By Stacy Troiano
This past spring the Hofstra wrestling team said goodbye to long-time head coach Tom Ryan and ushered in a new era with new coach Tom Shifflet.
In May, Hofstra athletic director Jack Hayes announced that Shifflet would be the 10th head wrestling coach in the program’s 58-year history, replacing Ryan, who took the head coaching job at Ohio State. Ryan departed after a storied 11-year career at Hofstra, leading the Pride to six straight conference titles.
“Coach Ryan did a great job building every aspect of this program,” Shifflet said. “He brought in some of the best kids in the country, got the community behind the program and really took it to a new level. My job is to use the momentum we have behind us and continue moving the program toward the top, and I look forward to the challenge.”
Shifflet attended wrestling powerhouse Edinboro University in Pennsylvania, where he wrestled for four years. He tallied 118 wins in his career, was a four-time national qualifier and received All-American honors three times at Edinboro.
After graduating, Shifflet began his coaching career as an assistant at Georgia State for two years. He then went onto another assistant role at Cornell, where he remained for five years before accepting the head coaching job at UNC-Greensboro. Shifflet guided Greensboro to the top of the Southern Conference in his four years there, and comes to Hofstra as a top-notch recruiter and an outstanding, eager coach.
Shifflet believes Hofstra is a different program than others he’s coached because of the level of excitement for wrestling in the area, and he also thinks high school kids are drawn to an opportunity to play in such an atmosphere.
“Hofstra gets amazing support from the community,” he said. “When you can come in and wrestle in front of two or three thousand people, it’s huge. I mean, I can probably count on both hands the number of teams in the country that sell season tickets for wrestling like Hofstra does. It’s tremendous and I’m excited to coach in such a great place.”
So far, the Pride has been practicing and training for the season, which begins on Tuesday at Wagner College, and Shifflet has been pleased with the effort so far.
“The guys are doing really well in training, and they’re anxious to get on the mat,” he said.
The Pride comes into this season with a winning streak in CAA dual meets that surpasses 40 matches, and it looks to continue that streak. Hofstra is ranked 12th in the nation in the Wrestling International Newsmagazine preseason rankings. Shifflet has high expectations for his new squad and believes the Pride has the opportunity to achieve them this year.
“We want to win the conference, break into the top 10 and top 5 in national rankings, and we want to have guys become All-Americans and national champions,” Shifflet said. “If we stay healthy and work hard, with the team we have, we have that opportunity.”
After the match at Wagner, the Pride will have matches against West Point and East Stroudsburg before a grueling match against top-ranked Minnesota in a Northeast Duals tournament on Nov. 25.