Top individual wrestlers and biggest team years of canceled programs?

[MadMardigain 1,242]

Maybe this goes better in the Legends of the Mat sub-forum, and one day it should definitely be placed there.  But for now it deserves the main forum attention that I hope it gets.  
 

Almost annually we see the topic making notice of the former DI programs that are now canceled.   This clearly is worth mentioning often as notice of what we once were and a warning of what we have lost.  However, I feel one piece of their story is often missing.  We rarely hear about the top wrestlers they used to represent these programs.  Or about the years where some of these schools actually had the talent to finish high at nationals.  As someone who loves a deep dive into the history of things I would greatly appreciate any information that can be shared.  Not to mention these schools and wrestlers deserve all of the respect and credit we can shine on them.  

Edited October 12, 2019 by MadMardigain

[potentiallydangerous 191]

Cal State Fullerton

DIVISION I ALL-AMERICANS
285 – Wade Sauer (Nevada Union HS, SJ): 6th Place (2007)
125 – TJ Hill (Famingtn HS, Missouri): 4th (2000)
126 – Joey Coughran (Calvary Chapel HS, S): 8th (1998)
167 – Laszlo Molnar (Hungry): 2nd (1994)
118 – Michael Grubbs (El Camino HS, SD): 5th (1993)
275 – David Jones (Montclair HS, S): 4th (1990), 4th (1991)
158 – Ardeshir Asgari (Iran): 6th Place (1986)
1980 – Mike Elliott (Fontana HS, S): 5th (1980)

 

http://thecaliforniawrestler.com/cal-state-fullerton-d2-d1/

[ionel 1,217]

Kansas State 3rd

126 3rd: Joe Fickel - Kansas State
145 1st: Bill Doyle - Kansas State
155  2nd: John Richardson - Kansas State
UNL 3rd: Hevt Errington - Kansas State 

[Coachp 34]

23 hours ago, MadMardigain said:

Maybe this goes better in the Legends of the Mat sub-forum, and one day it should definitely be placed there.  But for now it deserves the main forum attention that I hope it gets.  
 

Almost annually we see the topic making notice of the former DI programs that are now canceled.   This clearly is worth mentioning often as notice of what we once were and a warning of what we have lost.  However, I feel one piece of their story is often missing.  We rarely hear about the top wrestlers they used to represent these programs.  Or about the years where some of these schools actually had the talent to finish high at nationals.  As someone who loves a deep dive into the history of things I would greatly appreciate any information that can be shared.  Not to mention these schools and wrestlers deserve all of the respect and credit we can shine on them.  

Great topic,...would love to be enlightened, and learn, too.

 

UCLA, Notre Dame, Kansas, Oregon before Phil frik'n Knight....who else ?

Edited October 13, 2019 by Coachp

[KCMO2 595]

Clemson:  Sammie Henson (after transferring from Mizzou) - 2x national champ, world champ, Olympic silver medalist.

[BigTimeFan 953]

Dave and Mark Schultz started at UCLA. 

Gene Mills at Syracuse - here is an article about Syracuse I liked:

http://dailyorange.com/2016/03/its-been-15-years-since-syracuses-wrestling-program-folded-gene-mills-is-trying-to-bring-it-back/

[lu1979 303]

Big Bruce Baumgartner - Indiana State

Jim Bennet Yale Univ

[KTG119 817]

University of Washington had the guy who beat Gable, Larry Owings

[WillieBoy 713]

BYU, Mike Young probably the top guy to come from them.

The school did beat Oklahoma State in Oklahoma, think it was 1967 or 1968?

Fred Davis, NCAA champion from Oklahoma State was the coach at that time. A true gentleman who was underappreciated by the school.

[Bryan 49]

Chris Edmond (University of Tennessee) 1985 National Champion

[KTG119 817]

30 minutes ago, Bryan said:

Chris Edmond (University of Tennessee) 1985 National Champion

they dropped pretty soon after that right?

Those SEC schools had some tough guys before they all dropped. A few that come to mind: Kevin Jackson was at LSU before transferring out after they dropped, Kentucky back in the day had Jimmy Carr, Ricky Dellegatta, etc.  

[JasonBryant 1,654]

27 minutes ago, KTG119 said:

they dropped pretty soon after that right?

Those SEC schools had some tough guys before they all dropped. A few that come to mind: Kevin Jackson was at LSU before transferring out after they dropped, Kentucky back in the day had Jimmy Carr, Ricky Dellegatta, etc.  

... and Jimmy Carr finished his career at Alabama.

[fadzaev2 317]

11 hours ago, BigTimeFan said:

Dave and Mark Schultz started at UCLA. 

Gene Mills at Syracuse - here is an article about Syracuse I liked:

http://dailyorange.com/2016/03/its-been-15-years-since-syracuses-wrestling-program-folded-gene-mills-is-trying-to-bring-it-back/

Mark Kerr 190, 1992 NCAA Champion for Syracuse

[RAJ72 2]

University of Kansas had an Olympic Champ. Phog Allen screwed it up. Interesting article. https://kuhistory.ku.edu/articles/kus-greatest-grappler

[JasonBryant 1,654]

22 minutes ago, RAJ72 said:

University of Kansas had an Olympic Champ. Phog Allen screwed it up. Interesting article. https://kuhistory.ku.edu/articles/kus-greatest-grappler

From that story:

When Bauman stepped down as KU wrestling coach to enter medical school before the 1932-33 academic year, Mehringer became a student-coach for the second time in his young life. He met with continued success on the mat, but Athletic Director Phog Allen would not grant him the funds necessary to travel to the National Intercollegiate Meet to attempt to win a NCAA crown. (Thus it was that Mehringer, an Olympic champion, never could claim a NCAA title.) Financial considerations, made more difficult by Allen’s refusal to permit Mehringer to keep his campus job, led the star athlete to leave the University after his senior year without a degree.

Phog sounded like a complete tool.

[SetonHallPirate 804]

Can't we technically include the 1988 NCAA Champion Arizona State Sun Devils in this discussion? They did have their program dropped for ten days...

[gimpeltf 1,474]

Several schools  late 70s/early 80s that just had a HWT/Unl champ dropped immediately thereafter.

1979 Fred Bohna UCLA.

1980 Howard Harris Or St (lost program over the summer and then reinstated)

1982 Bruce B Ind St

1985 Bill Hyman Temple

Lou Banach and Tab Thacker were the other years in that streak

[ionel 1,217]

11 hours ago, SetonHallPirate said:

Can't we technically include the 1988 NCAA Champion Arizona State Sun Devils in this discussion? They did have their program dropped for ten days...

& OSU got shut down for a year, they did pretty well the next year ;)

[Bryan 49]

20 hours ago, KTG119 said:

they dropped pretty soon after that right?

Those SEC schools had some tough guys before they all dropped. A few that come to mind: Kevin Jackson was at LSU before transferring out after they dropped, Kentucky back in the day had Jimmy Carr, Ricky Dellegatta, etc.  

Yes, The University of Tennessee was the last SEC program to drop wrestling and they did so after the 1986 season.  While The University of Tennessee only had one national champion they did have multiple All-Americans.

[HurricaneWrestling2 579]

13 hours ago, JasonBryant said:

From that story:

When Bauman stepped down as KU wrestling coach to enter medical school before the 1932-33 academic year, Mehringer became a student-coach for the second time in his young life. He met with continued success on the mat, but Athletic Director Phog Allen would not grant him the funds necessary to travel to the National Intercollegiate Meet to attempt to win a NCAA crown. (Thus it was that Mehringer, an Olympic champion, never could claim a NCAA title.) Financial considerations, made more difficult by Allen’s refusal to permit Mehringer to keep his campus job, led the star athlete to leave the University after his senior year without a degree.

Phog sounded like a complete tool.

Maybe, but perhaps the Great Depression was the primary factor that limited the Kansas Whirlwind's competitive opportunities.  The article also points out that Mehringer experienced a very similar problem in high school.  "As a high school sophomore, he began coaching his school’s wrestling team and met with a good deal of success. The young coach’s victory as a competitor in the final of the state tournament helped his team secure a fourth-place finish. Economic times proved too dreary to allow Kinsley High the chance to improve upon their placing in Mehringer’s junior and senior years, although as a senior the ambitious youngster hitchhiked to the state tournament where he won his second state crown."

Mark Palmer, in an Intermat Rewind article on the 1932 Olympics, noted how the Depression affected the Games in which Mehringer won his gold medal:  "Los Angeles was the only city to place a bid to host the Games of the X Olympiad. (The city had put in a bid for the 1928 Olympics, losing to Amsterdam.) Many athletes and nations were unable to afford the trip to California. Fewer than half as many athletes competed at the Los Angeles Olympics as had in 1928."..."One of the most heartbreaking stories about poverty and sacrifice involved the Olympic athletes from Brazil. Severely impacted by the Depression, the only way Brazil could afford to send its athletes to Los Angeles was to put them on a barge loaded with 25 tons of coffee, with the expectation that profits from selling the coffee at ports along the way would fund the $1 per person head tax to enter the U.S., and the $2 per athlete entry fee for the Olympics. Sadly, they were able to sell only $24 worth of coffee by the time they reached California. The athletes' last hope: the Brazilian consulate in San Francisco, which sent a courier to Los Angeles with a check for $45 U.S. However, in the time the courier was traveling south from San Francisco, Brazil's currency devalued … and the check was worth only $17 when it arrived in Los Angeles. To add insult to injury -- the check bounced."

 

Edited October 15, 2019 by HurricaneWrestling2

[AlexSteenTOM 23]

https://news.theopenmat.com/college-wrestling-news/top-10-college-wrestlers-schools-dropped-wrestling/67304

[Idaho 752]

Boise State 

Kirk White, Ben Cherringtin, Larry Quissel, Kirk Smith, etc 

[ExBSUfan 48]

8 hours ago, Idaho said:

Boise State 

Kirk White, Ben Cherringtin, Larry Quissel, Kirk Smith, etc 

Jason Chamberlain, Adam Hall, Ben Vombour, Bo Rushton, Andrew Hochstrasser, Tyler Sherfey. I just thought I  would add a few more.

[Idaho 752]

21 hours ago, ExBSUfan said:

Jason Chamberlain, Adam Hall, Ben Vombour, Bo Rushton, Andrew Hochstrasser, Tyler Sherfey. I just thought I  would add a few more.

Yep - quite a few AA and a couple champs in the past 12 years or so. Good thing we have baseball now. It should be second in the country to losing money - right in front of Oregon. 

[PSUSMC 151]

UC Davis dropped wrestling the year after Derek Moore became their 1st AA and National Champion.

The year prior to Moore winning, Kenny Cook made the R12. 2 years after the drop Ricky Alcala AA'd for Indiana - where he transferred and red-shirted.