gable Steveson– an Olympic Gold Medalist who is the odds-on favorite to join Starocci as a national champ this weekend– is subjective and dependent on who you ask.
For Hahesy, the kid who finished eighth at states and worked to reinvent himself deserves to be mentioned in the same breath, if not ahead.
“He’ll go down as if not the greatest college wrestler ever, then one of them,” Hahesy said. “One of the greatest college wrestlers ever. I think that’s going to help him throughout the rest of his life in terms of getting jobs and the work ethic he’s developed through wrestling is going to carry over into his personal life. I’m real excited for him because college wrestling is a very small world, and he’ll be at the pinnacle of that world.โ
