Steve Garland, Cavalier wrestling's golden boy at 125 pounds, still remembers every detail of the match that made him a Virginia legend. In an interview with The Cavalier Daily, Garland recounted his experience.
Everybody in that gym thought I was going to lose except for me and my team. I really believed that I could beat him.
A week after he upset the Wrestling World, Garland recalls the defining match of his college career as clearly as a bright summer morning. Now he is the owner of Virginia's first NCAA second-place finish since 1957 and the recently-crowned ACC Wrestler of the Year, but, a week ago Saturday, Garland was considered no more than a heavily overmatched underdog in his NCAA Tournament quarterfinal match with Iowa's top-seeded Jody Strittmatter. When you wrestle against the Iowa black and gold, you wrestle against the World, a prospect that very few survive.
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