Oregon City native Matt Lindland, former UFC star, leads USA wrestling into Rio Olympics

Matt Lindland

Coach Matt Lindland (right) was named USA wrestling coach in 2014.

(Tony Rotundo/wrestlersarewarriors.com)

GRESHAM -- The sounds of gloves popping against bags, coaches barking instructions and workout music blaring overhead blend together at just past 6 p.m. inside Gresham's Team Quest MMA gym.

Sweat splotches the blue mats covering the floor in the smaller of the gym's two main rooms as a beginning kickboxing class is underway. In the other room, the front room as coaches call it, submission wrestling techniques are being taught.

As the classes continue, it's just past 5 a.m. where the gym's owner is -- 6,500 miles away.

Matt Lindland is in Azerbaijan doing coaching of his own, not for his Gresham gym, but for Team USA. Lindland, a former Olympic silver medalist and decorated MMA fighter, was named the USA Greco-Roman wrestling coach in 2014.

"It's like being a CEO of a major corporation with all the different hats you have to wear," Lindland said. The Oregon City native organizes travel and decides which qualifying matches to send his wrestlers to all while trying to coach his philosophy.

Lindland and four wrestlers are training with the Azerbaijan national team before heading to Brazil for the 2016 Rio Olympics. Azerbaijan, it turns out, is a great training partner, having claimed the 2015 Greco-Roman World Cup and boasting two world No. 1 wrestlers.

Despite competing for his country as an athlete and gaining coaching experience after his wrestling career, the call to lead the American wrestling team was still a surprise for Lindland.

"It's not like the NBA where there are 30 coaching spots open," Lindland said. "There's only one coach per country to lead their sport."

Although the position with Team USA is based in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and takes him across the world, Team Quest is a reminder of Lindland's roots.

The gym, nestled beside a McDonald's and across from a drive-thru Mexican food restaurant in Gresham's Rockwood neighborhood, opened in 2001. But that wasn't the original plan for the building. Lindland opened the white-sided structure as USA Auto Wholesale a year after he took home the silver medal in the 2000 Olympics.

The used car lot doubled as a gym in the evenings. Lindland and UFC legend Randy Couture pulled a mat into the detail station, the same room where the submission class was being held Monday, to train. Lindland's Olympic days were over but his MMA career was just picking up pace. Soon, clients were asking to train with Lindland.

"The MMA became more popular than the car lot and it didn't take long for us to move the whole thing to a gym," Angie Lindland, Matt's wife, said.

Today Team Quest offers classes in boxing, kickboxing, submission wrestling and straight wrestling -- 14 years since the Lindlands transformed the used car lot into a full-time gym.

"When I sit back and think about why I do this, it's because the community in Rockwood needs it," Lindland said. "We could be a lot more successful moving it to Portland or Beaverton, but we've kept it in Rockwood to inspire people."

--Joe Mussatto
jmussatto@oregonian.com
@joe_mussatto

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