WVU wrestling assistants to use system, experience to help recruit
If Tim Flynn is charged with helping revitalize and change the trajectory of the West Virginia wrestling program, then you could refer to Cliff Moore and Mitchell Port as essential pieces to that puzzle.
The pair came over with Flynn from his old post at Edinboro to serve as assistants on his new coaching staff with the Mountaineers.
Moore spent 12 years with Flynn working for the Fighting Scots while Port immediately joined the coaching staff upon his graduation in 2015.
Each of them are highly successful former wrestlers with Moore an NCAA Champion at Iowa and Port an NCAA finalist that was actually initially recruited by Moore to Edinboro only strengthening the board between them.
That experience naturally should help both on the recruiting trail but in different ways.
“I think it’s just the system we have set up. When you have success as a program and with the Tim Flynn system and his approach to everything it’s worked and recruits see that so they want to be a part of it,” Moore said. “You show them the type of support that they’ll have.”
Relatively new to the coaching world, Port also has another ace up his sleeve in the fact that he was an under recruited prospect out of high school that developed into one of the elite guys in the nation through the system that was provided to him at Edinboro.
The resources available at West Virginia should only make that process even easier for future wrestlers considering the facilities and support in the program.
West Virginia has long been considered a sleeping giant in many wrestling circles in large part because of his locations adjacent to high level recruiting areas in Pennsylvania, Ohio and even West Virginia.
The goal of the new coaching staff is to attempt to tap into some of that talent with a combination of enthusiasm and using their past results to showcase their past successes at Edinboro and what they could potentially do in Morgantown.
“There is so much talent around here. All within a five, six or seven-hour drive and that’s all you can ask for. We have a little more money to spend now, a bigger school and those are some things the top level kids are interested in and I hope we can get those guys here,” Port said.
Even with limited scholarships to provide at Edinboro, the success that Flynn and his staff had was the best in the wrestling program’s history over his 21 years. Now without those limitations, the idea is that the staff can sell their system to prospects to get them on campus.
That Tim Flynn system is one that isn’t difficult to map out.
“Consistency, staying positive and keeping kids involved. Getting their input and finding out how they’re doing in the day and then steering things the right way, right away,” Moore said. “Be on them about everything with their lifestyle and academics. It’s a personal touch when the coaches care about it.”
Port shared many of the same beliefs.
“Just making a personal connection and being honest. You have to know your vision and where you think they can go and compete at the highest level. The atmosphere you want on a team inside and outside the wrestling room, those are the things that can attract somebody,” he said.
The culture at West Virginia also will help sell itself given the amount of majors on campus as well as just the environment, a big factor with Flynn taking the post to begin with.
The coaching staff also plans to utilize state of the art mail and videos to help catch the eyes of potential prospects moving forward and work has already started on mapping some items out.
“We’re trying to get some guys now. It’s going to take a little bit of time, we’ve got to get the alumni on board and some new recruits on board and that will be the biggest thing in the first couple months,” Port said. “We’re trying to get the best wrestlers here and hopefully down the road we start winning some big things.”
