Everything Is A Competition At Campbell University

Baker, as well as teammate Brant Cracraft, have seen a healthy amount of “fun activities” turn to competition since joining the Campbell wrestling team. Not to say they weren’t familiar with the ego of wrestlers before, but they noticed a considerable jump in competitiveness once they put on a Campbell singlet.

“If you made a competition, you’d probably get the whole team to participate in it,” Cracraft laughed.

Baker further explains that some people on the team are competitive to a fault. If the team clown felt like getting a rise out of somebody without sacrificing ego by losing a competition in the process, Campbell has the right cast.

We're not sure what Campbell (@GoCamelsWrestle) is paying Coach Sentes to wrangle these two in on a daily basis but there's no way it's enough. 😂😂#BattleAtLiberty pic.twitter.com/A1987SrVrp

— UFC FIGHT PASS (@UFCFightPass) October 24, 2023

“Oh man, if you want to see someone get mad during the game, that’s Caleb Hopkins,” Baker said. “It’s awesome. Sometimes, it’s bad to say, but you almost want to get him mad during a game because it’s so entertaining.”

According to Cracraft, basketball slants towards Levi Hopkins, golf may go to Gunner Endicott, baseball has Cracraft himself written all over it, and Conor Maslanek takes home an eating competition.

And video games are perhaps the most contentious point of pride on the team. Cracraft sees Endicott as the best gamer on the team, Baker picks Shannon Hanna and Zander Phaturos has himself at the top of every category.

Should we change our mascot name to Ultimate Fighting Camels (UFC) as we gear for our first @UFCFightPass event on November 1st? pic.twitter.com/r3mmH45hkM

— Campbell Wrestling (@GoCamelsWrestle) October 24, 2023

The wrestlers run into a lot of the clashes in their free time, but a good portion of the newly discovered “games” come from pre-practice team bonding competitions that start out in good fun and turn into an all-out battle for domination.

Baker attributes the infatuation with dominating every game, within or outside of your skillset, to the nature of the sport of wrestling itself and, of course, the work that goes into it. Everything becomes a little more fun when you’re not putting yourself through the ringer.

“It’s because practice sucks,” Baker said. “When you’re going to practice you should expect it to be bad. You want it to be bad because you’re going to get the most out of it. It’s a little jolt, like all right, it’s going to be fun, I’m excited for this game and I know I got to lock in afterwards. I got the fun out. Now it’s time to be serious. That’s the way I look at it.”

We used to be the home of tomorrow's superstars, with NCAA on the platform we just took one step further ahead of the curve. pic.twitter.com/WAi2rJWDu0

— UFC FIGHT PASS (@UFCFightPass) October 11, 2023

At the end of it all, whether it’s a week-long cold shoulder, a lifelong rivalry or an hour-long troll playing off of people’s competitive personalities, the team couldn’t be happier with one another, and a lot of the team attributes the chemistry to head coach Scotti Sentes.

“Scotti is really good because he knows how to cater to everyone’s personality and he’s straight up with you. That’s the best way to put it,” Baker explained. “He knows how to cater to you and get through to you. He knows how to coach different people. Everyone’s got weird, different personalities. You’ve got to be able to put up with them, and that’s probably why he does so well. He’s just a good dude at the end of the day.”

For the greatest action across the world of combat sports, sign up TODAY for UFC FIGHT PASS!