Five years after ending his high school career with a state championship, former Loveland standout Cody Thompson capped his collegiate wrestling career with a national title.
Thompson, who has wrestled for Colorado School of Mines since he graduated from Loveland in 2021, won the 149-pound title at the NCAA Division II National Championships last Saturday in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
It marked the conclusion of a collegiate career that included a valuable redshirt season, one national championship runner-up, a comeback from an injury and finally a victorious moment on Division II’s biggest stage.
Last weekend, he had to win his semifinal match against the No. 2 seed from Wisconsin-Parkside in overtime, and then won the 149-pound final over the No. 5 seed from Pitt-Johnstown by a 5-0 decision.
“I had wrestled another Pitt-Johnstown kid two years ago in the finals, so it was cool to be back there again wrestling another Pitt-Johnstown guy,” Thompson said. “I didn’t really focus on the outcome too much during the match. I just wanted to enjoy it, knowing it was the last match of my wrestling career.
“Instead of being super serious about it, I walked out with a smile on my face and enjoyed every minute of it. There were points in the match where I was winning but I just had to remind myself, we’re going to wrestle this whole seven minutes and not take any breaks or give any room for error.”
His formula worked as he won the national title that eluded him just two seasons earlier. The championship was just another in a long list of accomplishments from his five years at Mines.
He became Mines’ eighth national champion overall and first since 1998. With a 19-1 record, he finished his senior season with the best winning percentage (.950) in program history. His career winning percentage after finishing with a record of 67-18 (.788) was the fourth-best in program history.
His national championship came a year after his junior season was shortened by injury. That season came after his first championship match appearance in 2024.
“Midway through the season, I dislocated my hip, tore my labrum in my hip,” he said. “I tried to come back that season but just couldn’t get back on the mat. I had surgery in April and then rehab was about six months, and then I got back on the mat right after that.
“I’ve never had a super big injury like that in my life. I’ve had smaller ones, but I just felt coming back, I felt completely different for a while and kind of readjusted how I wrestled. My legs would get tired easily just because I was out for so long with that hip injury. It was pretty painful. So, it took a while to get back to remembering not really how to wrestle but more to compete at a high level and get out of my own head.”
He still dealt with some pain in his senior season and had to learn some new ways to wrestle, he said. But he credited his athletic trainers and his physical therapist for helping him make it through a one-loss season that ended with a national championship.
After winning a state championship for Loveland in 2021, he made it into the Mines’ lineup as a true freshman and went 12-10. He ended up redshirting the next year, which he said was a valuable experience as well.
“I thought it was very valuable,” he said. “I felt like it was part of God’s plan to put me in that situation that year. I came back after my freshman year a lot bigger and got some big wins in my redshirt year as well, beating some ranked guys. Those first three years, the summer in between, I just worked really hard to get better and my coaches worked with me a lot to get me to the point where I could compete with the best guys.”
After redshirting, he went on to wrestle for a national championship twice in three years, finally breaking through in the last match of his career after returning from his injury.
And although it was a big moment for him last weekend in South Dakota, he remains humble about it and the way his wrestling career ended.
“I knew going into it that it would be my last one,” he said. “I didn’t really think about it too much afterwards. I just enjoyed the time with my family. I spent a good amount of time in prayer, just thanking God for the blessings he’s given me and understanding he has a plan for my life. Wrestling is just something I do. It’s not who I am.
“I still get to build relationships and have the rest of my life to find new things to do and definitely give back to the sport that has given so much to me.”
