Feeling the Love – Gilcher Pushes to Impose His Wrestling Will
Pete DiPrimio | IUHoosiers.com
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Six years and counting for Indiana veteran wrestler Derek Gilcher and it isn’t easy, it’s never been easy. The work and sweat; the weight lifting and conditioning; the wrestling and drilling; the injuries that arise, some annoying, some season ending; the ups and downs that come with intercollegiate athletics in general, with wrestling in particular given the sport’s punishing nature and the brutally competitive Big Ten.
Gilcher embraces all of it.
“I love it because it’s gritty,” he says from the hallway outside of the Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall wrestling room. “It’s the aspect of imposing your will on someone. There’s nothing else like it.”
Matches are won -- and Gilcher has won 73 of them as a Hoosier in his six seasons, including this season’s 13-7 record at 174 pounds – by imposing your will through physicality, toughness, technique and relentlessness.
“You won’t find that in any other sport,” he says. “Not like this. Being an individual sport, it’s just you and the other guy. No one else is out there. The battle is between you and him. Winner takes all.”
Gilcher, who is ranked 26th nationally, has won well enough to just earn his first Big Ten wrestler-of-the-week honor, and the first by a Hoosier since Jason Bullock did it in December of 2022, with his recent 9-2 victory over Purdue’s No. 16 Brody Baumann. That sparked the Hoosiers to three straight match victories to win the dual meet, 20-16. It was their fourth straight victory over the Boilers.
Now comes this weekend’s Big Ten Championships at Penn State and, if everything works out, a trip to the NCAA Championships in Cleveland after that.
Gilcher, who was a NCAA qualifier in 2023 while compiling a 25-15 record, can’t wait.
“I’m super excited. This is my last year. There’s nothing else but pure excitement. I’m ready to give it everything. Leave it all out there.”
If he does, says coach Angel Escobedo, look out.
“He’s a hard worker. In wrestling, the harder you work the more success you find.”
What kind of success could Gilcher find?
“I tell him he can be as good as he wants to be,” Escobedo says. “He can be a world champ if he wants to be.”
Gilcher arrived in Bloomington with plenty of acclaim as a three-high high school state champion out of Michigan as the nation’s No. 6-ranked 160 pounder. At IU, he’s been ranked as high as No. 9 in his weight class with three tournament victories. He also earned All-America honors at the U23 Nationals and has made academic All-Big Ten three times.
“He’s starting to wrestle his best at the end of the year, which is great,” Escobeco says. “He had a big win against Purdue. That guy was ranked in the top 16. Hopefully, that sparks his confidence and he ends his last year the right way.”
A grueling schedule that has included matches against No. 1 Penn State, No. 2 Ohio State, No. 5 Nebraska, No. 10 Illinois and No. 15 Wisconsin (IU beat the Badgers 30-9) has prepared Gilcher and the Hoosiers for this weekend.
“The Big Ten is the toughest conference,” Gilcher says. “Those guys are tough, the toughest in the nation. We’ve already wrestled a lot of them. We have a feel for them.
“We’ll watch film on those matches and clean up some of the areas that were problems. That will help push us forward.”
While four-time defending-national champion Penn State is the overwhelming favorite for the team title, Gilcher says the Hoosiers could make major impact.
“There’s a lot of greatness on this team,” he says. “I’m ready to see our young guys perform the way they should.”
Escobedo sees Gilcher and fellow six-year standout Jacob Moran at 125 pounds as instrumental in elevating IU to consistent top-25 status.
“They’ve changed the perception of the program by being consistent, hard-working and great leaders,” he says. “It’s cool to see what they’ve done, but they still have to do the work.”
What happens when the work is over?
“I won’t shut the door on wrestling,” Gilcher says. “One way or the other, I will stay involved. I’m not sure what that will look like yet, maybe coaching or something entirely different, but I’ll stay in the wrestling.