University of Iowa resident doctor headed to Olympic trials in Greco-Roman

NORTH LIBERTY — About to wrap up an undergraduate degree in biology — finishing in just three years while also competing at an international level in Greco-Roman wrestling — a 21-year-old Brandon Marshall in December 2016 stepped on a mat at the U.S. Open in Las Vegas hoping for a shot to make the world team.

In the blood round — an appropriately-brutal term used to describe the gut-wrenching match in a tournament that secures a spot on the podium for the winner and a swift exit for the loser — Marshall pulled ahead 7-0, one point from winning via technical fall.

In fact, with 13 seconds left in the first period, at least one referee scored two more points for Marshall — effectively giving him the win, were it not for a challenge from his opponent that reversed the takedown and sent the match, hanging by a thread, to a second period.

It was in the second half of that match, Marshall said, “I just made a mistake and the other guy capitalized on it.”

More than seven years later, Marshall told The Gazette recently of the 10-7 loss that day, “It stung pretty bad.” Adding salt to the wound, Marshall two months later found himself back on the wrong side of another blood round.

“And at that tournament I got the call for medical school,” he said. “So that was the last time I competed.”

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Growing up near Jacksonville, Florida, Marshall returned from his undergraduate stint at Northern Michigan University — one of a handful of U.S. campuses offering a Greco-Roman wrestling team — to pursue a medical degree at the University of Central Florida in Orlando.

Focused on school, Marshall didn’t have time to train — although the sport maintained its grip on him, compelling him to specialize in orthopedics, which inclined him to rank the wrestling-mecca and orthopedic-strong University of Iowa atop his residency program preference list.

“The only other time I had ever been to Iowa before I moved up here to buy a house after I had been accepted was when I wrestled at kids nationals in Cedar Falls,” Marshall said. “That had to be in the mid-2000s.”

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'It was fantastic’

The son of a wrestling coach, the sport was a natural fit for a kid like Marshall — sharp and strong, with an affinity for hard work. Racking up a moderate amount of success as an athlete, Marshall excelled in academics.

“I was valedictorian,” Marshall said, reporting a 4.56 high school GPA. “I loved math and science. And so I took every math and science class that I possibly could. I started taking high school-level math classes in seventh grade.”

In shopping for colleges, Marshall wanted one that offered a meaningful scholarship — like the full-ride presidential scholarship Northern Michigan gave him — and the chance to wrestle. That Northern Michigan offered Greco-Roman wrestling made it especially enticing, given Marshall’s preference for that style — which emphasizes throws, lifts, and locks and prohibits the use of legs.

“It's something that I had always liked doing,” he said of Greco. “And the taller and longer I got, the more leg I had to defend and the less I liked doing it.”

But even at a young age — before his height became a factor — Marshall gravitated toward the style of wrestling more popular on an international level. And he got a front-row seat to the global spectacle in 2021, at age 17.

“The Olympics is one of my favorite times,” he said, recalling his first Olympic experience. “That's what my parents got me for my birthday. We went and watched the London Olympics. And I got to see almost every single session of wrestling.

“It was fantastic.”

Already eyeing a Greco career in college, Marshall said he knew members of the Olympic team that year — some of whom were at Northern Michigan.

“My favorites by far were the Greco sessions,” he said.

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Six-year hiatus

Several years prior, in the summer of his freshman year in high school, Marshall wrestled 125 matches — before an injury sidelined him his sophomore year. That gave him an intimate — if not entirely welcome — introduction to the field of orthopedics.

“I've always said that I wanted to do something math or science,” Marshall said, but added the care he received through his elbow injury and surgery likely had an influence on his career trajectory. “I don't think that that hurt.”

So when his college wrestling career ended, Marshall honed his focus on medicine — leaving him no time to train or compete himself.

“My hiatus, from start to finish … was six years,” Marshall said.

The beginning of the end of that hiatus came with a routine wardrobe decision while house hunting in Eastern Iowa for his residency move.

“I think I was wearing a wrestling T-shirt when we toured the house,” which Marshall said led to the discovery the contractor was a wrestler, too. “And I told him I was looking for a club to get involved with.”

Turns out he knew of one: Big Game Wrestling Club in North Liberty.

“So I started helping out,” Marshall said of his entry into Big Game. “I became the coach that showed up when I could, still trying to figure out everything with work.”

'When you truly love something’

Fast forward one year to the summer of 2022, Marshall is on the beach of Lake Rathbun in southern Iowa — reclined under a shade tree, skimming his bracket for the Kraken Beach Wrestling Championships. He registered in the beach wrestling tournament — for fun. And suddenly found himself bracketed with Kevyn Gadson — who won the 2015 NCAA Division I championships by pinning future Olympic and world championship gold medalist Kyle Snyder.

“I hate to lose,” Marshall said of that day — although he did to a heavier Gadson, after scoring some points against the decorated wrestler.

“It was over that summer I made the decision,” Marshall said. “I wanted to talk about getting back into it.”

The conversation started with Dylan Carew and Ty Carew, coaches at Big Game — a club with mostly youth and high school athletes, plus graduated college-level wrestlers who get back in the room when they can.

“I was like, ‘Hey, are you OK with me doing it as well? I’d be interested in getting back into things’,” Marshall said. “And they were more than supportive, obviously. They agreed to coach me and take me on as their only senior athlete in the club at that point.”

With that, Marshall in 2023 ended his hiatus and restarted his training with early-morning, evening and weekend workouts — interspersed with his rounds and research at the hospital. To a soundtrack of literal and figurative heavy metal, via clanging weights and his Spotify playlist, Marshall pushed himself.

He exhausted himself on and off the mat — a familiar and paradoxically-comfortable state.

“I don’t really have times where I just sit and don’t do anything,” he said.

In April 2023, Marshall returned to the site of his 2016 disappointment — the U.S. Open in Las Vegas. And — following a decadeslong wrestling journey that brought him through the lows of surgery, unrealized expectations and losses alongside the highs of international competition, scholarship awards, and All-American status — Marshall accomplished something he never had before: He placed at the U.S. Open.

Taking fourth, Marshall qualified for the world team trials last May after a seven-year break. He didn’t make the team. He lost again. It stung again.

But not enough for another hiatus.

“That's when you truly love something,” Dylan Carew told a crowded room of youth wrestlers recently — pointing to Marshall. “Because you know what you put into it to get there.”

Carew was talking about Marshall because — this being an Olympic year — Marshall in December headed back to the U.S. Open, this time in Texas, for a shot at the Olympic trials. And he fell short.

Unable to shake the childhood memory of watching his first Olympic trials, though, Marshall earlier this month headed to the “last chance qualifier” in Virginia.

He needed to win it to secure a spot at the trials in State College, Pa. this weekend.

And he did. An unseeded UI resident doctor took down the No. 3 seed and then the No. 2 seed to earn a spot vying for a chance to compete in Paris this summer.

“The first Olympic trials that I went to watch was in 2004 … And I was like, ‘Yeah, that's what I want to do’,” he said. “And so 20 years later, I might get the opportunity to do that.”

When reminded he will get the opportunity to do that, Marshall said, “It doesn’t feel real.”

How to watch

NBCU will present live prime-time coverage of the U.S. Olympic Wrestling Team Trials from the Bryce Jordan Center at Penn State University in State College, Penn., from Friday, April 19 to Saturday, April 20 — spanning more than 60 hours of live coverage across USA Network and Peacock, according to USA Wrestling.

Friday, April 19:

Session I: 10 a.m. to 3:45 p.m. on Peacock/TVE

Session II: 6:30 to 10 p.m. on Peacock/TVE

Saturday, April 20:

Session III: 10 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. on Peacock/TVE

Finals: 6:30 to 10 p.m. on USA Network/Peacock

For more information, visit: themat.com

Vanessa Miller covers higher education for The Gazette.

Comments: (319) 339-3158; vanessa.miller@thegazette.com