Central Michigan University Athletics
Veteran CMU coach Tom Borrelli embraces wrestler Johnny Lovett after a match during the NCAA Championships this weekend in Kansas City, Mo.
Photo by: Justin Hoch | jhoch.com
Borrelli: 'Proud of Where our Program is and Where it Has the Ability to go From Here'
3/23/2024 12:17:00 AM | Wrestling
Right to the end, legendary coach does it the right way with his type of guys
KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Symbolic? Could not have been more so.
Johnny Lovett, an underdog if there ever was one, took to the mat in a maroon and gold Central Michigan singlet against Cornell's Meyer Shapiro, who a year ago was the most highly sought-after freshman in the country.
It was the blood round at the NCAA Wrestling Championships, a Friday night in the T-Mobile Center, when the excitement really cranks up as one by one, wrestlers are eliminated while others advance, guaranteeing a spot on the podium and coveted All-America status.
Shapiro, the No. 3 seed and a product of Wyoming (Pa.) Seminary College Prepatory School, landed at Cornell, an upstate New York Ivy League school with a litany of wrestling champions. A wrestler destined for greatness from a blue blood program.
Shapiro took a 13-5 major decision, ending Lovett's run through the NCAA Championships.
It spelled the end for Central Michigan coach Tom Borrelli, who for 33 years fought the good fight in leading the little Midwestern program from Mount Pleasant that was always more about blood and guts than bloodlines.
And under Borrelli, it never backed down.
Borrelli produced 45 All-Americans in his 33 years at CMU. He did it with student-athletes who came out of high school largely unheralded, perhaps under recruited, and maybe a little under appreciated.
Which is not unlike Borrelli himself, a solid wrestler at The Citadel who paid his dues as an assistant coach and then in his first head coaching job at Division II Lake Superior State in Sault Ste. Marie in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. In the Sault and at Lake State, hockey is king and wrestling was little more than a diversion.
A son of the south, Borrelli made his way north, way north. A fish out of water? Maybe, but a wrestling mat is a wrestling mat and you put the right kid in the right environment, and good things will happen. In five seasons at Lake Superior, Borrelli turned the Lakers into a perennial contender in Division II and produced 17 All-Americans.
He did the same over 33 years when he came down I-75 to US 27 and into Mount Pleasant, setting down roots that would take hold and produce 45 Division I All-Americans and a combined 30 Mid-American Conference team titles and countless individual league champions.
His lone national champion, Casey Cunningham in 1999, has helped Penn State become the Goliath of the sport as the chief assistant to legendary coach Cael Sanderson. On Saturday, the Nittany Lions will claim their third consecutive team title and their 11th since 2011.
And while those from the likes of Penn State and Iowa and Oklahoma State will almost always own the big stage, those in the know will always stop and salute that guy from Central Michigan, the guy who's always done it the right way, the guy who has done more with less for a long, long time.
So, when Lovett, an African-American kid from Miami – who recruits wrestlers from Miami? – stepped onto the mat against Cornell's Shapiro, it was more than a little symbolic. Lovett wasn't recruited by anybody, and he ended up coming to Mount Pleasant only after Borrelli received an out-of-the-blue phone call from Lovett's high school coach a few years ago.
Lovett, the kid nobody had ever heard of four years ago, has won 100 matches as a Chippewa and qualified for the NCAA Championships four times.
Seconds after the Lovett-Shapiro match went final and Borrelli followed Lovett off the arena floor and into the T-Mobile Center concourse, the public address announcer gave Borrelli a respectful sendoff, congratulating him and honoring him for his three-plus decades as a college coach.
There was a sustained round of applause and many in the crowd stood while they applauded. Wrestling crowds are knowledgeable and loyal, and they, perhaps more than those for any other sport, know their sport and the personalities in it.
If a college wrestling crowd cheers you, you deserve it. If they take the time to stand for you? Well, that's respect on another level, particularly at the national tournament, the sport's pinnacle, when there is so much going on simultaneously it's often hard to keep up.
Borrelli heard the applause, heard what the announcer had said. But he didn't hesitate in the concourse. His concern was Lovett. Borrelli had officially coached his final match. But he was done coaching, because for him, it's about way more than what happens in the wrestling room and on the mat.
"There's just a few times when you think like that," Borrelli said later, when asked if he had taken time during the tournament to reflect. "There were a few times during this tournament when I was just standing there watching what was going on and thinking back to when I was 15 or 16 years old.
"If I would have even thought that I would stand at this tournament and been a coach at this tournament for 40 years, I would have thought it would have been the greatest thing in the world for me, and it was. It was really special to be able to live out your dream. I lived my dream for 40 years. Not very many people get to do that."
Not many in the coaching business get to walk away on their own terms. That Borrelli has been able to do that puts him in an even more rare company.
There have been plenty of wins and plenty of championships. There are other successes that aren't as easy to measure. The number of Chippewa wrestlers now in the coaching ranks – be it on the high school or college level – is but one testament to who Tom Borrelli is.
There are still others, like Lovett, who might go ignored or be cast aside. Where is Johnny Lovett today without the sport of wrestling and a man like Tom Borrelli?
"I think of it as trying to build something that people can be proud of and that will move forward and the university will be proud of and really support and feel like it's a value to the university," Borrelli said of his program. "I know these young men are an unbelievable value to our university and I know they will be in the future in ways that the university probably can't even comprehend.
"That's what I think about, being proud of where our program is and where it has the ability to go from here."
Johnny Lovett, an underdog if there ever was one, took to the mat in a maroon and gold Central Michigan singlet against Cornell's Meyer Shapiro, who a year ago was the most highly sought-after freshman in the country.
It was the blood round at the NCAA Wrestling Championships, a Friday night in the T-Mobile Center, when the excitement really cranks up as one by one, wrestlers are eliminated while others advance, guaranteeing a spot on the podium and coveted All-America status.
Shapiro, the No. 3 seed and a product of Wyoming (Pa.) Seminary College Prepatory School, landed at Cornell, an upstate New York Ivy League school with a litany of wrestling champions. A wrestler destined for greatness from a blue blood program.
Shapiro took a 13-5 major decision, ending Lovett's run through the NCAA Championships.
It spelled the end for Central Michigan coach Tom Borrelli, who for 33 years fought the good fight in leading the little Midwestern program from Mount Pleasant that was always more about blood and guts than bloodlines.
And under Borrelli, it never backed down.
Borrelli produced 45 All-Americans in his 33 years at CMU. He did it with student-athletes who came out of high school largely unheralded, perhaps under recruited, and maybe a little under appreciated.
Which is not unlike Borrelli himself, a solid wrestler at The Citadel who paid his dues as an assistant coach and then in his first head coaching job at Division II Lake Superior State in Sault Ste. Marie in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. In the Sault and at Lake State, hockey is king and wrestling was little more than a diversion.
A son of the south, Borrelli made his way north, way north. A fish out of water? Maybe, but a wrestling mat is a wrestling mat and you put the right kid in the right environment, and good things will happen. In five seasons at Lake Superior, Borrelli turned the Lakers into a perennial contender in Division II and produced 17 All-Americans.
He did the same over 33 years when he came down I-75 to US 27 and into Mount Pleasant, setting down roots that would take hold and produce 45 Division I All-Americans and a combined 30 Mid-American Conference team titles and countless individual league champions.
His lone national champion, Casey Cunningham in 1999, has helped Penn State become the Goliath of the sport as the chief assistant to legendary coach Cael Sanderson. On Saturday, the Nittany Lions will claim their third consecutive team title and their 11th since 2011.
And while those from the likes of Penn State and Iowa and Oklahoma State will almost always own the big stage, those in the know will always stop and salute that guy from Central Michigan, the guy who's always done it the right way, the guy who has done more with less for a long, long time.
So, when Lovett, an African-American kid from Miami – who recruits wrestlers from Miami? – stepped onto the mat against Cornell's Shapiro, it was more than a little symbolic. Lovett wasn't recruited by anybody, and he ended up coming to Mount Pleasant only after Borrelli received an out-of-the-blue phone call from Lovett's high school coach a few years ago.
Lovett, the kid nobody had ever heard of four years ago, has won 100 matches as a Chippewa and qualified for the NCAA Championships four times.
Seconds after the Lovett-Shapiro match went final and Borrelli followed Lovett off the arena floor and into the T-Mobile Center concourse, the public address announcer gave Borrelli a respectful sendoff, congratulating him and honoring him for his three-plus decades as a college coach.
There was a sustained round of applause and many in the crowd stood while they applauded. Wrestling crowds are knowledgeable and loyal, and they, perhaps more than those for any other sport, know their sport and the personalities in it.
If a college wrestling crowd cheers you, you deserve it. If they take the time to stand for you? Well, that's respect on another level, particularly at the national tournament, the sport's pinnacle, when there is so much going on simultaneously it's often hard to keep up.
Borrelli heard the applause, heard what the announcer had said. But he didn't hesitate in the concourse. His concern was Lovett. Borrelli had officially coached his final match. But he was done coaching, because for him, it's about way more than what happens in the wrestling room and on the mat.
"There's just a few times when you think like that," Borrelli said later, when asked if he had taken time during the tournament to reflect. "There were a few times during this tournament when I was just standing there watching what was going on and thinking back to when I was 15 or 16 years old.
"If I would have even thought that I would stand at this tournament and been a coach at this tournament for 40 years, I would have thought it would have been the greatest thing in the world for me, and it was. It was really special to be able to live out your dream. I lived my dream for 40 years. Not very many people get to do that."
Not many in the coaching business get to walk away on their own terms. That Borrelli has been able to do that puts him in an even more rare company.
There have been plenty of wins and plenty of championships. There are other successes that aren't as easy to measure. The number of Chippewa wrestlers now in the coaching ranks – be it on the high school or college level – is but one testament to who Tom Borrelli is.
There are still others, like Lovett, who might go ignored or be cast aside. Where is Johnny Lovett today without the sport of wrestling and a man like Tom Borrelli?
"I think of it as trying to build something that people can be proud of and that will move forward and the university will be proud of and really support and feel like it's a value to the university," Borrelli said of his program. "I know these young men are an unbelievable value to our university and I know they will be in the future in ways that the university probably can't even comprehend.
"That's what I think about, being proud of where our program is and where it has the ability to go from here."
Players Mentioned
/ Wrestling
2026 MAC Championships Ben Bennett Interview
Saturday, March 07
2026 MAC Championships Andrew Austin Interview
Saturday, March 07
Chatting Chippewas - Ben Bennett
Wednesday, March 04
Wrestling Insider - 1.8.26
Thursday, January 08