“At first you’re kind of in the limbo where nobody really knows what’s going on,” Molton said. “It’s a pretty short time. You have the rest of summer, a couple months to get everything figured out. It’s all your information, applications, trying to get into schools and you’re starting the whole recruitment process all over again.”
It takes a village to raise a child, and according to Molton, it takes an even bigger village to help a wrestler from a cut program transfer before the next season starts. The situation is unavoidably labor-intensive, and between coaches, word of mouth and other wrestlers, Molton was able to find a new home in Fresno, California, and it was exactly what he was looking for, or so he thought.
“I wanted to start in a new state and get away from the east coast,” Molton said. “Everything seemed to be firing on all cylinders. They were recently cut, and the community got them back before I got there, so it seemed like the community support made it so they would not be cut or anything like that. It just happened out of nowhere.”
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Three weeks before the season officially started, in the same calendar year Old Dominion shut the doors for good, Molton and the rest of the Bulldogs were told they had a year to enjoy donning the Fresno State singlet.
The process starting over at the beginning of the season this time may have done more harm than good, as Molton recalls feeling so defeated and exhausted after being part of two terminated programs in two seasons that he almost gave himself a new nickname and gave up on NCAA wrestling.
“Having it happen to me the second time hit hard,” Molton said. “I was honestly debating calling it. I just felt like I was just a curse. I was a grim reaper with programs. I was on the rails of calling it a career.”
