FEATURE: Moseley finds himself in year away from wrestling, returns to qualify for nationals

George Moseley was done with wrestling. Maybe more than done. Although he had eligibility remaining, his love for competing in the sport had faded. Mentally and physically drained, he walked away after his junior season in 2021-22 with no intentions of coming back.

But a funny thing happened in the year he was away from Averett University. While helping coach his high school team back home in Culpeper, Virginia, Moseley unexpectedly found that his passion for wrestling had rejuvenated, and that brought him back to Averett with a new outlook. Now, Moseley finds himself headed to the NCAA Division III National Championships this week to finish what he started four years ago when the pandemic shut down his first trip to the sport’s biggest stage less than 24 hours before it was set to begin.

“It’s been an exciting journey for him to get back,” Averett head coach Blake Roulo said. “It has been such a long journey. We’re talking about his freshman year he qualifies and now we’re talking four years later. It’s rewarding to see and why we coach.”

The date was Thursday, March 12, 2020. Moseley was one of two Averett wrestlers who had qualified for the national tournament and they were practicing on the mats at the arena in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Then the unthinkable happened. Word spread through the area like a dark cloud covering the sun. The 2020 NCAA National Championships were being canceled because of the ensuing COVID-19 pandemic.

It was a sudden end to what had been a phenomenal freshman season for Moseley. One would think being a national qualifier as a freshman would mean Moseley would be destined to return to the national tournament, but things don’t always pan out that way. After dropping from 184 pounds as a freshman to the 174-pound weight class the following season, Moseley’s sophomore year saw the college wrestling world still trying to navigate coming out of the pandemic, and ultimately the NCAA declined to hold its national championship. Then, in Moseley’s junior season, things just didn’t go well.

“I had a lot of demons I was fighting that season,” Moseley recalled. “Self-pity a lot. I will say the two years (wrestling down at 174 pounds) got in my head a lot. I was just going through the motions most of the time. I noticed it. A lot of people noticed it. I wasn’t myself. I was cutting a lot of weight and then I was eating all the wrong things. And I think the results showed. I got sixth at the regional tournament after I’d beaten most of the guys in there. It wasn’t that I had a bad tournament, I had a bad year and had a bad mindset the whole year.”

In his final match that season, Moseley said, “Last match ever,” as he looked at Roulo.

“I was so done,” he said. “I had no faith in myself and did believe that that was it.”

Moseley needed to get away. He knew it. And Roulo knew it.

“A lot of times when kids come in the office wanting to be done with school or wrestling, every coach deals with that where you are trying to convince them to stay,” Roulo said. “He was one of the only kids I didn’t try to convince. That season two years ago, it was really hard to coach him. It was difficult because you could tell he just didn’t love the sport anymore. When he wanted to be done, I told him that I thought it was best that he did go away and take this time off.”

Moseley decided to take a year off to “get his head right.” He went back home to his family to find out what was important again.

“I kind of got lost, and I found out why I’m doing this and how there is a reason why I love this sport,” Moseley said. “I got to coach my old high school team, which was the best experience ever. That re-sparked my love for everything and to do it right by cutting out all the nonsense. I got back to training and loving the sport. And most of all, I got back to loving myself again. I was self-pitying all the time and I expected the world to fall in my lap. That’s not the way it works.”

Moseley was one of several former Cougars who showed up in Roanoke, Virginia, last March to watch Averett’s three wrestlers compete in the 2023 NCAA Division III National Championships. Roulo sensed then that the old Moseley was back — the one that made him feel like he had landed a high-profile recruit when Moseley committed and came during Roulo’s first season as head coach years earlier.

“In the back of my mind, I always thought, ‘Give it a year,’” Roulo said. “I always tried to stay in contact every couple of months but he needed that time to know what he was going to do. I think that was really big for him.”

With a renewed energy, a reinvigorated Moseley returned to Averett last fall to finish what he started. Back wrestling at 184 pounds, Moseley returned to his dominant self, earning regional and national rankings on his way to an Old Dominion Athletic Conference championship and qualifying for nationals once again with his title at the NCAA Southeast Region — the program’s first-ever region title not at 125 pounds. Moseley enters this week’s NCAA Division III National Championships — hosted in La Crosse, Wisconsin, from March 15-16 — with a 23-2 overall record.

It may sound strange, but Moseley said he knew he was going to have a special year after his first loss of the season in his third match of the year against Marymount University.

“That’s when I realized I was a different person,” he said. “I used to be all wrapped up in myself and I couldn’t get past my own self to be there for the rest of the guys. Once that happened, I was already thinking about how I could get better and not self-pitying. I knew how I was feeling then was so much different from past years.”

Moseley said coaching during his time away from competing made him a better wrestler this season.

“You learn to learn,” he explained.” That was something I always neglected. I was always a two- or three-move wonder. Now, I train for anything and everything. ‘Oh, that’s a cool move. I want to learn that.’ That was a big thing in coaching. Learning your ignorance. You really learn how little you know when you have all these questions coming at you and you’re not just focusing on yourself and have others looking at you for guidance. It makes you realize you have to step up your own game for them. That, in itself, makes you a better wrestler.”

After pinning four of his five opponents in the region tournament, Moseley is now ranked 10th in the NCAA’s “Most Dominant” category based on bonus points.

“The sky is the limit for him,” Roulo said. “You don’t want to get into locks, but that dude is a lock. I feel like anytime he steps on a mat, that match can end in a minute. That’s against anybody he wrestles, it doesn’t matter how good that kid is.”

Moseley’s attention is now turned to the national tournament, where he’s excited to finally get the chance to prove something on the mat. Back in 2020 once the pandemic canceled the tournament, Moseley was awarded with Third Team All-America honors — an honor normally decided by a wrestler’s placement at the championships. Then, the following season, when the NCAA didn’t hold a championship, the National Wrestling Coaches Association sponsored a national tournament for those willing to compete, and Moseley earned NWCA All-America Sixth Team honors for his finish at 174.

“Yeah, I got that All-American at 174 but the one my freshman year kind of felt like a freebie,” Moseley said. “I got the accolades for it and it was nice and all, but I never got to prove it to myself. This year, I get to go back. … It feels like I’ll earn it this time.”