Wrestling on his laurels
Ben Askren gets an ESPY nod and Big 12 Athlete of the Year award
At a pre-party for ESPN’s ESPY Awards in Los Angeles, some of the world’s most dominant athletes mixed and mingled. But Mizzou wrestler and ESPY nominee Ben Askren hardly recognized any of them.
“I don’t watch sports that much,” Askren says. “I did see Peyton Manning. He was a lot bigger than I imagined he would be.”
Askren, who finished his collegiate career in 2007 with his second-straight national title, was probably too busy practicing his way to perfection (an undefeated record in his last two seasons) to watch sports on TV. That lack of reciprocation didn’t stop the popular sports network from nominating him for the title of Best Male College Athlete, which Texas basketball player Kevin Durant won.
Askren took time out of a busy schedule — which includes celebrity appearances at wrestling camps all around the country, signing on as a Mizzou volunteer assistant wrestling coach and training hard for a difficult run at the 2008 Olympics — for the trip to the awards ceremony, complete with parties and plenty of swag.
The nomination was one plaudit among many. Askren also earned his second-straight Dan Hodge Trophy (roughly the equivalent of football’s Heisman) and the title of Big 12 Male Athlete of the Year in 2007.
Did Askren’s unmistakable afro and outsized personality play a part in the pop recognition by ESPN?
“That could have a little to do with it,” he says. “I’m not as boring as some wrestlers in interviews and whatnot, but I think my accomplishments speak for themselves."