(Photo: Travis Whittaker/WCSN)
If you have a little brother, who is the baby of the family, growing up you probably remember him flying under the radar, sneaky, and undetected. He managed to get away with things that used to get you in trouble with your parents.
On the flipside, if you were that younger brother, you probably felt the need to set yourself apart from the shadows of your older siblings.
Accomplishing what they accomplished, wouldn’t be enough, you had to do something unique or surpass the successes of your older siblings.
During Jacori Teemer’s redshirt-freshman season, the Arizona State 157-pound wrestler’s story wasn’t making headlines. He was accomplishing a lot, but his story was hidden under a shadow cast by the stories of his ‘older brothers and sisters’ in the wrestling room.
When the 2019-2020 season began, there was a lot of headline stories coming out of the Sun Devil wrestling facility:
- Head coach Zeke Jones’ first and No. 1 recruiting class was entering their senior season
- The Sun Devils had their eye on the NCAA team championship
- Zahid Valencia was on track to earn his third NCAA championship
- Marlee Smith became the third woman on the Sun Devil wrestling roster
It’s not that Teemer wasn’t as skilled as his teammates. Teemer was the No. 1 recruit in the nation at his weight class coming out of high school in Long Beach, New York. To earn a headline and the attention of the media, like any little brother, Teemer needed to accomplish more than his siblings.
Kordell Norfleet, ASU’s 197-pound wrestler and one of Teemer’s roommates, has his own analogy for how Teemer is like a little brother.
“In practice, he’s high energy, and at the house, he’s like, high stupidity,” Norfleet said. “He’s like a little brother. He does annoying stuff. He’ll slap you, run upstairs, and lock his room door.”
Teemer got to perfect his sneaky little brother tactics his whole life, growing up with two older brothers.
“I’m the youngest, yeah,” Teemer said followed by a goofy laugh that could easily be perceived as mischievous.
It wasn’t always wrestling. Growing up he also played basketball, football, and lacrosse but after middle school, Teemer decided to solely focus on wrestling.
“I won my first state title in eighth grade,” Teemer said. “So my dad was like, ‘you already got one state title, so you’re going to get college attention.’ So I cut everything else off right there and just focused on wrestling.”
Focusing on wrestling paid off. Teemer won state titles the following four years and got attention from all the top wrestling programs.
ASU wrestling head coach Zeke Jones remembered fondly how easy it was to recruit Teemer to join the Sun Devils.
“It was fun,” Jones said. “Because even his dad and his mom said, ‘he’s got something about Arizona State he really likes.’ So, you know, this is where he wants to go and I’m like, that’s great. We’d love to have him.”
Teemer didn’t want to take the easy or expected road. The youngest child tends to be a little more adventurous.
“Arizona State was a rebuilding program,” Teemer said. “They were coming up. I wanted to be a part of that. I could’ve gone to Penn State. I could’ve gone to Ohio State, but I wanted to be on a team that took those guys out.”
The youngest likes to be different.
Twice in the month of February, Teemer finally received the media’s attention by being named the Pac-12 Wrestler of the week. By receiving this honor twice, Teemer eclipses the accomplishments of his ‘wrestling siblings’—no other Sun Devil wrestler has ever earned this recognition twice in one season.
Teemer, who ended the season with an eight-match win streak, has a 15-5 record. All of his losses, were to wrestlers now ranked in the NCAA Division I Wrestling Ratings Percentage Index (RPI) top 25.
Against No. 1 Ryan Deakin of Northwestern, Teemer lost 5-8. Jones credits that match with teaching Teemer a lot of what has helped propel him into the limelight.
“The light went off,” Teemer) said. “OK I’m good enough to beat these guys, now I have to learn to wrestle tactically, wrestle a college seven-minute match against somebody good,”
“That was a big growth match for him,” Jones said.
Another match where Jones saw how much Teemer has learned this season came from the win that earned Teemer his second Pac-12 wrestler of the week honor.
On Feb. 22, Teemer faced Lehigh’s Josh Humphreys, who was the No. 8-ranked wrestler in the weight class. In the final seconds of the match, Teemer was down by one. With five seconds to go he got a reversal and won the match, 8-7.
“He beat a top 10 kid in a foreign environment,” Jones said. “Who has a lot of experience and NCAA experience. He had to find a way to win and did win when the gun was at his head. So for him, it was great to see that because I think that just now reaffirms, ‘OK I’m figuring this thing out and I’m pretty good at it.’”
The moment Teemer enjoyed most–his first career win as a Sun Devil as he helped his team end a 60-match win streak.
Heading into the dual on Nov. 22, 2019, Penn State hadn’t lost since 2015 and Teemer was getting his first career start at home. As he entered the mat to face Bo Pipher, the Nittany Lions were up, 8-7.
Teemer earned the first take down of the match and even a reversal in the second period causing fans inside of Desert Financial Arena to roar with excitement.
“It was insane. Every time you scored the crowd would go nuts,” Teemer said. “That was my favorite because last time I was there they were all against us–we were in their hometown. Just getting that revenge on them was great.”
Teemer won, 9-4, and the Sun Devils regained the lead, 10-8. In the end, ASU ended the reigning national champions win streak.
Fans stormed the mat to celebrate with Teemer and his teammates.
Saturday, Teemer’s season continues when he wrestles in the Pac-12 Championship. Finishing in the top-two will guarantee him a spot in the NCAA tournament in Minneapolis two weeks later.
Teemer, you have our attention now.
