Andrew Gunning is happy for his upcoming homecoming.
Even if the timing could have been a bit better for the Liberty graduate and 285-pound senior wrestler at North Carolina.
“I was pretty excited when I heard we’d be coming to Lehigh,” Gunning said. “I had been hoping for years to have Lehigh on the schedule, to wrestle in the Snake Pit (Grace Hall). Now it finally happens, in my senior year. I am happy to come back to my hometown and wrestle in my last year. It’s unfortunate that it comes at the time of COVID, or else I’d have some familiar faces in my corner to watch me.”
As it is, Hurricane fans and Gunning friends can watch the broadcast when Gunning and the No. 14 Tar Heels (2-2) take on the No. 25 Mountain Hawks (2-2) Saturday at 5 p.m. It will be the second match of the day for Lehigh, which will meet Army at 2 p.m. UNC, meanwhile, will travel from Pittsburgh, where it will meet the No. 15 Panthers in an ACC match Friday night.
Gunning all too well remembers the last time he competed in the Steel City.
“Last March was crazy,” said Gunning, who is 1-1 on the shortened 2021 season. “We were at the ACC tournament and things are starting to get serious with the COVID. Then that Monday, back in North Carolina, (UNC head coach) Coleman Scott came into our room and told us nationals were canceled. It was emotional for most guys on the team, and for me, it was going to be my first time at nationals. Going into ACCs I felt really good, and we had an opportunity taken from us, It was nobody’s fault really, we were sent home, and training became on our own.”
It made for an unusual summer for Gunning.
“I am used to staying in Chapel Hill and training all summer,” he said. “We never really go home, except for two weeks in August we have to ourselves. But everything was locked down, and in Pennsylvania everything was shut down, I couldn’t get into any rooms. So I was training on my own. I was wrestling with my brother (Jake) a little bit, and I went on some runs. Most people were facing the same issues, so we all just had to make the most of it.”
Once things opened back up in Chapel Hill, two things became a constant for Gunning and the Tar Heels.
“We did a lot of running,” Gunning said. “And the school has been taking all the precautions for COVID. We’re getting tested three times a week.”
Gunning, who was PIAA 3A champion at 285 in 2016, said he appreciated the UNC coaching staff’s approach to the pandemic.
“Even when we began preseason we didn’t have a date as to when we’d start wrestling, and we’re killing ourselves in practice without knowing when we’d compete or what would come out of it,” Gunning said. “It was definitely an interesting situation. But our coaches stayed positive and never showed an ounce of thought that there’d never be a season, and that definitely helped. No one has gotten sick here, but I didn’t think this would be easy. We’re taking everything really seriously; with the quarantine, or even the contact tracing, that’s an automatic two weeks that you’re out, and it’s already a short season. You do what you have to do.”
Liberty graduate Andrew Gunning and the North Carolina Tar Heels will visit Lehigh's Grace Hall Saturday.BARRON NORTHRUP | UNC Athletics
The season has been shortened by half, or so, and UNC started the season with just its five ACC matches and a non-conference match with Gardner-Webb set. The ACC has become a murderers’ row of a wrestling conference, with five teams ranked in the top 20 in the latest NWCA Top 25 poll.
“It sets the bar high for us,” said Gunning, whose team dropped matches against No. 3 North Carolina State and No. 8 Virginia Tech last weekend. “There’s always a lot of talk about the Big Ten, but we know (the ACC) is part of that talk now, and when people see us, they see we have really good wrestlers.”
So it certainly gives Gunning a boost to work out every day with one of the greatest wrestlers in American history.
“I am so lucky to have (1988 Olympic gold medalist) Kenny Monday in our room,” Gunning said. I wrestle him a lot, and he’s still got it. He’s a legend, one of my favorite people in Chapel Hill. I don’t do over/unders against him.”
Gunning, who hopes to qualify for his second NCAA championships at the ACC tournament Feb., 28 in Raleigh, N.C., said he’s focused on a simple approach to improve heading into the postseason.
“I am just working to try and fine-tune some things,” Gunning said. “Looking back, I think I strayed away from some of the basics. I am trying to pick it up in terms of action, focus on shots, and not get stuck underneath some of these big guys. I’m comfortable on my feet and I am a pretty good hand-fighter; that’s always been my strength.”
Gunning has to wrestle a bit differently than some 285-pounders as he is on the light side.
“I am wrestling at 230 or 235 pounds, which is lighter than I like to be,” Gunning said. “We just work out so much it’s hard to keep my weight up. But I like being faster in my fight and in more control of my body when I wrestle some bigger guys, and I am never afraid to get in there and hand fight.”
Gunning is set to graduate in May with a unique major.”My major is Peace, War and Defense,” he said. “It’s kind of like a hybrid foreign policy major, and my concentration is international security. A lot of people in my major are going to work for the FBI or the Secret Service, but I don’t think I will do that. I am open to most things.”
But before May comes March.
“We’re focused on the postseason and bringing back medals,” Gunning said. “We have world-class wrestlers in the room every day in coaches like Coleman, Tony Ramos, Jamill Kelly, Kenny, multiple Olympic medals in the room, and we work with them all day, every day.”
They have helped make Gunning a different kind of wrestler than when he was setting standards for heavyweights at Liberty.
“Coming out of high school, I was not a technical wrestler;. Liberty guys are grinders,” he said. “I have continued to learn more and more technique at UNC, better movement, better footwork.”
Speaking of coaches, as Gunning comes back to his hometown to wrestle at last, he sees one missing -- his Liberty coach, Jody Karam, now at Easton.
“It’s hard for me to see Coach Karam not being in Bethlehem,” Gunning said.
It will be very good to see Andrew Gunning wrestle in Bethlehem -- if only for one afternoon.
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Brad Wilson may be reached at bwilson@lehighvalleylive.com.
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