New Pitt wrestling coach Gavin refuses to 'settle for a quick fix'

Dom Forys is so excited about the new direction of the Pitt wrestling program that he doesn't want to leave.

He said on new coach Keith Gavin's first day on the job Wednesday that he may be willing to take a redshirt and delay his final season of eligibility until the 2018-2019 academic year.

“I'm trying to stay here a while,” said Forys, a North Allegheny graduate who won an ACC championship this year at 133 pounds. “I'm willing to commit myself to (the program), and I'm ready for that next step.”

Pitt athletic director Heather Lyke said Gavin appears to have that kind of effect on people.

“I bet he rivals a little bit of the energy that coach (Pat) Narduzzi brings (to the football program),” she said. “He's a dynamic personality and is driven to be the best.”

Gavin is a Pitt graduate who won the school's most recent NCAA wrestling championship in 2008 and was on the U.S. national team for six years. He replaced Jason Peters who was fired at mid-season following what school officials called “an incident” at an out-of-state tournament in December.

When Lyke was hired in March, she said the search for a new coach was “pretty far” into the process. Gavin was in the mix, she said, but he quickly jumped to front of the line.

An assistant at Oklahoma last season and Virginia the three previous years, Gavin never has been a head coach. So began Lyke's investigation into the man she eventually hired.

“He was a guy I wanted to meet to understand his level of maturity, his level of preparation, his readiness to be a head coach,” she said.Lyke said she interviewed another candidate on her second day at Pitt, starting what she called her “due diligence.” She disagreed when a reporter suggested Gavin was a fallback candidate.“This is a job we didn't want to rush into,” she said. “We wanted to find the absolute perfect fit. I think we found that.

“You want someone who has the courage and confidence and knows how to build it and wants to build it here. We had to bring in a coach who understands how to build a program from ground zero.”Lyke, who was athletic director at Eastern Michigan for three years and spent the previous 15 as a top sports administrator at Ohio State, said she has extensive experience with wrestling hires.

“There weren't challenges because I know the sport incredibly well,” she said. “I spent a huge amount of time on a number of wrestling searches in my career.

“I know all the head coaches in the top 10-20 programs. I know their assistants. I have a small network of people.”

Forys said he and his teammates tried to separate themselves from the hiring process, even though it took longer than some people expected.

“They say life's a wave, and you just have to ride the wave,” he said. “This was kind of a tsunami, and it took a little bit longer.

“It got dragged out, hearing names. There's a lot of speculation. People tweeting. It's really hard not to get caught up in the media. As long as you're focused on why you're doing it and why someone wants to be a part of the program, then everything will work out. To see a guy come back to where he won a national title and come back to his roots says a lot about the program and the belief he has in it.”

Gavin believes he can build the Pitt wrestling program, which doesn't need extensive tinkering after finishing 11-5 last season.

“We do have some talented guys on the team,” he said.

He and Lyke praised this region as a “hotbed” of high school wrestling talent.

“There's a lot of talk about the potential of the program and what we could do,” he said. “That stuff's not going to happen overnight. The challenge is remembering to stay the course and stick with the plan, not settle for a quick fix.”He said funding a regional training center for graduates who want to pursue international goals and can work with Pitt's wrestlers at the same time will be one of his first priorities.

“Every top program in the country has one now,” he said. “You can't really win without one.”

For the moment, though, he said he's living a dream.

“Every coach wants to have their own program,” he said. “But it's a little extra special when it's your alma mater.”

Jerry DiPaola is a Tribune-Review staff writer. Reach him at jdipaola@tribweb.com or via Twitter @JDiPaola_Trib.