NO ORDINARY JOE: Joe Dubuque, left, and Chris Ayres display their intensity during a Princeton University wrestling match. Dubuque, a longtime Princeton assistant coach, will be taking the helm of the program from previous head coach Ayres, who departed for Stanford earlier this month to guide the Cardinal wrestling team. (Photo by Frank Wojciechowski)

By Justin Feil

The success of the Princeton University wrestling team has opened up opportunities for Joe Dubuque to head a Division I program.

The New Jersey native who chose to remain for 10 seasons as an assistant coach at Princeton, was named the new Tiger head coach on September 19 to replace previous coach Chris Ayres who departed for Stanford on September 11 after 17 years at the helm of the program.

“This is definitely my dream job to be able to work at the No. 1 academic institution in the country, while also doing it in my home state is something that’s very special to me,” said Dubuque, 41. “I think me being named head coach just validates everything I’ve been doing for the past 16 years of my career, which has led me to this point. Like anything, there were ups and downs in my career, but everything has put me into a position where I can continue to get better and then had the opportunity to be mentored by Chris. It validates everything that I’ve been doing and all the work and sacrifice that I’ve been making to get me to this point.”

Dubuque’s hiring was the last domino to fall in a shifting Division I wrestling coaching landscape as he takes the place of Ayres, who took over for former Stanford coach Rob Koll who returned to his alma mater North Carolina to replace Coleman Scott, who went back to his alma mater Oklahoma State as associate head coach.

Dubuque was among the applicants for the Princeton job along with another of Ayres’ assistant coaches, Sean Gray. Gray remains in place as associate head coach, and the Tigers added 2023 Princeton graduate and All-American Quincy Monday as an assistant.

“It’s definitely been a whirlwind,” said Dubuque. “A lot of emotional ups and downs, obviously starting when Chris first told me and Sean that he was first interested in the Stanford job. That whole process starts, then him getting the job and seeing him off. Then the process of applying for the head coach opening here at Princeton, going through that process and me being named head coach. It’s definitely been some lows and highs. Obviously for me, a pretty great experience.”

Dubuque’s compares his coaching career to his wrestling career with the ups and downs of both. After winning two New Jersey state titles for Glen Ridge High, he became a two-time national champion at Indiana University after a challenging start to wrestling in college.

“Early on in my college career, I was very talented. I was athletic and powerful and had some unique and good attributes of a good college wrestler,” said Dubuque. “But I was stubborn. I had a good work ethic coming into college, and it was almost like it fell off a bit. As the kids say, I was feeling myself in regards to thinking I was the big man on campus. I was very highly recruited and those first two years of my college career were the worst years of my competitive career leading up to when I was even very young. A lot of that had to do with not taking direction and not being willing to work for what I wanted.”

Dubuque saw similar sorts of challenges when he began coaching. He started his career at Hofstra, where he lasted three years as an assistant coach. One of his issues at the time was that he wasn’t fully invested in every way and he wasn’t sure he wanted to coach full-time as a career.

“When I came into
Hofstra I was a two-time national champ, so I thought nobody is going to tell me how to coach or how I can be the best coach, I’m going to do stuff my way,” said Dubuque. “And me and the head coach at Hofstra butted heads, and it was all my fault. I was a very immature kid not willing to take direction, not willing to see him as a mentor.”

Dubuque found a spark when he left Hofstra to return to his alma mater. Just being back at Indiana helped, and he approached the job differently and he found a more selfless attitude to help the Hoosiers program. He found his passion to coach.

“I was all-in on what my head coach was doing and I was trying to think how can I fill some of these gaps that coach needs me to fill and elevate this program,” said Dubuque. “That’s how it started. My competitive career, I wish I learned a little sooner. But sometimes for me I have to learn the hard way. I think the thing I took away from my competitive career is just the work ethic. If you want something that’s hard to attain, you have to work for it.”

Dubuque weighed the risks and rewards when he decided to leave Indiana to join Ayres’ staff. Dubuque saw potential in Princeton, but success wasn’t a given.

“Choosing to go back to New Jersey and take the Princeton job, it was scary at first,” said Dubuque. “I had bought into Chris’s vision, but they were still struggling. He was five years in and they had had a glimpse of some success, but the jury was still out. It could still go in two directions — it could go south or it could be one of the best opportunities in my coaching career. It ended up being one of the best opportunities that I could have had.”

Dubuque served 10 years under Ayres. Last year, the program was only 4-11 overall, 1-4 in Ivy matches, and seventh in the Eastern Intercollegiate Wrestling Association (EIWA) Championships, but celebrated the Tigers’ first national champion, Patrick Glory, in 72 years in March. Glory, who won the title at 125 pounds, has credited Dubuque with helping him reach the top of the podium. Dubuque has seen the Tigers climb as a program as well with an Ivy League championship four years ago.

“Every year I felt like the program was getting better, and equally I was
getting better as a coach,” said Dubuque. “That’s one of the main reasons I felt the need to stay here. I had opportunities to go other places, take other jobs, but in the end, but being with Chris and in this program, I knew it was going to be the best thing for my career. I just felt like every year I was getting better as a coach and knowing I had an impact on the program and a loud voice in the things that were being discussed and the decisions that were being made.”

Princeton’s evolution has been recognized around the country. It made Ayres a candidate to replace Koll and enabled Dubuque to join the small company of 78 Division I coaches. It was an opportunity that he didn’t necessarily expect to open, but couldn’t pass up.

“I had two opportunities to be a D-I coach prior to this opportunity, and I wound up turning those down,” said Dubuque. “I felt like this is the place for me. I felt valued here obviously by Chris, by the alumni, by the administration. I felt like I was a valuable part of the success here. My goal was always to be a head coach but in the back of my mind, I was OK if I never was a head coach. If that makes sense — I was always striving and working to be a head coach, but in my heart I knew if I was at Princeton that if I wasn’t a head coach, I was still OK.”

Dubuque’s first order of business upon being named was meeting with the team and talking to Princeton recruits. He met to go over expectations and address any concerns about changes coming from the new staff.

“I addressed the team and made sure they knew that there will absolutely be continuity between myself and Chris,” said Dubuque. “It would be a seamless transition. There wouldn’t be major, major changes that would throw them off. A lot of our success was not just Chris, we did it as a group. I was totally on board with the direction of this program. I told them I’m keeping a lot of things the same. There will be little tweaks here and there.”

There will, however, be changes for the Tigers and for Dubuque. He moves into his first head coaching job with an idea of how his own responsibilities will have to shift from when he was an assistant.

“I almost had a little box of what I was focused on and what my responsibilities were so I wasn’t focused on what Sean was doing or what Chris was doing or what somebody else was doing,” said Dubuque. “I was really focused on the things I was in charge of while also giving my opinions on overall climate of the program and things like that. Now I have to almost have a macro vision of the program and the staff and make sure everybody is moving in the same direction instead of being so narrow in my focus on a day-to-day and week-to-week basis like I was as an assistant. That’s probably going to have to change.”

Dubuque has ideas for down the road, but with the Tigers due to compete in a month and a half, he doesn’t want to introduce anything too big. In the wrestling room, though, he intends to push a faster pace. While he calls Ayres a ‘guru of technique’ who could spend long stretches honing technique, Dubuque plans to keep the Tigers focused on pace while still hitting the most important aspects of technique and sharing his vision with the team for a way to attack teams.

“The main thing that I’m focused on is our energy and our brand of wrestling,” said Dubuque. “I think that if we can focus on what that looks like every match, every competition, and solely work to build that and stick to that, we’re going to be very successful and not focus on getting our hand raised. But if we can make sure that every match that our opponent wrestles against us, when they come off the mat win or lose they don’t want to wrestle us again. I think that’s something that’s on the forefront of our minds every single time we step on the mat.”

He will have the help of Gray, who has been at Princeton for 12 years. Gray, too, built impressive credentials while helping to raise the Princeton program with Ayres, and was a candidate to succeed him.

“I’ve known Sean for 11 years now,” said Dubuque. “I’m happy that he’s here, he’s able to bring us along, continue what we set out to do. That’s important for the team to have that continuity, not just blow up the staff of familiar faces. Obviously, any situation like this there’s a bit of awkward moments, but hopefully we’ll be able to work through those and work toward the common goal of getting this team to the top.”

Dubuque also retains Monday in the program who finished third this past March in his final NCAA Championships. The Tigers will host the new Morgan State wrestling program coached by Monday’s father, Kenny, an Olympic gold medalist wrestler at the 1988 Seoul Summer Games, on January 13.

“Having Kenny Monday across the mat, he’s a legend in his own right,” said Dubuque. “We have a great relationship with him just built through Quincy. He was Dad. He wasn’t coach Monday. He’s getting his program started and it’s almost like I’m getting this program started so that’s a pretty cool experience that both of us can have. And for Quincy, he wants to beat his dad. And Kenny doesn’t want to lose to anyone. It’s going to be a fired up dual meet, a lot of extra stuff on the line.”

Princeton’s first dual meet of the season will bring him back to his own background as the Tigers host Indiana on December 3. Dubuque is still friends with their head coach, Angel Escobedo, a former teammate.

“It is really truly special that that’s going to be the first dual meet as the head coach,” said Dubuque. “Then also we owe them because they beat us up pretty good last year. We owe them the same outing that they gave us last year.”