Ohio State All-American Kaleb Romero Talks About The 'Summer Of Swolmero'

Ohio State’s Kaleb Romero has turned a few heads this offseason, with observers on Twitter and Instagram noticing his work in the weight room. With typical team-centered activities off the table due to COVID-19, athletes are doing what they can to continue to improve throughout the spring and summer months.

The redshirt junior talked with FloWrestling about his training this summer, including his work at Flo contributor Dustin Myers’ Old School Gym, where he’s been training alongside Ohio State alumni Kollin Moore and Myles Martin.

Romero also discusses his improvement last season, a breakout campaign that took him to a top-four finish at the Big Ten Tournament and earned him first-team All-America honors by the National Wrestling Coaches Association. He’s currently No. 4 in the country at 174 pounds in our NCAA DI rankings.

Romero also talked about his expectations for the 2020-21 season.

“I think our team’s going to surprise a lot of people in my opinion,” he said. “I feel like we’re kind of getting overlooked right now, and that’s fine. We’re just going to continue doing our thing, we’re going to continue working hard and hopefully we can surprise people this year.”

He said he hopes he can step up in the footsteps of now-graduated captains Moore and Luke Pletcher as a team leader, and singled out Sammy Sasso and Ethan Smith as teammates he expects to also “take that role and help lead this team to something special.”

Andy Vance is a Columbus-based journalist who covers the Ohio State University wrestling program for Eleven Warriors, the largest independent sports site on the internet for Ohio State news, analysis, and community. He is co-host of the site’s Eleven Dubcast podcast. Follow him on Twitter @AndyVance.