Takedown Report

Championship Wrestling Coaches – Division I

TDR Editor’s Notes ; When I saw an article on-line about the top coaches that have guided their teams to National Championships I naturally thought it was just about wrestling coaches since that is the main sport that I follow.  So it was surprising to see Dan Gable listed as having the 7^th most championships overall.  The top six coaches were mostly track coaches that could win as many as 6 championships in one year if they coached both men and women’s teams in Track, Indoor Track and Cross Country.  Coaching a team to a National Championship is commendable and worth recognition.  Thus prompted us to look into who was the coach of championship wrestling teams in NCAA Division I, II and III as well as NAIA and the National Junior College A.A.  This is what was revealed first in Division I.
The coach with the most Division I Championship teams is no surprise to fans of the sport in Dan Gable of Iowa as the leader with 15 championship teams in just a 20 year span from 1977 to 1997.  The next with championship teams is E.C. Gallagher who won 11 championships with Oklahoma A&M (now known as Oklahoma State) in just 13 seasons from 1927 to 1940.  His successor continued the march of championship performance with eight teams in the next 16 years.  There could have been more, but for three seasons there was no national championship tourney held due to the Second World War.  Thus Oklahoma A&M won 21 championships in 29 years.  Myron Roderick continues the Cowboys dominance with seven more championships in the next 12 years.  Thus behind Gable the next three coaches would be from Oklahoma State if not for the most recent dominate force in Cael Sanderson of Penn State.
Division I fans know that Penn State has been dominate in recent years with eight team titles in the last 10 years with Sanderson as the head coach.  He came east after three years as the head coach at his alma mater, Iowa State.  His teams placed in the top 5 each year and he qualified all 30 wrestlers possible for the nationals.  As a collegiate wrestler he achieved the unique feat of winning all (159) of his matches and four national titles in four consecutive seasons. 
Iowa State had established a history of success with coach Harold Nichols who led his teams to six team championships in the 1960s & 1970s.  Nichols ranks 6^th on the list behind Roderick.  Next with five championships is the current Oklahoma State coach, John Smith.  He directed his team to four consecutive titles in 2003-2006 and finished in the top five 11 times since then.  Smith ranks 2^nd in championships among active head coaches and will be looking to add to his total this season.
Four coaches are tied at 8^th place with three championship teams each.  Jim Zalesky and Tom Brands won championship titles while both coached at Iowa University.  Zalesky won his in three consecutive seasons, 1998 to 2000 but currently is the head coach at Oregon State. Brands is the current head coach and he won his also in three consecutive seasons, 2008-2010. J Robinson won three at University of Minnesota in the first decade of the 2,000s.  In the 1950s Port Robertson of Oklahoma University captured a trio of championships which keep them in the same state as the Cowboys who have won a record leading 34 team titles.
Tied at 12^th place with a pair of championships each are Gary Kurdelmeier of Iowa, Thomas Evans at Oklahoma University and Joe Seay of Oklahoma State.  Kurdelmeier won the first championships for Iowa in 1975 and 1976 then passed the reigns to Gable.  Evans led the Sooners to a pair of titles in the early 1960s while Joe Seay won two in 1989 and 1990 after moving up from coaching Division II championships but that is a story for next time. In 15^th place Twelve coaches have each won one of the remaining championships.  Tom Ryan of Ohio State is the 5^th active coach with a national championship team.  He has led the Buckeyes to a 2^nd place runner-up finish five times including the last three years.

‘* = active coach
** = active but with a different school

August 25, 2019 - Posted by The TakeDown Report | Uncategorized