Mark McKnight, like so many other college students, has a bone to pick with his parents.
Sure, the UB wrestler heads into his sophomore season with the Bulls ranked first in the MAC in his 125 pound weight class, and seventh nationally.
Sure, wrestling has allowed him opportunities - a shot at qualifying for the Olympic games, a trip to Venezuela for the Junior Pan-American Games - few of his peers have experienced.
Sure, McKnight's instant success at the college level is undeniably attributable to the passion for wrestling he developed as a kid growing up in western Pennsylvania, to those long car rides, every weekend, to wrestling tournaments all over the northeast that his parents insisted upon.
Sure, Mark McKnight may be sitting happily near the top of the college wrestling world, but just once Mom and Dad, just one Saturday morning, couldn't Mark have stayed in bed and watched "X-Men?"
"I still give them a hard time about that, we still have some heated discussions," a chuckling McKnight said of the seemingly weekly wrestling tournaments he attended as a kid in lieu of Saturday morning cartoons. "I don't regret any of it though."
Regret simply isn't part of the equation for McKnight, who finds himself, at 19, doing the thing he believes he was born to do. "I've been wrestling for 14 years. I breathe wrestling. I bleed it," McKnight said.
Combine the sophomore's passion for his sport with a fierce competitive nature, and it's easy to see why McKnight burst onto the scene as a freshman with a phenomenal 34-8 record, a MAC Championship, and a trip to the All-American round of the NCAA Championships.
McKnight's business is far from done though, as he recognizes that all the pre-season hype and all the accolades don't mean anything unless he backs it up on the mats.
"You can get up to the top as fast as you can go down," McKnight said. "So I'm ranked seventh. I could wrestle someone unranked, and they could take me down. I stay focused, and just wrestle."
McKnight points to his focus and composure, his ability to "just wrestle," as reasons for his success, and as key factors this season in his efforts to improve upon his freshman campaign.
He notes that although he made it to the All-American round last year, he didn't do quite enough to achieve All-American status, and counts a top-three national ranking as another reasonable goal for the season.
McKnight is hardly the type to settle though, and his ultimate goal is one that most could hardly fathom: a national championship.
"I want to be the national champion," McKnight said. "Coming out of high school, that was my goal, and that will be my goal until I achieve it."
As lofty a goal as a national championship is, McKnight has never been one to back down from a challenge. His nickname, "Weasel," comes from his youth football days, when McKnight, though admittedly undersized, developed a reputation for toughness, and for making plays all over the field.
McKnight is still "Weasel" to many friends and teammates today, and he's still refusing to concede a thing, be it against top-ranked collegiate competition, or even against a 32-year-old coach he faced during the Olympic trials.
"That was funny. The guy had coached against me at Indiana during the season, then all of a sudden I'm wrestling him," McKnight said.
That particular match, against Indiana assistant coach Mike Mena, resulted in a loss for McKnight, as did his other match in the Olympic trials, held in May. However, he came away from the experience of the trials honored to be able to wrestle alongside the very best wrestlers in America.
McKnight got the opportunity to wrestle the best from around the world in July, when he traveled to Venezuela for the Junior Pan-American Games.
"It was great to wrestle guys from other countries, I'd never done that before," McKnight said.
That said, McKnight's lack of familiarity with international wrestling wasn't at all apparent, as he wound up winning gold in the freestyle competition, and bronze in Greco-Roman wrestling.
And Venezuela was good to McKnight, as the sophomore history major found the cultural experience of the trip extremely valuable.
"I'd never even been out of the country before - except Canada, and I don't think that counts - and I don't speak any Spanish other than the Taco Bell menu," said McKnight. "But I started finding my way around down there. It was an interesting trip."
When he's not wrestling, McKnight's good-natured sense of humor and his laid back personality come to the forefront as he spends his free time enjoying the outdoors, lounging around with teammates, and playing many video games.
However, even his leisure time takes a back seat to wrestling though, as McKnight claims to have a complicated theory on the positive impact video games have on his performance.
"Everything I do, I think to myself, how can this help my wrestling," McKnight said.
His constant passion for his sport, he hopes, will rub off on his teammates, as he takes more of a leadership role in his sophomore season.
"I try to push guys, give them pointers, try to lead by example," McKnight said. "Of course sometimes yelling and getting guys fired up just works."
McKnight, in turn, gets fired up by his teammates. He notes that an unspoken goal of his is to top the team record for takedowns, set last year by Kyle Cerminara. "I definitely want him to know I'm gunning for him," McKnight said.
UB is a young team, but McKnight sees the close-knit team being capable of doing some damage because of its high confidence level. He did note, however, that young and cocky can be a dangerous combination.
On a personal level, McKnight plans on doing what he's always done, "just wrestle."
For all the good-natured grief McKnight gives his parents, he is extremely grateful for their support. "I would've quit," McKnight said. "But they kept pushing me, kept saying, 'you're good, you can do this,' and I kept wrestling."
With a tremendous freshman season behind him, and all of his goals as a wrestler, including the coveted national championship in sight, it's safe to say that even though Mark McKnight had to miss "X-Men," his parents are more than forgiven.
