Takedown Report

Amateur Wrestling Reports

T.J. Jaworsky Looks Back At His Storied Career

he three-time NCAA champ will receive a big honor this weekend.
By: Steve Kirschner
Note: T.J. Jaworsky will be inducted into the North Carolina Chapter of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame on Sunday May 18.
A three-time NCAA champion in perhaps the most physically grueling individual sport there is. Most Outstanding Wrestler in the NCAA Tournament. National Wrestler of the Year. Undefeated senior season.
Given that lofty list of accomplishments, it is undeniably fair to include T.J. Jaworsky, even 30 years after his final collegiate match, as one of the finest to ever compete in any sport at the University of North Carolina.
The state of Oklahoma doesn’t have much of a pipeline to the Tar Heel State and Carolina athletics, but legendary former wrestling coach Bill Lam, basketball standouts Steve Hale and Brady Manek, two-time national champion assistant basketball coach Joe Holladay and Jaworsky, one of the most successful college wrestlers ever, have made the connection rich in history.
Jaworsky began wrestling at age 5 in Enid, moved to Edmond in the sixth grade, won four state high school titles and eventually competed for two years (one as a red-shirt) at Oklahoma State, one of the sport’s historic programs. But Jaworsky needed a change after suffering an upset loss in the 1992 NCAA Tournament and looked east to find a program where he could fulfill his dream of becoming a multi-time national champion.
“I called NC State but Coach (Bob) Guzzo said he had the ACC champion at my weight coming back, Duke said I was too much of a wrestler for them, and everyone in Oklahoma knows about Coach Lam, so Carolina was a great situation for me,” says Jaworsky, who lives in California now, where he co-owns a stone quarry with his step-father.
“In Oklahoma, wrestling is like basketball is in North Carolina. It’s a big sport. Coach Lam’s reputation followed him to UNC, he had a good recruiting class and I had weekly and monthly goals to win championships. He thought those were lofty goals, and I said, ‘Exactly, that’s what I want to do.'”
Jaworsky not only met those goals, but he also likely exceeded them, winning three ACC championships, earning two ACC Tournament MVPs and a spot on the ACC’s 50th Anniversary team, leading Carolina to a pair of top-10 finishes in the NCAA Championships (sixth in 1994 and eighth in 1995) and winning 110 of 115 matches as a Tar Heel.
Three decades later, Jaworsky remains Carolina’s all-time leader in career winning percentage (.957) and wins by fall (50), single-season pins (24) and the single-season record for most wins in a perfect season (38-0-0 in 1994-95).
For those achievements and others, Jaworsky is being inducted in the North Carolina chapter of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame. “T.J. had the three characteristics of what it takes to be a champion – heart, talent and work ethic, with heart being the most important,” says Lam. “T.J. had the most unbelievably competitive heart, … more at … https://goheels.com/news/2025/5/16/wrestling-t-j-jaworsky-looks-back-at-his-storied-career

May 26, 2025 Posted by | Uncategorized | , , | Leave a comment

A New Era for the US Men’s Freestyle Team?

In the 1998 hit “Closing Time” by Semisonic, the band sings that “every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.” That song came to me as I was following the World Team Trials this weekend, particularly from the men’s freestyle avenue of the tournament. 
In 2018, UWW expanded its weight class offerings from eight to ten and modified some of the actual weights. Those changes allowed the US men’s freestyle team to get a few more wrestlers that were blocked by returning team members into the mix. What resulted has been a great era of wrestling – one of the best in our storied history. 
This golden era has had some consistent central figures. Kyle Snyder has been a part of every world/Olympic team since 2015. Kyle Dake has made all seven world/Olympic teams since 2018. Jordan Burroughs has made five world teams in that time period. David Taylor made six world/Olympic teams during that span. James Green made four. J’den Cox made four, as did Thomas Gilman. 
Now, in the spring of 2025, we could be looking at a world team that has none of those central figures! Snyder’s status is up in the air after his recent arrest. Green did not make the finals of the WTT’s. Dake is up a weight class and will have to avenge a US Open loss against Zahid Valencia (with two wins) to make the 2025 squad. Cox, Gilman, and Taylor are all in the coaches chairs. Burroughs did not participate in any of the qualifying events, but has not announced his retirement. 
The first year of a new Olympic cycle is traditionally filled with retirements and weight changes, so it’s not unusual to see this type of transition. However, the amount of change that we could see is out of the ordinary. 
With Dake’s move up to 86 kg, we’ll have a representative at 74 kg not named Burroughs or Dake for the first time since 2010! … more at … https://intermatwrestle.com/articles.html/international/a-new-era-for-the-us-mens-freestyle-team-r100263/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

May 26, 2025 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment