Western State College of Colorado

With Webster’s Brock Lesnar fighting for the Ultimate Fighting Championship’s heavyweight title tonight in Las Vegas, one would expect a heavy dose of South Dakota support for the former NCAA heavyweight wrestling champion. Just don’t expect to find it at the Black Hills State athletic offices.

Two Yellow Jacket head coaches — football’s Jay Long and men’s basketball’s Bradd Schafer — have college ties to Lesnar’s opponent, former Western State (Colo.) wrestler and linebacker Shane Carwin. Long went head-to-head with Carwin on numerous occasions as a heavyweight wrestler and offensive lineman at Chadron State, and while the memories weren’t always great, the respect he has for Carwin is evident.

“I wrestled him every week it felt like,” Long joked. “I wish I had some good story to tell you about that, but it was always favored his way. That’s just part of wrestling, you’re going to run into the best at some time, but it felt like I had to face him all the time. The one thing that really sticks out about him is that his hands are massive.”

Long’s Eagles went 2-1 in his football career against Western State and Carwin, who played linebacker. The 6-foot-2, 265-pound Carwin played at around 250 pounds in college and still holds the Western State record for tackles in a season. Carwin actually didn’t wrestle his senior year to prepare for the NFL Draft, but he wasn’t drafted due to concerns about his speed and injury history.

He came back to Western in 1999 for his final year of eligibility, won a Division II national title at heavyweight and picked up the first of two bachelor’s degrees he holds — one in environmental technology from Western State and the other in mechanical engineering from Colorado School of Mines.

“When I got to Western State he was already a legend from a football and wrestling standpoint,” Schafer said. “Then he took a year off and tried to get ready for the NFL but that didn’t work out for him because of some injuries. He came back and just wrestled his senior year, but it was kind of funny because they brought in a junior college transfer who was ranked like fourth in the country or something like that, so he and Carwin had to have this big wrestle-off. It was a packed house and we all went to it, but (Carwin) was just on another level. He pinned that guy in about a minute. He’s just a physical specimen — huge hands, great athlete, great body — and it’s great to see him having the success that he’s having now.”

Long, who began his college career at Dickinson State, also wrestled in a North Dakota tournament with Lesnar, who was then at Bismarck State College, but the two never squared off. Despite being from the same small state as Lesnar, Long will be pulling for Carwin when he sits down to watch the fight. Some of that has to do with his personal history with Carwin and some of it has to do with Lesnar’s professional-wrestling style of promotion.

“Being from Sturgis, I should probably be rooting for Lesnar,” Long said, “but Carwin’s just a good person. I like to cheer for the guys that don’t talk a lot of smack but talk with their fists. Carwin just goes out there and does his talking with his actions. He’s a very straightforward guy who tells it like it is.”

Schafer, who played basketball at Western while Carwin was enjoying his All-American career, couldn’t agree more.

“He’s just a nice guy,” Schafer said. “I haven’t had too much contact with him in the four years that I’ve been up here, the last time I saw him was at Colorado School of Mines, but he’s just a great guy. When he sees you he knows who you are and remembers you. I saw him at a Northern Colorado football game and he came over and put me in a little headlock. I never really hung out with him a lot, but he was always just a solid, stand-up person.”

So where does the ferocity that has enabled Carwin to amass a perfect 12-0 record without a single fight making out of the first round come from?

“He’s got a switch,” Schaffer said. “Those lights come on and he flips it.”

Long hopes he flips it in time to deal effectively with Lesnar, who is widely considered to be the most imposing physical specimen in the sport despite compiling a rather pedestrian 4-1 record after spending four years as a professional wrestler.

“I’m a pretty big fan,” Long said of mixed martial arts. “Both guys are huge, super strong, and great wrestlers — although Lesnar might be a bit bigger. My prediction is that there’s going to be one big punch, one of those big guys is going to jump on the other and finish it. The only question I have is whether it’s going to be in the first round or not, but I think it’s going to be a great fight.”