Missouri’s J'den Cox achieves goal of making Olympic wrestling team

J’Den Cox reacts after beating Kyle Dake in their 86-kilogram freestyle final match at the U.S. Olympic Wrestling team trials earlier this month in Iowa City, Iowa.
J’Den Cox reacts after beating Kyle Dake in their 86-kilogram freestyle final match at the U.S. Olympic Wrestling team trials earlier this month in Iowa City, Iowa.

COLUMBIA — When Missouri wrestling coach Brian Smith first met J’den Cox, Cox was a fat little 4-year-old reading chapter books in Smith’s office while he waited for his older brothers to finish practicing with the Columbia Youth Wrestling Club.

Now a junior at Missouri, Cox’s most recent “chapter book,” as he called it, came in the form of a congratulatory text message from his girlfriend. The reason for the long-winded excitement?

Cox is an Olympian.

A freestyle wrestler, more specifically, set to compete this summer in Rio de Janeiro.

It was a goal the Columbia native wrote down on a sheet of paper when he was about 5 years old, behind the admittedly more modest “go undefeated” and “win the state title.” He kept the paper for years, he said, and this month he completed the trifecta.

After winning the 86-kilogram Olympic Team Trials championship in Iowa City, Iowa, Cox finished first Sunday at the World Games Qualifying Tournament in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, punching his ticket to his first Olympic Games.

“It’s the holy grail of wrestling,” Cox said. “If you think about it, you’ve got all the greatest talent in the world all in one building in the sport that you’re doing for a lifetime. It’s really beautiful to watch.”

Cox only had to finish top three in Mongolia to qualify, but he said his goal was to win the event outright. You can probably guess his goal for the Olympics.

“To win,” Cox said. “I don’t know how to do things halfway. I don’t know how to be anything but full-on, go out and try to do your best.”

Two of Cox’s three seasons at Missouri have ended in a national championship. The second, a fifth-place finish his sophomore year, has propelled his run to Rio.

“He started living, doing things the right way,” Smith said. “When he’s training like that, his ceiling is, I don’t know where it stops. It’s amazing.”

Cox didn’t dwell on the loss.

“I don’t believe in disappointment,” he said.

Instead, he focused on the issue that held him back in his quest for consecutive national titles.

“The biggest factor was weight,” Smith said. “He wasn’t cutting his weight right at 197 (pounds) during the season as a sophomore, and it hurt him. And it really hurt him because his confidence wasn’t there. He was afraid to open up, and when J’den doesn’t open up, he keeps matches close.”

Since then, Cox cut out dairy milk and soda, began eating more fruit and nuts and ate his meat baked or grilled. After winning the national championship at 197 pounds — becoming just the second Missouri wrestler to win two titles — he qualified for the Olympic trials at 86 kilograms, or 189.6 pounds.

In Iowa City, Cox took down Kyle Dake — the only wrestler to ever win an NCAA title in four different weight classes — in the best-of-three final. But since the United States hadn’t yet qualified at the 86-kilogram class, Cox had to pack his bags for Mongolia.

Luckily, Cox brought more than one bag. After a 13-hour flight to Beijing that Cox said “crushed (his) spirits,” Cox had a bag of gear stolen while napping during a layover.

“That wasn’t cool,” Cox said. “But whoever has it I hope is enjoying it. Don’t expect me to sign it, though.”

His wrestling essentials were in another bag, however, ensuring that sweat suits would be the only thing Cox lost in Mongolia. Cox beat wrestlers from Armenia, Greece, Poland, Uzbekistan and Venezuela, dropping just four points the entire tournament.

“They don’t play any (national) anthems when you win the national title or the high-school state title,” Cox said. “It was really awesome. It was an honor, and it was really cool. I couldn’t help but mouth the words to the anthem while I was up there.”

Smith wasn’t there with Cox but he did wake up his son Quinn at about 5 a.m. to watch the award ceremony. Given their long history together, Smith said Cox is practically one of his sons himself.

Once he was through reading Junie B. Jones books in Smith’s office, Cox wrestled for the Columbia Youth Wrestling Club. Smith later coached him in middle-school football before Cox became a state champion wrestler at Hickman High School.

“It’s fun, because I’ve known these people since I really got to Columbia, Missouri,” Smith said. “So it’s a long time. Eighteen years. It’s going to be a fun ride, because I think this is just the start of his Olympic career.”

Cox’s involvement with the U.S. team could have come earlier, as he was recruited to train at the United States Olympic Complex out of high school. Smith persuaded Cox to stay in Columbia, though, pointing out that if he got injured while training at the USOC, he would be without the safety net of a scholarship.

“I just sat down alone,” Cox said, “and I made a T-chart about all the benefits and the non-benefits of going to Mizzou and the same thing with going to OTC. And then I prayed about it and I just imagined doing both, and Mizzou just felt right. I just knew I was supposed to be here. And obviously it panned out for me.”

Smith will be in Rio, though not as Cox’s official coach.

“But I’ll be right there coaching him,” he said with a smile.

Before then, however, Cox has lots on his plate. In May, he’ll be wrestling in the Grand Prix of Germany in Dormagen and the Beat the Streets event in Times Square. In June, he’ll compete at the World Cup in Los Angeles, training at the USOC in between.

The extra practice should benefit Cox, who had to make a quick transition from folkstyle wrestling, the collegiate standard, to freestyle for Olympic trials. Although, he’s not exactly a novice.

“People think J’den just showed up and (said), ‘Hey, I’m going to try freestyle,’” Smith said. “He was a great freestyler in high school.”

While at Hickman, Cox beat future Ohio State standout Kyle Snyder in freestyle and won a junior national title. At last year’s U.S. Open, he dropped what Smith called a “knockdown, dragout” freestyle match with Snyder, who went on to be the world champion.

Cox said the most difficult part of transitioning from folkstyle to freestyle was changing his mindset.

“Because the style for folkstyle is to attack, attack, push the guy, get him down and get him down and control,” Cox said. “Whereas for freestyle it’s to pick your attacks … because you don’t want to get kicked out of position and also getting the most out of your attacks.”

The switch was seamless for Cox in Iowa and Mongolia.

“People keep asking me, ‘How is he going to do at this tournament, the trials?’” Smith said. “I said, ‘Well I believe he can win it.’ And, ‘How’s he going to do out in Mongolia?’ ‘Well, I believe he’s going to win it.’ Now the next question, ‘Do you believe he can win the Olympics?’ Of course I do.

“J’den has the athleticism, has the tools and the great thing now is he has two months to prepare.”

Cox’s rising star shines especially bright at Missouri after a year consumed with on-field struggles by prominent programs and a national controversy surrounding the football team’s protest of racist events on campus.

Cox seems like the perfect athlete for the job, too. Not only is he a multiple-time national champion and an Olympic qualifier, but his skills as a musician and thoughtful speaker are also renowned. At Smith’s request, Cox wrote a song called “One More” and performed it at a ceremony kicking off a university fundraiser.

And as a teammate, Cox is so concerned with his goal of Missouri winning a team championship that he said he’s had mixed feelings about being away from the Tigers while preparing for the Olympics. His gold medal from Mongolia? It’s hidden away in his car.

“If he’s the spokesman for the University of Missouri athletics — not taking away from other athletes — but he’s a pretty darn good one,” Smith said.

But as important as being a well-rounded person is to Cox, his focus is on his sport. He didn’t feel like he needed to get involved with the campus protests and he doesn’t see himself as taking on any added importance as a much-needed face of Missouri athletics.

“Don’t get me wrong, it’s not any disrespect to Missouri,” he said. “It’s not a fact that I don’t care about what’s going on on campus. It’s the plain fact of life takes (you) forward, no matter what, for each person, and each person has to make a choice for who they’re going to be and what they’re going to do. And I made a simple choice.

“Those situations that happened on campus happened, and there’s nothing that we can do to take it back or change it. There’s nothing that we can do to go back in time, and everything. So you’ve got to move forward. That’s the same thing I said to my team when those things were happening. We are who we are. We’re wrestlers. That’s what we do. When we go outside, the world’s going to change, and the world’s going to be different and everything. But when we come in here, we’re coming in here to wrestle.”

One just happens to be wrestling his way to Rio.