Takedown Report

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 50^th 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 The TakeDown Report | Uncategorized | ncaa, sports, wrestling