His days of glory wrestling on the mat and fighting in a cage are likely  behind him. He has no doubt captured his last medal and won his last  championship as a competitor. But if you think that this means that he is  sitting in a rocking chair or in front of a keyboard somewhere ruminating  about the good ole days, think again.     Olympic gold medalist, two-time freestyle wrestling world champion, and pioneering mixed martial arts star Kevin Jackson can still be found near a mat. This time, however, you can locate him next to it, as the U.S. National Freestyle Team coach, at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs.    This is a very busy time for Kevin Jackson as he prepares the U.S. team for the 2001 Freestyle Wrestling World Championships, to be held Nov. 22-25 in Sofia, Bulgaria. He has helped train the eight wrestlers that comprise that squad, and he is very hopeful that their return trip from Bulgaria will have more than one of them loaded down with some medals, like in gold, silver, and  bronze.    This is the U.S. men's freestyle wrestling team:  STEPHEN ABAS 54 kg/119 lbs.  ERIC GUERRERO 58 kg/127.75 lbs.       BILL ZADICK 63 kg/138.75 lbs.     CHRIS BONO 69 kg/152 lbs.  JOE WILLIAMS 76 kg/167.5 lbs.  BRANDON EGGUM 85 kg/187.25 lbs.  DOMINIC BLACK 97 kg/213.75 lbs.   KERRY McCOY 130 kg/286 lbs.    (For complete bios on the team, check out USA Wrestling's profiles here:  TheMat.com.)    Traveling to Bulgaria to compete in an event that had originally been scheduled for New York has had both its good and bad effects. "Without a doubt, anytime we wrestle in the United States or close to the United States, we do quite well," he said by phone. Indeed, the U.S. freestyle team took top honors in Toronto in 1993 and in Atlanta in 1995. Forays to Turkey in 1994, Russia in 1997, Iran in 1998, and Turkey again in 1999 proved less successful.    "So we were a little disappointed initially when the postponement was made, then when it was moved to another location," Kevin said. But then, there was  another side to this delay. "What it's allowed us to do" he went on, "is spend more time together, them out in Colorado Springs, where they spent over four weeks training for the World Championships. We spent more time than any other world team or Olympic team." Thus the extra time "actually helped a few of our guys get stronger, improve in some technical areas, and also heal a couple of little injuries that we might have had with our guys."    Despite the fact that the only U.S. freestyle wrestling gold medalist at last year's Olympics, Brandon Slay, is sitting out this year and possibly retiring, and that other former world champions like Sammie Henson and world medalists like Cary Kolat and Lincoln McIlravy are also not competing this year, Kevin is very optimistic about the U.S. team's prospects.    "I have high expectations for each and every one of our wrestlers," he said. As for the best shot at a world title, Kevin mentioned "some of our veterans, guys who have been before, with Kerry McCoy and Joe Williams having been to the World Championships, and both have placed fourth."      He recalled how in 1998 Kerry seemed to have won his semifinal match and was set to go to the finals, when the score in that match was overturned and Kerry ended up losing. This year Kevin predicts a different outcome.    CAN KERRY MCCOY STEP UP IN 2001?    "Kerry McCoy is definitely one of my favorites with a chance of doing real well at the World Championships," Kevin said. But he also acknowledged that Kerry, a two-time NCAA champion at heavyweight from Penn State but who has never finished higher than fourth on the world level, "has to step up. Kerry has to do it for himself. He deserves to be the world champion. I think he can get out of the sport and be satisfied with it if he walks away from it with a world title. I don't think that anything else is acceptable to him."    Last year, Kerry was the favorite of many around the world to win that Olympic gold medal. But in the quarterfinals, he fell in a wild 11-8 match to Asian champion and eventual silver medalist Artur Taymazov of Uzbekistan that had to be reviewed on videotape and rescored, and again didn't medal, settling for fifth. Despite that loss, this year Kerry is viewed as a leader of the U.S. team.    "Kerry is the captain of our team," Kevin revealed. "He was voted captain of the team. He has led by example. And also just in communication with the guys, as far as from his experience that he has had throughout the years. But definitely Kerry needs to step up. He needs to be a world champion this year, and anything else would be a failure for us."    ANOTHER SHOT FOR JOE WILLIAMS    Kevin also mentioned three-time NCAA champion from the University of Iowa Joe Williams. "He's placed fourth at the World Championships in '99. He has world experience, and he has also won the World Cup [in 2000 and 2001]."    One of the knocks on Joe Williams, however, was that he had a hard time adapting to the par terre, or down position on the mat, in freestyle, and was more attuned to the American folkstyle wrestling in colleges that put more emphasis on control than the international styles do.     "I think as we all have experience having trouble in the par terre coming out of college, Joe experienced the same thing," Kevin said. "He's had some really good guys in his weight class in the U.S. that have challenged him, that have forced him to get better, to identify some of the problems and mistakes that he has been making from the bottom position. And once they were identified, he, being of a champion's mentality, continued to work with those things. And he has gotten better in those areas. And my experience for Joe is for him not to be turned, for him to defend in par terre. And if he does that, it's just going to make winning a lot easier for him. So definitely that's one of the areas that we identified that Joe needs to improve on, and we work every day at it."    CAN COLLEGE PHENOM STEPHEN ABAS WIN ON A WORLD LEVEL THIS YEAR?    "We have a great lightweight in Stephen Abas, taking over from Sammie Henson," Kevin said. "Sammie was our world champion [in 1998] and silver medalist in 2000, and we expect a lot of Stephen. He's a young man, but he's really seasoned. He's a junior world champion and we're expecting a lot out of him also."    Abas was 34-0 last season at Fresno State and won the 2001 NCAA national championship at 125 pounds. He still is wrestling as a senior at Fresno State this season, but, Kevin said, "I think right now he's totally focused on the freestyle." Kevin did say that Stephen would take a few days off from preparing for the World Championships to wrestle in some dual meets, which he did splendidly. On Nov. 10, he pinned Menlo College's Troy Takahashi in 2 minutes 35 seconds, and later that day pinned Navy's Sam Gray in 1 minute 16 seconds.    "So he is wrestling both," Kevin said. But that hasn't hurt his freestyle exploits one bit. "He just won the Sunkist International. He beat Alexis Vila, former world champion from Cuba, pretty handily, 4-0. And so really I think the freestyle and working with the world team and training with guys at a higher level than he was currently, actually makes him a better collegiate wrestler and actually prepares him even moreso for things that he will face on a collegiate level. He knows how to wrestle. He knows how to ride. He knows how to escape. Those are the only things that we're lacking on the freestyle level, is riding and escaping. So he can adapt to that very easily and pretty quickly. Actually, he's going to step down from the world class level to the collegiate level."    Nor has this double duty hindered his training for Bulgaria. "Stephen's made every training camp. Hs missed very few days because of school or competition. We've worked with his schedule and around his schedule. And definitely he is a star that's going to be on the rise. And if he happens to medal at the World Championships, and goes on to be the NCAA champion, I would expect him to be voted the