Ten minutes before his first-ever appearance at a Big Ten dual meet, Iowa men’s wrestler Stephen Buchanan was at ease, pointing out family members in the crowd to head coach Tom Brands. It was his father’s first time watching him wrestle collegiately in person, but he only got to see 40 seconds.
During the countless meets and victories the top-ranked, 197-pound Buchanan has accumulated during his career as a Wyoming Cowboy, Oklahoma Sooner, and now an Iowa Hawkeye, his father was never once able to share a moment with his son post-victory.
Coming from Loyal, Wisconsin, trips for Buchanan’s father to Laramie, Wyoming, or Norman, Oklahoma — or even any colleges his son’s prior two programs might’ve visited — were not easy to make.
But as Loyal is just three hours north of Madison, the opportunity on Sunday, Jan. 12, at the Wisconsin Field House, was perfect.
“Yeah, I talked to a friend of his from his hometown and said that this was going to be the first match that his dad gets to see him wrestle in college,” Brands said. “He was in Wyoming and then Oklahoma, so that’s a big deal. That’s meaningful.”
And while Buchanan may have looked calm before his match, even cracking a joke to Brands, the actual match itself with Wisconsin’s Niccolo Colucci was anything but calm.
Having waited all this time and traveled all this way, Buchanan’s father saw just half a minute of wrestling before his son had Colucci’s arms locked back against the mat with his shoulder blades down, too. The referee inspected the position briefly before calling the pin — a 40-second finish.
Where the Wisconsin Field House went quieter in dejection, Buchanan’s personal fans made their presence known. And the Hawkeyes steamrolled the Badgers, 45-0.
“He is down for the first time, so that was pretty sick,” Buchanan said. “Then some family friends who I wrestled with back in my home wrestling team — they came down to see me wrestle, too. That was for the first time, so that was pretty cool, too.”
Most wrestlers would have been ecstatic with a swift pin in under a minute. However, for Buchanan, it was especially sweet, as his fastest finish of the season just so happened to be the one match his father watched.
“It was good to be back home,” Buchanan said. “I had a lot of people come on and show out. So, that was nice seeing them in the crowds and then having my coaches point that out. I didn’t even realize how many people came down. But it was nice talking afterwards and getting that nostalgia.”
Nostalgia is indeed relevant when a long journey with the storied sport of wrestling takes you across the U.S.
Prior to Buchanan’s time at Iowa, the wrestler from Loyal, Wisconsin, spent three seasons from 2019 to 2022 at Wyoming and the following two seasons at Oklahoma before heading to the Midwest for his final outing. In his prior two destinations, Buchanan has made history.
During Buchanan’s early career as a Wyoming Cowboy, the young prodigy started out strong, as the true freshman accumulated 26 wins in his first collegiate season, qualifying for the NCAA Championships after placing seventh at the Big 12 Championships.
But it was the following two years at Wyoming that helped cement his name in Cowboy history books. Buchanan became the fourth wrestler in the school’s history to record consecutive All-American honors.
He finished eighth at the NCAA tournament in 2021 before an All-American nod in 2022, winning a Big 12 title that season and becoming the first Cowboy to do so at 197 pounds. The phenom finished his last season as a Wyoming Cowboy 16-3 versus ranked opponents, never dropping a single match to an unranked opponent throughout the whole year.
Buchanan elected to jump to the Oklahoma Sooners, redshirting his first year there in 2023 before a highly touted second year there that put him on Brands’ radar. In fact, he gathered a 29-3 record, earned his third All-American honors, finished third at the Big 12 Championships, and finished third again at the NCAA tournament — the highest Sooner finisher since 2016.
But it all returns back home.
The Wyoming and Oklahoma transfer-turned-Hawkeye has been making a name for himself in the historic black and gold singlet this season, leading the Hawkeye wrestling squad in multiple statistical categories, too.
Currently, the Hawkeye wrestler has yet to lose a dual match for Iowa, marking a perfect 1.000 dual winning percentage. Buchanan also leads the team in dual meet points scored with 37 on the season — a stalwart in Brands’ impressive back half of the lineup.
The 40-second pin by Buchanan now puts his name third on the team leaderboard for “Fastest Pins” — with heavyweight Ben Kueter recording a 32-second pin and 157-pounder Jacori Teemer recording a lightning-fast 24-second pin.
As a current Hawkeye who is undefeated on the season, Buchanan has been firing on all cylinders this year and will look to bring the same dominance into the NCAA championships come March.
Brands is infamous for reiterating certain mantras to the team throughout the season. This season proves to be no different, as Brands believes for the Hawkeye wrestling team to be successful in the postseason, they must not get too complacent following landslide victories.
“The biggest thing is knowing that we have bigger things ahead of us,” Brands said.
While big things are destined for Buchanan, making the jump to the unanimous top-ranked 197-pounder, the All-American wrestler does not let one match cloud his mindset on the mat.
As a long journey through collegiate wrestling comes closer and closer to an end in Iowa City, Buchanan’s sights are set on a podium at the NCAA championships in Pennsylvania — the NCAA champion status the only honor still to evade him.
“I take every match one at a time and take every guy as seriously as I can,” he said. “I’ll have top-10 guys, top-five guys in the next upcoming week. So, I just focus on my training and focus on myself to see what I can do to build every single day.”