Penn State Wrestling: 5 burning questions for 2021-2022 season

Mar 20, 2021; St. Louis, Missouri, USA; Penn State Nittany Lions wrestler Carter Starocci celebrates after defeating Iowa Hawkeyes wrestler Michael Kemerer in the championship match of the 174 weight class during the finals of the NCAA Division I Wrestling Championships at Enterprise Center. Mandatory Credit: Jeff Curry-USA TODAY Sports /

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Greg Kerkvliet of the Penn State Nittany Lions (Photo by Scott Rovak/NCAA Photos via Getty Images) /

Important Question No. 4

How is Greg Kerkvliet’s health?

Welcome to my completely uninformed and uneducated TED talk on the health of wrestlers.

But look, if you watch a guy breeze through some stiff competition in November. Then you watch the same guy four months later and he doesn’t even remotely look like the same guy. Something clearly happened.

And it’s the “something” that I’m a little concerned about. For an 18-22 year old athlete to look different after only four months, can’t be deemed normal. Heck, even for a random 20 year old dude to look different after a handful of months isn’t normal. Unless they toured with the Grateful Dead for those months.

What I’m so eloquently getting to is this, whatever happened to Kerkvliet I just hope it doesn’t impede his off-season training.

Based on what Penn State fans saw at both the B1G’s and the NCAA’s, there’s not a single contender to knock both Mason Parris and Gable Steveson off their hill.

Kerkvliet is going to have to take a massive leap forward this off-season to try and start competing with either of those guys.

Let’s hope everything is good and he’s on his way to a full recovery going forward.

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