Check out Keegan O’Toole’s bio on Missouri’s wrestling website and it’s longer than the profile of most coaches.

And deservedly so. O’Toole said his father, Brian, put him in the sport when he was six years old because he was a rambunctious little kid. 

“I was pretty athletic in terms of balance and flexibility, and so I was decent at it from the start,” O’Toole said. “Then, obviously having good parents who gave me good opportunities, I eventually started to like it more, and it kind of took off. It was my primary focus from a pretty young age.”

That kid has evolved into a two-time NCAA champion and two-time Big 12 titlist, a four-time All-America and recipient of many academic awards as well as success on the Senior freestyle level. The COVID-19 pandemic gave O’Toole a fifth year of eligibility and the #1-rated 174-pounder — up from 165 for the first time in his career — solidified his role as this season’s gold medal favorite when he defeated #2 Levi Haines of Penn State 4-1 in sudden victory in the Collegiate Duals on Dec. 22 in Nashville.

Time has flown since O’Toole, a four-time Wisconsin state champion, broke onto the collegiate scene in 2020, and Missouri coach Brian Smith was the lucky recipient of O’Toole’s talent. 

“I just really liked coach Smith. I thought he was a really morally well-grounded coach, and he pushed his athletes the right way,” O’Toole said. “I felt like he had my back outside of wrestling and inside of wrestling.”

Smith knew from the outset what O’Toole could do for Tiger Style. 

“When he first got here, he was the ‘Baby-Faced Assassin,’ because he looked like this little boy that was just technically schooling people,” Smith said. “I always say that if you develop later physically but you have to learn the technique that's going to get you through the physical guys, it works out better. And that's kind of what Keegan had.”

The moniker was OK with O’Toole. 

“Yeah, I guess I didn't hit puberty until I was pretty old. I always kind of had those chubby cheeks and looked like I was like 15 when I was 19,” O’Toole said. “So I didn't mind, and even if I didn't like it, I was still gonna get called it anyway.”

O’Toole said holding 165 pounds for three years wasn’t overly difficult, but it became more of a struggle last season and a nine-pound jump was in the cards when the Tigers had no one for the 174-pound spot. 

“I think it might be better for my overall longevity,” O’Toole said.

“There's still things about college wrestling that just hurt, you know; it's not easy out there, it's hard. Practicing is always something where you get those little nicks and dings that you have to try to keep going, but from a cutting weight standpoint, I don't necessarily feel the possible risk for injury from that aspect of the sport, which is nice.”

Honors for O’Toole could have doubled were it not for Iowa State’s David Carr, as he and O’Toole waged some brutal battles on the Big 12 and NCAA mats. 

“I’ve gotten a lot better from wrestling him rather than not wrestling him,” O’Toole said. “I’m sure I’ll be wrestling him in the years to come just to get on World teams, the Olympic team, so you gotta go in there and you gotta fight.”

O’Toole knows he’s improved technically and physically. Mentally, he said, he’ll be relentless. “Why would you hold anything back? Or why would you worry about the outcome? Even if you win or lose, your career is over, so you might as well just go for it,” he said.

O’Toole’s intangible has been his mat smarts. 

“His intelligence in the sport is off the charts,” Smith said. “And I mean that. If you talk to anybody on our team, he's like having another coach on the staff. He just breaks down technique and the way he analyzes himself and then helps others … it's just amazing.”

Smith said he told his staff during the recruiting process six years ago that O’Toole was unique. “I’m like, ‘This kid is different; I'm just telling you he's different,’” Smith said. “I said ‘I don't care what he's ranked, this kid's gonna be special.’ I just knew this kid had some special traits, not just the physical and the technical. It was the way he thought. He was going to be exceptional.”

Wrestling is not O’Toole’s only passion. 

“I love being outdoors, I love hunting, I love being a part of stuff like that. I like business. I like crunching numbers and taxes, I like accounting things,” said O’Toole, who is pursuing a master’s in business with financial management and global supply chain concentrations. 

He got married in October, shot two deer on archery hunts in November and is going on his first elk hunt come September. It’s all good, but with many possibilities awaiting, there’s still that wrestling bug.

“I definitely could see myself being involved in wrestling for at least a couple of years after college, just because I'm still in Columbia, my wife's here, and if the opportunity presents itself,” he said. “As of now, I would like to continue to wrestle. That could maybe change, I don't know. But for now, I would like to give it a give a good run at my goal of becoming an Olympic champion.”

Smith would like to help O’Toole do that because O’Toole helps everyone else, the veteran coach explained. 

“He’s the ultimate team wrestler; he wants to get better, but he wants the team to win, too,” Smith said. 

While on a recruiting trip in Wisconsin, Smith said he watched O’Toole in the state semifinals. “He’s pinning a kid in a cradle and he’s watching a teammate on another mat. And it was crazy because the ref slaps the mat and he’s pulling away from the ref as he’s trying to raise his hand and he ran over to watch his teammate; he was more excited for his teammate,” Smith said.

“I just remember taking a picture of him hugging his teammate and sending it to my assistants, and I said that this is that intangible that isn't a part of a recruiting combine, that this kid's an amazing teammate and cares about his teammates. I said that we've got a good one. I knew we were getting an exceptional young man.”