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Mason Parris wins Hodge Trophy after undefeated, national title season for Michigan wrestling

IMG_6598by: Nick Kosko03/28/23nickkosko59

Michigan wrestling heavyweight Mason Parris won the 2023 Hodge Trophy, college wrestling’s version of the Heisman.

He capped off a 33-0 senior year with a national title win over Penn State’s Greg Kerkvliet earlier this month. Parris was the leading vote getter over second place finisher Carter Starocci, Penn State’s 174-pound national champion.

Parris also won the fan vote by a wide margin, indicating he was the favorite to take home the award given to the sport’s most dominant wrestler.

The Hodge Trophy criteria is as follows: record, bonus point percentage, quality of competition and sportsmanship. The latter two could be considered subjective, especially sportsmanship.

But based on the criteria, and if you single out the undefeated wrestlers, the best arguments went towards Starocci and Parris.

In the end, the Wolverine took home the award after finishing his season on tpo.

“It’s a mix of a lot of emotions right now,” Parris said. “I’m still trying to process it all. My adrenaline is still really high. There’s just so much going through my mind right now. And grateful is the main thing that comes to my mind. And just blessed that I have the coaches and the partners and the school — everything, the support system that’s behind me. And I couldn’t have done it without them.”

Parris’ future is up in the air as far as the WWE feeder program or the Olympics. But it seems like the latter is his focus.

“It’s going to be really cool,” Parris said. “I don’t know exactly what I’m going to do yet with everything. I have a lot of plans in the future. And my plan right now is 2024 Olympics. Parris in Paris, that’s the goal. And maybe you’ll see me in the maize and blue pads still.”

Starocci won his third national title with Penn State this season. If the award went by career criteria, Starocci has one of the best arguments.

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“This is not where the train stops,” Starocci said after he pinned Nebraska’s Mikey Labriola for the title. “Everyone is talking about (me winning five NCAA titles), and everyone asks me about that, but it’s not something that excites me. I kind of want to be a four-timer, and how the Olympics fall, that will be next year, my senior year. If I come back and wrestle next year, we’ll see. I plan on winning the Olympics. That’s where my head is.”