While some athletes come into college not ready to compete or use their first year as a redshirt season, NIU freshman heavyweight Joe Sapp was asked to step in immediately for the Huskies.

“You have to be a pretty tough-minded freshman like Sapp [to start],” NIU wrestling coach Dave Grant said. “He’s gotten his head down a couple of times, but he has worked through it. You have to be mentally tough to compete as a true freshman.”

Sapp has climbed his conference ranking to the No. 2 spot in the heavyweight division.

Being a true freshman in wrestling is different than the other sports because wrestling is an individual sport, Grant said. In football, basketball and baseball, you can use players for certain situations and take them out. In wrestling, you’re in there for the long haul, Grant said.

“When you wrestle, it’s a sport where you’re out there all alone,” Grant said. “If you get in trouble, you have to work through it.”

Of the 26 freshmen on the roster, Andy Hiatt, Joe Henning and Sapp are the only starters. Sapp is the only true freshman.

Last season, Josh Wooton was the only freshman to start for the Huskies. This season he is ranked No. 17 in the country in the 149-pound weight division.

“Wrestling-wise, the hardest thing was how much faster everyone is, getting after it and going hard all the time,” Sapp said. “College wrestling is a lot more demanding. A lot of times I think to myself, ‘Why do I keep doing this?’ but I look at it this way: It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to do this.”

Many of the redshirt freshmen said they didn’t want to use a year of their athletic eligibility in their first season, but Sapp said he preferred to wrestle right away. Sapp has gained a lot of experience competing right away, he said.

However, if he chose to redshirt, he could have gained experience while not using up a year of eligibility, like 157-pound redshirt freshman Joe Henning did.

“When you first get to college, you learn that everyone is bigger and stronger,” Henning said. “It’s a lot harder and takes time to get used to that. The high school season is always easy and you have easy matches. When you get to college, every match you have is against someone who won state or something. You just have more time to adjust to the college level.”

Grant said that in high school, kids only see good competition every 10 matches or so.

When Sapp first came to NIU, he said he never thought he would be a starter from day one.

“Before the season, before I found out that I was starting, I wanted to redshirt,” Sapp said. “But after all of this, I think that this was a better choice. Right now, the season is over for redshirts. I still get to compete at the MAC tournament and hopefully the NCAAs.”