Ohio State coach Tom Ryan recently shared reflections on his current bunch of Buckeyes. 

Ryan’s team is 14-0 and ranked second going into Friday night’s home dual against Wisconsin, and he believes a chunk of his wrestlers’ success is owed to an intangible. 

“Sharing sufferings, it has a way of galvanizing people,” Ryan said. “This team has a handful of guys in our lineup who’ve suffered greatly. We have backups who have suffered greatly in their lives.”

So, too, has Ryan. The well-chronicled loss Ryan and his family endured 22 years ago while Ryan was coaching at Hofstra is widely known throughout the wrestling community. Ryan’s son, Teague, had a heart attack on February 16, 2004. Despite immediate CPR efforts by Ryan — and further attempts by ambulance and emergency room personnel — the third of the Ryans’ four children died at the age of 5. 

“There’s a hole,” Ryan said. “There are still moments, especially when I’m driving alone, it’ll hit me. I still cry. But like some of the guys on this team have learned to do, you grow around the hole. You can never fill it, but you can grow around it.

“Darkness like that — when there are others around you each day that have experienced it — it allows for guys with empathy on your team. It’s not the same as sympathy. I can have sympathy for someone going through something hard, I can feel bad for them, but I can’t have empathy. I can't have that unless I’ve actually been through something equally dark, equally hard. 

“The situations aren’t exactly the same, but many on this team have gone through some really tough stuff. Shared suffering has the capacity to bond people, and the results of that bonding have really seeped into the culture of this team.”  

Ryan listed several of the hardships his Buckeyes have endured. Fourth-ranked 125-pounder Nic Bouzakis lost his brother — 6-year-old Greco Roman Bouzakis — almost 10 years ago to cancer. Top-ranked 157-pounder Brandon Cannon had a frightening battle with a rare, aggressive tumor in his back that rendered his promising career — and his life — uncertain for a period. 

Ryan mentioned third-ranked heavyweight Nick Feldman, who dealt with a neck injury during his freshman year that left him bedridden for months after surgery. 

He also spoke of backup 141-pounder, Brogan Fielding, whose father died suddenly in July of 2021.

“This kid is the purest kid,” Ryan said of Fielding. “I love him. He’s amazing. 

“He loses his dad suddenly, but instead of balling up, he chested up. He’s added so much to our team. The purity he brings, his outlook, it’s incredible.”

Fielding feels the same about his coach.

“My dad had a heart attack when I was wrestling in Fargo,” he said. “Obviously, it was hard. He was always in great shape. He ran — all that. When I visited OSU, coach Ryan talked to my mom for three hours. Everything that we knew he’d gone through himself — his personability and just how he was with us — Ohio State just felt like home.”

According to Feldman, the Buckeyes’ success begins and ends with Ryan, and the tight-knit relationships among his teammates. 

“I didn’t know how to deal with my injury and being laid up for eight months,” Feldman said. “I pushed people away. Now there’s not a guy on the team I don’t consider to be a best friend. 

“Coach Ryan, with what he went through — I mean, how many people has he helped through his tragedy? He’s helped us use things that have happened to us to grow, and that through effort and faith, we can get through anything.”

Brandon Cannon’s father, Jacob, said that his son hopes to put his health issues into his life’s rear-view mirror as he attempts to focus on the present. 

Asked how the closeness of this year’s team might help his son, Jacob paused. 

“It could be the collective willingness to go to deep waters because you know (teammates have) been there,” he said. “Maybe it’s just a freedom because there’s so much trust among these guys.”

The allure of the current, collegiate landscape matters, too.

“There’s a lot of self-selection,” Cannon continued. “People here want to be part of what Ohio State wrestling is. … The people who want to be a part of this are choosing to be a part of this.”

Fielding extolled the tightness of this year’s Buckeyes in superlative fashion.

“It’s the closest team I’ve ever been on in my life,” he said.