Titles one of wrestler Dake's many routines
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Doug Williams (ESPN.com)
02/19/2013
If Kyle Dake were playing basketball for Kentucky or football for Alabama, his name would be known from Hartford to Honolulu.
In his sport, Dake is excellence personified, a three-time national champion who would achieve legendary status with a fourth title in March.
But Dake's sport is wrestling, so even though he's undefeated over two seasons, has a 127-4 career record and has been compared to the best collegians of all time, Dake is mostly in the dark.
The media spotlight shines on sky-walking dunks and breakaway touchdown runs, not on sweaty guys in skimpy singlets wearing little hubcaps over their ears.
"It would be really cool to get a ton of national media and get a segmented time on ESPN and stuff like that, but it's never been like that," says Dake, a senior at Cornell. "Right now it's not the way the cards fell, and I'm not too worried about it. I'll shine in March."
That's when Dake will attempt to win a fourth straight title, something that's only been done twice in Division I wrestling, which dates to 1928. And Dake would be the first to do it without redshirting his freshman year.
Already, Dake has gone where no other grappler has gone before, winning three championships in three weight classes -- 141 pounds as a freshman, 149 as a sophomore and 157 as a junior -- and is ranked No. 1 at 165 pounds this season.
But those are all just the numbers.
It's how he's achieved them that is much more interesting.
Click here to read the full story on Kyle Dake