The University of Minnesota received initial notice in September and appealed the ruling hoping for a review of the situation. Deitchler has not competed for the Gophers this season, while awaiting the results of the final appeal. Deitchler’s eligibility will be reinstated under the conditions that he is withheld from competition for the 2009-10 academic year, forfeit a year of eligibility and repay the $4,000 prize money he received.

A 2008 graduate of Anoka High School and an Anoka, Minn. native, Deitchler represented the United States at the 2008 Summer Olympic Games in Beijing, China. Following the Olympics, Deitchler spent the 2008-09 academic year training and competing full-time with USA Wrestling at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colo.

“In the NCAA’s ongoing effort to promote student-athlete welfare I do not think the NCAA is following or supporting their own ideology. The NCAA has handed a very young student athlete an overly harsh penalty,” head wrestling coach J Robinson said. “The punishment is quite severe and is a three part penalty. First; Deitchler must sit out a year, second he will lose one of his four years of eligibility, and third he must repay the money he received.

I understand that there needs to be a penalty, Robinson said but to deny a season of competition, take away an entire year of eligibility plus repay the money is excessive. People make mistakes, and as an 18 year-old kid who just represented his country in the Olympic Games and got lost in the moment I don’t think this decision is in the best interest of the athlete, the NCAA, or the Olympic movement.”

Robinson went on to add, “We had a very similar situation at Minnesota a few years ago where an athlete took money after the Olympics, in this case more money $6,000. The penalty the NCAA imposed was that the student athlete had to sit out two weeks and repay the money. That same year, this student athlete was eligible to compete in the NCAA Championships and became an NCAA All-American.”

Deitchler will remain on the team and participate in all team practices, but cannot compete in 2009-10 for the University of Minnesota in any NCAA sanctioned events.

This is bigger than Jake Deitchler and I think it hurts our Olympic movement by setting a bad precedence. Robinson hopes that the NCAA will review and reverse their decision in the spirit of student athlete welfare and what best for a young student athlete that got caught up in the excitement of the Olympic Games while representing his country.

Robinson also said that Mario Mason has been reinstated and will resume competition with the team. Mason had been suspended indefinitely for violation of team rules, causing him to miss the Southern Scuffle and the Iowa State Dual.

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After talking to his father, the Massillon, Ohio native then met with the University of Minnesota coaching staff. Following an injury-plagued 21-5 junior campaign on the wrestling mats, where he earned his third All-American honor, the 149-pounder felt he needed to take a redshirt during his senior campaign.

The move would leave the Golden Gophers with just one senior in the regular lineup for the 2008-09 campaign, but in addition to getting his body back to full strength, Schlatter thought the timing was right in order to reach his future goals — a berth on the U.S. World Team in 2009 and a run at the 2012 Olympic squad.

“It was hard because we had such a young team, but we’ll be young again next year and I think I will be able to help out with my leadership,” he says. “I just needed the time to get healthy and then work on things during my international training.”

Schlatter, who won the NCAA championship and posted a 42-1 record at 149 as a freshman, holds a 100-7 record during his first three years of competition at Minnesota. The two-time Big Ten champion was third in the NCAA Championships as a sophomore but fell off to 21-5 during his junior season, when a severe hamstring injury limited him to only 17 regular season matches.

“It was a pretty rough year,” he says of his junior season. “I missed six weeks because of the hamstring and I couldn’t really focus on my training because of the injury. Then you add in a knee sprain and a couple of ankle sprains and it was all weighing on me mentally.

“I just needed the time off. So far it has worked out pretty well and I’m at 100 percent now.”

And Schlatter can now check his first goal off his list. Representing the Minnesota Storm, he defeated Travis Paulson of the Sunkist Kids in two straight matches at 74 kilograms (163 pounds) in the World Team Trials late last month to claim a berth on the U.S. squad. His summer will now be spent in Minneapolis and at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs as he prepares for the World Championships, which will be conducted in Herning, Denmark in September.

“I’m really excited,” he says. “This is going to be a great opportunity to get a lot better. All summer I’ll be training with high-level coaches on a daily basis. I’ll be able to get more insight on different styles of training and this is going to be a big help for my final year at Minnesota as well as my future.”

According to Schlatter, the biggest difference between freestyle wrestling on the international level and on the collegiate level, more commonly known as folkstyle, is the scoring system. International rules only give one point for a takedown and two points when the back is exposed whereas college wrestlers receive two points for a takedown. There are no escape points internationally, only riding time.

Schlatter has already taken one international trip, when he traveled with a group of U.S. wrestlers to the Ukraine. They were housed at the training center for just over a week.

“Their training center is not nearly as nice as ours,” he says. “It was kind of culture shock going over there, but that was to be expected. We struggled quite a bit with the food. We were all dying to go into the city for a nice meal and that nice meal turned out to be McDonald’s. It may be the opposite of what you consider a nice meal back home, but to us, those cheeseburgers and fries were like heaven.”

Through his brief international experience so far, Schlatter has already discovered the international wrestlers tend to take a more deliberate approach to their matches.

“Their tempo is a lot slower, more laid back,” he says. “Americans are more aggressive. We believe our conditioning level is better than any other country, so we try to go at them real hard and get them tired.”

At the age of 23, Schlatter is one of the youngest of the seven wrestlers representing the United States at the World Team Championships. However, he believes he is right on track in reaching his ultimate goal — wrestling in the 2012 Olympics. He wanted to compete in the Olympic Trials last summer, but recovering from his injuries took a top priority.

“Absolutely, my goal is a medal at the 2012 Olympics,” he says. “After the World Championships, I will go back to Minnesota for my final year of eligibility and, hopefully, win another NCAA title next year. Then it will be back to international competition.”

When he does resume action at Minnesota, the 5-foot-8 Schlatter estimates he will either be wrestling at 157 or 165 pounds. He competed unattached at 157 pounds this winter, compiling a 6-1 record.

“Going up in weight shouldn’t be much of a problem for me,” he says. “I’m used to going up a couple of weight classes through my training at Minnesota. I’m a little thicker now through maturity and gaining more muscle, so I feel more comfortable at 157 or 165.”

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A move back to Cedar Falls, where his college wrestling career began, helped Rial get back on friendly terms with the wrestling style that allows only upper-body moves.

Rial, a state champion at Fort Dodge and an assistant coach at Northern Iowa, made the finals of the 145.5-pound weight class in the Greco-Roman challenge tournament at Mid-America Center on Sunday. He faced reigning National Open champion Faruk Sahin in a best-of-three series for a spot on the World Championships squad Sunday night.

In freestyle, Iowa assistant coach Jared Frayer at 145.5 and Bryce Hasseman of Iowa City at 185 pounds, along with Northern Iowa assistant coach Tervel Dlagnev at 264.5, faced National Open champions to determine the rest of the squad that will compete in Denmark in September.

Frayer was to face former Iowa State NCAA champion Trent Paulson – who grew up in Council Bluffs – while Hasseman met Jake Herbert and Dlagnev faced former Iowa and Oklahoma State NCAA champion Steve Mocco.

Rial was thinking he was done with Greco-Roman after the disheartening Olympic trials. He was living in Colorado Springs, training in Greco-Roman as if it was a full-time job.

“I took a step back, took some time off, became a father and moved back to Iowa and started coaching,” Rial said. “That got me going a little bit. January rolled around and I was like, ‘I feel good and I’m in decent shape, (National Open) is a couple months away, and I can get in shape for that.’ ”

Rial said just being in the practice room at Northern Iowa was good for him.

“It made it fun, actually,” Rial said. “I think I put too much pressure on myself when I lived (in Colorado Springs). If I didn’t win, oh my gosh the world’s going to end. Now I’m just going out having a good time.”

After losing the first round of the semifinals to Kerry Regner of Sunkist Kids, Rial got three turns with a front headlock for a 6-0 win and then a turn late in the third round for a 2-0 victory.

Rial said the front headlock is one of his best moves.

“Once I get that lock on people, it’s pretty dangerous,” Rial said.

Late moves helped Frayer reach the best-of-three finals Sunday. He got a 2-point exposure move with 52 seconds left to beat Darrion Caldwell of Sunkist Kids. In their first match, Caldwell and Frayer each had two points, but Frayer won the criteria because his was a two-point move.

In the semifinals against Iowa’s Brent Metcalf, Frayer won the first round in overtime with a clinch move and then got a second win on a takedown with 3 seconds left.

Hasseman lost the first round 1-0 against ex-Oklahoma State NCAA champion Chris Pendleton, but scored a fall in the second round to win the challenge tourney.

Dlagnev gave up two points in a pair of wins at 264.5.

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Saitiev, 34, one of only three wrestlers to have won three Olympic titles, was thinking of bidding for a record fourth gold at the 2012 Games in London but then changed his mind.
“I’m not sure I can still compete at the highest level,” the Chechen, who won Olympic gold in Atlanta in 1996, in Athens in 2004 and last year in Beijing, told reporters in his home town of Krasnoyarsk.

Reporting by Gennady Fyodorov; Editing by John Mehaffey

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A serious car accident nearly 33 years ago ended one of the most heralded careers in wrestling history.

But it didn’t come close to ending the still-unfolding legacy of Danny Hodge.

Hodge, who suffered a broken neck but miraculously survived the near-death experience, notes that he can’t look backwards anymore due to the injuries.

“I have to turn around to look back.”

But that’s no problem, the easy-going Oklahoman explains. “I’ve already seen it.”

What Hodge has seen from the rear-view mirror of life is the American Dream. A small-town boy who grew up in Depression-era Oklahoma survived the hardships and rigors of the time to become one of the greatest wrestlers to ever live.

As a youth Hodge, the son of an alcoholic father and a mother who dealt with severe depression, picked cotton and plucked chickens to help ends meet. His home burned down when he was 9, and his mother suffered severe burns over 70 percent of her body, necessitating blood transfusions, a number of skin grafts and lengthy hospital stays.

A product of a splintered family, he was raised in later years by a grandfather described by Hodge as “always drinking, always mad,” and was the recipient of numerous beatings.

The hardscrabble upbringing was influential in Hodge becoming a fearless fighter who never backed down from anyone.

“A little farm boy getting to travel the world,” says the soft-spoken Hodge, who turns 77 on Wednesday.

Hodge may be the master of understatement.

Unparalleled record

A list of Hodge’s achievements would take a book. And that’s exactly what wrestling historian Mike Chapman has done with “Oklahoma Shooter: The Dan Hodge Story” ($22.95; Culture House Books), a definitive autobiography that chronicles Hodge’s amazing career.

Chapman, who years ago was in charge of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in Stillwater, Okla., is a longtime friend of Hodge with extensive knowledge of the wrestler’s career.

Now the curator of the Dan Gable International Wrestling Institute and Museum in Waterloo, Iowa, Chapman met Hodge in 1975 while working on his book, “Two Guys Named Dan,” about Hodge and amateur wrestling great Dan Gable.

“He knew my life,” says Hodge. “He’s a wonderful person.”

Hodge, the only man to ever win national titles in both boxing and wrestling, holds records that most likely never will be broken.

During the 1950s, Hodge won three NCAA championships at 177 pounds for the University of Oklahoma, never losing a match or even taken down from a standing position, and also won three national titles in freestyle wrestling and one in Greco-Roman. He pinned all his opponents in the Big 10 tournament every year he wrestled — and with an average time of one minute and 33 seconds.

He competed on two Olympic teams. He made the 1952 team as a 19-year-old, at that time the youngest wrestler ever to make an Olympic squad, and in 1956 won the silver medal in the 174-pound class in Melbourne, Australia.

On April 1, 1957, Hodge was on the cover of Sports Illustrated magazine, the only amateur wrestler ever accorded such an honor.

The Dan Hodge Trophy, named after him, is the amateur wrestling equivalent of college football’s Heisman Trophy.

He even has his own day — on March 28.

“As a kid growing up a sports fan in Oklahoma,” says WWE Hall of Fame announcer Jim Ross, “I admired three athletes — Jim Thorpe, Mickey Mantle and Dan Hodge. I still do.”

“Dan Hodge has lived a truly amazing life,” says Chapman. “He has rubbed shoulders with some of the biggest names in sports history — from Jack Dempsey to Rocky Marciano, from Ed ‘Strangler’ Lewis to Lou Thesz.”

And he’s done most of that living in the small Oklahoma town of Perry where he grew up, settled down and raised a family with Dolores Hodge, his wife of 57 years.

“There’s no theaters here anymore. There used to be two theaters and a drive-in in town. But they’re all gone,” he says matter-of-factly.

“There are a lot of shopping areas,” he quickly adds, noting that Stillwater, the home of Oklahoma State University, is only 24 miles away. He also points out other larger surrounding cities. “There’s Enid 40 miles northwest, Guthrie 30 miles south, Oklahoma City 70 miles south and Tulsa 100 miles east.”

But the mild-mannered hometown boy never wanted to live anywhere but Perry.

“It’s a small, small city, between five and six thousand people. My wife and her cousin built our home here. We finished it in ‘63 and it’s still standing. They know every nail that’s gone in there. What a great place. The carpet’s been replaced a couple of times. You can tell the home has been lived in.”

His entire family has grown up in Perry. It’s a wrestling town, thanks in large part to Hodge, with a proud tradition. It once was voted the national wrestling capital of the world, and for good reason. The school has won nearly three dozen state championships and has produced well over 100 state champions —more than any other place in the country.

Three generations of Hodge boys have wrestled for Perry High.

“The family has all grown up here,” Hodge says proudly. “Our children are all here and they all have good jobs. I got so see my grandkids compete, and now it’s the great-grands,” says Hodge, who has seven grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

For a man of such stature, one who has been on the cover of the Perry phone book, Hodge is just your average citizen in a small town. Except for the fact that he’s regarded as one of the greatest sports heroes in Oklahoma history.

An accomplished woodcrafter, Hodge drives a wheat truck for a friend in the summer.

“I have three or four weeks of harvest in June. I get to help him no matter what happens. What a pleasure. I have keys to their ponds to go fishing. I have the best of all lives.”

Hodge loves the life he has lived. There’s never a stranger at the Hodge home.

“All the kids come and go. When friends come in to see my plaques and medals and trophies or bottle-openers … I want them to feel at home. You don’t have to kick your shoes off at the front door. It’s home.”

Regrets? There are none.

“God’s made it good for me.”

Ahead of his time

Dan Hodge and his easygoing demeanor is in stark contrast to the fierce competitor he was on the mat and in the ring for so many years. He was universally considered to be the toughest man in the sport. He was the Mid-South territory’s “policeman” who would accept challenges from naysayers and make them believers. If an athlete came in thinking it would be an easy path to becoming a “rassler,” he’d have to get his baptism by fire from the feared Hodge.

“I went into wrestling, and I was the officer. If you challenged any of the matches, I’d be the first one you’d see. To get through me, you’d have to squeal.”

There was even a popular saying throughout the pro wrestling community” “You don’t mess with Hodge.”

And for good reason.

Hodge, who had a muscular and powerful 220-pound frame, was incredibly strong. He could rip telephone directories and decks of cards in two, crush apples into pulp and mash pliers into scrap metal. His grip and hand strength is legend.

Hodge also have may have been decades ahead of his time, as he most certainly would have excelled in today’s popular and lucrative martial arts and Ultimate Fighting genre. The combination of boxing and wrestling, he says, would have been right up his alley.

“As far as skills, toughness and the ability to totally dominate an opponent, no human being that ever earned a living in pro wrestling could have ever tied Danny Hodge’s boots,” says Ross. “I shudder to think how Dan would dominate MMA if he was in his prime today.”

Hodge went undefeated in wrestling throughout college. He scored pins in 36 out of 46 matches — including 24 in a row.

Hodge also found success while serving the U.S. Navy during the early ‘50s. He went through boot camp and arm-wrestled everyone who challenged him. Stationed at Great Lakes Naval Training Center near Chicago for two years, he tried to join the boxing team, but it was full. So he started a wrestling team. His undefeated wrestling mark remained unblemished.

It was there that he first experienced what he described as “a supernatural type of strength.” He felt a strange sensation that gave him a surge of power and rippled throughout his body. He would experience it again on two more occasions.

“I felt like I had been gifted. How do you explain it? I think it was God-given.”

And, with little formal boxing training, Hodge went 17-0 as an amateur and on March 24, 1958, won the national Golden Gloves heavyweight title with a dramatic knockout victory at Madison Square Garden.

Hodge would eventually sign a 28-page contract to fight professionally. But he soon found that dealing with the darker side of pro boxing wasn’t to his liking. Nor were the shady, greedy promoters and power brokers who ruled the business.

Relocating from Wichita, Kan., to New York, Hodge moved to a house on Long Island, and worked out at a camp in Middletown, N.Y., about 80 miles north of New City.

“Meanwhile I’m paying rent and everything, and they were going to reimburse me,” says Hodge.

His boxing handlers, however, cheated him out of money, says Hodge, who was never paid a dime. He was told about fixes in boxing and wanted no part of it. Boxing promoters tried to blackball him.

Hodge, who at one time had been considered for a world title shot against champion Floyd Patterson, had a record of 8-2, but he retired on July 9, 1959. Boxing’s loss was wrestling’s gain.

Conquering the mat

Trained by Leroy McGuirk and Ed “Strangler” Ed Lewis, whom he had met on his first trip to Oregon, Hodge made his debut as a professional wrestler on Oct. 9, 1959.

McGuirk was the man Hodge called after walking away from boxing. The veteran promoter had been a 1931 wrestling champ at Oklahoma State and knew the business inside and out.

McGuirk, who was blind, had attended all of Hodge’s matches at OU.

“I didn’t know he knew more of what was going on than I did watching,” says Hodge. “He wanted me to come right out of college and wrestle. But I had a good job in Wichita and they started me boxing. Everybody kept saying wrestlers couldn’t fight. They’re too muscle-bound. And the flags came out. I think I proved to the world you could do both.”

He didn’t even let his wife know he was wrestling professionally.

In nine months he was world junior heavyweight champion — a title he held on eight different occasions — and the top headliner for McGuirk. Hodge spent most of his career working the Mid-South circuit where he was a perennial champion and held the title longer than anyone else in history.

Hodge made numerous trips to Japan during his career and, as world’s junior heavyweight champion, was a sought-after commodity throughout the country. But he never liked straying too far from home. That, in itself, constituted traveling thousands of miles each week on a normal loop that consisted of Tulsa on Monday, Little Rock on Tuesday, Springfield on Wednesday, Wichita Falls on Thursday, Oklahoma City on Friday and Alexandria, which was 500 miles from home, on Saturday.

It was a far-reaching territory that included Oklahoma, Texas, Louisiana, Missouri and Arkansas.

“Sure, it would have been a lot more economical for to have flown out of Tulsa or Oklahoma City when I was wrestling, but my wife’s family was here and the kids were in school. I think that’s why I have still a home,” he says.

Hodge was bound to maintain as stable and normal a family life as the business would allow. He sometimes would drive all night from a wrestling show and get back home at six o’clock in the morning. His kids, he says, would wake him up around noon, and they’d all go fishing, golfing or just sharing time together.

At six ‘clock that evening he’d be back on the road to Shreveport and other towns on the circuit.

“But I had a few hours home. The wife also made it work,” he points out.

A wrestler’s wrestler

Hodge prided himself in his condition and hard-fought matches against many of the top workers in the business.

“I stayed in shape for the fans,” he says.

He once worked at a carnival’s “athletic show” where the locals had their chance to win a cash reward if they could defeat the carnival’s strongman by a pin or a submission. Hodge was given a hundred dollars to take on all comers.

“I was ready for anyone,” he says, but not surprisingly never got any more challenges after breaking an opponent’s arm.

Hodge would be backstage jumping rope before his unlucky foe could get out of the ring.

Hodge was considered one of the best “shooters” (legitimate wrestlers) in the sport. He didn’t need any flashy gimmick or high spots to get over. He was a wrestler’s wrestler.

“Hodge was a no-gimmick wrestler,” says Chapman. “He went into the ring and wrestled.”

“I never changed,” says Hodge. “They knew that I could fight if I had to.”

Hodge found himself the target of every contender who wanted to test his mettle.

“Everyone wrestled me harder than anyone else. I was the kingpin. My matches would always be different than when they wrestled somebody else.”

One of his favorite programs was with Hiro Matsuda, another technical wrestling wizard, and the two would test one another in a series of 60- and 90-minute battles that spanned a decade. He considers Matsuda, who died in 1999 at the age of 62, one of the greatest wrestlers ever.

“He was a super athlete. Every night I faced Hiro. We’d go to 60- and 90-minute draws. What an athlete. He was a wrestler and was always in great condition.”

Hodge also points to matches he had with the great Lou Thesz.

“I had a lot of great matches with Lou. Lou was super. They don’t make them like that anymore.”

Hodge also went up against a young Jack Brisco, an NCAA heavyweight champ and two-time All-American at Oklahoma State who later would become NWA heavyweight champion.

“I wrestled Jack down in Monroe at the fairgrounds,” recalls Hodge. “Before the match got started, there was a girl on the north side hollering for him and one on the west side hollering for me. It wasn’t long before we met over in the corner. His girl already had gotten her blouse torn off. I told him your fan lost and you’re going to lose too.”

The last time Hodge won the belt was three months before a career-ending car wreck.

End of the road

Hodge’s 17-year pro wrestling career came to a screeching halt in the early morning hours of March 15, 1976.

Hodge, exhausted from a particularly rigorous schedule, was in between shows in Louisiana, He had wrestled in Homa, that evening and was headed to Monroe. It was a particularly cold night, recalls Hodge, who talked on his CB radio to try and stay awake and turned on his heater on to keep warm.

“That heat hit me and I just went to sleep.”

The next thing Hodge knew was that his Volkswagen station wagon hit the railing of a bridge. The vehicle flipped twice, and went upside-down into a nearby creek that had flooded.

“My teeth were broken, and the pain was excruciating,” says Hodge, who was trapped into the car. “I asked God how much more can I take? The hurting never quit. This is so real that I can hear it today as good as I could then. Next thing I know my car went down in the water.”

Hodge says he stuck his hand over his head and thought to himself: “This is an awful way to go.”

“There was no air or anything,” he says. “But there was a voice. And three words: ‘‘Hold your neck.’”

With a broken neck and only one hand, Hodge miraculously was able to pull himself through the cracked windshield, swim to shore while keeping his head upright with one hand, and escape the clutches of death.

“Now how I was able to hold my neck and get out of there … only God knows. But I was able to swim out. Mama says I was kind of rough on my angels,” he jokes.

“I don’t know how I got out because there was no room to get out. My CB was smashed flat and was later found 200 yards down the creek. I thank God I wasn’t paralyzed,” he says.

One chapter of his life had ended. Another was beginning.

A great ride

Hodge believes he could have competed for possibly 25 more years, but he’s thankful he’s been able to live a full and productive life.

“God gave me the opportunity to travel all over the world,” says Hodge, who was in Tokyo last November to be honored. “What a ride I’ve had.”

Honors have been rolling in since Hodge’s exit from the sport.

The tradition-rich Japanese still consider Hodge a worldwide treasure.

“Lou Thesz was the last one to beat Rikidozan in Japan. So he became God,” explains Hodge. “Well, I was the last one to beat Lou Thesz at the sumo palace in Korakuen Hall in Tokyo, and nobody beat me. Everyone still wants to squeeze my hand.”

Hodge was an early inductee into the wrestling hall of fame in Waterloo, Iowa. He’s a Wrestling Institute Hall of Fame member and a charter member of the Wrestling Hall of Fame in Stillwater. He’s also a member of the Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame.

Hodge was recognized in 2005 by Oklahoma state lawmakers as an “Oklahoma Sports Hero.” He serves as chairman of the Oklahoma Professional Boxing Commission, which regulates professional boxing, wrestling and mixed martial arts in Oklahoma.

Hodge was on the cover of Sports Illustrated on April 1, 1957, his senior year at OU. He won the nationals later that week in Pittsburgh. When he asked the magazine years later why he was accorded such an honor, they gave him a straight but simple answer. “Nobody’s ever done what you’ve done.”

Jim Ross, who also grew up in Oklahoma, credits Hodge with helping him get his start in the business.

“I learned the art of storytelling listening to Gordon Solie narrate a Danny Hodge vs. Hiro Matsuda NWA world junior heavyweight title bout from Tampa recorded with one camera on film,” Ross said last week. “By the way, no wrestler ever called Dan ‘Junior,’ but many called him ‘Mister.’”

“I didn’t let people run over him (Ross),” says Hodge. “And he respected that.”

“For someone who could strike fear into any man, and I do mean any man, the true spirit of Dan Hodge is that of a gentle soul with a wonderful spirit,” Ross wrote in the foreword of “Oklahoma Shooter: The Dan Hodge Story.”

“The Good Lord blessed generations of wrestling fans when He created Dan Hodge,” Ross said.

Hodge recently held a book signing at one of Ross’s barbecue restaurants in Moore, Okla.

“It’s great barbecue,” says Hodge. “Just beautiful. He makes a great sauce. Jim’s done very well in the business. He came up the hard side, but he’s a great announcer, a great friend.”

Goodwill ambassador

Dan Hodge has been a hero and inspiration to generations of sports fans.

He also has become an ambassador for amateur wrestling.

“From a teenager who first represented America in the 1952 Olympic Games, totally dominating collegiate wrestling at Oklahoma University winning three national titles, to being embroiled in a global controversy at the 1956 Olympic Games, no pro wrestler I have ever met in over 30 years in the business has had the legit skills that remotely compare to those of my beloved fellow Okie,” says Ross.

“When one factors in Hodge winning the national Golden Gloves Boxing title with no, extensive formal training, it’s easy for anyone to see the indescribable, athletic skills possessed by Hodge. If Dan had lived in our multimedia age, he would be talked of in the same light as Michael Jordan, Wayne Gretzky, Michael Phelps, etc., that dot our sports consciousness. If Dan had come along in the age of cable TV and the Internet, mainstream sports fans would revere Dan’s accomplishments and humility.”

Hodge, who recognizes that the business has “changed worldwide,” still keeps up with the current product and says he usually watches WWE on Monday nights.

And he keeps a close eye on ECW star and Perry High product Jack Swagger (Jacob Hager).

“Jacob Hager is a state champion from Perry,” says Hodge. “He’s got the talent now. I talk to Jacob. We signed autographs for some of the kids down here in Perry. I told him to see the world and do your best. Jacob is doing that. He’s got the background, and that’s what you need.”

Hodge pauses and thinks about the early days when he was an aspiring young grappler.

“I had several chances to go any way in life that I wanted. But through wrestling it kept me in school and kept me working. What a pleasure it was for me to be able to wrestle for Perry. I tell the kids today that I want them break my records while I’m still living. My intensity is still high.”

It also afforded him the opportunity to see what was out there — beyond the plains and beyond Perry.

“I wanted to see what the world had to offer. What a great time I’ve had. I’ve enjoyed every minute of it. I’m here with my family. I’m looking forward to the rest of it.”

Hodge enjoys his life, and he regularly attends wrestling reunions and get-togethers.

“My wife shared me with the world. She says she’s still sharing me. But she gets to go with me now. They treat me so wonderfully. They spoil me. The wife says she has to spoil me here because they spoil me everywhere else. But she’s beautiful.”

Hodge says he’s also thankful for the success he’s enjoyed in sports, but emphasizes that his success hasn’t come without hard work and dedication.

He recalls breaking out before every tournament and before every final exam. And he maintained good grades.

“I’m just so highly strung. Everybody wants to beat you or take you down. Their purpose was to not be pinned. They would go out there just to not get pinned. How do you keep it up?”

But Hodge always found a way.

“I’m glad that I went into sports. I never knew that I’d have the success I did. The hard work didn’t deter me. I knew you couldn’t outwork me. Everybody would run five miles, and I’d run four more. I put more in and got more out.”

That, he says, is the essence of athletics.

“I tell the kids today to pin someone and make something happen. You can’t make something happen until you get in shape. It’s what I do. The harder I work, the luckier I get.”

Hodge laughs and says he’s still lucky.

“Thirty minutes you can be anywhere. Twenty minutes to the pond where I can fish. Everyone lives here. I have lived the American Dream.”

“Oklahoma Shooter: The Dan Hodge Story,” published by Culture House Books, sells for $22.95, with $5 shipping and handling costs. Individuals can order the book by calling Culture House Books at (641) 791-3072.

Reach Mike Mooneyham at (843) 937-5517 or mooneyham@postandcourier.com. For wrestling updates during the week, call The Post and Courier Info Line at (843) 937-6000, ext. 3090.

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By Jim Nelson

Waterloo Courier

WATERLOO — At an age when most men are beginning to stare down retirement, Randy Lewis decided to find out if he was still tough.

Wrestling for the first time since the 1992 Olympic trials, the 49-year-old Lewis, a 1984 Olympic gold medalist, showed he’s pretty tough for a guy who will turn 50 next month, but not quite tough enough to tame all the youngsters in his given sport of freestyle wrestling.

Lewis, a two-time national champion at Iowa, won two matches Saturday at the 2009 Northern Plains Senior and Junior Regional championships at Young Arena before losing in the semifinals to Northern Iowa’s two-time All-American Moza Fay.

“It was fun,” Lewis said. “It was real fun those first two matches. It was fun against Moza. It was a great experience for me. I’m glad I did it.”

Fay, more than a quarter century younger than Lewis, won the 163-pound semifinal, 9-2, 7-0.

“I made a couple of mistakes in that match against Moza and he is too solid for me to give up that much position,” Lewis said. “And once he got on top it was pretty much over.

“I told myself before this started if I got in a tight situation where if it was a decision to get hurt or turned, I was going to let them turn me and that was the decision Moza Fay gave me.”

Fay was his usual humble self in victory, raising Lewis’ hand in at the conclusion of the match as several hundred fans stood and applauded the former Iowa great.

“Honestly, I was nervous going into that match,” Fay said. “I mean really nervous because he is an Olympic champion, and I didn’t care if he was 49 years old.

“I knew he probably wasn’t going to win it, but it was cool to wrestle him and good for the sport. I just wish it wasn’t me who had to beat him.”

Fay lost in the final to Illinois’ Mike Poeta, 4-1, 9-3.

Lewis opened with a 1-0, 3-0 win over James Reynolds of the Maverick Wrestling Club, and beat Trent Larrieu of Victory School of Wrestling in the quarterfinals, 3-1, 5-1.

“I think I let a few people know I still have some stuff … probably not as much as I thought I had,” Lewis said with a laugh.

Iowa All-American Daniel Dennis beat reigning 133-pound national champion Franklin Gomez, (1-0, 0-2, 0-0, 1-0), in the 132.25 semifinals before topping Northwestern’s Brandon Precin, 7-0, 2-0, in the final.

The Northern Plains is a last-chance qualifier for the World Team trials May 30-31 in Council Bluffs.

Other champions were Cruse Aarhus of the Panther Wrestling Club at 121, Jared Frayer of the Gator Wrestling Club at 145.5, Chris Pendleton of the Gator Wrestling Club at 185, J.D. Bergman of the New York Athletic Club at 211.5 and Eric Thompson of the Cyclone Wrestling Club at 264.5.

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Randy Lewis, a 1984 Olympic gold medalist, believes he has one more freestyle wrestling tournament in him.

That tournament is today’s Northern Plains Regional at Young Arena in Waterloo. Lewis, who is 22 days shy of his 50th birthday, will compete at 163 pounds.

“I just want to find out. This is more about my own personal knowledge,” said Lewis, who lives in Iowa City. “I’ve always felt like I have one tournament in me, and I want to wrestle it.

“I’m not doing this to qualify for Council Bluffs, I’m already qualified for Council Bluffs if I wanted to. If I were to win (Northern Plains) and feel good, I’d have to think about it.”

The champions in freestyle today qualify for the World Team trials May 30-31 in Council Bluffs.

Because of his gold medal, Lewis could compete in the world trials without having to qualify through a regional tournament.

Lewis is not the oldest wrestler to compete in a regional or national tournament according to Craig Sesker, communications manager for USA Wrestling. Shaun Scott of Millersville, Pa., was 61 when he competed in Greco-Roman at the National Open last month in Las Vegas.

Sesker said Lewis is the oldest world or Olympic team member to compete in an event, however, beating Greg Gibson by two years.

“I’ve been thinking about it for 17 years. It was a one-day decision — I wasn’t training for it,” Lewis said. “I decided this spur-of-the-moment three weeks ago … I weighed 183 before practice, worked out a little bit and a sauna afterwards and got down to 177 and said, ‘You know what, I’m going to do it.’ ”

As Lewis closes in on a landmark birthday, he’s 261/2 pounds over the 136.5 pounds he weighed while winning gold in Los Angeles in 1984. Lewis was at 149.5 pounds when he last competed, in the 1992 Olympic Trials.

A groin injury halted Lewis’s bid to make the 1996 Olympic team. The two-time NCAA champion at Iowa also considered wrestling in the Midlands Open last year.
Lewis has wrestled 27 world or Olympic medalists. He’s not sure what to expect today.

“I might get hurt the first match, I might get real tired,” Lewis said. “I probably will get real tired, but you know what? I’ve watched some of the guys wrestle and some of these guys stand out there and do nothing. I can stand there and do nothing for 2 minutes, too. If they come after me, I might get real tired, but I might score 6 points pretty quick.”

A 6-point differential or scoring two 3-point moves automatically wins a 2-minute period in the best-of-three format.

Former Iowa coach Dan Gable, who coached Lewis in college and during the 1984 Olympics, said there could be a specific purpose for his return.

“It’s kind of like he’s telling us that we’ve made it easy enough that 50-year-olds can wrestle in it,” Gable said, “or he’s telling us we need a little excitement in it, maybe he can spice it up a little bit.”

Lewis said he’s had plenty of folks tell him he’s goofy for returning to the mat.
“I’m too old to train, my body gets beat up training,” Lewis said, “but I’m so confident in myself that I don’t really think I need to train for one tournament.”

More of the old guard could succeed on the mat, Lewis said.

“I’m not the only one that I think could win a tournament like this who is in their 40s,” Lewis said. “I think there are several other people that could, but they wouldn’t do it unless they trained really, really hard. If they trained really, really hard, they’d get too beat up to wrestle, so it’s a Catch-22 there. I think I’m the only one goofy enough to go out and try it.”

Gable said it might be something else.

“I don’t think he’s crazy, I just think he’s missing something and he needs a little action, a little excitement in his life right now,” Gable said. “I don’t think he’s looking to become a world champion this year right now, I think he’s just looking to have some fun.”

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Randy Lewis is the first to call himself crazy.

“We already knew that,” he said with a laugh. “That’s been documented for a long time.”

Lewis, a two-time NCAA champion wrestler at the University of Iowa, will take the mat today for the first time in 17 years, wrestling at the 2009 Northern Plains Junior-Senior Regional Championships at Young Arena in Waterloo.

The 1984 Olympic gold medalist is 49 years old.

“I’ve thought about this for a long time,” said Lewis, a two-time Olympian and four-time All-American at Iowa in the late 1970s. “But every time I trained, I got hurt.”

His solution? Stop training. It never really helped his wrestling anyway, he said.

“I’m not going to train, other than getting my weight down,” he said. “I’m too old to train … but I think I’m young enough for one tournament.”

Lewis said he feels 49 “when I look in the mirror.”

“I’m just doing this for fun,” he said. “I’m going to put on a show and I’m going to have fun.”

Fun, yes. But when the whistle blow, it will be all business. He’ll wrestle at 163 pounds, up a few pounds from the 126 and 134 he wrestled in college.

“I’m going to step out their expecting to win,” he said.

It’s that determination, that confidence, that help Lewis win 127 bouts as a Hawkeye, the last in 1980.

“I happen to think I’m pretty tough,” Lewis said. “I have a unique style.

“If I were in shape, my skills are as good as they ever were. I’ve been amazed at some of the things I’ve been able to do.”

He said the wrestling came natural, the technique is solid and the timing still is there.

“I don’t know how long those are going to last — four minutes, six minutes,” he said with a laugh.

Confidence is something Lewis has never lost, either.

“I have some skills that these guys aren’t used to,” he said. “They are going to have to wrestle good to beat me.”

Lewis said several friends and other wrestlers have asked him for several years to “wrestle one more time,” including former Iowa State standout Chris Bono. Lewis, too, always wondered if he still had what it takes for one last event.

“I really want to test myself,” he said.

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Randy Lewis has talked for years about returning to competition in the sport that made him an Olympic champion.

He figures he might as well do it while he’s still young.

“I’ll be 50 soon,” the former Iowa wrestling great said Friday afternoon. “But I feel like I’m only 47 and a half.”

Lewis hasn’t wrestled in a competitive setting since the 1992 Olympic Trials. He’s 30 years removed from winning his first NCAA title with the Hawkeyes. He’ll turn 50 in June and celebrate the 25th anniversary of winning Olympic gold in August.

But first he plans to compete May 16 in Waterloo at the Northern Plains Regional, a freestyle qualifying tournament for the World Team Trials.

“He’s been talking about coming back and wrestling since the day he retired,” Iowa coach Tom Brands said. “This isn’t the first time, and it’s not going to be the last.”

But Lewis is serious now. He’s thought this through. He has myriad reasons for getting back on the mat — the enjoyment he used to derive from competition, his quest to get down to 163 pounds and shed a few inches from his waistline are a couple — and the lyrics of a Toby Keith tune are speaking to his heart.

I used to be hell on wheels back when I was a younger man. Now my body says, “You can’t do this boy.” But my pride says, “Oh yes you can.”

I ain’t as good as I once was. That’s just the cold hard truth. I still throw a few back, talk a little smack, when I’m feelin’ bulletproof. So don’t double-dog dare me now. ‘Cause I’d have to call your bluff.

I ain’t as good as I once was. But I’m as good once as I ever was.

“I’m like that song,” Lewis said. “I’m not as good as I once was. But I’m as good once as I ever was.”

In his prime, Lewis was one of Iowa’s all-time greats. He was a two-time NCAA champion, three-time national finalist and four-time All-American with the Hawkeyes. He made the Olympic team for the first time in 1980 at 21. He became a fan favorite with his high-flying style that produced 104 points in seven matches on his way to Olympic gold in 1984 and he frustrated opponents who tried attacking his legs, which earned the monikers “the impossible leg” and “the nearly impossible leg.”

“The impossible leg is still pretty darn hard to take down until I get real tired,” Lewis said. “And the nearly impossible leg I don’t let them get to.”
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Adds former U.S. World Team coach Mike Duroe: “If you watch him on the mat, obviously he can still wrestle. He was gifted 20 years ago, and he still has those gifts and talents. But when you’re not training and you’re not doing those things in competition, you get rusty. But I think the new rules make it possible for a guy to come back after not competing for a while.”

Lewis wants to prove that. He said he wouldn’t be contemplating a comeback if the freestyle rules were the same as they were in 1980 when matches lasted nine minutes. But Lewis said the element of conditioning largely has been removed from the sport with two-minute periods in a best-of-three format, and he thinks the current rules play to his favor.

“I still have very special skills in my opinion,” Lewis said. “Everybody who has seen me wrestle in the room would agree. In a short time, I’m going to be very tough to beat. The freestyle rules right now, they’ve made the matches very short. If I come out and score six points in 30 seconds or throw a guy twice, that period is over and I’m not going to get very tired in 30 seconds. But if I get in a two-minute scramble in the first period and have a 5-4 match with somebody and the same thing happens in the second period and I split them, I’m going to be in trouble in the third period.”

Lewis isn’t taking a normal approach to competition. He said he won’t wrestle hard during the next two weeks to make sure he doesn’t sustain an injury that could prevent him from following through on his promise to compete in Waterloo.

“He’s a competitor,” Brands said. “He gets up for competition. Whether you’re prepared or not, he’s a gamer. Some guys have to go in there and they have to train and really prepare and that’s part of their confidence. Randy Lewis has an innate confidence about him, and that’s probably the difference between him and a lot of guys.”

The differences between Lewis and the other wrestlers in his bracket will be more transparent in Waterloo. He said he’s heard the field will include two-time NCAA runner-up Mike Poeta, a senior at Illinois who was born two years after Lewis won Olympic gold.

Part of this is about curiosity for Lewis, who said he’d like the opportunity to wrestle Poeta. Part of this is about representing a generation of wrestling legends.

“There are other guys out there who under today’s rules would be competitive, and I’m not talking about making a World Team competitive,” Lewis said. “But they’d give the No. 1, 2 and 3 guys a good go for one match and they’d beat a lot of the guys who are fifth, sixth and seventh on the ladder or lower down. But none of those guys are as crazy as me to go out and do it. I’m kind of doing this for all us old men. I can guarantee you Gable in his 40s could kick everybody’s (butt) still.

“People don’t believe it, but I was there. I was 31 and I beat the World champ and (Dan) Gable was 41 and he was still smoking me easy. I’ve watched Tom and Terry Brands be retired for eight years and believe me, they would still be very, very, very hard to beat. All three of those guys kept themselves in better shape than I have, but this really isn’t about shape now in two-minute matches.”

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Jackson, a former gold medalist and two-time World Champion, captained the 1987 ISU national championship team.

“We are very excited to welcome Kevin back to the Cyclone family,” Pollard said.

Before joining the Sunkist program, Jackson spent eight years as the USA wrestling national freestyle coach and took two teams to the Olympics. Jackson coached Sanderson on the freestyle team, where the former ISU coach won a 2004 gold medal. Jackson also coached Henry Cejudo, who won a gold medal in 2008.

Jackson’s freestyle team won the 2001 World Cup. In 2003, USA placed second and finished third in 2006. And before meeting with the media, Jackson already started announcing his plans to keep the Cyclones, who have finished fifth or better in the last three NCAA Championships, in the national elite.

“There is no ceiling to what we can accomplish on and off the mat at Iowa State and I couldn’t be more excited to get started,” Jackson said. “I’m pleased to inherit such an outstanding team and we’ll begin immediately to focus on hard work and technique with the goal of competing for the NCAA title.”

Jackson also served as the freestyle resident coach at the Olympic Training Center and head coach for the U.S. Army team from 1998-2001. He won two Pan American Games titles and was a member of United States World Championship teams in 1993 and 1995. He also won U.S. National titles and was the first American to take home the Takhit Cup in Tehran, Iran in 1998.

“His competitive intensity, combined with his technical skills as a coach, will make an immediate impact on our wrestling program,” Pollard said. “For the last decade, Kevin has coached and trained the best United States wrestlers. He has excelled at the highest levels of international wrestling as both an athlete and coach.”

As a collegiate wrestler, Jackson was a three-time All-American at Louisiana State. When the school dropped the sport, Jackson transferred to ISU, where he was a national runner-up and went 30-3-1 in 1987. Jackson also served as an assistant for the Cyclone wrestling club from 1987-92 and as a volunteer assistant coach at Arizona State in 1997.

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Herbert plans to compete April 11 in Las Vegas at freestyle nationals, a qualifier for the world team trials May 30-31 in Council Bluffs, Iowa. The freestyle world championships will be held in September in Denmark.

“My immediate goal is to go win nationals and win the world team trials. If you’re not training to win a tournament, why even enter it?” Herbert said after a workout in Naperville, Ill., at the Overtime School of Wrestling, where he is now a staff member.

As a Northwestern junior, Herbert won the 2007 NCAA championship at 184 pounds, going 32-0. He took a year off from college wrestling in 2008 in an unsuccessful try to make the Olympics.

In his return to college wrestling, Herbert recently completed a 34-0 season and won another NCAA title at 184. He did not allow a takedown all season.

Now he is making the fulltime transition to international freestyle wrestling with rules and scoring different from collegiate style.

Herbert hopes to make that transition just as Iowa State’s Cael Sanderson did after winning his third Hodge Trophy in 2002.

“He did it all,” said Herbert. “He was a four-time, undefeated national champion and then won Olympic gold (in 2004).”

Sanderson went 159-0 at Iowa State. Herbert wasn’t perfect, but he finished his college career with a 149-4 record, winning his final 66 matches in a row.

These days, top collegians have the option of trying the mixed martial arts with the potential for big pay days.

“I got a coupe of offers. People are calling and taking about that, but I want to focus on the Olympics,” said Herbert.

He has done some mixed martial arts training.

“It’s a great workout, they get you doing that ju-jitsu and stuff like that. I’ve been picking up things here and there for possibly down the road. You never know what you’re going to do,” he said.

“But if somebody comes up to me and they’re hey like fight this other guy for like 50 grand, I’m not going to fight somebody for 10 minutes for 50 grand. I’m a wrestler. “Heaven forbid if I were to dislocate an arm or leg or do something like that and I couldn’t wrestle in the Olympics or the world team trials.”

The Hodge Trophy is sometimes described as the Heisman Trophy of college wrestling, but there is a distinction.

“Right now, if I was a football player, and I just won the Heisman, I’d know I’d be getting a multi-million dollar contract for doing what I do,” said Herbert.

“Wrestling is not like that. It’s a lot more of a lifestyle and hard work than any other sport can possibly dream of, and that’s what makes it great. … I’ve just got to make the hard work pay off, and it will be even more worth it.”

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Askren (1-0), a former University of Missouri wrestler, scored a first-round TKO of Josh Flowers (0-3) at the Holiday Inn Expo Center in Columbia, Mo., at the debut Headhunters Fight League event.

Askren, the head wrestling instructor at American Top Team of Missouri, scored an early takedown and forced an 84-second stoppage after a subsequent ground-and-pound assault.

Askren, a four-time All-American, finished his collegiate wrestling career with a stellar 153-8 record with 91 pins. He went undefeated his junior and senior years with an 87-0 record.

Prior to competing in this year’s Beijing Olympics, where he was knocked out of medal contention by eventual bronze medalist Cuba’s Ivan Fundora, Askren announced his intentions of going pro in MMA.

As he recently told MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com), Askren knows his past accomplishments don’t necessarily mean success in MMA.

“The thing in MMA is there’s such a large skill set,” Askren said. “I wrestled 17 years fulltime, so I picked up a lot of skills, some I can use still. I know how to get in shape. I know some good ways to work out.

“I know everyone in the room is going to be tough, and nothing’s going to be easy (in MMA). There are no easy days, but it’s like wrestling. You have to depend on yourself. The stronger man, the better man will win.”

Also staking claim to a win at the event was former UFC fighter and “The Ultimate Fighter 4″ cast member Din Thomas (23-8).

Thomas, who dropped from lightweight to featherweight for the fight, stopped Dustin Peiter (1-1) in the first round of the night’s main event.

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Mixed Martial Arts Videos on Purefight

170 Lbs Ben Askren Vs Josh Flowers

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John E du Pont, who was sentenced in 1997 in the shooting death of Olympic wrestler Dave Schultz, has been denied parole and will remain behind bars, according to his attorney. Taras Wochuk, du Pon’ts long-time counsel, said that his client, who sought release at the end of his 13-year minimum sentence, will not be getting out of jail this January.

du Pont, 69, was sentenced to 13 to 30 years in jail in May 1997 for the January 1996 shooting death of Schultz. The victim was then a wrestling coach and living with his family at du Pont’s Newtown estate, which has since been sold.

Delaware County Assistant District Attorney William R Toal, III, who is handling the appeals for his office, said a letter was written opposing du Pont’s parole.

“In general it has to do with his failure to take responsibility for the crimes he committed. He acknowledged the act but has not accepted responsibility,” Toal said. (end of WIN article)

To read more about John E du Pont and the murder of Dave Schultz:
http://revwrestling.com/articles/909

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Barry Davis, University of Wisconsin Head Coach
Stalling calls. Make the guys wrestle more. That’s all. It’s the best sport going right now. A lot of action. It’s such a good thing now. You don’t need to change much of it, just make guys wrestle.

If you watch international wrestling it’s boring to watch because you can stall and get away with it. There’s not enough points scored.

Todd Hibbs, Olivet College Head Wrestling Coach
I’m one of those folks who is in favor of the one semester sport. I love this sport. I love all the competitions. I love all the time we get to put into it, but I really think one semester is the way to go.

I just think that academically it makes a lot of sense. In a sport where you have weight management issues it makes a lot of sense. I’m pretty strongly in favor of that move.

Rob Koll, Cornell University Head Wrestling Coach
I’d take a month off the season. It’s too darn long. In what sport can you peak for six months? You simply can’t do it. And it’s also a sport where you have the weight cutting and it’s so physical.

The football season is probably about a third as long as wrestling and it’s a similar kind of contact sport. I think you have a lot of injuries because of the length.

The old-timers can say that we always used to be this way but the old-timers didn’t wrestle 150 matches in the summer either. So the season never ends.

I think you could take one month off of competition and it would allow people to focus more on dual meets, which are more exciting. It would allow me to focus more on dual meets as opposed to backing off – and letting kids rest and peak at the right time.

Mike Machholz, Missouri Valley Head Wrestling Coach
What I would like is to go to a little bit later season. Get away from March Madness and make it one semester.

See more at http://www.wrestling411.tv/?p=868

written by Kyle Klingman

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The 2008 year has reached its final day, and in a tradition that we have continued for many years on TheMat.com, I will present my top 10 wrestling stories of the year.

During an Olympic year, many major stories have come from the Olympic Games and the trials process which determines the athletes who competed in the Olympics. However, there were outstanding stories at all levels of our sport, which gave wrestling fans much to enjoy all year long.

The word “unexpected” appeared in many articles this year, especially on the Olympic level of the sport. The longer you are involved in high-level wrestling, the more you understand that it is very difficult to predict the outcome at major events, where there are so many talented and motivated athletes competing under pressure.

Here are my Top 10 wrestling stories in 2008:

1. Henry Cejudo wins Olympic gold medal – The Olympic Games in the ultimate showcase for athletic talent, as the attention of the world focuses on this amazing event once every four years. Winning an Olympic gold medal is the pinnacle of any career. Henry Cejudo put together a performance to remember with his stunning victory at 55 kg in the Beijing Olympics in men’s freestyle. At the age of 21, he became the youngest American Olympic wrestling champion ever. Cejudo lost the first period in all of his matches except the finals but wrestled with the confidence and skill of a veteran star. His victory was the highlight of the U.S. effort at the Olympic Games. His personal story, coming from a challenging childhood and moving to the U.S. Olympic Training Center as a high school junior, added to his tremendous achievement. Cejudo became a celebrity within the sports community after his victory celebration, and he has given our sport considerable positive national and international coverage ever since.

2. Univ. of Iowa returns to top of college wrestling – The Iowa Hawkeyes have a rich tradition in college wrestling, including some of the most dominant teams in the sport’s history. The 2007-08 Hawkeyes lived up to that lofty tradition by capturing the 2008 NCAA Div. I Championships in St. Louis, Mo. by almost 40 points over the field. Led by NCAA champions Brent Metcalf at 149 pounds and Mark Perry at 165 pounds, Tom Brands’ motivated team led throughout the tournament and clinched the team title before the finals. Metcalf was named the Outstanding Wrestler in the tournament, and wrestled with the kind of punishing style that was made famous by Hawkeye greats like Brands. It was the 21st team title for Iowa and perhaps the start of a new run of excellence for the program. Brands said it best when talking about their large margin of victory. “That’s a tribute to this team. They came not to squeak by, but to dominate,” he said.

3. Bouvaisa Saitiev wins third Olympic gold medal – Bouvaisa Saitiev of Russia has been recognized as the greatest freestyle wrestler of his era, starting his amazing Senior-level career with a gold medal in the 1995 World Championships in Atlanta, Ga. From that point on, Saitiev dominated almost every event he entered. He won Olympic gold medals in 1996 and 2004, and six World Championships gold medals. An injured Saitiev placed eighth at the 2006 World Championships, and the next year, his spot was taken over by Makhach Murtazaliev, a 2007 World Champion. Yet, Saitiev came back in 2008 to beat out Murtazaliev for the spot on the Russian team, then dominate the 74 kg weight class in Beijing to win his third Olympic title. He joins Greco-Roman star Alexander Karelin and freestyle star Alexander Medved as three-time Olympic wrestling champions. It may be many years before we see another freestyle wrestler with his combination of skill and toughness.

4. Clarissa Chun captures Women’s World title – It was a breakthrough year for Clarissa Chun, who has been a nationally ranked women’s freestyle wrestler for many years but has never made her mark on the international level. Chun surprised the wrestling world by defeating 2004 Olympic silver medalist Patricia Miranda to make the U.S. Olympic team. Her fifth-place finish at the 2008 Olympic Games featured some outstanding wrestling. Chun was not satisfied. She was the only U.S. Olympian to try out for the 2008 U.S. Women’s World Team and made the most of the opportunity by winning the 48 kg gold medal at the Women’s World Championships in Tokyo, Japan in October. She defeated a talented Makiko Sakamoto of Japan in the semifinals, and showed great composure in winning her finals match over Jyldyz Eshimova-Turtbayeva of Kazakhstan. Chun became only the fifth U.S. wrestler to win a Women’s World title, and an inspiration for those who have the perseverance to pursue their dreams.

5. Wheeler and Miller come through big with Olympic medals – The U.S. came home from the Beijing Olympic Games with three wrestling medals. Two of the medalists might have been considered considerable longshots. Adam Wheeler captured a bronze medal at Greco-Roman at 96 kg and Randi Miller won a bronze medal in women’s freestyle at 63 kg. Both defeated veteran international talents to make the U.S. Olympic Team, with Wheeler knocking off 1995 World bronze medalist Justin Ruiz in the Olympic Trials, and Miller stopping 1994 Olympic silver medalist Sara McMann. In Beijing, both had to bounce back from tough losses in order to win their medals. Miller was defeated in the quarterfinals by Japan’s Olympic champion Kaori Icho, and Wheeler dropped a close match to Germany’s Mirko Englich in the semifinals. Both came back with confidence and won their bronze-medal bouts. Miller stopped three-time World silver medalist Martine Dugrenier of Canada to claim her medal, and Wheeler stopped Korea’s Han Tae-Young for his medal.

6. Jake Deitchler makes Olympic Team at age of 18 – One of the most inspiring performances of the year came during the U.S. Olympic Team Trials for Wrestling in Las Vegas, Nev. in June, when 18-year-old Jake Deitchler stormed the field at 66 kg in Greco-Roman. This weight class had been dominated by Harry Lester, who won World bronze medals in 2006 and 2007 and was No. 1 at the weight for three straight seasons. Deitchler, who had graduated from high school in Minnesota earlier in the spring, wrestled with aggressiveness at the Trials. He shocked Lester in the semifinals, losing the first period but coming back to win 0-5, 5-2, 5-3. In the championship series, he defeated talented Faruk Sahin in two straight matches to make the U.S. Olympic Team. He became the first wrestler from high school to make a U.S. Olympic team in wrestling since Mike Farina of Illinois qualified for the 1976 U.S. Olympic Team in Greco-Roman. Although Deitchler was unable to win a medal at the Olympic Games, he has decided to pursue his Greco-Roman career full-time, choosing to train at the U.S. Olympic Training Center rather than attend the Univ. of Minnesota to wrestle folkstyle. Expect to hear more about Deitchler in the future.

– View the rest at themat.com

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Seattle Times staff reporter

It’s never going to leave, that painful image of defeat. Not in Dan Gable’s mind, not in this lifetime. He won’t allow it. He clings to it like a drowning man trying to stay afloat, because he understands what once had defeated him also made him a champion.

It doesn’t matter that it’s been 30 years. Time heals nothing, not the memory, not the legend and not the gap between the two men, Iowa State’s Dan Gable, the greatest wrestler of all time, and a confident University of Washington sophomore named Larry Owings.

“I don’t think he’s out of my head even today,” Gable said recently.

Their epic match 30 years ago altered the lives of both in ways not anticipated and provided the sport with a story to pass down through generations on the scope of a Biblical parable.

“People are still talking about it,” said Ron Good, editor of the Amateur Wrestling News. “It’s the biggest upset ever in the sport, and it’s a fascinating story.”

Owings and Gable, forever linked, met in the NCAA final for the 142-pound weight class. Gable never lost before he faced Owings in that match, nor after it. But in the final 30 seconds of a close, intense, exhausting match, Owings slipped underneath Gable’s arms for a leg lift or sweep, putting the erstwhile invincible Gable on his back for the winning points. “It was a move,” Owings said, “I had never done before or since.”

Gable was told Owings’ comment and said he didn’t realize the infamous leg sweep was not a practiced move.

“If he had never tried that before, then that tells me it’s desperate. Desperation is something that brings out unusual things,” Gable said. “I had never heard that before. That makes it worse now from my point of view. I kind of wish he had gotten me with his best move.”

It happened March 28, 1970, at McGaw Hall, an 8,800-seat fieldhouse on the Northwestern University campus in Evanston, Ill.

Gable was (and is) the god of the sport, a no-nonsense, punishing force who may have been the world’s best-conditioned athlete. He would get up in the middle of the night to do pushups, knowing his opponent still slept.

His physical makeup was legendary, his results extraordinary. He went 64-0 at Waterloo (Iowa) West High School and 117-0 in three years at Iowa State (freshmen could not compete then) with NCAA titles at 130 and 137 pounds. He was going for his third title at 142 pounds, and virtually everyone thought he was a lock.

Michael Jordan is the Dan Gable of basketball.

“He was a good, solid all-around wrestler who did not make a lot of mistakes,” said Owings, now director of facilities for the Molalla (Ore.) School District. “He was in excellent condition. In that way, he and I were similar. Conditioning was a big part of my preparation.”

Owings ran three miles every morning around the Husky Stadium track, averaging six minutes a mile and sprinting the final quarter-mile in less than a minute. Then he would wrestle two hours a day. He was as relentless and as conditioned as Gable was.

Owings had one more thing Gable didn’t have – implacability. He was driven. The pair had met two years earlier, at the 1968 Olympic Trials when Owings was a senior at Canby (Ore.) High and Gable was a sophomore at Iowa State. Gable won 13-4 and went on; Owings never forgot.

“I knew who he was,” Owings said, somewhat disingenuously. If there was one code Owings lived by then, it was a desire to have a second chance against anyone who had beaten him. Gable was one of the few.

Owings had his first chance at the 1969 NCAA Championships but, as he would later regret, decided to wrestle at 130 pounds, avoiding Gable’s 137-pound class. That wouldn’t happen in 1970. Owings told UW Coach Jim Smith that he was aiming directly at the legend. He would drop down two weight classes, from 158 to 142, just to have a shot at Gable at the NCAAs. Smith would rather have Owings wrestle at 150 pounds.

Smith successfully argued with the seeding committee for his wrestler, who would finish 33-1 that year, to get the second seed behind Gable. It meant that when they met, it would be for the national title – Gable’s final college match.

Mike Gerald, who now lives in Austin, Texas, wrote a book on Owings when the two became acquainted in Oregon. He describes Owings as a “Charles Lindbergh persona, quietly confident,” who believed he could equal Gable’s strength and conditioning.

When Owings arrived, the mind games, so subtly important in this sport, began. He was interviewed by a Chicago newspaper about his chances against the invincible one, and Owings didn’t demur. “I’m not going to this tournament to be a national champion. I’m coming here to beat Gable,” he was quoted.

Gable said a teammate showed him the article. He was intrigued by Owings’ swagger. No one had ever said something that, at least no one who could back it up. He took notice of the young Husky, perhaps more than appropriately.

“When I got to the tournament, I still felt fine – that I could win and do everything I thought I could do,” Gable said. “But I was distracted by Larry Owings. It was a name I had not come across too much ahead of time, but I began paying more attention to him. I don’t know if he planned it or not, but he got inside my head.”

Gable began scouting Owings’ matches. He noticed that the UW wrestler was making “all kinds of mistakes but still ended up pinning his opponent.” The pins were accomplished by Owings’ best move, an inside reverse cradle that left his opponent unable to escape.

Lyle Ballew, a teammate of Owings’, reported back to Owings that during the Iowa State practices, Gable would work with teammates on every possible countermove to the cradle. “It was an indication,” Gerald said, “that Gable was taking him real seriously. He respected his pinning ability.”

Both wrestlers advanced through the tournament by pinning each of their opponents. However, Gable had to deal with more distractions than Owings. He was presented with the Man of the Year award during the championships, the media sought him out before and after every match, and he was struggling under the burden of a 181-match winning streak.

Then, just an hour before the match, ABC-TV convinced him to do a short promo advancing the telecast, which would be shown a week later, by having him tell the viewer to watch him finish his career 182-0. The promo never ran.

“There was probably not 10 people in that crowd of 9,000 or so who would have bet on Owings,” Oklahoma State Coach Myron Roderick said. “I thought it would be a contest. Larry was tough. He wasn’t scared and had nothing to lose. Dan had a lot of pressure on him. It’s hard to win a third NCAA title. Larry took the match to him.”

The house lights were dimmed, with only the overhead lights framing the mat in the center of McGaw Hall. The crowd edged forward. Owings wore a black singlet with white trim, while Gable was in cardinal and gold. Each wore white headgear and white kneepads. This was the featured match of the tournament. Of the century.

It was close throughout the three-period match, and the constant crowd noise was deafening. Within the first 30 seconds, Gable got up 2-0 with a takedown, but Owings came back on a takedown and escape to lead, 3-2. By the end of the second period, Owings had stretched the lead to 7-2 and the crowd was hysterical. Referee Pascal Perri described the noise as “comparable to Niagara Falls during the spring thaw.”

Gable, who admitted he was uncharacteristically worn down as the match dragged on, remembered telling himself, “Don’t get caught in the cradle. Don’t get caught in the cradle.” He could’t believe he was the one affected by his opponent’s reputation.

But Gable made a gritty comeback, as his fans expected him to, late in the match. With less than a minute remaining, the scoreboard showed Owings leading 9-8, but Gable actually had a 10-9 lead. He had two points in riding time that would be rewarded at the end by Perri.

Only 30 seconds remained in the match; and Gable, despite the fact that he could coast to a one-point win, continued to stand up and circle with Owings.

“I had two minutes more riding time, so I was pretty much in control of the match,” Gable said. “(But) I got greedy.”

He tried an arm-bar move, coming over Owings’ shoulder in an attempt to lock him up and take him down. This was Owings’ opportunity, the fateful moment when his never-used leg sweep caught Gable by surprise.

Gable said when Owings grabbed his leg “it was kind of like a slow-motion fall. I didn’t know how the referee would score it.”

Perri had given Owings two points for the takedown and two for a near-fall, as Gable’s shoulders were briefly exposed to the mat. The scorer had not seen the near-fall signal because a TV cameraman had jumped in the way, so Perri stopped the match to explain.

Iowa State Coach Harold Nichols protested. Gable, then and now, says the near-fall was “a judgment call.”

Perri brought the two wrestlers back with 17 seconds left for a final grab-and-hold.

“At that point, once I saw the score and only three seconds left, I knew he couldn’t get two points,” Owings said.

Owings had won, 13-11.

“Stunned was the word,” Owings said of his first moments as the giant-killer. “He (Gable) was dazed and confused. He was stunned he had lost. We were on our knees at the end of the match. We got up, and he offered me his hand and we shook.

“It was bedlam. They shut down the whole tournament for 15 minutes. The roar of the crowd was unbelievable. It was probably the match of the century. We went at it tooth and nail.”

Smith, a man not quite 5 feet tall, ran over and bear-hugged and hoisted his champion. Owings was the first UW wrestler to win an NCAA title, but what mattered was that he had upset a man the Russians reverently called “The Machine,” a man who had won 181 straight matches, 108 by pins.

The fans, said Roderick, “were in shock, as well as excited seeing history. A sophomore had beaten the giant.

“The American people like the underdog, but at the same time there was sadness. Gable was heartbroken. During the award ceremonies, his real feelings came out. Dan stood there crying. It was one of the most emotional scenes I can ever remember.”

Gable was given a four-minute standing ovation during his introduction as the ceremonies stopped.

Iowa State had won the national team championship, but Gable’s loss dominated the headlines. It also dominated him. He had a chance to face Owings again three weeks later, then again seven months later, but Owings lost in the preliminary round. Gable remembers wrestling an opponent while at the same time watching Owings lose on an adjacent mat.

The match at Northwestern had its impact on both wrestlers. Owings, who said, “I did not really realize the scope of what I accomplished,” never again won the championship, losing in the NCAA finals his final two years. He wrestled Gable one more time, in the 1972 Olympic Trials, losing 7-1. As lopsided as that score was, it was the only point allowed by Gable during the trials or the Olympics.

Owings briefly wrestled internationally and retired in 1973 to his home in Oregon. He coached for a while, then settled into obscurity of teaching and administrating.

Gable’s career soared. After his Olympic title, he coached the Iowa Hawkeyes to 21 consecutive Big Ten titles and 15 national championships in his 21 years as head coach, going 355-21-5. He now does university fund raising and works with the U.S. Olympic team.

“After that match, it took me a long time to really admit a lot of things,” Gable said. “I really didn’t want to see it or talk about it much. But I have to admit to this day that match made my career, not only the next two years. It had a tremendous impact on my entire coaching career.”

Gable said he learned not to take an opponent lightly, to eliminate distractions and accentuate an aura of invincibility and intimidation toward an opponent, just as Owings had done to him.

Gable is in the U.S. Wrestling Hall of Fame in Stillwater, Okla. Owings, despite a national title and an 87-4 record at Washington (52-1 in dual meets), is not.

“Probably some day,” said Roderick, who is president of the museum. “You can’t put someone in because of one match. If he had won two national championships it would be easier, but he never went to the Olympics and didn’t do much international wrestling.”

But Owings has a prominent spot in the Hall, with a large picture of the match and some mementos. It is annually the most viewed element in the Hall. Moderator: When I visited the Hall in 2006, Owings’ singlet worn in the match was on display, right next to Gable’s Iowa State uniform, right in the lobby.

Owings has not talked to Gable since 1980, and that was a brief conversation to ask him to consider looking at a wrestler in his district. During the conversation, neither mentioned the match. They haven’t talked to each other since.

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Along with his twin brother Duane, a teenage boy named Dennis Koslowski was exposed to wrestling during physical education class in Webster, S.D. Who would know that this would eventually lead the twins to an international wrestling career that would take them both to the Olympic Games?

“The high school wrestling coach was also the phys ed teacher,” said Duane Koslowski. “He recognized two young farm boys as raw but very strong. We both did well at an early age in wrestling.”

It was Dennis, the smaller of the two twin brothers, who became one of the most successful U.S. Greco-Roman wrestlers ever and now a Distinguished Member of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame.

“It was the instant gratification of hard work that appealed to me,” said Dennis Koslowski about wrestling. “You put in the effort and it pays off. You learn new moves and get to see it work in competition. Duane and I were the type of guys who, on the long ride home from tournaments, would go over every portion of the matches while the other guys were sleeping. We had a different approach.”

Dennis Koslowski became the first U.S. Greco-Roman wrestler to win two medals at the Olympic Games. Koslowski captured a bronze medal at 100 kg/220 lbs. at the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, South Korea, and came back to win a silver medal at the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, Spain.

“His power was legendary, his skills were masterful, and his composure was rock solid,” said Tom Minkel, head coach of the 1992 Olympic Greco-Roman Team. “He routinely wrecked the opponents in his weight class – and he was a gentleman while doing it.”

At Doland High School in South Dakota, Duane Koslowski was a state champion and state runner-up in wrestling, while Dennis Koslowski was third in the state two times. The brothers went on to the University of Minnesota-Morris, where they both excelled in wrestling and football.

Dennis won two NCAA Div. III national wrestling titles at UM-Morris, capturing the 190 title in 1980 and the Heavyweight title in 1982. Duane won the Div. III national wrestling title in wrestling once. In football, Dennis was a three-time All-Conference offensive lineman, while Duane made All-Conference and All-American as a lineman. The brothers competed in the NCAA Div. III football playoffs four times, including two trips to the semifinals.

It was Dennis Koslowski who continued wrestling after college, with encouragement from 1980 Olympian Brad Rheingans and talented Greco-Roman coach Dan Chandler. Koslowski went to Minneapolis to attend chiropractor school, and trained in Greco-Roman, a style which he had no previous experience. Duane retired from wrestling, as he concentrated on his family and a professional career.

Koslowski quickly became a force in U.S. Greco-Roman wrestling. He won the his first of seven USA Wrestling national titles in 1983 and defeated talented Greg Gibson to make his first U.S. World team that year, placing sixth in the World. In the 1984 Olympic Trials, however, Gibson defeated Koslowski in a close three-match battle, and Gibson went on to win an Olympic silver medal at the Los Angeles Games.

“I was just starting to get the hang of it,” said Dennis Koslowski. “Part of me didn’t want to go to that Olympic camp. But if my idea was to continue, I knew that experience would be in my memory. I worked out with Gibson and Jeff Blatnick all summer. I never lost to them the whole time. That was also when Duane decided to throw his hat in the ring, and become a training partner for me. It worked out great for us both.”

Duane moved up to Minneapolis, and “the Minnesota twins” became a force internationally. Dennis was sixth in the 1985 World Championships and seventh in the 1986 World Championships. In 1987, Dennis made his first major international breakthrough, winning a World silver medal. Duane placed fourth in the 1986 World Championships and fifth in the 1987 World Championships.

“All throughout our wrestling career, we leapfrogged one another,” said Dennis Koslowski of his wrestling journey alongside brother Duane. “One would have success and the other one would see it and also get better. We’d think if he can do it, I can do it. Each of us would surge at different times and see the other brother’s confidence.”

Dennis realized that he had done everything necessary to be an international star, and focused on winning the close matches against the top competitors.

“From the first time I made the World Team, my focus turned to being the best in the world, not just the best in the USA,” said Dennis. “I studied my opponents, watched tape, and reviewed tactics. My thing was that a guy was never going to take me down with his best move or turn me with his best move. I got into the physical conditioning level where it became a physical chess match. I got to where I belonged there. It was a matter of doing it on the mat.”

In 1988, the Koslowski brothers reached their dream of qualifying for the Olympic Games, winning the Olympic Trials and earning a trip to the Seoul Games. At the Olympics, Dennis had the best performance on the U.S. team, capturing the bronze medal. His loss was to eventual champion Andrej Wronski of Poland. Dennis was the first U.S. Greco-Roman wrestler to win a medal at a non-boycotted Olympics. Duane placed eighth at super heavyweight.

After the Seoul Olympics, the Koslowski brothers retired from competition. Dennis accepted the position of National Greco-Roman Coach for USA Wrestling, the first full-time professional coach to lead Greco-Roman Team USA. In 1989, under Koslowski’s leadership, the USA placed sixth in the World Championships, led by World silver medalist Michial Foy. In 1990, Koslowski resigned from his coaching position to return to Minnesota to start his own chiropractic practice and focus more on his family.

“I had more time to apply to wrestling that year as a coach,” said Koslowski. “I studied a lot of tape and saw the tactics of the best wrestlers in the world. I knew if I wanted to wrestle again that I needed a break. As the coach, I worked out and wrestled every day. I thought to myself that I can still do it.”

Koslowski returned to the mats in 1991 for another run at the Olympic Games. He won his sixth career U.S. Nationals title then earned a spot on the World Team. Although he did not surrender an offensive point, Koslowski placed seventh at the World meet. In 1992, Koslowski won his seventh national title then qualified for his second Olympic Games with a victory at the Olympic Trials.

In the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games, Koslowski defeated 1988 Olympic champion Andzej Wronski of Poland in the opening match, then qualified for the gold-medal finals, where he was defeated by Cuba’s World champion Hector Millian in a hard-fought battle in overtime. His silver medal was once again the top performance of a U.S. Greco-Roman wrestler at the Olympics.

“I felt like I was on a wave, and as long as I didn’t get in my own way, I’d get a medal,” said Dennis Koslowski. “I felt I did what I had to do to win. I was super confident.”

Koslowski was the first U.S. Greco-Roman wrestler to win two Olympic medals. Only one person has matched his feat, the legendary Rulon Gardner. His three career Greco-Roman World and Olympic medals was also matched by Gardner, behind only Matt Ghaffari with four Greco-Roman medals. His seven national titles, two national runner-up finishes, four World Cup silver medals, two Pan American Games silver medals and four Concord Cup International titles stacks up with the best in American history.

“We have had many outstanding Greco-Roman wrestlers in the United States, but very few who were great. Dennis Koslowski was great and it is fitting that he will be inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame,” said Dan Chandler, Koslowski’s club coach and an Olympic team coach. “As a coach, it was always a pleasure to work with an athlete who was a true student of the sport. It was highlight of my coaching career to have worked with Dennis in Seoul and Barcelona.”

Not only was Dennis Koslowski successful on the mat, but he wrestled with a passion and style that made him great.

“His discipline and belief was always there,” said twin brother Duane. “A lot of people could have quit along the journey. When you had to wrestle him, he wore you out. There was not a lot of finesse. You could see World class guys who wrestled him and just quit. He wasn’t going around you. He was going through you.”

His chiropractor practice in Minneapolis has thrived, with Koslowski working with the NFL Minnesota Vikings as well as other important clients. He remained active in wrestling by coaching with the Minnesota Storm club and helping train other Greco-Roman wrestlers. Koslowski has been elected into the Div. III Wrestling Hall of Fame as well as the UM-Morris Athletic Hall of Fame.

“It is overwhelming,” said Dennis Koslowski of being elected to the National Wrestling Hall of Fame. “There are a lot of different roads to the Hall of Fame. I didn’t have the pedigree coming out of high school and college. That is what I am most proud of. It is very exciting to tell my coaches, friends and training partners about this honor.”

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“When dad came home, he shook the sawdust out of his pants and he started showing me holds. I liked it. I had a lot of energy as a kid. They started taking me to local club practice,” said Gutches.

He had an uncle named Kent who was active in wrestling and took him to practice sessions with older wrestlers. When he was eight, Kent brought him to junior high practice. When he was in junior high, he worked out with high school wrestlers. When he was in high school, he was coached by an Olympic wrestler, and even had a number of workouts with an Olympic champion. Although Gutches would get beaten by the older training partners, he continued to learn and get better.

“You are in survival mode that first year,” said Gutches. “You learn to wrestle with the guys. You improve and you raise your level. It was the same adaptive process my whole career. Wrestling at the next level before I was actually there helped me make the transition that much sooner.”

This was a pattern that followed him throughout his career as he always seemed to be competing at a level higher than his age.

A tough and talented competitor, as well as a true student of the game, Les Gutches achieved great things every step of the way. He reached the pinnacle of international wrestling in 1997, when he won a World gold medal in freestyle wrestling at 85 kg/187.25 lbs. in Krasnoyarsk, Russia. In 2009, he will be enshrined as a Distinguished Member of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame.

“I remember the day I committed to wrestling,” said Gutches. “I was in Wymer, Ore. and was watching Dave and Mark Schultz win the Olympic gold medals at the 1984 Olympic Games. They mentioned their connection to Ashland, Ore. which was nearby. I pictured myself in that situation and decided that was something I’d like to work towards.”

When Les was 15 years old, his father woke him up in the middle of the night when their house was on fire, and got the family out to safety. When they had to rebuild after the home was totally destroyed, the Gutches moved to a new community. Les ended up in a different school system, and became a student at South Medford High School.

There he was able to compete for coaches Pete Lucas and 1972 Olympian Sergio Gonzalez. Lucas, who wrestled in college, worked out with Gutches because they were the same size. Gonzalez was also a major influence, teaching Gutches about visualization and relaxation as well as outstanding technique. Gutches won three Oregon state high school titles at South Medford High School

“As a senior in high school, I was also able to wrestle one of my heroes, Mark Schultz,” said Gutches. “It was like Godzilla versus Bambi. Although we didn’t wrestle that many times, because he beat me so badly, Mark helped me a lot. I learned intensity from Mark Schultz. I never had met anybody with such a laser focus. I was able to see where I needed to be.”

Gutches became a star within USA Wrestling’s age-group wrestling programs. He was the first to win USA Wrestling national titles on five age-group levels (Cadet, Junior, Espoir, University, Senior). He competed in the World Championships on four age-group levels, as well. He won a Cadet World silver medal in 1989 and an Espoir World bronze medal in 1993.

Gutches had a remarkable career at Oregon State Univ., winning NCAA titles in 1995 and 1996, and placing fifth in the 1994 NCAA Championships. He received the Dan Hodge Trophy as the nation’s top college wrestler in 1996 and finished with a 134-10 record. Gutches did not allow an offensive point during his junior year, and allowed just one takedown during his last two years in college.

“Les had an intense desire to learn, work and train with the goal of being a NCAA, World and Olympic champion,” said Mark Johnson, a 1980 Olympian who was his first coach at Oregon State. “His credentials and accomplishments are certainly deserving of this recognition. In addition, Les is also an extremely good person, and a great representative of our sport. He is an intelligent, articulate guy who has been a very positive role model throughout his career.”

While he was still in college, he was already making waves in international freestyle wrestling. After his junior season, Gutches placed second behind 1992 Olympic champion Kevin Jackson at both the U.S. Nationals and the World Team Trials. But after his senior year, Gutches was able to beat Jackson at the U.S. Nationals and Olympic Team Trials to make the 1996 U.S. Olympic Team. He placed seventh in the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, Ga., his first test on the Senior international scene.

“Kevin was a World champion in 1995. He was somebody you knew would always be a tough opponent. He pushed you to train harder,” said Gutches. “In 1996, I under performed at the Olympics. I didn’t have the finish I wanted and the USA deserved. That pushed me to be more prepared.”

Gutches held off Jackson and other top U.S. competitors to remain No. 1 in the USA for the next three seasons. In 1997, he won his World gold medal in his first World Championships held in Russia, and he added a World bronze medal in 1999.

“It is not easy to win a World title, but to win a World title on Russian soil is an amazing thing,” said Bruce Burnett, USA Wrestling National Freestyle Coach during Gutches’ career. “I was blessed to work with Les on Cadet teams, Junior World team, University teams and on the Senior level. As good a wrestler as he is, he is a better person. He was one of the best technicians we have had, and physically one of the most talented. His mindset and mental toughness raised him above the others.”

After Kevin Jackson retired, he became USA Wrestling’s National Freestyle Resident Coach and ended up coaching Gutches on the daily basis at the U.S. Olympic Training Center.

“He was a fierce competitor. He was part of the era that if he knocked me off, he was expected to be a World champion himself. He followed the culture and tradition that had been set for us. Our rivalry and relationship was positive for us both,” said Jackson. “Having the opportunity for me to coach him shows his character. He didn’t allow our rivalry as athletes to get in his way of reaching his goals. He was a true champion. It was a pleasure working with him and a pleasure competing against him.”

In 2000, after winning the U.S. Nationals for the fifth straight year, Gutches injured his back and delayed his Olympic Trials finals series due to the injury. He lost to Charles Burton in a Special Wrestle-off, not able to perform at his best. Gutches retired from competition after that year.

“It is the nature of the sport. Sometimes, you are going to get hurt,” said Burnett about the injury which hampered Gutches at the end of his career. “You hope that it is not at the wrong time. For him, it was. You move on. He has a successful career and a great family. Life did not stop for him. He is truly a great ambassador for the sport.”

Gutches won all of the major events on the international circuit, including 1999 World Cup, the 1999 Pan American Games and the 1998 Goodwill Games. He won many major awards, including the 1997 Amateur Wrestling News Man of the Year, as well as Freestyle Wrestler of the Year for USA Wrestling and the U.S. Olympic Committee. He was a finalist for the James E. Sullivan Award in 1997.

All during his career, Gutches was aware of his place in wrestling history. Although he was often ahead of his time, Gutches was also part of a long line of international stars at his weight class.

“That was the nature of being at 180 pounds,” said Gutches. “We have a lot of tradition in that weight class. There was John Peterson, Mike Sheets, Dave Schultz and Kevin Jackson. It continued with me and with Cael Sanderson. It was a tough weight class for us in the United States.”

Gutches worked for eight years as an assistant wrestling coach at his alma mater Oregon State. He has since pursued a career in business, working now as a commercial lender for Citizen’s Bank. He and his wife Jennifer have two young children, Lexi and Logan.

“I am extremely excited to be selected for the National Wrestling Hall of Fame,” said Gutches. “It may not be a goal to set out for, but it is the highlight of my wrestling career and something I am proud of. It couldn’t have been possible without the support of family and friends.”

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Henry Cejudo, the only American to capture a gold medal in wrestling at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, China, recently negotiated with Japanese promoters for a match on that country’s biggest event of the year, the annual New Year’s Eve event on network television that has become almost a cultural institution.

Promoters wanted to throw Cejudo, 21, into the deep end, as they wanted him to face Norifumi “Kid” Yamamoto, Japan’s most popular MMA fighter. The match would have a storyline where Yamamoto would be fighting for national pride, since Cejudo defeated a fellow Japanese wrestler, Tomohiro Matsunaga, in the gold medal match in the 121-pound weight class.

However, Yamamoto, coming off knee surgery, at this point doesn’t look like he’ll be ready.

Rick Bassman, who represents Cejudo, said talks are still ongoing but with Yamamoto out, it makes it less likely Cejudo would be brought in to debut on such a high profile show.

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