Photo courtesy of SMSU Athletic Communications Sean Howk, camo singlet, is currently in his sixth and final season of wrestling at Southwest Minnesota State University in Marshall.

New Ulm Area’s all-time wins leader (210 wins) and 2019 New Ulm High School grad Sean Howk has battled several challenges during his collegiate wrestling career.

Redshirting as a freshman, a COVID-shortened season, losing his starting spot and handling injuries have been just some of those challenges Howk has matched up with during his time with the Southwest Minnesota State University Mustangs wrestling team.

“My third year [after redshirting], I would actually say that would be the year I finally changed things around,” Howk said. “After a tough second year and third year, I did get hurt but I also lost my starting spot for a year.”

Howk went 1-6 in his first official full season with SMSU during a COVID-shortened 2020-21 year, In the 2021-22 season, Howk finished 4-5 before going 15-13 during the 2022-23 season. Last season, Howk finished 8-10.

But after those setbacks and now in his final year of eligibility as a sixth-year senior, the 157-pounder is back on track heading into the Christmas break with a 10-4 overall record.

Getting back to where he wants to be on the mat hasn’t come without hard work.

“I kind of said I had to change my ways and apply myself more to college for the wrestling aspect, because at that point, just mentality-wise it wasn’t there,” Howk said. “I kind of got that kick in the butt a little bit and said, ‘You know what? If I want to do something with my career and go out the way I want to, start training different.’

“There was a guy on my team named Caden Steffen, I really went underneath his wing and kind of just developed a new way of thinking about it and from then on, I just loved the sport of wrestling again, kind of found myself loving it again and just kind of found myself loving doing hard things again. … The way I look at it is, I used to hate running and since that year I’ve ran two marathons now and I really want to run a full Ironman, which if you asked me my freshman year I’d have told you that would never happen.”

A wrestler is rarely ever 100% and Howk is no exception as he is currently wrestling through a finger injury on his right hand.

“A couple of weeks back, I got a thing called mallet finger,” Howk said. “I tore one of the tendons in my middle finger in my right hand, so I’ve just been getting cleared by doctors and figuring out ways to wrestle through that. I wear a little finger brace on my finger and tape it up kind of funny while I wrestled the last few times. It’s been pretty fun, kind of just experimenting and seeing how to wrestle with this brace on.”

Howk competed at the Midwest Classic Tournament in Indianapolis this past weekend for the third consecutive season, going 2-2 in 2022 and 1-2 last year.

“Last year I was student teaching all fall, so I was balancing wrestling while being a student teacher about 15 minutes from Marshall [at Lakeview High School],” Howk said. “I actually popped a rib out last year, was out for a month and then came back a week before Indy and tried to wrestle and stuff. Just one of those long seasons where it’s like things just kind of stacked up and just put you in a tough place mentally.”

This year Howk entered the tournament as the DII No. 18-ranked wrestler at 157 and finished 4-2 at the Midwest Classic. He received a first-round bye before being pinned by University of Mary’s Lane Ewing in the second round in 6:17.

Regrouping in the consolation rounds, Howk earned a 4-1 decision over Marcell Dely (Fort Hays State), a 2-0 decision over Ali Alicea (Kutztown) and an 8-2 decision over Lance Overmyer (Ashland) to move on to the fifth round of consolations. He then earned a 4-1 sudden victory 1 over Maclain Morency of Grand Valley State.

Then in the sixth round of consolations, Marcus Caro of the Colorado School of Mines held off Howk with a 4-2 decision after Howk started the third period with an escape.

After a big scramble in that third period, blood time was called. With 15 seconds left and Howk needing a takedown, he went for it but was unable to secure it in time.

“Looked at [the Midwest Classic] last year and the top eight guys at every weight class last year, almost like 75% of them ended up being an All-American last year, so just showing how tough of a tournament it actually is,” Howk said. “So that’s what kind of drove me to want to be top eight is just knowing, ‘Hey, I’m right there and I can be right there.’ But that’s just one of those things, looking back at [the match with Caro], I can go over it a million different times and I could have done this, could have done that, but the end of the day we look at it as that loss will show me so much more in what I can do than any of the wins can.

“That loss will fuel me going into January come our conference dual meets. We’re going to come out of break and wrestle Augustana and St. Cloud, who are top five teams in the country, I’ll wrestle two top 10 guys right away, so just those guys are right there, so I know to myself that, ‘Hey, I’ve got things to work on and I’ll get better from it and hopefully can win some matches like that and down the road.'”

Howk is currently in the process of earning his master’s in business administration. He has a bachelor’s degree in physical education/health/management. As he completes his final year at SMSU, Howk said he and his fiancée have thoughts in mind of moving away from the Midwest. However, Howk is open to coaching and coming back to New Ulm, where his wrestling career began.

“Down the road, I can definitely see myself coaching and I’ve always said I’d love to give back to New Ulm wrestling, just because without New Ulm wrestling, I don’t know who I am in my life,” Howk said. “I know how much they contributed to me and so I’d love to contribute back to them. That’s always motivated me throughout my life is giving back to the people who made me who I am today.”