Service Academies Have Record Year At NCAA Wrestling Championships
All three military service academies had a place winner at the 2024 NCAA Championships, while Coast Guard crowned its first national champion.
The United States military service academies had a banner year at the NCAA Wrestling Championships, including the first national champion for Coast Guard.
Air Force, Army, and Navy had a place winner at the NCAA Division I Championships for the first time since 2003. Wyatt Hendrickson of Air Force (3rd at 285 pounds), Ben Pasiuk of Army (8th at 174 pounds), and David Key of Navy (8th at 184 pounds) reached the podium of this year’s national tournament.
Chase Randall of Coast Guard won an NCAA Division III Championship at 133 pounds and was named Oustanding Wrestler. Two of Randall’s teammates, Coy Spooner (6th at 197) and Carl DiGiorgio (3rd at 285), also placed.
Air Force Coach Sam Barber On Service Academies At The 2024 NCAA Championships
“Having all three Division I service academies place athletes on the podium in Kansas City hopefully shines the spotlight on what Kevin (Ward), Cary (Kolat), and myself already know about what is possible at a Federal Service Academy if you are committed to pursuing excellence on and off the mat. “All three Academies have the resources, training partners, and world-class coaches to enhance your growth and development in pursuit of NCAA National Titles, All-American Honors, World Teams, and World Medals. Wyatt, Ben, and David proved that to be true this weekend. I have watched all three athletes improve each year on the mat and as leaders on their teams and within the respective Academies.
“Further, it does not take any more time and effort to compete and win at the highest level at a Service Academy. We have the same 20 hours a week that every other program has. Our athletes have big goals and high inner motivation; the three All-Americans this past weekend got there through their willpower, determination, and hard work. As coaching staff and programs, we impacted the results and supported their efforts by ensuring they had every recourse necessary. We spend our time growing and developing our athletes, and they beat a lot of big-board recruits
“Finally, I never promise any recruit a result or an achievement on the mat. That is up to them as they utilize and maximize the resources we make available to them. What I do promise them is a world-class education, the opportunity to be part of something bigger than themselves, a challenging but fulfilling college experience that will be paid for in a full-ride scholarship, plus a monthly paycheck; upon graduation, you have a guaranteed job making an excellent wage and life long relationships with your brothers in arms that will last your lifetime. “Wyatt, Ben, and David put in the work on and off the mat. … story at … Flowrestling.org/Service-academies-have-record-year-at-ncaa-wrestling-championships
Top 80 All-Time Division I Coaches – TDR # 31 – 74
The coaches are ranked by the number of dual meet wins while they were a head coach at a Division I school.
- Dale Thomas (Oregon State) 616
- Harold Nichols (Iowa St.) 493
- John Smith (Oklahoma State Univ.) 490 (14)
- Gary Taylor (Rider) 442
- Bobby Douglas (Iowa St/CSSB/ArizSU) 440
- J Robinson (Minnesota) 440
- Jack Childs (Drexel) 423
- T.J. Kerr (U. Calif. Bakersfield/San Jose St.) 421
- Wally Johnson (Minnesota Univ.) 392
- John Johnston (Princeton) 382
- Bill Lam (North Carolina Univ.) 378
- Tom Borelli (Central Michigan) 368 (8) up 1 spot
- Lonnie Timmerman (Drake) 364
- Bob Guzzo (N.C. State ) 356
- Dan Gable (Iowa) 355
- Russ Hellickson (Ohio St./Wisc.) 350
- Paul Mance (Appalachian State.) 348
- Rob Koll (North Carolina/Stanford/Cornell) 338 (11)
- Brian Smith (Missouri/Syracuse) 336 (10) up 2 spots
- Gray Simons (ODU, Tenn, L. Haven, Ind. St.) 327
- Carl Adams (Boston Univ.) 326
- Tom Ryan (Ohio State/Hofstra) 322 (15) up 7 spots
- Bob Bubb (Clarion Univ.) 322
- Jack Spates (Oklahoma & Cornell) 322
- Dave Amato (Brown) 319
- Joe Seay (Okla.St., Ca.-Bak., U.Tenn.-Chatt.) 319
- Mark Manning (Nebraska/Northern Iowa) 317 (12) up 3 spots
- Dennis Deliddo (Cal. St. Fresno) 313
- Ron Finley (Oregon Univ.) 311
- Ed Peery (U.S. Naval Academy) 311
- Randy Stottlemyer (Pittsburgh) 304
- Stan Abel (Oklahoma, Cincinnati) 302
- Roger Sanders (Bloomsburg, New York Univ.) 300
- Duane Goldman (Indiana Univ.) 297
- Dick Bonacci (Cleveland State) 296
- Tom Brands (Iowa & Virginia Tech) 294 (12) up 3 spots
- John McHugh (Maryland, Catholic, American) 288
- Craig Turnbull (West Virginia Univ.) 287
- Joe Begala (Kent State Univ.) 282
- Ed Carlin (Syracuse Univ.) 280
- Jim Zalesky (Oregon State/Iowa) 274 (now at NAIA school)
- Clifford Keen (Michigan Univ.) 274
- Tim Flynn (West Virginia/Edinboro St.) 264 (10) up 1 spot
- Dave McCuskey (Iowa / Univ. Northern Iowa) 262
- Ron Gray (Kent St./Franklin & Marshall) 253
- Joel Greenlee (Ohio Univ.) 251 (7) up 1 spot
- Arnold ‘Swede’ Umbach (Auburn Univ) 249
- Roger Reina (Pennsylvania, Univ. of) 248 (6)
- Cael Sanderson (Penn State, Iowa State) 247 (12) up 3 spots
- Pat Popolizio (North Carolina St., SUNY-Bing.) – 245 (14) up 6 spots
- Kevin Dresser (Iowa St./Virginia Tech Un.) 241 (13) up 6 spots
- Red W. Watkins (Appalachian State/Maryville) 239
- Joe McFarland (Michigan/Indiana) 238
- Ed Steers (Army, E.C.U. William&Mary) 235
- Barry Davis (Wisconsin) 234
- Pat Santoro (Lehigh University, Maryland) 232 (7) up 3 spots
- Oscar Gupton (Virginia Military Institute) 232
- Mark Johnson (Illinois & Oregon State) 231
- Tommy Chesbro (Oklahoma State) 227
- Harry Houska (Ohio University) 224
- William Sheridan (Lehigh & Penn) 222
- Scott Goodale (Rutgers University) – 221 (12) up 8 spots
- Bob Carlson (Utah State) 221
- Fred Powell (Slippery Rock State) 221
- Dale Bahr (Michigan) 221
- Bill Harvey (Duke) 220
- Chuck Patten (Northern Iowa Univ.) 217
- Grady Peninger (Michigan State Un.) 213
- Ed Michael (Buffalo) 213
- Fred Davis (Brigham Young Un.) 210
- Bill Koll (Penn State, Northern Iowa, Cornell Coll.) 208
- William “Sully” Krouse (Maryland) 207
- Paul Billy (Delaware Univ.) 206
- Jim Andrassy (Kent State Univ.) 203 (5) up 3 spots
- Jimmy Miller (Cornell Univ.) 203
- Linn Long (So. Illini-Carbondale/Colorado) 203
- Tim Neumann (Nebraska) 199
- Charles Sherwood (Cent. Mich. Un.) 195
- Jerry Cheynet (Virginia Tech) 194
- Charlie Speidel (Penn State) 191
Did Penn State Deliver the Greatest Season in NCAA Wrestling History?
Coach Cael Sanderson’s Nittany Lions won the NCAA Wrestling title with an epic performance in Kansas City.
After the greatest season in Penn State wrestling history — and perhaps the greatest in college wrestling history — the Nittany Lions returned to State College intent on doing it again. Maybe even better next time. “That’s what we do. We always think ahead preparing for the future,” Sanderson told reporters after the 2024 NCAA Wrestling Championships in Kansas City. “We’ll be back in the room on Monday. We love what we do. We love to train. We love the sport of wrestling. Happy for the guys. Obviously I say this every time but your heart and your mind, you just kind of expect to win and you believe and expect that your guys are going to win. So it’s the ones that don’t quite reach their goal that occupy your mind and your heart.”
Penn State absolutely barnstormed the 2024 NCAA Wrestling Championships, setting a scoring record, smashing the differential record, winning four individual titles, and becoming the first college wrestling program with two four-time champions. And amazingly, Penn State might not have reached its own stratospheric goals. The program sought to become just the second in NCAA history with 10 All-Americans and peered at winning six individual titles, which would have set a new record.
Ultimately, the Nittany Lions settled for eight All-Americans (one writing a tremendous story), 172.5 team points (topping Iowa’s former record), and a 100-point margin of victory, by far the largest in tournament history. Sanderson won his 11th NCAA team title as Penn State’s head coach, tying Oklahoma State’s E.C. Gallagher for the second-most among Division I coaches. Sanderson’s next milestone is 15, the number of titles Dan Gable won at Iowa.
Of course, Penn State’s publicly stoic head coach won’t wade into that territory. Instead, he grew philosophical about the sport itself. “It’s always been a game. That’s just the way I was raised,” Sanderson said. “You want to win every game we play. … story at … SI.com/college/Penn-state-wrestling-2024-ncaa-championships-review
Girls are falling in love with wrestling, the nation’s fastest-growing high school sport
By Marc Levy
MECHANICSBURG, Pa. (AP) — Jody Mikhail was a sophomore at Pennsylvania’s Cumberland Valley High School when a poster for a new girls’ wrestling club caught her eye. So Mikhail, a senior now, tried the sport. “I fell in love with it the first time,” she said.
Unlike previous generations, she’s hardly alone.
Girls’ wrestling has become the fastest-growing high school sport in the country, sanctioned by a surging number of states and bolstered by a movement of medal-winning female wrestlers, parents and the male-dominated ranks of coaches and administrators who saw it as a necessity and a matter of equality. Where once girls wrestled on boys teams and against boys, increasingly they are wrestling on girls teams and against girls. And now that they are wrestling in sanctioned and official tournaments against girls, their names are going onto plaques on their high schools’ walls and into state record books.
This year, Kentucky, Rhode Island and Pennsylvania held their first state-sanctioned girls’ wrestling championships, while Louisiana became the 45th state to sanction the sport. At the collegiate level, women’s wrestling is designated as an “emerging” sport and is on track to become a championship-level sport in 2026, the NCAA said.
A rapidly growing sport
In Pennsylvania — where the Penn State men are ranked No. 1 and the state’s male and female wrestlers dominated last year’s 16-and-under national team championships — the number of girl wrestlers in high schools nearly doubled this year as the state rocketed to more than 180 high school teams from none in 2020.
Hundreds of girls competed in Pennsylvania’s first sanctioned state tournament, including Mikhail, after years of girls having no choice but to wrestle boys or, if they did wrestle girls, seeing the same handful of faces, year after year, in tournaments organized by local wrestling organizations. Even for girls who compete nationally or hope to wrestle in college, wrestling in state-sanctioned tournaments brings status.
“It really does bring this level of, I think, having these girls feel seen,” said Brooke Zumas, a former wrestling coach who was active in the movement to get the sport sanctioned in Pennsylvania.
Girls who have competed for years are seeing new faces and big crowds in this year’s state-sanctioned championship tournaments. “There were never tournaments like this,” said Savannah Witt, a state champion wrestler from Pennsylvania’s Palisades High School who has wrestled for 10 years. “It’s awesome to see. I’ve been used to running into the same, like, three faces at tournaments. Now you come here, I’m like, ‘I don’t know half these girls.’”
Over the past decade, the number of high school girls’ teams quadrupled nationally and the number of girls wrestling in high school quintupled to over 50,000 through last year, according to figures from the National Federation of State High School Associations.
Last year alone, it shot up nearly 60%, the biggest increase for the sport in decades.
Still, the number of girls wrestling in high school was one-fifth of the number of boys last year and the 14th biggest by participation, trailing the stalwarts of American girls’ athletics — track and field, volleyball, soccer, basketball and softball — but also tennis, swimming, golf, lacrosse, cross country and cheerleading. Another leap will likely vault girls’ wrestling past field hockey.
‘The world is changing’
Wrestling is something of a niche sport: it has arcane rules and lacks a mass media presence that helps stoke interest. For many, it takes a family tradition, a brother or a proselytizing coach. And wrestlers and coaches describe it as a sport daunting for its extreme physicality — but a sport that is unmatched in teaching inner strength and discipline.
Some see the rise of girls’ wrestling as part of a larger arc in women’s sports: the U.S. women’s national soccer team has captured the nation’s attention and the Big Ten’s women’s basketball tournament sold out after Caitlin Clark smashed the women’s NCAA scoring record. “When women first had a chance to participate in sports in an organized fashion, it was in sports that were considered feminine,” said Jackie Paquette, who two years ago became the first female executive at the National Wrestling Coaches Association. “It was tennis, it was golf, it was swimming. It was considered graceful. Wrestling is the opposite of that in a sense, so it has been hard for some to accept women in that form. But we are finding out now that the world is changing.”
Still, boosters say wrestling is accessible: there’s a weight class for every body type, there are fewer competing winter sports and all a wrestler needs is a pair of wrestling shoes.
In 1990, barely over 100 girls were on high school rosters in the entire country, and before 2018 just six states had sanctioned it. In 2016, national champion wrestler Sally Roberts founded the advocacy organization Wrestle Like a Girl and began talking to USA Wrestling, the National Wrestling Coaches Association and the National Wrestling Hall of Fame — male-dominated organizations that nevertheless got on board for girls’ wrestling.
Something else happened that year: American wrestler Helen Maroulis scored a shocking victory at the Rio De Janeiro Olympics to win a gold medal — the first ever for an American in women’s wrestling. “Other girls said, ‘I want to be her,’” Roberts said.
Changing minds and stereotypes
Parents and coaches lobbied school boards and athletic directors and recruited girls in their schools. James Stettler, a teacher and a wrestling coach in Pennsylvania’s Central Dauphin district, recalled going to back-to-school nights to hand out fliers to parents. … story at … APnews.com/Wrestling-girls-high-school
TDR blog
After 20 seasons of publicizing wrestling The TakeDown Report’s (TDR) focus has changed to the collecting of college coaching records from North America since 1903. We will continue to recognize and reward successful wrestlers in eastern North Carolina (east of Raleigh & Fayetteville), assist with schools in starting or re-starting a team and this blog. Join us on our FaceBook Page – “The TakeDown Report” for photos and news. Please send results, stories, links and news to pass along. E-mail us at takedownreport@gmail.com
Martin Fleming, Editor
Takedown Report
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