“When we wrestled he was tougher than anything. I guess it did start a little rivalry between us, but there was a lot of mutual respect there, and we just knew of each other. Over time, I knew what I to do to beat him, and the same with him to beat me.”

“We feed off each other,” he continues. “It’s almost like the best advice I’ve been able to give him is that he needs to back down sometimes. He really works harder than everyone in the country. I’ve joked with him before that the Long Island guys have thick skulls and it’s hard to get through to them, but he takes everything in stride. He’s definitely ready to end his career on top.”

Frayer, however, also points out the mutual benefits from working with a wrestler of Jantzen’s caliber.

“It’s fun to work with him. We’re close to the same age, and we hang out; I hang with him, as well as Meltzer, on just a social level…And as far as experience is concerned, he really does the same thing in wrestling for me—I pick his brain as much as he picks mine, as I’m still in competition and training for wrestling [on the] international level.”

Jantzen also dismisses any awkwardness or leftover bad blood between the two.

“We’re good friends,” the co-captain says. “We’re all happy to have him, and he’s a good workout partner and a great coach to have on staff.”

“One of my main coaching goals is making sure [Jesse] finishes his career on top as a national championship,” Frayer says. “And we both know in the future that we may both be opponents again on the international scene. But right now, my job is to make him the best that he can be, and I have no qualms about that whatsoever. I want to see him win in everything he does, and if we meet later on, we’ll cross that bridge when we get there. Right now, we’re just really good friends, and it’s a great situation overall for me with the team.”

—Staff writer Pablo S. Torre can be reached at torre@fas.harvard.edu.