Every day after practice, Jake Herbert and his father and assistant coach, Jim Herbert, rode home together. When they got home Jim would lay out meals for Jake and tell him what he could and could not eat and drink to keep weight and stay in wrestling shape. A couple of hours later Jake and his father would go running.
After that Jake would head to the gym for another workout. His father still would be right beside him.
In high school, Jake wanted to be a state champion like his father. Now, Jim still travels to Evanston from Pennsylvania for his son’s practices, staying for a few days to remain active in Jake’s wrestling career. He’s been present for almost every one of Jake’s 22 wins this year.
But it’s the work ethic that Jim instilled in Jake that has had the biggest impact in Evanston. It’s led to Herbert’s undefeated record, a No. 3 ranking in the nation and a leadership role on the No. 18 Wildcats.
He used to work out so often he actually got in trouble for it. Rumor has it Herbert used to sneak into the wrestling room to work out after practice.
“You’ll see him at SPAC, you wont necessarily see him (at Patten Gymnasium) after hours,” Northwestern coach Tim Cysewski said. “We had to change that.”
According to Cysewski, Herbert likes to run late at night at the Sports Pavilion and Aquatics Center, taking “study breaks” to work out and stay in prime shape.
After an intense two-hour practice two days before he had to weigh in for Illinois, Herbert sat on an exercise bike in sweat pants and a hoodie in the wrestling room. His plan was just to work out for a couple hours.
“I’m only 10-and-a-half pounds over,” Herbert said. “Usually it’s closer to 20.”
He shrugged off the weight-loss ahead of him. With his workout regimens, it wasn’t anything to worry about.
“Leadership is about leading by example especially in the wrestling room,” sophomore Dan Quintella said. “When you have a guy like that in the room it helps out guys around him because they’re pushing themselves to be as good as him.”
But Herbert wasn’t always able to devote himself completely to wrestling. From second grade through ninth grade Jake was a four-sport star — football, baseball, soccer and wrestling. But after breaking his hand in pileups during football games two years in a row forced him to miss the beginning of two wrestling seasons, he decided to commit himself solely to wrestling.
“I’d go into the season completely out of shape and not ready to wrestle that first tournament and I hated that,” Herbert said. “I mean, you can be the jack of all trades or you can be the ace of spades.”
His father put him through an intense rehab routine and Herbert devoted himself to wrestling. He joined the Angry Fish Wrestling Club so he could wrestle year round. The extra time paid off as Herbert continued to improve and competed against the nation’s top wrestlers.
“I saw the talent the first time I saw him wrestle,” said Ty Moore, Herbert’s coach at Angry Fish. “You could see he had fluid movement, he had quick feet, real strong and the sky (was) the limit.”
He also placed at the high school state championships all four years for North Allegheny High School. Herbert finally won the championship his senior year, accomplishing his goal to match his father’s success. Coincidentally, both father and son won during their senior years.
Herbert finished his high school career 141-18 and racked up several championships at tournaments for the Angry Fish. His accolades attracted the attention of more than 60 NCAA programs, but he chose Northwestern.
Unlike most top athletes coming out of high school, Herbert didn’t want to make an immediate impact.
“I wanted to redshirt,” Herbert said. “I went in on all of my recruiting trips and told them that I want a year to work on stuff so I could get physically more mature because I wasn’t big enough for 174, I wasn’t strong enough, I didn’t know what college wrestling was like.
“I had been watching nationals since ninth grade and I had just been looking at how much more mature these college guys were. I realized I needed a good year of lifting and a good year of basic technique to get everything ready, to get a little more size on me so I could be physically ready to face these men.”
Herbert’s decision paid off.
In his first major tournament as an NCAA wrestler, Herbert won the Midlands Championship in December. No NU wrestler had done that since 1974.
The tournament title didn’t surprise Herbert or his teammates.
“I was looking at the bracket the first day before I wrestled and I was looking at the kids in it and I knew I could win it,” Herbert said. “I knew I was better than all those kids and I knew some of those kids were the best in the nation.”
Since Midlands, Herbert has dominated his opponents and his perfection hasn’t seem to have caught up with him yet. He still looks up to Cael Sanderson, the Iowa State wrestling star who went 159-0 from 1998 to 2002, as an untouchable hero, and was awestruck when he spoke to him after defeating two of the legends’ pupils during Midlands.
“I actually got to talk to him at the match because I know him from the Dream Team and everything and it was crazy,” Herbert said. “He told me to quit beating his kids and when he told me that I was just like…it was awesome. It was my hero, my idol, telling me I was doing good. It was a dream come true.”
Herbert said Sanderson agreed to one day “wrestle around” with him and he hopes that when the two wrestlers finally do get a chance to wrestle, their combined loss column will still read ‘zero.’ But until then, he’ll continue to focus on what’s in front of him.
And what’s in front of the 174-pound star is his toughest challenge of the year. In a rematch against an opponent he defeated at Midlands, Herbert will face off with No. 4 Pete Freidl of Illinois. Herbert downed Freidl 5-2 at Midlands, but isn’t overlooking his opponent.
“He’s going to come out with a different style because last time it obviously didn’t work,” Herbert said. “So I mean I’m just going to go out there and try to get my takedown right away and get my riding time. I just want to dominate him and get it into his head that he can’t beat me.”
Yesterday after practice, Herbert got back on his bike. Later that night he went for his normal “study break” at SPAC. Tomorrow after he gets out of class at 12:30, he’ll run again before leaving for Illinois at 2:00. And even though his dad’s not running next to him anymore, he’s still right there with him.
“When I’m running at night I just picture myself in the semifinals, in the finals,” Herbert said. “That winning takedown and seeing the smile on his face — it brings tears to my eyes to see how happy he is because it just makes him so proud.”
Reach Paul Tenorio at [email protected].
