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NEW CUMBERLAND -- For five years, West Virginia's Peyton Hall represented the state that he was born and raised with aplomb. The Oak Glen alum was an All-American, Big 12 Champion, and ended his time with the Mountaineers wrestling team as the program's all-time wins leader with 135.
Though as of Wednesday, it's not quite accurate to say that Hall's time with the Mountaineers has ended. Rather, a new chapter for the Golden Bear/Mountaineer opened earlier this week, with WVU's announcement that Hall had joined the wrestling team as an assistant coach.
For Hall, the opportunity to coach was something that he always wanted.
"I’ve known since I was little that I wanted to always stay around wrestling," Hall said in an interview Thursday. "I wrote school papers whenever I was a little kid about how I wanted to go to the Olympics and everything else. And, whenever you get done with wrestling, it’s kind of funny, you get done with living that lifestyle, and there's not a coaching position right away, and, it was like, oh man, I might have to go get a job and use my degree!"
"But this opportunity came back, and it’s something I would say, especially over the last couple years, I really knew that I wanted to do it. I worked as the club coach in high school and youth kids a little bit this past year, so I really got a feel for coaching at a different level. It was kind of cool. It was like I went back and learned something at a more basic level and worked my way back up, and now I’m at the college level again."
Hall has never shied away from the 'hometown hero' label. When it comes to college coaching, recruiting can be as big a part of the job as instructing. Invoking the Mountain State natives to come before him, Hall was excited at the prospect of finding more mat talent from around WVU's home base.
"I think that’s a huge selling point, whenever you can come from your home state to your state university and have success," Hall said. "And then, just seeing other people do it-- before me, Noah Adams was from West Virginia. He was doing big things. And then I came in, and Gunner Andrick is from West Virginia, he is doing really good-- Ian Bush too. We have guys on the team from West Virginia that are having a lot of success.
"I just think that now having me in there, I can go out and help talk to these kids and let them know, these guys are from where you’re from, and they’re having this success at the college level. You can win at home. And it’s hard to tell kids that whenever they’re looking around, you have your Penn States, Oklahoma States, and you look at these big programs, but you can without a doubt win at home too."
Hall joins the exact same staff he worked under in his wrestling days, led by head coach Tim Flynn.
"They make it really easy just because I’ve had such a strong relationship with those guys from the last five years of being there that it feels like the right move. So it’s a pretty comfortable transition, and now it’s really cool. It’s a little bit different coaching some of the guys that I’ve been on the team with, but as time goes on, it’ll be a unique thing just with being a young guy stepping back in as a coach, but it’s been really great so far."
A team captain during his days on the mat, stepping into a leadership role is hardly something new for Hall.
"I never wanted to be the guy that was barking at people about what to do, but I definitely would try to help out, especially the younger guys. Whenever I was having a little more success, guys would come up to me and ask me to stick around and help them with some stuff.
"So I always tried to take time to do stuff like that. So I guess I was a little bit player-coach."
No longer a player as back then, but certainly more of a coach now, Hall will try and help guide the Mountaineers to another successful season after sending six to the NCAA Wrestling Championships last year.
Hall is already hard at work.
"Oh yeah, I ran practice today," he said.