Inside HOKIE SPORTS | Vol. 12 No. 3 | January 2020

38 Inside Hokie Sports Knights’ campus is about an hour from his home. He knew head coach Scott Goodale and his staff, and he knew a bunch of wrestlers in the program. But Virginia Tech was doing big things under then-head coach Kevin Dresser and assistant Tony Robie—now the program’s head coach. The Hokies had finished in the top 11 at four consecutive NCAA Championships before McFadden’s arrival, and Devin Carter finished as a national runner-up in 2014, proving that the staff knew how to develop All-Americans. The staff and the Virginia Tech community also won over McFadden with simple sincerity. “I said it in a recent interview that, when looking at colleges, I wanted to go somewhere where, if wrestling wasn’t in the picture, that I’d be the happiest at, and that was here,” McFadden said. “Just in terms of everything. If I had a career-ending injury or something happened where I couldn’t wrestle anymore, could I see myself going to school here for four years? “I was like, ‘This is where I want to be.’ The wrestling will take care of itself, but in terms of the education, the community, Hokie Nation, that was the deciding factor. I wanted to be happy if wrestling wasn’t in the picture, and here, I love it here, and I definitely made the right choice.” Dresser and Robie inserted McFadden into the starting lineup at 165 pounds as soon as he arrived on campus. He qualified for the NCAA Championships, which were being held in New York City—roughly 45 minutes from his house. McFadden injured his knee in the first round, but he did not know the severity at the time. Using the adrenaline from competing in front of family and friends at Madison Square Garden, he soldiered on, coming in sixth, earning All-America honors, and helping the Hokies to a program-best fourth-place finish. The Tech contingent celebrated its first podium finish extensively for several days, but as he became removed from the euphoria, McFadden started feeling the pain in his knee. An MRI once he returned to Blacksburg revealed a torn ACL. McFadden had wrestled six matches with a torn ACL. “I had met with Sean [Collins, the wrestling team’s trainer], and he had worked on me, but it’s like, I’m not not wrestling,” McFadden said. “It’s the NCAAs. I’ve got to go out, and I have this goal, so I dug deep. I didn’t know it was torn until the next week when I got an MRI. I just thought I hurt it. “When I got those results back, I kind of put it in perspective. I just wrestled the entire NCAA tournament. I’m a tough son of a gun [laughing]. But that’s kind of that wrestling mindset. Most people probably wouldn’t have continued, but we have different mindsets. We’re a little crazier than the average human being.” McFadden wound up missing the next season while recovering from his knee injury, but to him, that price was worth it. His NCAA Championships performance in New York City ranks as one of his two greatest memories at Tech. The other occurred last March—and didn’t even involve him. McFadden is two years older than teammate Mekhi Lewis, but the two share that New Jersey connection. McFadden’s cousin coached Lewis’ high school team, so McFadden went to that high school on breaks, and he and Lewis worked out together. He saw Lewis’ potential arguably before anyone else and played an instrumental role in Lewis’ recruitment to Tech. That’s why Lewis’ national title in March meant so much to McFadden. Lewis was a puppy when McFadden first met him and started working with him. Of course, now, as McFadden puts it, “He kind of turned into a big dog.” Plus, no one arguably invested more into Lewis than McFadden, who moved up a weight class to allow Lewis to wrestle at 165 pounds. Even at the new weight, McFadden still earned All-America honors, coming in fifth place, and he was leading the cheers as Lewis beat Penn State’s Vincenzo Joseph for the championship. “For our program to reach new heights—I feel like that’s why a bunch of people came to Virginia Tech,” McFadden said. “We were all looking to be the first national champ. To get that, we needed to have a national champ, and Mekhi was the most ready to do it at that moment, and he did it. “You look at what he’s done for our program in one year. He won a national title, and our camp numbers went up. We get the No. 2 recruiting class—and I think it’s No. 1. We get two back-to-back top- five recruiting classes. What that did for our program was huge, and Continued from page 37