Since arriving at South Dakota State, SDSU wrestling head coach Damion Hahn has led the wrestling team in a positive direction.
Hahn’s Jackrabbits are ranked No. 13 in the nation and are they fourth-highest ranked school in their conference.
Head coach of the SDSU wrestling team, Damion Hahn has spearheaded the program since he arrived in 2018.
Hahn has found success both on and around the mat, leading SDSU to back-to-back 13-4 seasons in the Big 12 and in the 2023-24 season, tied SDSU’s best finish in Big 12, third place.
The New Jersey native first hit the mat when he was in second grade but it wasn’t what he thought it would be.
“I got into wrestling when I was in second grade,” said Hahn. “I literally had no idea what I was getting myself into. I thought, I’ll be honest, I thought it was the WWE at the time. I was like man, I’m going to jump off the top ropes and I’m going to dropkick people.”
Though disappointed, Hahn’s parents decided to sign him up to see how it goes.
“She [Hahn’s mother] signed me up and I loved it,” said Hahn. “I kind of took to it and that was it. I was hooked.”
Hahn quickly excelled at the sport, gaining national attention from some of the best wrestling schools in the nation.
“When I was coming out [of high school], I was the top recruit in the country,” said Hahn. “I was pound-for-pound the number one recruit and I was pretty heavily recruited by a lot of schools. At that time, you were only allowed to take five official visits. When we started narrowing it down, it came down to Minnesota and Oklahoma State. If I were to do it all over again, I’d make the same choice.”
At the high school level, Hahn compiled a 131-3 record and multiple accolades including being named as a 1999 National High School champion, two-time Junior National Freestyle champion and a member of the 1999 High School All-America Team and was named the 1999 Most Outstanding Wrestler.
As a wrestler at Minnesota, Hahn finished his career with a 118-21 record and two individual national championships to pair with his two-team national championships the Golden Gophers earned in his first two years.
In his freshman season, Hahn placed fifth in the nation at the 71st NCAA Wrestling Tournament. Hahn went 4-2, losing his first and final matches in the tournament.
Hahn wasn’t the only 184-pounder that season to make a career out of wrestling. In the championship match, Iowa State’s Cael Sanderson faced off against Oklahoma State’s Daniel Cormier, two athletes who are known throughout the sport and two athletes Hahn battled on the mat.
“I feel it was a privilege,” said Hahn. “It was a privilege to go out there and compete at that level and compete with guys that were great in the sport of wrestling.”
Sanderson, an Iowa native who finished his collegiate wrestling career with a perfect 159-0 record went on to win a gold medal at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens while Cormier spent time as both the Light Heavyweight and Heavyweight Champion in the UFC, becoming the second person in history to hold two titles in different weight classes simultaneously.
“In college, me and Cormier wrestled twice and we split,” said Hahn. “We never wrestled again until we were done with our college careers and were competing on the freestyle circuit to make teams and he kept me off every World and Olympic team. He was my Kryptonite.”
In Hahn’s bout with Sanderson in his first season as a collegiate wrestler, he lost by a point (4-3), one of the closest matches of the Cyclone’s collegiate career.
“I had one match with Cael [Sanderson], never wrestled him again in college and he ended up beating me,” said Hahn. “I was chasing. I was trying to chase that and beat him and never had another opportunity to do it.”
In 2002, for the second time in a row, Minnesota finished first in the national tournament and Hahn took fifth.
“Anything less than a national title was a disappointment to me,” said Hahn. “I hate to put it like that because being an All-American at the Division 1 level is an amazing, an incredible feat, and when our guys achieve that status, you have to be proud about that because it’s so hard. I wanted to be a national champ so the next task was three [national championships] and sure enough, I took fifth again.”
In his first two years as a collegiate wrestler, Hahn totaled 17 losses. In his final two years, Hahn lost just four times.
In his junior year, Hahn went into the 2003 NCAA Wrestling Championship as the No. 6 ranked wrestler in the 197-pound weight class. Hahn ran through the bracket, upsetting both No. 2 Muhammed Lawal of Oklahoma State in the semifinals and No. 1 Jon Trenge of Lehigh in the championship round, becoming a national champion for the first time.
Hahn then went back-to-back in the 197-pound weight class in the 2003-04 season, again becoming a national champion again and finished his final season with a 33-1 record.
But the two-time national champion wasn’t finished on the mat.
Hahn went on to compete in the 2008 Olympic Team Trials and earned runner-up, behind Cormier.
Before that, Hahn joined the Cornell wrestling team as an assistant coach in 2006 where he worked under Rob Koll, and before the 2013-14 season, Hahn was promoted to Associate Head Coach, a spot he held till 2018.
In his tenure with the Big Red, Hahn and Cornell won the Ivy League title every year he was on the staff.
During his time at Cornell, Hahn coached Cam Simaz and in 2012, Simaz won a national title at 197 pounds, the same weight class Hahn won two years in a row.
After Simaz left and graduated from Cornell, he, like Hahn, stayed involved with wrestling. Before coming to South Dakota State, Simaz was involved with other programs across the country.
“I was moving in a different direction at the time,” said Simaz. “I was at West Point coaching their prep school and I was really considering moving toward the military in terms of my career. It was a difficult decision at the time for me. Looking back, I am really happy and I’m grateful that I decided to come out to South Dakota State and I don’t know if I would’ve made that decision if it wasn’t anyone other than Coach Hahn.”
Simaz joined the staff in 2018 and has continued working with his former coach since.
“I think that he’s [Hahn] uniquely talented in developing strong relationships built on trust in a pretty quick fashion, I think that is one of his strengths.”
Together, the pair have molded SDSU’s wrestling program into one of the best teams in the nation.
“Coming out here and really putting a staff together that we did is a part of the success that we’re having,” said Hahn. “I have Cam Simaz here with me, I recruited Cam and coached Cam at Cornell, he knew me, he understood me and what my expectations were. I developed a great relationship with Cody [Caldwell], our other assistant coach and the three of us have been here since day one.”
South Dakota State had one of their best seasons to date and finished 13-4 (7-2, Big 12 Conference) and sent eight wrestlers to the NCAA Championships, featuring four All-Americans (Bennett Berge, Cade DeVos, Tanner Jordan and Tanner Sloan).
“Being in a conference like the Big 12 and being a mid-major, we don’t look the same as the legacy Big 12 schools,” said Hahn. “I think one of the big things to [the] success that we have is our culture within our program, the standards that we have set and that helps us not only compete but beat these perennial powers in the Big 12 or in the country for that matter.”
This season, Hahn went toe-to-toe with his Alma Mater in a home dual in December. Now ranked No. 6 in the nation, Minnesota handed SDSU their second loss of the season with a final score of 3-30.
“I want to beat them,” said Hahn. “I want to beat them at everything. It doesn’t mean I don’t love Minnesota, but we’re competitors and I want to win. I knew it was going to be a tough dual. They did a really good job of shutting our stuff down. They came out hot and were ready.”
Now done with the regular season, Hahn and the No. 13 Jackrabbits finished 14-4 and will take the mat in Tulsa, Oklahoma on March 8 and 9 for the Big 12 Wrestling Championships.
