Sometimes Chad Dubin comes home exhausted from wrestling practice and wonders whether walking onto the team was worth it.

"I've just said, 'What the heck am I doing?' " Dubin said. "Then I eat dinner and relax and say, 'It's just a bad day.'

"You just kind of don't know what you're doing wrong . . . You're like, 'It's a waste of time,' but it's not really. If you think it's a waste of time, you should quit."

Of the 18 freshmen who entered Penn State's wrestling program five years ago, 16 quit. Only two remain -- Jason Suter, a three-time state finalist from wrestling-mad New Jersey, and Dubin, a four-time letter winner from Florida, where a huge wrestling crowd consists of 20 people.

Suter, predictably, earned All-America honors last year and is currently ranked No. 7 at 158 pounds. Dubin, unpredictably, starts at 134 pounds for the Lions.

"I didn't really know anything when I got here," Dubin said. "I was real spastic; I didn't have any technique . . . I never expected to start."

"I kid him that he could hardly chew gum and walk," Suter said. "He was pretty poor. Everything he has now, he's worked for. He's a self-made wrestler."

Coach Rich Lorenzo expects his wrestlers to be national champions or All-Americans, and most wrestlers enter his program with those goals. Dubin didn't.

He thinks that prevented him from being an All-American last year.

Dubin reached his goal of qualifying for the NCAA Tournament, won his first match, and faced No. 4 Chris Owens of Oklahoma State in the second round. After scoring two late points to send the match into overtime, Dubin lost when Owens countered his shot and scored in the final minute of overtime.

Now he knows he wasted an opportunity.

"When we're freshmen and sophomores they tell us that our goals should be to be an All-American or national champ, and I didn't really believe that, because it wasn't realistic then," he said. "Last year, when I started, I still kind of didn't believe that. Maybe that was one reason I lost at nationals.

"I didn't really have my goals set that high; I didn't believe I could. I probably should have."

Dubin believes he can be an All-American this year, but he's so worried about the competition he'll face along the way that he hasn't yet wrestled well.

The No. 1 and 2 wrestlers in the country at 134 pounds -- Iowa's Tom Brands and Oklahoma State's Alan Fried --defeated Dubin by major decisions on the same day at the national dual meet championships last month. Dubin wrestled Fried a second time in late January, and he got majored again. The losses hurt Dubin's mind more than his body.

"He needs to improve mentally," Lorenzo said. "He can't be fighting himself and Brands, he's got to be just fighting Brands."

Dubin knows he shouldn't be worrying about his opponent, but that hasn't stopped him.

"I try to relax and think about what I'm going to do and not even think about the other guy. That way you don't walk around worrying about what he's going to do to you. Which is probably a problem I've been having lately, worrying about what the guy's going to do to me instead of worrying about going out to wrestle."

Penn State wrestlers are ranked at every weight except 190 pounds, where injuries have forced three wrestlers to start, and 134 -- where Dubin wrestles. On paper, 134 is Penn State's weakness.

"It kind of gets me pumped up," Dubin said. "I've always been an underdog. I came here and I was one of the worst guys on the team -- it's never bothered me. It kind of adds -- I like being a nobody and surprising people."

Dubin, who grew up competing with a brother 21 months older and a brother 11 months younger, hates to lose. He plays to win at cards, "Jeopardy!", and even "stupid things like who can name the song first when it comes on the radio," Suter said.

Pick-up basketball games aren't always easy for Dubin; he wants to win so badly that he has to concentrate on having fun to enjoy them.

"Sometimes someone will say, 'It's just a game, Chad,' and I'll relax. But sometimes I kind of ruin the atmosphere; we'll be playing a board game or something and I'll get real pissed off," he said.

Dubin hasn't upset any ranked wrestlers this year, but he wrestled a close match with defending national champion Terry Brands when he dropped to 126 for the Iowa dual meet in November. He wants to start surprising people in the postseason.

"I really have a strong drive to prove to everyone and to myself that I am good," he said. "I mean, I really haven't won any awards, haven't been an All-American, haven't won the EWLs, and those are my biggest goals, to do that.

"I just want to try to prove to myself that I can, and if I don't, I just want to be satisfied that I tried as hard. You know what I mean?"