'You want it fixed': Ohio State wrestling coach Tom Ryan 'angry' after Sammy Sasso shooting
Ohio State wrestling coach Tom Ryan was at dinner when he heard the news about Sammy Sasso on Aug. 18.
Associate athletic director Carey Hoyt relayed the information to him: The redshirt senior was involved in a shooting on North High Street and he was being transported to the Ohio State University Medical Center emergency room.
Ryan's first emotion was disbelief. He had to quickly collect himself in order to call Sasso’s parents, Rob and Lorraine, and tell them their son was being taken into surgery to assess the damage of the gunshot wound. He made the call not yet knowing whether Sasso's injuries were life threatening.
Then he headed to the hospital, where he remained until 3 a.m. He took his wrestler's hand and squeezed it, letting him know, “we were grateful that he was alive.”
Disbelief ran straight into the reality of the situation, and Ryan was both reassured Sasso would survive and incredibly heartbroken.
“This is an elite athlete who was representing the United States at the World Championships in October,” Ryan said. “He’s been a leader in this program. He’s fought his whole life to be elite at something. No one’s perfect, but he’s lived an incredibly good life, and he’s helped people. He’s just a kind person. You are just sad for him.”
Sasso was shot just before 8:30 p.m. on Aug. 18 in an alley near the 1300 block of North High Street and East 7th Avenue. According to the police report, two individuals approached Sasso and one pulled out a handgun, demanding his vehicle. That suspect shot Sasso before getting into the driver’s seat. The other suspect got into the passenger’s seat, and the two drove away from the scene.
Now, two weeks after the shooting, Ryan's sadness has turned into anger, as two teenagers, a 15- and a 16-year-old, have been arrested for the carjacking and shooting.
The @sammysasso shooting is tragic. He is on TEAM USA. He has worked his whole life to be Elite. He’s one of 3 college athletes on the USA National Team. He was representing TEAM USA in October on the U23 WORLD TEAM. We have too much freedom. Too little RESPONSIBILITY!
— Thomas Ryan (@Buckeye158) August 30, 2023
“We have too much freedom,” Ryan wrote on social media Wednesday “Too little RESPONSIBILITY!”
Ryan, 54, said this is the first time that gun violence has affected his life, but it has become “all too common” in the United States.
“I’m in an angry phase,” Ryan said. “I’m mad about it. ... Things have been reported, people have been arrested. They have a fair chance to determine whether or not it was them. They deserve that. But if it is young people at this age running around our streets in this country, getting weapons, shooting people … now you are mad about it, and you want justice. And not only for Sammy, but for every family who has had something taken from them that is the end result of an incredible lack of responsibility and accountability by somebody somewhere. And you want it fixed.
“We have to do better.”
Tom Ryan: Sammy Sasso is in 'fight mode'
Ryan said Sasso is in “fight mode,” determined to wrestle again. To that end, Sasso is working through physical therapy to rebuild his strength.
According to the Sasso family’s GoFundMe page, Sasso was shot in the abdomen and underwent emergency surgery to reconstruct his colon. A second surgery was needed to remove the bullet near his spine, which caused “severe nerve damage.”
Ryan said Sasso knows he will “have to really fight to come back to being the competitor he was,” and added that the redshirt senior is in a wheelchair with a long process ahead to “move (in) the ways he wants to move.”
“God willing, he will wrestle again,” said Ryan. “We don’t know that. We don’t know the long-term effects of this. Sammy is an ultimate warrior. His mindset is: ‘If I have to wrestle on my knees, I will.’ ”
Right now, according to Ryan, the focus is taking “one logical step at a time.” That includes working with Sasso to help pay his expenses, removing his enrollment from Ohio State for the semester and securing a waiver to allow him to wrestle one more year of college – if he is able.
“It’s the Stockdale Paradox,” Ryan said. “We’re trying to stay in this perfect medium between optimism and realism. We’re optimistic: ‘He’s going to walk again. He’s going to wrestle again,’ all these things. But we’re also realistic. We don’t know when that will be.”
Sasso was to enter the 2023-24 season as the top-ranked wrestler in the 149-pound weight class nationally. He finished last season with 29 wins in 33 bouts with a Big Ten Championship and a runner-up finish at the NCAA Championship.
He is a four-time All-American, two-time Big Ten champion and four-time NCAA tournament qualifier.
As Ohio State prepares for its season, Ryan said Sasso has been on the minds of his team and has served as a motivation.
“There’s no way to manifest a story about how precious life is,” Ryan said. “Speaking about it is one thing, but walking alongside it is something completely different. My team is living it — how precious life is."
Ryan is confident the redshirt senior will return to Ohio State's wrestling room at some point this season.
“We don’t know when Sammy will be in the room, but we know he will be in the room,” Ryan said. “We’re not putting a date on it, but as I told my team, ‘Listen, I can guarantee you this: He will be in here. I don’t know when. But he will be here.’ ”
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Tom Ryan, Ohio State wrestling coach, addresses Sammy Sasso shooting
