Local wrestler explains decision to flip from Penn State to Rutgers

Publish date: 2024-05-29

Earlier this week, a local wrestler with offers from many top-level colleges made his commitment.

Bishop McCort's Mason Gibson initially planned on staying home and going to Penn State, but after opening up his recruitment process one last time before he graduated, Gibson explained why Rutgers will be his next home.

Mason Gibson initially planned on following his older brother Erik Gibson to Penn State next year.

The brothers were committed to Cornell at first, before both flipped to stay in Pennsylvania.

But Mason says he didn't take all his visits before his initial commitments, so he wanted to go through the process the right way.

"It was just a thing of ‘let's open up and see what's open’ and we went to Rutgers, and they loved me, and I loved them, so it felt like a good option."

Gibson says he was excited to join his brother, but he needed to make his own decision.

"I went to Cornell for Erik, went to Penn State for Erik, but it kind of feels good to be like ‘this is what I want.’ The pick felt great."

Now headed to Rutgers, Gibson will stay in the Big Ten and compete against Penn State.

But he says that no matter who he was competing with or against, his goals remain the same.

"It doesn't matter where I was going. I was going to do the same work, work hard the same way. My work ethic would be the same no matter where I was. I was at Cornell first, my training wouldn't have been different from there to Penn State or Rutgers. But I still have the same goals, win the national titles, win world titles, Olympic titles. So, it doesn’t really matter where I went, I was going to still work hard and have the same work ethic no matter what."

Gibson says he's excited to compete at 133 pounds this year and he's had some experience competing against some of the best guys at that weight class so he expects to make some noise.

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