(Kimballton) Exira-EHK graduate Evan Hansen’s college career is in the books. Things couldn’t have gone much better for the Grand View wrestler who capped things off last weekend with a 4th consecutive championship at the NAIA National Tournament.
Hansen tells KSOM/KS95.7 Sports he took a couple of days off and got right back to training. “I’m going over to Ames to workout with Kyven Gadson. That’s pretty much what I’m doing until last chance qualifiers in Pennsylvania in a couple of weeks. The top two their qualify for Olympic trials so hopefully we can get that done.” He admits it won’t be easy especially with a strong weight class including the likes of Gadson, J’Den Cox, and Kyle Snyder. “I think I’m more than capable of doing it. I have to have the right training and make sure I am wrestling to the best of my ability.”
He refers to being a four time NAIA champion as something pretty special to him, “To do something that very few people have done, that’s pretty cool. The experiences and everything I had along the way I’ll take that with me as a coach and a person.” He plans to coach in college or high school once his wrestling days are over. Hansen takes pride in the fact he came from an Exira-EHK program that had just six wrestlers on the team. “My freshman year I was running stairs for hours at a time. I would get up at 4:30-5:00 everyday to go to the high school and run and work out and make sure that I was in shape. I wasn’t necessarily getting all the technique that I could have so I had to make sure that I was in better shape and was working twice as hard as everybody to get what I wanted.”