When the 2019 NCAA Championships opened up in Pittsburgh last March, Michael Kemerer was on the sidelines with his sights set on the future. Now, the goals he and Iowa Wrestling as a whole held for 2020 have been pushed one year back and 561 miles south from Minneapolis to 2021 St. Louis. 

“When a lot of guys were preparing for 2019 Pittsburgh, I was thinking 2020 Minneapolis, that’s where I’m going to get my shot,” Kemerer said. “Not getting that opportunity definitely was tough, having to wait even longer to wrestle in that postseason . . . it probably added to it, made it tougher, but that’s the way things are and just looking forward to getting one last opportunity. Now you turn to 2021 and you’ve got to be ready for that.”

With Carver-Hawkeye Arena closed and that usual offseason routine of putting in workouts once or twice a day up in the air for the Hawkeye roster, the focus has been on finding ways to replace and build on what a normal day would look like. 

To start out the offseason, there was no set schedule each day outside of classes held online during the second half of the semester. The wrestlers in Iowa City make do with what they have and lean on each other for the makeshift routine that will help them hit the ground running when Carver reopens.

“I think this is a big period of time right now where you can still make a lot of gains on people who are using it to kind of just relax and take time off,” Kemerer said. “You just have to be a little creative with it.”

One big change has been the individualization of workouts and drills that would normally be done in the room with a partner or the whole team. For Kemerer, that means pushing himself and staying focused while running and doing all of his stance and motion drills on his own.

“This has become more and more normalized,” Kemerer said. “I would say that, just kind of gotten used to it and now found a good routine that’s been working for us. Hopefully things kind of get back to normal sometime soon and we pick up right where we left off.”

With gyms shut down all over the country, the shift from normal has pushed the focus towards a stronger mentality and visualization for the future. 

Keeping that end goal of repeating success and coming out on top of the podium during his final collegiate season is on Kemerer’s mind. Making the best out of an unprecedented situation can set Hawkeye athletes apart from other teams not only physically, but also in the way they think about their matches and the competition. 

“You can put a lot of practice in, do a lot of work in the room but you’ve got to get the most out of yourself in those competitions, on that big stage to really get those results,” Kemerer said. “For me, the big thing has just been focusing on how do I get the best result out of myself the most consistently every single time.

“Right now I know there’s a lot of uncertainty, so it can be kind of easy to fall into that trap where I don’t know what the future holds, but for me it’s just been gearing up for whenever it’s time to compete again.”

Through watching old videos of not only his own matches, but those of his opponents and just a lot of wrestling in general, that laser-sharp focus on 2021 St. Louis that Kemerer looks to hold continues to strengthen during a time where falling into a rut would be all too easy. 

“That’s one positive that you can take away from this thing, it allows you to find ways to get better at the sport that you might not have found had something like this never happened, so just got to use that kind of stuff to my advantage,” Kemerer said.

Anna attended the University of Iowa, where she covered multiple sports from volleyball to football to wrestling. She went to Pittsburgh in March 2019 for the NCAA DI Wrestling Championships and did live coverage of the entire event and Spencer Lee’s second-straight NCAA title. Follow her on Twitter.