Penn State Wrestling: Inside the Singlet – Wrestler Profiles for 141

Beau Bartlett

Year: Junior
Weight: 141
Major: Psychology
Hometown: Tempe, Ariz.

Penn State Career

Bartlett joined the Nittany Lion wrestling team in the fall of 2020 and he took part in the shortened 2020-2021 season as a true freshman.

Beau wrestled 36 matches his first two seasons at 149 due to someone by the name of Nick Lee occupying the spot at 141. While wrestling up a weight class, Bartlett qualified for the 2022 NCAA Championships and he took part in three matches during his trip to Detroit.

Bartlett dropped down to 141 this year and he now has 47 total bouts under his belt to go along with his 2022 NWCA All-Academic Team and 2022 Academic All-Big Ten awards.

Prior to Penn State

In high school, Beau put together an overall record of 177-8 while competing for Wyoming Seminary in Kingston, Pa. He was a four-time national prep champion, took home an eighth place finish in the senior U.S. Open, won the title in the 2016 Walsh Jesuit Ironman Championships, earned a title in the 2018 Pan-Am games in Guatemala City, and claimed both the 2017 and 2019 Powerade Championships.

As for his finish in the senior U.S. Open, Bartlett could have won at the Cadet or U20 levels and gone on to worlds. But instead, Beau wanted to test himself against the big dogs at the senior level.

Not too shabby.

But when your father, Andre Bartlett, was also a collegiate and international wrestler, I guess the apple didn’t fall too far from the tree.

Along with wrestling, Beau also grew up training in the sport of tumbling. Which if you think about it, would be a great addition to wrestling as well as literally any other sport. Understanding how the body moves, spatial awareness, understanding leverage, comfortable being inverted, and explosive moves pretty much sums up wrestling to a “T”.

To this day Bartlett continues his tumbling training by posting videos on his Instagram every Friday called “Flipping Friday”.

“Hey Beau, when are we going to see

But wrestling wasn’t always a true love for Beau. He knew he was always good at it but he didn’t fall in love with the sport until he came to Penn State and struggled to win. When he spent countless hours putting in the work to improve is what really made him love wrestling.

And Bartlett has high expectations for himself. However this does not come at the cost of comparing himself or his results with others. Because if you worry about what people expect from you then it will translate into a feeling of external pressure and a wrestler’s worst nightmare. Wrestling scared.

“I love to learn, so I’m going to do well in school I’m going to apply myself. I want to do great things in wrestling, and I truly do love every day of practice. I am grateful for the experience shared with my brothers and excited for what is to come.”

Away from the Penn State wrestling room Beau likes to watch anime and dabbles in graphic design. But he’s also pretty slick in the kitchen due to his parents owning a deli. Bartlett loves to cook and he describes his mentality the same way in the kitchen as he probably would on the Resilite, “I am dialed in in the kitchen.”

And any deli owner would probably tell you, it’s a hard job and the work can be long and difficult at times. Which is exactly why Beau and his younger sister, Joelle, learned balance from their parents at a young age. Rather than working non-stop at the deli, their parents would always prioritize spending time with them over anything else.

Oh, and Joelle just committed to playing field hockey down the road from Beau at Lock Haven University.

As I mentioned earlier, Beau is also very successful and driven in the classroom and he takes a full, 18 credit course load each semester. Each and every semester.

Read that again.

I was lucky enough to go to college but I could not possibly imagine taking 18 credits and being a full time collegiate athlete. I could barely take 12 credits and play ping pong twice a week.

And as it currently stands, Bartlett is set to graduate early and he has his sights set on pursing either an additional degree or a higher level of education.

Beau has an idea of what he wants to do after his wrestling career but he’s going to try to continue it as long as he can. He plans to continue with his freestyle career and he might even want to get into the world of coaching. Once this chapter of his life closes he sees himself as an entrepreneur and wants to own his own business.

Not surprisingly it might involve food. Bartlett hints at maybe owning a diner someday as he loves the best meal of the day: breakfast.

Touching back briefly on Beau’s Penn State wrestling career, one of Bartlett’s goals as a Nittany Lion is to win a Big Ten tournament in the Bryce Jordan Center. And he’s also pumped for having the Olympic trials on his home turf.

Beau was also pretty candid about his two seasons wrestling up a weight class at 149 instead of his native weight of 141. As a wrestler, the staples of running and rope climbing are paramount when training due to the massive impacts they have on your strength and conditioning. But due to Bartlett having to keep his weight up, he couldn’t do any of those things while working out. Considering the sheer gauntlet of ranked guys he had to face last year, it’s amazing he wasn’t gassed at the end of every single match.

And here’s one last word on who Beau is as a person. Like many of his teammates, he coaches and puts on clinics for the younger guys at his old club. Bartlett indicates he enjoys giving back.

He’s also big on memories and remembering. From his Instagram post on September 11, 2022:

“Remembering 9/11 – Climbing 2,977 feet in memory of the 2,977 lives lost 21 years ago”