David Taylor didn’t come to Stillwater alone.
Taylor was named the eighth wrestling coach in Oklahoma State history the night of May 6. Three days later, before he even stepped foot on campus, Taylor appointed his first two assistants — Jimmy Kennedy and Thomas Gilman. And when Taylor finally did fly to Stillwater on Thursday, Kennedy and Gilman stepped off the plane with Taylor, walking alongside their new leader at Stillwater Regional Airport. The scene created an iconic picture that seemingly got Cowboy fans looking forward to the new era — even though none of the current staff originally hails from OSU or competed under former coach John Smith, who retired after this past season.
“What I like about these guys is their characters are the highest that I know,” Taylor said. “And I just want to be around them. They’re people that are selfless, and I think to be a great coach you have to serve your athletes. They’re willing to do that.”
Kennedy was appointed associate head coach while Gilman was named an assistant. Cowboy fans were already familiar with Gilman, a former Iowa wrestler, because of the OSU-Iowa rivalry. Kennedy is essentially an unknown to OSU wrestling fans, though, and has even been described by national wrestling media as one of Penn State’s best kept secrets.
“We have a lot of work to do, but just waking up and trying to navigate those things day by day,” Kennedy said. “I think that’s exciting. And then also the unknown. The unknown is exciting. You know, when you get comfortable, you get in a routine, it’s good, but it’s exciting to break that up.”
Although unidentified by the OSU wrestling community, Kennedy was an expected hire once Taylor was named head coach. Kennedy is Taylor’s brother-in-law and both of have been around the Penn State wrestling program together the past three years. Taylor has basically always been at State College since his wrestling career started there in 2009, but Kennedy arrived there in 2022 as an assistant coach. During that span, the Nittany Lions won three NCAA titles, including breaking the NCAA tournament team points record this past season.
Before venturing to Penn State, Kennedy was an assistant at Northwestern for four years after starting there as a volunteer. His stops at Penn State and Northwestern make Kennedy the most experienced coach on OSU’s newly assembled staff so far. This is both Taylor and Gilman’s first real coaching experience at the collegiate level.
As a wrestler, Kennedy was a three-time All-American at Illinois before a successful international career that saw him make the United States World Championships team in 2014. Taylor and Gilman, though, did have more successful wrestling careers, as both earned medals at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021. But as all men have helped sparked success at other places, all are now in Stillwater together, trying to reach the pinnacle of college wrestling and reach the heights of Penn State — a monster Taylor and Kennedy helped create.
“Just guys that want to come here to win,” Kennedy said. “Bring those types of people in. Do you want to be a national champion? You want to be a world champion? Those are the people that we want to coach. Oklahoma’s got great wrestling and Oklahoma State’s the place to be. And we’ll just need to lead through example with our work ethic. I think that’ll trickle down to the college guys, as well.”
Read this original article at Pistols Firing Blog.