Red Confident After Overcoming Mental Hurdles

Chad Red Jr. spent all day in day care, waiting for his father, a high school wrestling coach, to pick up his son so the two could head directly to wrestling practice. Red Jr. – who also goes by C.J. – couldn't wait to roam around the wrestling room, watching the older guys and emulating their every move.
 
That included rope climbing, a sure-fire way to build a wrestler's core and upper-body strength.
 
"I remember it bugged me I couldn't get up the rope, and all of these older guys were getting up there, no problem," C.J. said. "I think I was 4 when I finally got up the rope, then I got me a pair of wrestling shoes. I just started doing what I was seeing everybody else doing."
 
That's how C.J's love for wrestling began, with his father, Chad Red Sr., a former junior college All-America wrestler, along his side, coaching him in club wrestling and throughout C.J.'s pristine high school career.
 
"He knows how to get under my skin and press all of my buttons," C.J. said. "My dad, he knows what to say. Even if I do go out there and perform my best, he always has something to say to critique me. Keep my head level."
 
Even now, as Chad Red Jr. begins his redshirt junior season at Nebraska, Chad Red Sr. attends his son's every dual, driving 10 hours from their home in Indianapolis to Lincoln for the home meets. They talk on the phone after practice every night.  
 
"He's my best friend," C.J. said. "He's everything."
 
Imagine, then, having to tell your father, your best friend, that you no longer love something largely responsible for creating your strong bond.
 
Faced with that dilemma one year ago, Chad Red Jr. couldn't. He bottled his true feelings and kept quiet.
 
"I felt like that would really disappoint him," C.J. said. "That's what we have always done together. Like, that's our thing."
 
But, simply put, C.J. wasn't having fun with wrestling.
 
"I didn't like it at the time," he said. "He called every day to talk about practice, and I didn't want to talk about practice. I was just trying to hurry up and get off the phone."
 
Not only could C.J. not tell his father, he felt he couldn't tell anybody. A normally affable, outgoing young man grew miserable.
 
His breaking point came, at all times, during a late-night fast-food run.
 
"I remember I was crying in the drive-thru," C.J. said, "and the McDonald's dude was just like, 'Hey man, life's too short to be crying.' I was just like, 'Man, I can't … I can't right now. This ain't it right now. I'm not having fun.' "
 
The odd thing, C.J. says, is that he entered the 2018-19 season full of confidence and momentum, having placed seventh at 141 pounds at the NCAA Championships as a redshirted freshman and defeating a two-time national champion along the way.
 
He was enjoying a strong preseason of practice, wrestling at his best, feeling great in the room.
 
"I thought I was wrestling really good," C.J. said. "I had it engraved in my mind that I'm going to win it this year. This is my year. I don't really care who's in my way."
 
Then, an incident in an October preseason practice, for whatever reason, changed his outlook quickly and drastically. With his family watching, C.J. fell behind in a dual with senior teammate Tyler Berger, who'd end his career a three-time All-American and national runner-up at 157 pounds.
 
Trailing 8-0, C.J. kept telling himself he could climb back into the dual, even though he knew his chances were slim. Finally, he earned a take down.
 
"I got some confidence, a bounce in my step," C.J. said. "And I remember he went down to fake, and I went down with him, and his head kind of dropped a little bit lower than mine, and the top of his head just smashed right into my mouth."
 
At that moment, C.J. saw his front tooth fly out and land on the mat.
 
Thankfully, the girlfriend of one of his teammates, a dental student, was attending, and advised C.J. to put the tooth back in his mouth if he had any desire to save it.
 
"Oh my gosh. That was terrible," C.J. said. "Knocking a tooth out and having to put it back in? We had to shove it back in there. We didn't get it all the way back in, but we got it in as far as it would go."
 
Enough to save his tooth, following a trip to the dentist. But he'd suffered more damage than anyone realized.
 
"I was like, 'No, I'm done with this.' I hated the sport for a minute."
 
He knows it showed throughout much of his sophomore season.
 
"There was a point in time where I was just wrestling average, not up to my level where I'm at my best," he said. "I was wrestling down to other guys' level and not really even too much caring about the outcome. I was just trying to wrestle, just going out there just to wrestle."
 
Even though Chad Red Sr. didn't know details, he could tell something was awry with his son.
 
"He kept on asking me, 'What's wrong? You're not wrestling the same," C.J. said. "This isn't my son. This isn't Junior Red wrestling out there."
 
His father and other relatives pleaded with C.J. to see one of Nebraska's sports psychologists on staff. He kept resisting.
 
"I didn't know what a psychologist was," he said. "I thought she was just going to tell me I had a bunch of problems."
 
Finally, toward the end of last season, Chad Red Jr. let down his guard and met with Dr. Brett Haskel, director of sports psychology in the Nebraska Athletics Department.
 
"She really just talked me through the whole thing," C.J. said. "I remember telling her I had to keep it real, tell her exactly what I was feeling. I remember telling her, 'I don't care about the sport right now. I don't care about how I do.' I mean, I wanted to do well at nationals, but at the same time, I didn't care at that time."
 
He said Haskel asked him to share his life, his background, everything he had done growing up with the sport of wrestling.
 
C.J. told her how he'd won the state championship four times at New Palestine High School, and never lost a match in 183 tries. Told her how he had 97 pins during his 139-0 record as a freshman, sophomore and junior. How he allowed no take downs his entire senior season. How he pinned his opponents 87 percent of the time, with an average pin of 35 seconds.
 
Then, C.J. said Haskel asked him to recount what happened the previous year at the NCAA Championships. Well, as a redshirted freshman, he pinned the two-time national champion, Oklahoma State's Dean Heil, in the match to claim All-America honors at 141 pounds.
 
As he's telling this, C.J. looks down at his arms.
 
"It still kind of gives me goosebumps talking about it," he said.
 
More importantly that day, C.J. understood Haskel's point. He was still that same person. It's still in you, she told him.
 
"Once she told me that, it was like the switch flipped back on. I started enjoying the sport a little bit more," C.J. said. "Just talking about my situation and talking to her just made me feel a lot more positive about what I was doing."
 
In his next match, the regular-season finale against Stanford, C.J. pinned his opponent. Just like he always used to do.
 
He then returned for another visit with Haskel.
 
"I remember saying I actually feel a lot better," he said. "I feel like I got a little bit more pep in my step. I feel a bit more energized. I don't feel like as draggy, going among my day. I just feel better about myself in general.
 
"I started getting my confidence back, started believing in myself a lot more. I started to go out and wrestle to my potential."
 
Chad Red Jr. then placed second at the Big Ten Championships in his next outing, and placed eighth at the NCAA Championship to become a two-time NCAA All-American. He's carried that confidence and momentum into the beginning of his junior season.
 
"Any time I get on the mat, I take it as disrespect for that guy to be stepping on the mat against me," C.J. said. "I want to get him up off the mat as quick as possible, whether it's a pin, tech fall, major decision, winning the match in regular decision.
 
"It doesn't matter. I'm trying to win every match."
 
Chad Red Sr., whose father and six uncles also wrestled, will again be in attendance Friday night when Nebraska hosts Wyoming in a dual at the Devaney Sports Center. He's happy to have seen his son fight through some mental hurdles, noting it took C.J. longer than some to adjust to many aspects of collegiate wrestling, and college, in general.
 
"I saw this summer after NCAA, kind of a change with his attitude, school, social life, what he was eating out of season, how much he was training, how he was on vacation with family," Chad Red Sr. said. "Just seeing a lot of things."
 
C.J., smiling as he tells about a photo his father sent of his 1-year-old brother wearing a pair of C.J's wrestling shoes, is as grateful as ever for his father's support.
 
"He's the reason ... I definitely feel like he, along with a number of my other family members, are the reason I'm here, just because of the amount of time and money they've invested for me to do what I love – go to all these camps, go all over the world to wrestle," C.J. said.
 
"Without that, I don't know if I'd be here at Nebraska."
 
Reach Brian at brosenthal@huskers.com or follow him on Twitter @GBRosenthal.