BROCKPORT, N.Y.- The SUNY Brockport wrestling team welcomes first time head coach Troy Seymour. Seymour is driven, dedicated and determined to bring the wrestling roots back to Brockport.

“Having five national titles is really big, and there’s a lot of history here,” Seymour said. “We’ve lost that respect, I feel, in the last few years. So, this team is really eager to earn that back.”

Seymour was practically born into wrestling with the help of his late father Michael Seymour.

“Well I mean my dad got me into it from the time I was like four years old,” Seymour said. “We had a garage and, you know we filled it with mats, and we just started our own wrestling club, and thats kind of how we went from there.”

Seymour determination continued all throughout high school, hoisting several trophies and awards such as being a four-time Section VII champion.

“Everyone in the country you know, will practice for two hours a day,” Seymour said. “So, what are you doing with those other 22 hours in a day thats going to separate you from everyone. I think that’s really been a big impact of you know, it wasn’t something I did, it was who I was.”

Seymour would later commit to North Carolina State University but would transfer to SUNY Oswego after his freshman year. There, he earned numerous awards along with recording over 100 career victories.

When he wrapped up his wrestling career at SUNY Oswego, he was offered the assistant coaching position which he held for five years. For Seymour, coaching was something that came to him naturally.

“Even when I was in middle school and high school, I was still coaching guys on my team as much as I could,” Seymour said. “I feel like I love the sport a lot more than a lot of my other teammates always did. When it came to the end of college, I wasn’t sure what I was going to do and Coach Mike Howard was going to need an assistant…we did a lot of great things…so I walked right into the coaching role.”

After five successful years with the Lakers, Seymour wanted to focus on what’s best for him and find a head coaching position. Luckily, Brockport was in need of a new head coach for the 2024-2025 season, and he took advantage of the opportunity. Seymour caught the eye of Brockport’s search committee and Athletic Director Dr. Erick Hart, which decided to select him as Brockport’s new wrestling head coach.

“He’s got great Division III experience,” Hart said. He’s super competitive… he’s helped establish that program (Oswego’s wrestling program).”

The wrestling team’s culture is already beginning to shift. One thing that’s helping the team get better is Seymour is not only teaching his wrestlers how to get better, but he is also showing it to them on the mats.

“One thing that really helps is I get on the mats with the guys and I’m wrestling, so I know how they’re feeling,” Seymour said. “Having coaches that can throw themselves in the trenches and do work with the guys, it really builds that respect from them.”

Something that Seymour has done that separates him from the previous coaches is he is not only improving the physical condition of his wrestlers, but also the mental condition. SUNY Brockport wrestler Jaden Friel believes it has not only helped him, but everyone else around him as well.

“I would say for one like, last year, I never really focused on anything outside of training and technique. Like, there’s a lot that goes into winning, it’s not all ‘How hard can you go? How good you are at a technique.’ Like, a lot of it comes down to like, your mindset,” Friel said. “I know of people who are beasts in the room. Like, can take anyone does during live goes when we’re in practice, but when they’re in a match they like freeze up. So, I would say the mindset really helps you, like getting to that next level here it separates you from the competition.”

Seymour is using a program called Wrestling Mindset to assist in mental conditioning. It was created by former UPENN wrestlers Gene and Jeff Zanetti to help wrestlers not only have the right mindset for wrestling, but life and school as well. The program focusses on helping wrestlers view things differently and ask themselves different questions on a daily basis to make the right choices.

Seymour has used the program for group sessions with his team. Once those sessions are completed, his team has the chance to do individual sessions as well.

Not only is the team getting better every single day, but they are also enjoying it a lot more as well compared to last season.

“There’d be time where people just wouldn’t want to practice, we didn’t have fun and it would just be conditioning, conditioning conditioning as opposed to technique,” Friel said. “So, I think that’s what really has flipped the switch in a lot of guys, where people actually enjoy being at practice, because for one, we’re learning, for two, we’re seeing the results and for three, we’re not being overtrained.

Seymour is driven to be the best coach that he can be. One thing he has learned over the small course of his coaching career is that it can be difficult to push guys who don’t want it as bad as others.

“You can spend countless hours on the same five people that just really don’t want it that bad, and you got to just narrow your focus to the guys who really want to be successful,” Seymour said. “You got to get up and do the runs when you don’t want to do them, and you got to be willing to train in the dark alone a lot.”

The new head coach has already made his presence known as the Brockport wrestling team took down his alma mater SUNY Oswego 30-17 in their first competition, propelling them to 1-0.

“Here, I found a new family,” Seymour said. “I never really would have imagined that this would be my first head coaching job that I step into, and I plan on it to be my last.”

Under there new driven, dedicated and determined head coach, SUNY Brockport wrestlers hope that it could be the beginning of something great.