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Fowlerville's Adam Coon (left) beat Cohlton
Schultz of Colorado on Saturday, June 15, 2019 to earn a berth in the Senior
World Wrestling Championships. (Photo: Tony Rotundo/WrestlersAreWarriors.com)
Every sport’s fan base has its share of
haters, keyboard warriors and other perpetual critics who can’t simply
appreciate greatness, but feel compelled to pick it apart.
Adam Coon of Fowlerville doesn’t
have much to prove as a wrestler, yet has found one of his greatest
achievements scrutinized by people who fancy themselves experts in the sport.
Welcome to life in the age of social media.
For Coon, all this does is add to the considerable fire that
burns within him to, at the very least, win another medal at the Senior
Wrestling World Championships Sept. 16-17 in Kazakhstan. Coon won a Greco-Roman silver
medal at 130 kilograms at the World Championships last October in Budapest,
Hungary.
It’s a medal that some critics believe should be engraved with
an asterisk.
The criticism?
“I got the silver, but I had the easy route,” Coon said. “If you
look at the competitors I had, it wasn’t the elite of the crop, but when you
look at the actual accolades of the people I had to beat to get there, it may
not be as deep as some of the guys on the other side, but they were still very
tough competitors. Because they weren’t the most dominant guys, they think I
had a weak route to get to the finals.”
Adam Coon (Photo: Daryl Marshke/Michigan Photography)
In his first senior World Championships, Coon
pinned four opponents before losing in the title match, 9-0, to 2016 Olympic
bronze medalist Sergey Semenov of Russia.
Coon qualified for a
return trip to the World Championships last Saturday in Lincoln, Nebraska, by
winning 8-0 and 5-1 decisions over Cohlton Schultz of Parker, Colorado.
“I really want to prove to myself and the rest of the world I
belong on the podium again, it wasn’t just some crazy thing that happened last
year where I got a great route to it,” Coon said. “I want to make sure I prove
to myself it’s really deserved, and hopefully it’s the top step this time.
There’s probably a target painted on my back, but I also look at it as kind of
being an underdog.
"Even though I got a silver last year,
not a lot of people have respect for it. I want to prove them wrong. I have a
lot of drive.”
Coon can be his own worst critic, too, a common trait in elite
athletes. Although he won both of his matches by decisive scores in Lincoln, he
realizes he has some things to clean up if he’s going to be successful in
Kazakhstan.
“He was very good at showing my weaknesses,”
Coon said. “He was able to pummel and get to positions I shouldn’t have let him
get to. He was controlling positions. If I’m going to win a world and Olympic
title, I can’t let anyone get those positions. He helped to expose my weaknesses.
“It’s always nice when you get really tough competition. You can
see where you’re really at, because you’re rested. If you’re just going against
local competition that isn’t as tough or you’re going against weak competition
trying to get a medal, you never get better.”
Coon has won medals on
the world stage four times. He was the 2011 cadet world champion in freestyle,
a bronze medalist in Greco-Roman and freestyle at junior worlds in 2014 and a
silver medalist at senior worlds last year.
Adam Coon of Fowlerville
has tournaments in Peru and Kazakhstan in the upcoming months before he can
begin focusing on an Olympic year. (Photo: Tony Rotundo, WrestlersAreWarriors.com)
After
winning four wrestling state championships at Fowlerville and taking second in
the NCAA tournament twice at the University of Michigan, Coon
has been able to devote himself to wrestling full-time since completing his
collegiate career in March 2018.
“It makes it really nice,” said Coon, 24. “I don’t have to do
homework and all the stuff that goes along with it. I can just focus on
wrestling. It makes it easy just training and making sure I’m ready to go. I
don’t have to divert my time to study.
“It’s all wrestling. Wrestling’s my job right now, so I’ve got a
really fun job.”
Before heading to the World Championships, Coon will compete
Aug. 6-8 in Lima, Peru, at the Pan American Games. Coon won a gold medal at the Pan American
Championships in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on April 18.
Competing in Peru and Kazakhstan will add two new countries to
the list in which Coon has competed. He’s also wrestled in Croatia, Germany,
Hungary and Mexico.
“It’s nice to travel the world and see what it has to offer,” he
said.
Coon hopes to add Japan to that list next year, with Tokyo
hosting the Summer Olympic Games. The Olympic Trials will be held April 4-5 at
Penn State.
Coon is unsure what lies in store for him between the World
Championships and the trials.
“I’m just focused on the Pan American Games and worlds,” he said.
“After that, I’ll figure it out. If you look too far forward, you start missing
out on good things.”
