NWHOF Class of 2025 Full Induction Ceremony

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ladies and gentlemen, it is my honor to welcome everyone
once again and tonight to the culmination of our Honors weekend.
We welcome our honorees, are their escorts, and all of
you who are here to support them and to cheer

(00:21):
them and to be happy for them. We're going to
ask now all of our honorees and their escorts to
proceed across the States. They'll have their photos taken by Larry,
and then they will go to their assigned seats. So
let's meet once more all of our honorees.

Speaker 2 (00:42):
Dave Schultz High School.

Speaker 1 (00:43):
Excellence Award winner accompanied by his mother Addie and Penn
State assistant coach Cody Sanderson, Marcus Blaze, Artricia Saunders High

(01:07):
School Excellence Award National winner for twenty twenty five, accompanied
by her parents, Zach and Mackenzie Fowler, Piper Fowler, and

(01:28):
now the Meritorious Official Recipient, accompanied by his wife, Kathy
Ken Merra Our Order of Merit recipient accompanied by his

(01:50):
wife Lynn Van Stokes. This year's Medal of Courage recipient

(02:15):
Mark Coleman, Our twenty twenty five Outstanding American Recipient, accompanied

(02:40):
by his daughter Anissa Lindgren, Terry Davis, and now the
Distinguished Member recipients accompanied by his Lehigh Wrestling Family members.

Speaker 2 (03:06):
Darryl Burling.

Speaker 1 (03:40):
Distinguished Member Recipient accompanied by his wife Angie.

Speaker 2 (03:45):
Matt Lindland.

Speaker 1 (03:59):
M twenty twenty five Distinguished Member Recipient accompanied by his
wife Jody Zueger, Terry Steiner and Distinguished Member Recipient accompanied

(04:45):
by his son Chad and wife Hilda Ojakowski Greg Ojakowski.

(05:22):
And now an important thanks to our title sponsors for
this year's events, the Hyman Family, Tom Graddy, Ed and
Amy Gayegos Resolite and the Richison Family Foundation and all
of our sponsors and donors who make Honors Weekend a success.

(05:45):
And now would you please stand remove hats, caps, and
as I usually say, headgear for the plane of our
national anthem.

Speaker 3 (05:57):
Love to change.

Speaker 1 (07:13):
Thank you, And now it is truly my pleasure to
invite the Chairman of the Board of Governors of the
National Wrestling Hall of Fame to the podium for his comments,
John Harris.

Speaker 2 (07:30):
The third.

Speaker 4 (07:39):
Good Evening.

Speaker 5 (07:41):
The National Wrestling Hall of Fame is grateful you're here
with us this evening to celebrate and enshrine the class
of twenty five inductees. Honor's Weekend is a special time
as we come together and our shared love of wrestling
to proudly recognize and honor our sports heroes and celebrate
their extraordinary achievements both on and off the mat. Wrestling

(08:04):
is a sport like no other. I don't need to
tell you that it teaches many invaluable life lessons and
helps establish life traits that serve its participants well over
the course of their lifetimes. Our inductees are meritorious examples
of the success that can be achieved through wrestling and
how wrestling shapes lives. I congratulate them all for their

(08:28):
induction tonight. Like the classes that came before them, the
class of twenty twenty five induction inductees are truly exceptional
individuals who inspire us all. Their accomplishments show us what
is possible, setting an example for others to follow. Honors

(08:48):
Weekend serves the core tenants of the National Wrestling Hall
of Fame, which are to preserve wrestling history, recognize extraordinary achievement,
and inspires on behalf of our sponsors, volunteers, staff, and
the Board of Governors. We thank you for sharing this

(09:09):
very special time with us and we proudly celebrate the
class of twenty five.

Speaker 1 (09:15):
Thank you, Thank you, John, Ladies and gentlemen. Our first
honoree is Marcus Blaze, the national winner of the Dave
Schultz High School Excellence Award. Now please enjoy the video

(09:36):
on Marcus that's been going to begin playing on our
overhead screen.

Speaker 6 (09:47):
Marcus Blaze of Perrysburg, Ohio is the twenty twenty five
national winner of the National Wrestling Hall of Fames Dave Schultz.

Speaker 7 (09:54):
High School Excellence Award. Sponsored by the Hymen Family.

Speaker 6 (09:58):
This award honors the nation's most down standing high school
senior male wrestler, not just for success on the mat,
but for academic achievement, leadership, and service to the community.

Speaker 7 (10:08):
Established in nineteen ninety six.

Speaker 6 (10:10):
The award pays tribute to Olympic and World champion Dave Schultz,
a beloved figure in the wrestling world whose life was
tragically cut short in nineteen ninety six. Dave was inducted
as a Distinguished Member of the National Wrestling Hall of
Fame in nineteen ninety seven, and later the United Wrestling
World Hall.

Speaker 7 (10:25):
Of Fame in twenty sixteen.

Speaker 6 (10:27):
Marcus Blaze is the son of Joe and Addie Blaze,
and he'll be continuing his wrestling career at Penn State University.
He follows in the footsteps of his older brother, Joey,
who is a twenty twenty five.

Speaker 7 (10:38):
NCAA runner up for Purdue.

Speaker 6 (10:39):
And Ohio's twenty twenty three state recipient of this award.
At Perrysburg High School, Blaze compiled an incredible career record
of two hundred wins to just two defeats. He went
undefeated in his freshman and senior seasons, capturing four sectional
in district titles and earning four high school state championships.

Speaker 7 (10:57):
Blaze's accomplishments don't end there.

Speaker 6 (11:00):
He placed third at both the twenty twenty five Senior
National Men's Freestyle Tournament and the twenty twenty five Senior
World Team Trials Challenge Tournament. He won the goal at
the twenty twenty three U seventeen World Championships and took
bronze at the twenty twenty four F twenty World Championships.
He finished second at the twenty twenty four US World
Team Trials, and perhaps most impressively, he earned third place

(11:23):
at the twenty twenty four US Olympic Team Trials as
a high schooler, he was named the Outstanding Wrestler of
the twenty twenty five Ohio State Tournament and previously claimed
the honor in Fargo.

Speaker 7 (11:33):
In twenty twenty two.

Speaker 6 (11:35):
He's a two time champion of the Walsh Iron Man,
a four time Brexville Holiday Tournament champion, where he was
twice voted the outstanding wrestler off the Matt Marcus is
equally as accomplished. He's a four time member of the
High Honor Roll, earning Academic All Ohio honors, and is
active in Decca, a national program that prepares emerging leaders
in business and marketing. With this award, Marcus becomes the

(11:57):
sixth national recipient from Ohio, joining great such as David Carr,
Logan Stever, David Taylor, C. P. Schlater, and Jeff Knuph.
Congrats to Marcus Blaze, the twenty twenty five Dave Schultz
High School Excellence Award National winner for his extraordinary achievements
both on and off the mat.

Speaker 1 (12:22):
And now I'm happy to invite Marcus to come forward
with his presenter, Cody Sanderson, Associate head coach for Penn
State Wrestling.

Speaker 8 (12:46):
Good evening, everyone, I just want to say thank you
to the National Wrestling Hall of Fame for nominating me
for this award.

Speaker 2 (12:54):
Something I kind of say often.

Speaker 8 (12:55):
It's a cliche, but I always say, if I were
to say I'm at where I'm at right now, to
say it was just me, I'd want to one of
two things. I'd be lying, and then the other one
would just it's just not true, and I'd be very selfish. So, uh, yeah,
I just have a support group that is second to none.

Speaker 2 (13:15):
You know, my mom's here with me.

Speaker 9 (13:16):
Today, so that's kind of cool.

Speaker 8 (13:18):
Coach Cody Sanderson obviously he's just new, but uh he's
obviously gonna be doing a lot of work for me,
so that's kind of cool. But yeah, just the support
group is second to none, and that's the reason I'm
here today.

Speaker 10 (13:29):
So obviously it's not just me.

Speaker 8 (13:31):
Obviously I go out there one on one, but it's
not them, or it's not me, it's them.

Speaker 1 (13:36):
But thank you, Yeah, thank you, Marcus, and congratulations again.
Our next honoree is the national winner of the Tricia
Saunders High School Excellence.

Speaker 2 (13:53):
Award, Piper Fowler. Please enjoy this video.

Speaker 6 (14:05):
Piper Fowler of Cleveland, Tennessee, is the twenty twenty five
national winner of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame's Tricia
Saunders High School Excellence Award. Proudly sponsored by the Hymn Family.
This award was first presented in twenty fourteen and its
named for Tricia Saunders, a four time world champion and
true pioneer in women's wrestling.

Speaker 7 (14:24):
Saunders became the first.

Speaker 6 (14:25):
Woman inducted as a Distinguished Member of the National Wrestling
Hall of Fame in two thousand and six. She was
later inducted into the United World Wrestling Hall of Fame
in twenty eleven. The award celebrates the nation's most outstanding
high school senior female wrestler, not only for their excellence
and competition, but also for their achievements in the classroom
and their commitments to character and community. Piper Fowler is

(14:47):
the daughter of Zach and Mackenzie Fowler, and she will
continue her wrestling career at William Penn University. Her brother, Logan,
was the Tennessee twenty twenty four state winner of the
Dave Schultz High School Excellence Award and is currently wrestling
at the United States Air Force Academy. During her time
at Cleveland High School, Fowler made history is a four
time undefeated Tennessee High School state champion, she helped launch

(15:08):
her school's girls wrestling team, leading them to three state
team titles and a third place finish. She was named
the Outstanding Wrestler at the twenty twenty four state tournament.
Her athletic honors include a gold medal at the twenty
twenty three U seventeen World Championships and a return appearance
on the US team in twenty twenty four. She's also
a Fargo Champion, a Super thirty two champion, and an
NHSCA champion. In twenty twenty four, she was recognized with

(15:32):
a Catherine Neely Female Athlete of the Year Award, one
of Tennessee's highest honors for high school athletes. Beyond the mat,
Fowler shines just as brightly. She's a Raiders scholar, a
member of the Cleveland High School Leadership Council, and is
active in the Criminal Justice Club. She also serves in
her church youth group, is an ambassador for ATS the Bridge,
speaking at against drugs and vafing, and regularly volunteers at

(15:55):
local elementary schools.

Speaker 7 (15:57):
Hyper Fowler becomes.

Speaker 6 (15:58):
Just a second national win here from Tennessee, joining Katie Brock, who.

Speaker 7 (16:02):
Are in the honor in twenty sixteen.

Speaker 6 (16:04):
Congratulations to Piper Fowler, the twenty twenty five national recipient
of the Tricia Saunders High School Excellence Award. A champion
in every sense of the word, and.

Speaker 1 (16:22):
Now we invite Piper to come forward with her high
school coach, Jenna Morris.

Speaker 11 (16:37):
There have been so many people that I've affected my
life in a positive way and have made me the
person I am today. There have been so many coaches
and supporters that I've met along the way, but I
don't have time to thank them all tonight. So first,
I want to thank the National Wrestling Hall of Fame
for giving me the opportunity to be here tonight. I
want to thank my family, specifically my mom and dad

(17:00):
for being by my side, supporting me and encouraging me
even when most people didn't. And my siblings for being
my biggest supporters and my training partners throughout my whole life.
I want to thank my granddad for always being there
and for making anything a possibility for me and my siblings.

Speaker 9 (17:18):
And last, but not least, I.

Speaker 2 (17:19):
Want to thank Coach Boskin.

Speaker 11 (17:21):
He's taught me everything I know and has been in
my corner through all the ups and downs.

Speaker 2 (17:26):
As I look forward, I'm.

Speaker 11 (17:27):
Excited to see what the future holds, and I know
that I wouldn't be where I am today without each
and every person who has been a part of my journey.
Thank you for believing in me and being a part
of my story. I am truly honored and grateful.

Speaker 1 (17:46):
Thank you, Piper. Our first honoree is meritorious Official Ken Merra.
Please enjoy this video.

Speaker 12 (18:07):
The official man tomorrow from Hexton, Tennessee.

Speaker 13 (18:12):
He did twenty national Division one championships and he was
selected to be the head official in nineteen of those finals.
That I don't know of anybody else with the exception
of maybe michaemc cormick, who did that number of finals.

(18:34):
Now what's significant about that is in order to do that,
you have to be in the top ten at the
end of the evaluations period. So that then for at
least nineteen years and possibly twenty, Ken was ranked in
the top ten officials.

Speaker 10 (18:51):
In the country.

Speaker 13 (18:53):
That's a pretty staggering statistic, guy think, and it attests
to his professionalism and overall skilled in officiating.

Speaker 14 (19:05):
Chattenogga's home.

Speaker 15 (19:08):
It's a small, big, little town. You know, it's not
Nashville and it's not Atlanta, but it's big enough for us,
So we're happy here.

Speaker 16 (19:17):
Chattanooga has a great wrestling community.

Speaker 2 (19:21):
It's a family.

Speaker 16 (19:22):
It truly is a family.

Speaker 15 (19:23):
We don't have the reputation of being necessarily wrestling state
like they do in the Midwest and the Upper easton
that kind of thing, but there there's some.

Speaker 17 (19:33):
Good wrestlers come out on this area.

Speaker 15 (19:34):
We're into our where our fourth generation is now at
Notre Dame.

Speaker 16 (19:38):
My parents both went to school there, and then we did,
then our kids did, and then our grandkids did. He
has three brothers who all three wrestled in high school,
and then I have two sisters whose husbands both wrestled
in high school.

Speaker 15 (19:53):
And the first time I ever saw a wrestling matters
when I walked on as a freshman in high school.

Speaker 9 (19:57):
I I never saw that before.

Speaker 10 (20:02):
What is that?

Speaker 14 (20:03):
Are you gonna do?

Speaker 18 (20:04):
What?

Speaker 17 (20:05):
So?

Speaker 4 (20:05):
Yeah, it was.

Speaker 14 (20:06):
That's changed a lot.

Speaker 16 (20:07):
We started school in August September, I guess, and he
was playing football at the time.

Speaker 2 (20:13):
He didn't start.

Speaker 16 (20:14):
Wrestling till what November, I guess, when football was over
and wrestling started. And that was first first time he
walked on that and I'd never seen wrestling before that.

Speaker 15 (20:25):
Our wrestling coaches were Nick Bratcher and Shack Van Duz,
and Shaq was the teacher. He was the one that
taught us how to wrestle. Nick was a football coach
who had the head coaching job at wrestling as a
supplement to his income. But he was a good task
master and he made sure that you did your drills

(20:47):
and ran your laps.

Speaker 14 (20:48):
And ran your sprints and that kind of thing.

Speaker 15 (20:51):
So I owe my success to those two, especially Shack
Van Dust.

Speaker 16 (20:57):
I don't think that I did go to the first
couple until we really kind of got into what was
going on and everybody was getting involved in it.

Speaker 15 (21:07):
She was your favorite of it because we were gaining
some success and the school spirit among not just the
team but the students. Our pep rallies were awesome, and
Kathy was a fan.

Speaker 2 (21:22):
Well.

Speaker 16 (21:22):
He was pretty good by senior year especially, and that's
when we really were as a school more totally into
the sport. But you know, you do a lot of
gyrating and falling off the edge of the bleachers and
stuff like that, and I still do that watching it
on TV now because you just I've watched it my

(21:44):
whole life, really, from the time I was fourteen years old.

Speaker 15 (21:49):
My senior year of high school, we won the first
state championship that my high school had had won in
that sport. The camaraderie and on our team was special.
Close to those guys who were still good friends of
mine to this day. We were married, I was going
to school working and we had a child, and something

(22:09):
had to give, and it was wrestling. At that point,
it was just a way to make money. Like I said,
I was in school. I worked in a warehouse unloading
box cars at three o'clock in the morning and then
would go to school. And so her dad, my wife's dad,
was a football official and had been doing it for

(22:31):
quite a while, and he got me into that.

Speaker 10 (22:34):
I didn't really like it.

Speaker 15 (22:35):
I just kind of migrated into wrestling officiating.

Speaker 19 (22:40):
And liked it.

Speaker 15 (22:43):
Seemed to have had a knack for it. Had some
great mentors who held in my hand and showed me
how to do things the right way and the wrong way.

Speaker 20 (22:53):
What was the wrong way?

Speaker 7 (22:54):
When I got into the game.

Speaker 21 (22:56):
He was one of the guys that protected me and
took me under his wing and taught me what to
do and what.

Speaker 9 (23:02):
Not to do, and how to act.

Speaker 21 (23:03):
You know how not to act, and you know people
that are referee at this level understand what that means.
Senior guys can help you look good or they can
help you look bad. And he always helped everyone look good.

Speaker 15 (23:16):
My first year was nineteen eighty three. For the first
couple of years, I believe they would invite twenty officials,
they would cut three the first day. After the first
day and send you home. I fully expected to be
one of those three, and then I made the finals.

Speaker 13 (23:35):
As a referee, you don't want to be noticed.

Speaker 20 (23:40):
You want to be out there.

Speaker 13 (23:41):
Your number one job is safety and fair enforcement.

Speaker 17 (23:45):
The little rules.

Speaker 13 (23:46):
But you don't want to be in the middle of
everything and be a part of the match. You want
to be a part of the match, put in an
unseen part.

Speaker 21 (23:55):
Been a mentor to i'fshore hundreds of young men to
become a fish from in.

Speaker 22 (24:00):
Tennessee high school as well as college.

Speaker 9 (24:03):
But yeah, Ken's definitely one of the good guys.

Speaker 22 (24:05):
You know, silent assassin.

Speaker 21 (24:07):
You're never gonna hear from him, and he doesn't get high, done,
get low, just goes and does the job and does.

Speaker 9 (24:12):
A really good job at him.

Speaker 13 (24:14):
Ken got involved in a lot of PROGM things in
the state too, I think developing officials, rules interpreter, so
you get involved in those more kind you.

Speaker 21 (24:25):
Know, to see someone rewarded, so to speak, for an
amazing career is awesome, okay. I mean when you put
the stripes on, you know your ambition is certainly not
to get into the Hall of Fame. I can't imagine
if you ask anybody that is that would.

Speaker 14 (24:40):
Be their answer.

Speaker 21 (24:41):
But to be recognized by your peers for something that
you're really, really passionate about, that's important.

Speaker 9 (24:47):
To you, that you poured your heart and soul into.

Speaker 10 (24:50):
Is really cool to you.

Speaker 15 (24:51):
I can't tell you how it's realed. I am, how
honored I am.

Speaker 16 (24:56):
He has put his heart in his soul and sometimes
it's aching back into wrestling for fifty six years basically.

Speaker 2 (25:04):
So they deserves it.

Speaker 15 (25:07):
I tell people all the time, I don't know what
I did to deserve this, but I'm not giving it back,
so I'm I'll cherish this for the rest of my life.

Speaker 1 (25:32):
And now let's bring the honoree Can to come forward
please with his presenters, his daughters, Christy Higgins, Carrie Ingele
and Mandy Ross.

Speaker 9 (26:00):
Boy, How did I get here?

Speaker 15 (26:04):
How did I get my name in my story to
be included among the greats of our sport. I first
stepped over the mat, as on a wrestling mat, when
I was fourteen years old to tattle on myself a
little bit.

Speaker 9 (26:19):
That was sixty one years ago.

Speaker 15 (26:22):
Sixty one years as a wrestler, a referee, an evaluator,
and now a supervisor and teacher. And all those years
of wrestling, all those years of wrestling have given me
a great deal of honor and opportunities. It gave me
the opportunity to visit some great cities and some great arenas.
I've had the opportunity to be on the mat to

(26:44):
see great wrestlers show their skills to the wrestling world.
I've had the opportunity to work on the mat to
see that those wrestlers, their teams, their coaches, and their
fans all got affairs shake. That was my number one
go that making sure no one got hurt. Wrestling gave

(27:10):
me all those opportunities, and I hope that I've had
I've done a good enough job of handling those opportunities
by giving back to the sport. Just a little bit
along the way, I've had the benefit of working on
some great mentors, many and many great officials. To try
to name them all would be silly because they would

(27:31):
take too much time, and I'm sure I would forget
most of them. But to name just a few, Doctor
John Farr and Bill Hodges in my early years were
great mentors. They were did a great job of encouraging
me when I needed it and kicking my butt when
I needed that as well along the way. Later on,

(27:52):
doctor Pat mc McCormick excuse me, yeah, Doctor Patt McCormick
and Lynn Dyke helped me along when I got to
the Nationals and they were there to help me when.

Speaker 4 (28:01):
I needed it.

Speaker 15 (28:02):
I was able to work with some great officials along
the way and learn from them. I made a point
of when I was not officiating, watching the officials to
see if there were parts of their game that I
could pick up and working to mind. I worked with
Tom Galen, Dave Frish, Darryl Henry, ed Kelly, and the
list goes on. Mike Haggerty, I could go on forever.

(28:25):
I want to thank all those good friends and associates
who worked to get my name onto the consideration to
be included here.

Speaker 4 (28:32):
You know who you.

Speaker 15 (28:33):
Are, and I can't name you all, but many thanks
to your efforts to the Board of Governors of the
National Wrestling Hall of Fame. I am and will eternally
be grateful that you saw fit to include me in
this twenty twenty five class. I'm humbled and proud to
have been a part of this class. To my family,

(28:56):
especially my wife Kathy, my daughter's carry and Mandy. I
couldn't have done this without you. Your support, your encouragement,
your advice, and your love help carry me through. Your
sacrifices were many, but your support carried me through. I
love you all.

Speaker 9 (29:16):
Thank you very much.

Speaker 1 (29:26):
Our next honoree is the Order of Merit recipient Van Stokes.
Please enjoy Van's video on the overhead screen.

Speaker 23 (29:43):
On the road to the nineteen ninety two Barcelona Olympics.
The site for today's event is the New Tampa Convention
Center right off of Tampa Bay. Hello everyone, I'm Van Stokes.
I went into the Marine Corps.

Speaker 24 (29:58):
I learned about physical endurance in spite of having played
football in college, and I learned a lot about the
words commitment and discipline. The Marine Corps taught me a lot,
especially to pay attention to details. Following that, I coached
football for a couple of years at Marietta College and
then assistant coach up at Ohio Westland.

Speaker 25 (30:19):
He was really interested in coaching.

Speaker 24 (30:22):
I thought I was filling out a questionnaire, but it
turned out to be an application, and so I asked
my wife.

Speaker 17 (30:28):
I yelled it to her in another room. I said, Lynn,
where would you like to work.

Speaker 19 (30:34):
The most, Korea, Europe, or the United States?

Speaker 2 (30:37):
And she said Europe.

Speaker 17 (30:40):
Checked Europe, sent it in.

Speaker 24 (30:42):
Forgot all about it until a year later when I
was called and offered a job.

Speaker 26 (30:46):
He was in Europe as the European Sports Director. And
then he was at Fort Campbell or the hunder and
first what was And he was there for twenty five
and thirty years.

Speaker 27 (31:01):
And hosted many Armed forces.

Speaker 26 (31:04):
He's hosted SYSM games, and his team lead leaders on
many US teams.

Speaker 25 (31:10):
Early on that he learned and became an official, a
mad official, and so he was able to fill in
as an official if an official didn't show up.

Speaker 28 (31:21):
When there's a task that needs to be done that
not everybody wants to do, either van is volunteering or
if you step up and ask him he.

Speaker 17 (31:32):
Will do it.

Speaker 24 (31:33):
Sometimes it would be the Armed Forces team and then
a few times it would be USA Wrestling teams. So
I was a team leader in the Pan American Games
in nineteen ninety five. I went to Moscow in two
thousand and two, not necessarily in the team leader's role,
but more in a role with security, and then a

(31:53):
number of World Military Championships from Istanbul to Finland, to India,
to Turkey, to a lot of different places, Croatia a
very great trip into Zagreb, Croatia, and then back again
into split for two more World Military Championships just and

(32:13):
down to Cuba as a team leader for the United
States in nineteen ninety two and nineteen ninety four.

Speaker 29 (32:18):
When I started wrestling, the local high school program and
the program that I was a part of, we didn't
have a dedicated wrestling room. We were actually rolling out
wrestling mats in a small corner of the cafeteria in
the gym, and we didn't have a dedicated weight room.

Speaker 17 (32:39):
It was actually part.

Speaker 29 (32:40):
Of the ag class and the weights were twenty years old.
And my dad and other parents of that program got
together and by the time I was a senior and
the program had taken off, and the successes of the
program were through the hard work and through the through.

Speaker 4 (33:04):
The results the program was having.

Speaker 29 (33:05):
They got together and were able to raise money as
a booster program and they all signed co signed on
a loan together to build a wrestling building, and my
dad was part of that. That building stands today twenty
five years later. I've coached in it and have had
an opportunity to have an impact on kids here, which

(33:27):
has been incredibly rewarding. But there's been a regional championships
and state championship wrestling teams that were born out of
that building, and so it's an incredible legacy to be
a part of. And just having a place like that
to practice was huge for the program. Four years later,

(33:47):
that high school ended up winning the state championship.

Speaker 26 (33:51):
To be successful in life, you need coaching, you need support.
The athlete doesn't just show up and win the medal.
And he's done that with his experience and sports administration
and carrying.

Speaker 27 (34:08):
Over the last forty years.

Speaker 28 (34:10):
He's really the type of person that when something needs
to get done, he's willing to help. Now he doesn't
want to do it alone, and he doesn't want all
the credit. He wants people to help and help mentor
and teach people along the way. And that's another thing
I really like. And he has helped mentor and teach
me along the way also. But he's he's a tireless

(34:33):
worker for the sport of wrestling and ultimately USA Wrestling.

Speaker 29 (34:38):
He can see the impact that it has on people.
Having never been through it himself, he has learned and
kind of gotten the you know, gotten the context.

Speaker 17 (34:52):
For the sport and the benefit that they can bring
to people.

Speaker 28 (34:55):
He's well deserving of reward. He has done a lot
for USA Wrestling and the sport of wrestling at multiple
different levels over the years.

Speaker 30 (35:04):
He really cares, really cares about USA Wrestling and more importantly,
cares about the sport, cares about impact that it has
on men and women and the role that USA Wrestling
as a national governing body plays. I mean, he takes
his that as a big responsibility in terms of, you know,
his support of the governance structure here at USA Wrestling.
And I write every month on my on my desk

(35:26):
calendar a quote and Van says to me, I'll tell well,
I didn't really come up with that, but but I
give him credit for it, and and the quote goes
like this, It says, you know, whatever you're filled up
with when bumped into will spill out, make it joy
and gratefulness.

Speaker 14 (35:42):
And and it's so true.

Speaker 2 (35:43):
And if if you know Van at all, you know
he lives that.

Speaker 30 (35:47):
You don't you don't ever run into Van Stokes when
he's having a bad day, right, and he's you know,
just you know, someone that's committed, you know, certainly a
big portion of his life to this organization. In the
success that USA Wrestling, Van stokes fingerprints are all over it.

Speaker 27 (36:06):
He denies it, but it's the truth.

Speaker 26 (36:09):
In his forty years, over a million people he's coming
into contact with and supporting their kids, their wives, the families,
the sports, you know, not only wrestling, but all the
other sports that they participate in. And I think it's
more than a million. But evally, he's very humble. Die

(36:30):
was you shouldn't say that, Floyd, I said, I was
there having.

Speaker 25 (36:34):
The opportunity to be in the Hall of Fame. He
just finds that so humbling.

Speaker 17 (36:45):
He's a very big honor.

Speaker 24 (36:47):
It means a great deal to me as I look
back upon many years of working with a sport, sometimes
you just accomplish one objective and then move to the
next objective, or you I'm one mountain and then moved
to the next mountain. He don't really stop and look back,
But as I stop and look back on the decades

(37:09):
and the time when I first got involved with this sport,
bringing us up to today, It's a cumulative effect, and
I could not feel more grateful to have had the opportunities.
I'm more honored to be recognized through the Hall of
Fame than I am.

Speaker 1 (37:33):
Let's bring Van forward now with his presenter, his longtime
Armed Forces wrestling coach and friend, Floyd Winter.

Speaker 17 (37:54):
Some like to say I'm a story teller.

Speaker 24 (37:56):
I'm a talker, and I'm going to acknowledge that, But
in the interest of time tonight I'm going to forego
the stories. I'm going to try my best to offer
some words of appreciation. First of all, I want to
say congratulations to each of the other honorees tonight. It
is indeed an honor to be joining you here in
this class of twenty twenty five. First and foremost, I

(38:18):
want to thank the good Lord who opened the door
and put me on this road many years ago, and
to my wife Lynn thank you for being the wind
beneath my sails for the past fifty four years, and
for being my example of a real servant leader. I'm
also most grateful for our three sons and their wives
and families who are here with us tonight. My oldest son,

(38:40):
Van and his wife Kitty came from Taiwan just to
be here today, and I'm very thankful to be able
to share this experience with everyone in my family. While
the Marine Corps taught me a few things about discipline
and mental toughness, my thirty eight years as a civilian
serving soldiers and their families.

Speaker 2 (39:00):
In the army became like a calling for me.

Speaker 24 (39:05):
The Army opened doors that I never knew existed, and
I will always have a place in my heart for
our military men and women and their families. And I'm
also very thankful to have worked for some of the
greatest military leaders in the country, one of whom is
with us here tonight, Lieutenant General retired Mike Oates, former

(39:25):
commander of the tenth Mountain Division, Assistant Division commander for
the one hundred and first Airborne Division, Mike and Barb,
Steve and Jane Wallace, who you've traveled here tonight.

Speaker 17 (39:35):
I treasure your friendship.

Speaker 4 (39:38):
Floyd Winter.

Speaker 24 (39:39):
I am particularly indebted to you and Vince Zuwarro, who
taught me things about this sport that you're never going
to find in a rule book. You taught me the
things between the lines. Rick Tucci has followed suit in
the same way, And to all the wrestlers and coaches
through the years, I thank you for allowing me to
beach a small part of your journey. Since everything rises

(40:00):
and falls on leadership, I greatly appreciate the opportunity to
work with USA Wrestling's presidents Terry McCann, Art Moty, Larry Shakatano,
Stan Desik, and the two longest serving presidents Jim Ravenick
and Bruce Bumgardner, as well as executives directors Jim Sheer
and Rich Bender. Rich Jim Bruce, thank you for your

(40:24):
confidence and thank you for your leadership through the years,
all of it in the Olympic spirit. During my time,
no one's done more to put USA Wrestling on a
sound financial footing than former Director of Finance Dwayne Cooper
and Marybeth Powers, Controller for USA Wrestling, and Finance manager
Sonja Johnson. My thanks go to each of them for
their patience and willingness to work with me through the

(40:46):
years and the areas of finance and accounting. And Gary
Abbott and Doc Bennett, Dave Bennett, thank you for allowing
me to work with you when it came to telling
the stories of our wrestlers through broadcast and the printed word.
USA Wrestling is a volunteer driven organization, and when it
comes to giving of their time and talent to me,
no one stands above through the years any higher than

(41:12):
Greg Strobel, than Mark Ryland, and then Myron Roderick and
Dwayne Morgan.

Speaker 9 (41:19):
Sadly three of them.

Speaker 24 (41:21):
Are no longer with us, However, in their own way,
they have each left enduring marks on this sport, on
this national governing body, and on my life, and I'm
grateful for their friendship. Please know that I will always
remember this night and the many times we've shared together
through this great sport of wrestling. And yeah, we can

(41:43):
tell some stories, and we'll tell them later. But as
my friend Tom Laviceec likes to say when he quotes
the model of the International Military Sports Council, may we
always have friendship through sports. From the bottom of my heart,
I'm deeply honored and I thank you.

Speaker 2 (42:13):
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (42:14):
Van. Our next honoree is our Medal of Courage recipient
Mark Coleman. Mark's video is going to be playing right
now on the overhead screen.

Speaker 7 (42:27):
H caung Burt Marshmellow.

Speaker 31 (42:34):
He's he's rough on the outside, soft on the inside.

Speaker 22 (42:40):
He's a good He's a good person.

Speaker 31 (42:42):
At the end of the day.

Speaker 4 (42:43):
He comes from a fan good family.

Speaker 31 (42:45):
Mom and mom and dad went to all his events.
Connie and Dan, they're such good people and and Mark
has been you know, his family means everything to him.

Speaker 7 (42:59):
And so when he ran into that house, I mean
no one was surprised.

Speaker 17 (43:06):
I'd see Mark Coleman.

Speaker 20 (43:07):
Is Mark Cohen. I represent sport of freestyle wrestling.

Speaker 32 (43:11):
I planned to bring a UFC title back to Columbus, Ohio.

Speaker 4 (43:13):
His dad was a wrestler. He started wrestling in the
sixth grade. And there's his folks.

Speaker 27 (43:20):
His dad a pretty good wrestler.

Speaker 4 (43:22):
It is all right, that's done.

Speaker 9 (43:25):
And Cotting a two.

Speaker 33 (43:26):
Time Pan American, a national freestyle champion, a World Game
silver medalist in nineteen ninety two Oleptic team member.

Speaker 20 (43:38):
I just think it's uh.

Speaker 34 (43:40):
God said that he was home there night.

Speaker 32 (43:42):
I got uplooked in the hallway. The hallways looked creepy.
The moonlight was all I could see, and I didn't
really see. I seen the fog, got smoke, and then
you know, I walked to the kitchen and more smoke,
and then I grabbed the back door and I burnt
my hand really bad. And that's when I heard a
piece of glass froll from one a flove and that's

(44:04):
when he clicked in. I knew it was a fire,
and it's everywhere inside the walls. I had to run
back and get my parents. I yelled to wake him up.

Speaker 35 (44:11):
At first I thought he was screaming at a hammer,
and so, wake up, there's a fire.

Speaker 2 (44:15):
And I said, oh, it's sorry, we'll take care of it.

Speaker 35 (44:17):
Well, the door opened and it's just you know, full
of smoke, and he's.

Speaker 34 (44:21):
Saying, come on.

Speaker 2 (44:22):
He says, we got to get out of here.

Speaker 17 (44:24):
Let's go.

Speaker 32 (44:24):
I screamed, and we got to go fast. I grabbed
my dad's arm, he had my mom's arm. I walked
him down the hallway out the garage door turned around.

Speaker 17 (44:32):
My mom wasn't there.

Speaker 14 (44:33):
I just saying, we're going to die. We're going to
die because I couldn't see anything.

Speaker 32 (44:37):
And what are you doing? She says, I can't breathe.
You don't ask one. She had her shirt up over
her mouth. So I ran down and grabbed her. It's
getting real thick and we got a closed rice here
where I'm using a wall to guide me.

Speaker 34 (44:47):
I just got my eyes closed.

Speaker 35 (44:49):
Luckily he could get his way through the hallway to
get us out.

Speaker 32 (44:53):
I fell off into the bathroom and I thought, you know,
for a minute, out of mies, what I saw was
this is almost terrifying thing I ever saw. For a second,
I thought it's over. You know it's going to end
right here. You know there's no way out. And then
I took a step. God got me right back on
the path and we made it out to the garage.

(45:14):
I got my mom outside.

Speaker 14 (45:15):
Down and then then he was he.

Speaker 35 (45:18):
I didn't know where he was. He was back in
the house getting the dog.

Speaker 32 (45:21):
I had to go back in the third time, and
I got a little full sensus. I got down on
my knees and the smoke wasn't so bad down there.
So O, Ca'm looking for my dog under the bed,
jumping at the end. I'm looking. I can't find him.
I sat up and took him a big lot of smoke,
and I stood up, fell into the bed, and I realized,

(45:42):
I gotta get out. I'm waiting for the fire department
to get there. I'm watching the house just it's going
it's just it's going down.

Speaker 17 (45:48):
But I'm thinking about my dog.

Speaker 32 (45:49):
The fire department gets there and I said, let's go
show where he's at. What they wouldn't I couldn't go
win and yeah, and then I don't remember anything.

Speaker 19 (46:02):
Well as I could see as the last day and
Ellice he was getting in the ambulance.

Speaker 10 (46:09):
Shit, what are you going to do?

Speaker 17 (46:10):
You know? But that fire was something different. It just
it was a lot worse than I thought.

Speaker 32 (46:18):
I ended up being put in a coma and being
an hospital for over a week.

Speaker 17 (46:23):
You know, I took cared a lot of smoke.

Speaker 19 (46:25):
But we did scrummaged dough and get a few things.

Speaker 36 (46:29):
But everything was you know, burn and stuff, and we
just tried to save as much as we could.

Speaker 14 (46:34):
But I could not ask.

Speaker 35 (46:36):
For a better community Findley Fremont, our schools, our family.

Speaker 34 (46:41):
They just people just gathered around.

Speaker 35 (46:44):
And then then here we are worried about Mark because
you know, they're not telling us anything.

Speaker 17 (46:50):
I remember waking.

Speaker 32 (46:52):
Up to my dollars being there, and you know, I
was very emotional, but mostly just grateful and happy to
be there. And I figured when I had to deal
with this with my family. But then I woke up
finding out the.

Speaker 17 (47:07):
Whole world had heard about this, and the.

Speaker 32 (47:11):
Whole world was praying for me, and uh, and it
just was overwhelm overwhelming.

Speaker 17 (47:19):
Cau he come to this. I got some pretty good friends.

Speaker 32 (47:23):
I love him and I appreciate him, and.

Speaker 17 (47:27):
They they came to my rescue and helped save me.

Speaker 37 (47:31):
Look, you never know who someone is until the shit
gets rough, right until the hard times and Cooman we
found out a lot about who he is, and he's
exactly who he thought he was.

Speaker 27 (47:43):
He's a hard.

Speaker 37 (47:44):
Headed, stubborn, inspirational, motivational, never say die, optimistic some of bitch.

Speaker 17 (47:51):
And you know, we could sit.

Speaker 37 (47:53):
There and say that when he's out there winning UFC
heavyweight championships, or when he's wrestling on the match beating
people up, and when he's coaching and things are good,
but again, you don't.

Speaker 4 (48:03):
Know until shit hits the fan.

Speaker 17 (48:06):
And when shit hit the fan for Coman, nothing changed.

Speaker 37 (48:09):
He stayed on the path, so that's infinite respect for me.

Speaker 35 (48:16):
You know, you can't you can only brag so much.

Speaker 17 (48:18):
You gotta keep it insight.

Speaker 32 (48:20):
My legacy now, It used to be wanting to be
the greatest athlete in the world, this and that, But
my legacy now is, uh, you know, leading the way
to showing men and people in general that you you
you can be vulnerable. And I'm not afraid to let

(48:41):
people know that I struggle with mental health sometimes and
and I'm not in the closet hiding about it because
I'm well aware. I'm pretty damn sure that almost everybody
in the world has struggles. So you know, if I

(49:01):
can talk about it, and I've been told by people,
take so much courage.

Speaker 17 (49:06):
You know, I don't really look at it that way,
but I.

Speaker 32 (49:10):
Guess what I'm doing is really helping out and that
makes me feel good because that's what it's all about. Well,
this is a big deal for me to this National
Wrestling Hall of Fame induction here, because you know, wrestling
is my family. I got my family, but wrestling is
my first family.

Speaker 31 (49:30):
Wrestling is the sport that he's known for. It's his
first love. Yes, he is a pioneer in MMA, but
at the end of the day, he's a wrestler, and
so to get recognition from the National Wrestling Hall of
Fame is significant, not just from Mark, but again his
friends and family.

Speaker 19 (49:50):
Here's everything he got it out there.

Speaker 17 (49:52):
I'd say pretty well call.

Speaker 35 (49:54):
Him in the eighty andaa champion Ohio State. It was
very kind hearted and he's more gentler than what you think.
He puts on a big act, not an act because
it's him.

Speaker 17 (50:06):
But.

Speaker 35 (50:09):
He is kind and he would like to help people
out whenever they need it.

Speaker 34 (50:13):
He's a nice guy.

Speaker 36 (50:15):
He's rough and gruff, but he's a nice guy.

Speaker 1 (50:29):
Mark Coleman, would you please come forward with your presenters
Royce Elder and Matt Brown.

Speaker 32 (50:53):
Feeling pretty safe tonight, Pretty tough crew. Yeah, that fear word.
It's a big, powerful, a strong word. You can let
it destroy you, consume you, or you can deal with it.

Speaker 17 (51:13):
That's all I like to do is deal with situations
like that.

Speaker 38 (51:17):
But you know, I'm.

Speaker 32 (51:21):
I'm feeling pretty special tonight to be here. USA Wrestling
meant the world to me growing up as a kid,
and I'm very thankful and honored for them to choose
me for this award. Watching that video threw me off

(51:44):
for a little bit, but I'll get through this.

Speaker 4 (51:48):
You know.

Speaker 32 (51:48):
I want to, you know, thank Matt Brown and Royce Alger.
You know, they've been with me for a long time.
We got a lot in common, and you hang out
with people that are that are like you and uh,
you know, blessed these two guys come in and talk
highly of me.

Speaker 17 (52:07):
It meant a lot to me. Grateful.

Speaker 32 (52:12):
I got to thank my mom and dad. Of course
you see him from the video. I'm still very blessed
to have them around.

Speaker 34 (52:23):
You know.

Speaker 32 (52:23):
They they traveled the world. We were poor, you know,
but somehow, you know, I ended up in Bulgaria and
I could hear my mom yelling from the top row.
I had no clue they were coming and how she
got there. But they did it, you know, and uh,
you know, I couldn't have done it without him. I've
had a lot of help. I was called uncoachable maybe

(52:47):
a little bit, but I tell you what, Uh, you know,
one guy really stood out to me in this sport.
It was Dan Gable and he was my hero and
my idol and I was blessed to have him as
a Pan American Games coach. I'll never forget that first practice.

(53:10):
I learned a lot from him. He never told you
how long or how many?

Speaker 17 (53:15):
Just go hard.

Speaker 32 (53:17):
And finally, I remember, at the end of practice running
up a floodwall with Kirk Trust on my shoulders, carrying
him on the flood wall, and I wanted to I
wanted to yell at Dan and Gable bad. Everybody did
how many more?

Speaker 17 (53:34):
Man?

Speaker 32 (53:34):
And then you know five? Thank god, old man Chris
Campbell was there. He looked over and said, how many
freaking more Gable? And I had my fingers crossing. Sure enough,
he said, uh, you know, one more practice is over.
You know, it was unbelievable to hear that, but you know, wrestling,

(53:56):
you know it changed my life.

Speaker 17 (53:58):
It made me who I am. You know, confidence.

Speaker 32 (54:04):
Is the key in this world, and that's what wrestling
will give you, the comperence to excel in this world.
And I'm so glad my mam and dad pulled me
in that.

Speaker 17 (54:21):
And now I go around.

Speaker 32 (54:23):
I have a pretty big platform and pretty much every
parent or kid I meet, and the first thing I
ask them is if they wrestle? And if they don't,
why not? You got to give me a reason. And
I look at the parents and they're in jiu jitsu.

Speaker 19 (54:40):
Oh god, what the fuck?

Speaker 17 (54:42):
You know?

Speaker 32 (54:44):
You can't wrestle, you can't fight, You know I say that, And.

Speaker 17 (54:52):
You know, growing up I was the World Cup was
right until Ohio.

Speaker 32 (54:57):
I grew up about thirty minutes away, and I got
to go watch, and I was mesmerized by you know,
the big Americans, but the Russians, you know, they they
capitulated me. And I knew that's who I was going
to have to beat to be the Olympic champion. And well,

(55:19):
I'm wrestling Royce one day in practice and he kept
shooting a high crotch on me. That's not a good idea,
I think he said earlier, I do have that leg,
and I think it was Royce was about thirty and
nothing that day, bro, But he got up after the
thirtieth one.

Speaker 34 (55:36):
He said that he got and fucking work.

Speaker 39 (55:39):
Cool man.

Speaker 32 (55:39):
Shit ain't gonna work what he he like against the Russians.
I didn't say nothing, because sure enough, you know, the
World World Finals, Russians in on a high crotch and

(56:00):
it's a hell of a scramble.

Speaker 17 (56:01):
I remember it. I thought for.

Speaker 32 (56:03):
Sure I tilted him enough to get to two and
I bailed out, so I thought it was two to one,
but uh, they don't like the Americans, so he got
the one and had held up. But you know, uh,
you know, uh, you know know this is possible at

(56:32):
all for me. Uh if I went and got sober
four and a half years ago, I was a rock
botty as it gets, living in an extended state hotel room.
Probably hadn't showered in months, months, and I didn't give up,

(56:58):
but I wasn't living. And then uh, unfortunately, a good
friend of mine came in and you know, uh.

Speaker 17 (57:08):
He asked me, were you know about trying to kill myself?
Of course not, but.

Speaker 10 (57:14):
Uh, you know, he.

Speaker 32 (57:20):
Said, let's let's check in the rehab, and uh what
I did, And it was the greatest decision I ever
made in my life.

Speaker 17 (57:34):
I went in there.

Speaker 32 (57:43):
And I checked in with an open mind, and you know,
I was called uncoachable, but I'm gonna let these guys
teach me, and I listened.

Speaker 17 (57:55):
You know.

Speaker 32 (57:55):
I gave him thirty days, but I ended up staying
for five months. They started liking me too much. I said,
come on, you know it's time for me to go.
I got it, you know, So they finally let me out.
It was amazing. Five months. You know, God took over,
you know, he you know, he took over. He took

(58:19):
away my obsession to drink and do drugs, and you know,
life has been truly amazing, you know, ever since that move.
And then when I got back into exercise. I didn't
exercise for ten years. It was a sad, sad site.

(58:40):
But thank god, I did start exercising hard every day.
I never missed a day for two years once I
started back up, you know.

Speaker 17 (58:52):
Fifteen hour days, not exaggerating. I was out of my mind.

Speaker 32 (58:56):
I'm an addic, so I take everything erously or whatever.

Speaker 17 (59:01):
But uh well yeah, come.

Speaker 32 (59:06):
Year year and three months ago when h four am,
you know, when the dog woke me up. My dog
a little hammer. He woke me up, and you know,
I wasn't sure what was going on. I was coming
out of a nightmare. It was hot, foggy and ship
but I couldn't see nothing.

Speaker 38 (59:26):
You know.

Speaker 32 (59:27):
Then finally uh you know, seeing things. But I grabbed
the back door and I burnt my hand real bad.
That started to wake me up because I didn't know
what was going on. And that that woke me up,
and then I heard the glass window fall and it
clicked so fast, and I knew that it was a

(59:50):
fire and it was everywhere and it was time to
time to go, Like you know, there was.

Speaker 17 (59:57):
No hesitation, actually just fed.

Speaker 32 (01:00:00):
Me up and the only option was to get my
mom and dad and dog out.

Speaker 17 (01:00:06):
So I did the best I could.

Speaker 32 (01:00:10):
That night, but yeah, I couldn't get my dog out
let me. They called me a hero for this, but
I'm not comfortable with that at all. My dogs the hero,
my first dog ever. Eleven months I was with that guy.
He watched me train fifteen hours a day, just watch me. Unbelievable.

(01:00:35):
But yeah, I'm blessed. I recommend it to anybody get
a dog. Pretty cool.

Speaker 17 (01:00:47):
But uh, you know, then then you know, the whole world.
I woke up from the coma.

Speaker 32 (01:01:01):
M hm yeah, m to find out you know, I
didn't I didn't think.

Speaker 17 (01:01:09):
Anybody knew anything about it, but then to.

Speaker 32 (01:01:11):
Find out the whole world had seen the story and
the outreach of prayers for me, I just.

Speaker 17 (01:01:22):
I was overwhelmed.

Speaker 32 (01:01:24):
I got the greatest friends in the world, and I'm
grateful what I appreciate them all. And uh, I thank
everybody who helped me, you know, fight back and be
here today.

Speaker 17 (01:01:39):
Thank you.

Speaker 3 (01:01:49):
Any two years later.

Speaker 2 (01:01:56):
That's okay.

Speaker 1 (01:01:59):
We will take it away from you, Mark. Thank you Mark.
Ladies and gentlemen. Our next honoread is outstanding American Terry Davis.

Speaker 2 (01:02:19):
Please enjoy the video.

Speaker 38 (01:02:28):
I don't know that I've done anything for wrestling, but
I sure as hell know that wrestling did a lot
for me.

Speaker 40 (01:02:35):
What Pressler says like, you either want to be shoot
or you want to beat shooting.

Speaker 2 (01:02:39):
So too, when you pick the right word or you.

Speaker 38 (01:02:43):
Create the right image, God, it feels good and you
say to yourself, Jesus, people are gonna read this and they're.

Speaker 17 (01:02:49):
Gonna like it.

Speaker 19 (01:02:50):
They're gonna laugh, or they're gonna be touched.

Speaker 14 (01:02:53):
Wrestling changed his life.

Speaker 38 (01:02:57):
I always like coming down and getting dressed for Rectus
and then and then hustling up the stairs to uh
to get in the wrestling room and then we uh,
well we always started out with.

Speaker 40 (01:03:11):
Some calisthenics, and in wrestling he found acceptance.

Speaker 14 (01:03:15):
He was a chubby little kid, but he just he
loved to fight. He loved the.

Speaker 40 (01:03:21):
Challenge and he just was one of these guys you
knew he wasn't going to give up. You know, he's
got a strong mind, so he wrestled, and that took
him in another direction.

Speaker 38 (01:03:31):
I was building up through through training uh and uh,
and that was helping my my self esteem.

Speaker 10 (01:03:41):
And the uh.

Speaker 38 (01:03:42):
The better my self esteem got, the better I did,
the better I felt.

Speaker 14 (01:03:48):
Like I was, the better I became.

Speaker 40 (01:03:51):
Out of his love for wrestling, came this kind of
story loosely maybe based on what Dan Gable lost one
match to. He never you know, so should have ever
lost to and then you know he would have had
a perfect record college wrestling and have lost one match,
and so that meant, you know, that kind of storyline

(01:04:15):
kind of intrigued him, and so he came up with
visionquest about a kid that's going to do this who's
not understood.

Speaker 41 (01:04:22):
That reminds you of I think in a lot of
ways he was loud and swayin like not just the
basic details like growing up and Spokane and you know,
and the movie was shot at the high school that
he wrestled in himself, like that is all very you know,
literally that was my dad's life, but also just what
he struggled with, what was really important to him was

(01:04:44):
like proving himself and physical discipline and challenging his body
and challenging his mind to like stretch the limits of
what of what other people said he was capable of,
or what he may have thought he was capable of,
and just pushing beyond that.

Speaker 14 (01:04:58):
I'm not a not a man, I'm not a boy.
Who am I? How do I fit in?

Speaker 40 (01:05:03):
These are all questions he was kind of asking himself,
and that God answered through the process.

Speaker 22 (01:05:09):
That's it.

Speaker 40 (01:05:10):
When or lose doesn't matter. Went through the process, committed
the time, gave up all sorts of things, starved himself,
pushed himself to the brink of passing out, you know.

Speaker 17 (01:05:23):
Powerful.

Speaker 41 (01:05:24):
But that's Dad like he like when he has a goal,
it's all about achieving that goal. And and I think
that's very much like the character in that book.

Speaker 18 (01:05:34):
The place I see him most is in the with
the adult characters, is the secondary adul characters in the stories,
because you know that one hand out, that one decent
adult along with the rugged ones. That's Terry, And so
that's that's where you see him.

Speaker 19 (01:05:55):
That's where you see him most.

Speaker 42 (01:05:57):
I think mostly in the man.

Speaker 2 (01:06:00):
Or I'm do you have me take that pace.

Speaker 19 (01:06:02):
From your other pretty cool?

Speaker 34 (01:06:04):
Some of this stuff out of your room, watch.

Speaker 41 (01:06:07):
Whenever I've talked to people who know a vision quiz,
it's because like their whole team watched it, whether like
they were the coach and they showed it to the
kids or the kids, you know, wa watched it on
their own. Like I've heard some people, you know.

Speaker 14 (01:06:18):
Say, like we always watched it before like a big meet.

Speaker 41 (01:06:22):
And I think it's interesting too because I don't know
that there have been a lot of like pop cultural
like movies or anything that was about wrestling, so like
finding there was and and it's different than all the other,
you know, sports movies because there's team and there's also
like a very individual part of that. And it's a
really interesting dynamic in the sport that I think lends

(01:06:43):
itself really well to art. And I think it came
at a time when it spoke to something in people
in wrestlers who you know, long hadn't been able to
like see that part of themselves in movies or in
popular culture in that way. But then also to people
who aren't wrestlers, who just you know, really related to
the story of this guy like pushing himself so hard

(01:07:07):
to achieve what he wanted. And I think that's why
it's had such an enduring legacy.

Speaker 40 (01:07:15):
The book that he wrote ends on the part just
as Matthew or character Swain is going to go out
and wrestle.

Speaker 9 (01:07:23):
Shoot, that's it.

Speaker 14 (01:07:25):
Fade out Hollywood.

Speaker 40 (01:07:27):
Of course, Oh we got to have a rocket story.
But I really liked Terry's concept of like you killing.

Speaker 18 (01:07:34):
What was so beautiful about the book was that that's
the journey, it's the vision class.

Speaker 19 (01:07:39):
I mean, that was it.

Speaker 43 (01:07:41):
No way the movies ever do that, No way the
movies ever do that.

Speaker 42 (01:07:45):
Working on the film changed my life, and that could
not have happened had Terry Davis not written Vision Quest.
Over the years, countless people have told me how the
story of Loud and Swain saved the life and spurred
them to do and be better, How the film was

(01:08:06):
an absolute blessing for them. This is what outstanding people do.
They inspire others. Terry is an outstanding author and person.
He's motivated wrestlers and non wrestlers through the power of
story for over forty years. So I can't think of
an individual more deserving to be honored by the National

(01:08:30):
Wrestling Hall of Fame. Congratulations Terry.

Speaker 17 (01:08:35):
I get.

Speaker 40 (01:08:37):
Military guys reaching out to me Frank, He's got me
through the citadel. I did three three tours in Afghanistan.
It's the only thing that got me through that You
inspired me to stop drinking and become a better person,
to be a better person than myself, better father, coach.

Speaker 14 (01:08:57):
He wrote this book.

Speaker 17 (01:08:59):
And made a movie.

Speaker 14 (01:09:00):
This movie has.

Speaker 7 (01:09:01):
Inspired people for forty years.

Speaker 14 (01:09:03):
Yeah, to become wrestlers, to become better people. Yeah, should
be in the hall.

Speaker 18 (01:09:11):
I think it's the best thing that's happened to him
in a long time, and it brings things full circle.

Speaker 10 (01:09:17):
Well, it's enormous. It's enormous.

Speaker 38 (01:09:19):
The Hall of Fame really really touches my heart.

Speaker 19 (01:09:23):
And to go into the Hall of Fame is the
resting hall of Fame is huge.

Speaker 38 (01:09:28):
It suggests that the book has touched people over the years.

Speaker 22 (01:09:32):
He's so deeply honored.

Speaker 41 (01:09:35):
Because it's just he's still I think, can't believe it
that people still connect so much with this little story
he wrote, the first thing he ever wrote, fresh out
of fresh out of school, and that it really resonates
so much with them, and I honored just.

Speaker 9 (01:09:54):
Isn't a big enough word for it.

Speaker 41 (01:09:56):
He's over the moon, he's shocked, and he's so so excited.

Speaker 17 (01:10:01):
The six minutes.

Speaker 22 (01:10:03):
That's what happens in that six minutes.

Speaker 1 (01:10:14):
I'm delighted now to invite Terry to come forward with
his presenter, his stepson, Pascal Davis.

Speaker 4 (01:10:35):
Good evening.

Speaker 38 (01:10:39):
Thank you to the National Wrestling Hall of Fame for
this amazing honor, and special thanks and gratitude to Jason
Bryant for nominating me. Thank you to Scooter Shultz for
the amazing videos. I'm amazed, and I'll let myself be proud.
I was always proud to be a wrestler. I couldn't

(01:11:00):
be more proud now of his honor. To my athlete
and wrestling friends, you've inspired me all these years. To
those who made Visionquest come to life, you have my
deepest gratitude and thanks. Writing that story was my way
of saying something honest about the beauty and toughness of

(01:11:20):
this sport. You made a gem for all us scrapplers.
A special thanks to Matthew Mordin Matthew Modine for your
immense kindness, your dignity, and for being the perfect loud
and swain. To Frank Jasper, thank you for your quiet strength.

(01:11:44):
To my friends and fans from Spokane, Washington. Thank you
for your love and support over all these years.

Speaker 34 (01:11:53):
Thank you to Chris.

Speaker 38 (01:11:53):
Crutcher, my fellow writer and friend, for walking the literary
road with me. To my children Anissa, Josh, and Pascal,
thank you for being so sweet. And to their mothers Becky, Connie,
and Marriette, thank you for your love and care. Mariette,
thank you especially.

Speaker 4 (01:12:14):
For helping me finish the book.

Speaker 38 (01:12:17):
She locked me in a room and I didn't get
to come out of it until i'd finished. I dedicated
that novel to my parents, Roy and Lucille Davis. I
hope they'd be proud of me too. I want to
thank wrestling for teaching me to never give up. Keep stroking,

(01:12:40):
and the far shore will appear. Thank you with all
my heart for this honor.

Speaker 2 (01:13:00):
Yeah, thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:13:23):
Our next honoree is our first Distinguished Member of The Evening,
Darryl Burley.

Speaker 2 (01:13:29):
Please enjoy the video on Darryl.

Speaker 40 (01:13:42):
Look, you know, he's got a law degree, he's got
a master's degree.

Speaker 34 (01:13:45):
So he's a smart guy.

Speaker 37 (01:13:46):
He's just a you know, I guess my dad would
call him a gentleman.

Speaker 9 (01:13:51):
He's always that.

Speaker 6 (01:13:51):
He's always been that way since since uh, since the
day I met him when he walked in.

Speaker 44 (01:13:55):
The Lehigh as a pressure man on your screen is
Darryl Burley, then a champion for Lehigh University, sophomore from Pemberton,
New Jersey, first both in the Nationals and the Easterns.

Speaker 17 (01:14:09):
I am more. My village had made me more.

Speaker 22 (01:14:13):
My mother and father had made me more than Darryl Burley,
the LEI wrestler.

Speaker 45 (01:14:21):
I was involved in classical piano before wrestling for years.
My mother pushed me in there, and I had considerable talent,
you know. I was playing Bob Beethoven, Rock monitor chopin
and then wrestling came along and my mother's like, put

(01:14:43):
to much time money ever? Got a panist over there? No, no,
but the most important thing it taught me timing. Timing,
Now you gotta put all these very notes together, and wrestling,
you know it.

Speaker 22 (01:14:55):
Footwear had always had time in a good time.

Speaker 46 (01:14:58):
I know he was he loved school, George, But that
really caught me off guard when Mom said.

Speaker 19 (01:15:06):
He's on the wrestling team.

Speaker 45 (01:15:07):
I got into wrestling in eighth grade in Pemberton, New Jersey.
I was in middle school my maternal grandmother. My extremely
formative years two three, four, I spent with her a
lot of time with her.

Speaker 22 (01:15:24):
Her name was Mary Mullens and has a family called
her May.

Speaker 47 (01:15:29):
She told him that I see some greatness in you.

Speaker 19 (01:15:33):
You're special.

Speaker 22 (01:15:34):
You're going to be special.

Speaker 45 (01:15:37):
So one day I look over and says, man, why
am I special? She says to me, I never forget
this because I love you. I'm like, because she was
my universe. I said, my universe.

Speaker 22 (01:15:53):
Loves me, I must be special.

Speaker 19 (01:15:57):
She left it at Dad.

Speaker 47 (01:15:58):
She didn't did not know what it was, but she saw.

Speaker 45 (01:16:03):
That in him, and I was just like a fish
in water. It's just my body just told me what
to do and the rest is history.

Speaker 17 (01:16:14):
My has a rescuing career.

Speaker 45 (01:16:16):
Number one and throughout my whole wrestling tenure is I
never cut weight.

Speaker 22 (01:16:22):
That's probably why I was able to stay with the
sport as long as I did.

Speaker 4 (01:16:25):
I was.

Speaker 22 (01:16:26):
I never cut weight.

Speaker 45 (01:16:27):
When I came in as a freshman, I wrestled one fifteen.
As a sophomore, I wrestled one twenty two, and I
believed my sophomore year.

Speaker 22 (01:16:35):
I weighed like one twenty.

Speaker 45 (01:16:37):
So my junior year I was able to stay at
one twenty two because I waited one twenty four, maybe
one twenty five a senior year, I went up to
one twenty nine. Uh, freshman in college from from one
twenty nine to one thirty four.

Speaker 22 (01:16:50):
So I just never cut weight and I could.

Speaker 45 (01:16:53):
Concentrate on enjoying the sport and learning technique and conditioning.

Speaker 19 (01:16:58):
He was he was defense and he was all business.
He was into it. He was into the match personally.

Speaker 45 (01:17:08):
The culture back then was mono, I'm not one. Okay,
it's either you or I mean, and much more need
to be said.

Speaker 17 (01:17:19):
Now.

Speaker 22 (01:17:20):
It's just my love and fascination of the sport.

Speaker 45 (01:17:24):
I mean, there's just so many moving parts that you've
got to coordinate together.

Speaker 32 (01:17:29):
You know.

Speaker 22 (01:17:29):
When I think of my mind, I says, this has
got to be one of the toughest sports to learn.

Speaker 48 (01:17:34):
I mean there's just so many aspects of physics, math, uh,
you know, leverage or men of waste, speed, I.

Speaker 22 (01:17:45):
Mean, there's a lot of things to put together.

Speaker 45 (01:17:47):
Coach Turning, I had this routine that he would run
with me twice a day.

Speaker 22 (01:17:54):
In the morning and after lunch.

Speaker 45 (01:17:58):
So we had yes finishing the regular season and going
into the qualifiers. So qualifiers are over and we're getting
ready to go to Nationals. We're trained for nationals. Are
going to the office like any other day. I said, well, Coach,
ready for our midday run. Never forget this as long
as you live. That turn looked me straight in the

(01:18:20):
eye and says, Darryl, the hay is in the barn.

Speaker 22 (01:18:26):
And that.

Speaker 45 (01:18:28):
Was one of the biggest compliments I could have ever received.

Speaker 22 (01:18:34):
My coach says, you know what, man, You've done it up.
You can't do anymore.

Speaker 34 (01:18:39):
And it wasn't the barn.

Speaker 49 (01:18:40):
Also, that's that Turner who's wrestling coach at Lehigh University.

Speaker 46 (01:18:46):
I'm a two time national champion, I believe, and he
was a four time foulist.

Speaker 22 (01:18:55):
And his record, if I remember correctly.

Speaker 19 (01:19:00):
Was ninety four or five and then one.

Speaker 43 (01:19:03):
And at that time we wrestled a lot of good schools.
We wrestled both the Iowas and you know schools like that.
So it wasn't he didn't accomplish that against so so
opposition either.

Speaker 45 (01:19:21):
I think one of the better decisions Coach turned and
I made together was that the final years this is
Daryl grew up to one forty two, couldn't make thirty four,
no problem, but never got.

Speaker 22 (01:19:34):
Waited the forty two and last two years. Ly I
had already wrestled forty two.

Speaker 45 (01:19:38):
But for me it was just like my freshman year
because I left high school.

Speaker 22 (01:19:43):
Came to coss me all new faces. They had never
seen me, I had never seen them, and when I
went up to forty two, all new faces.

Speaker 10 (01:19:52):
So it was just so.

Speaker 45 (01:19:54):
Many similarity between the first year and the last year.

Speaker 47 (01:19:57):
He always liked to not take all the credit. He's
always and he could have a lot more than he did,
but he always.

Speaker 19 (01:20:10):
Included us, the family members to share. I mean, his success.

Speaker 22 (01:20:17):
Hopefully things have come full circle. I think his first
two dual means he wrapped up fifty points.

Speaker 50 (01:20:23):
On the board.

Speaker 45 (01:20:25):
One of the questions they say, well, what does this
induction mean to you? It means that all the people
in my village, all the things they did, all the
things they said, are validated.

Speaker 17 (01:20:41):
It wasn't for nothing.

Speaker 20 (01:20:43):
The guy who was a full.

Speaker 43 (01:20:44):
Time finalist, and how many guys do you have that
are full time finalists and win it twice?

Speaker 45 (01:20:52):
I'm wrestling with it, and finally I came to realizing,
you know what, dude.

Speaker 22 (01:20:58):
You're in a place, an institution that the best of
the best, and there.

Speaker 45 (01:21:05):
Are people in there that are there are ten times
better than me.

Speaker 22 (01:21:10):
And I'm chosen to.

Speaker 17 (01:21:12):
Be in that company.

Speaker 22 (01:21:13):
And I'm profoundly humbled and grateful.

Speaker 17 (01:21:16):
And the rest is his.

Speaker 1 (01:21:32):
And now it's my pleasure to bring forward Darryl with
a part of that that village, his presenter's family members
Orlando Casseis, Alan Butch Campbell, Marilyn Crosby, Gerald Johnson, John
Mullen's junior, and Jonathan Phillips.

Speaker 45 (01:22:14):
First and foremost, I have to praise my Lord and
Savior through all through whom all things are possible. Next,
I would kindly ask my Leah family to rise, please,

(01:22:36):
Coach Turner, Mike Frick, Mr.

Speaker 4 (01:22:38):
Scullet, the whole.

Speaker 45 (01:22:40):
Crew please rise, and please stay stay stay standing. It's
gonna be short, sweet, but please stay standing. I need
to offer some honorary le high status to certain individuals. Missus, Clee,

(01:23:06):
Colin and Lease please rise.

Speaker 4 (01:23:10):
Where are you okay?

Speaker 45 (01:23:18):
Gentlemen ladies, I'd like to thank you humbly and kindly
for sharing this moment with me. Through the tutelage and
guidance of Braden Fair Turner of Folks affectually known as Coach,

(01:23:40):
we have been good shepherds of a program that we
all love. And for that I thank you. I say, God,
bless you, God, bless your families, and let's continue the tradition.

Speaker 17 (01:24:00):
Thank you.

Speaker 34 (01:24:01):
I'm and now my.

Speaker 19 (01:24:04):
Maternal uncle, John Mullens Junior.

Speaker 46 (01:24:11):
I'd just like to think Darryl, the rest of my family,
Barbara Mullins, h Marilyn Johnson, Jonathan Phillip, who's here with
us today, and.

Speaker 10 (01:24:30):
The rest is history.

Speaker 2 (01:24:32):
H ladies and gentlemen.

Speaker 1 (01:24:47):
Our next honoree is Distinguished Member Matt Lyndland, and now
please enjoy Matt's video.

Speaker 16 (01:24:59):
Mm hmm.

Speaker 2 (01:25:05):
He's always been a cowboy, that's for sure.

Speaker 50 (01:25:07):
I'm very much a city girl.

Speaker 51 (01:25:09):
So when I met him, just he was to me
was wild, very loving, very caring, but very wild. He's
he's just grown up with nothing but love, so that's
really all he knows.

Speaker 20 (01:25:22):
He definitely a cowboy from the wild West.

Speaker 52 (01:25:24):
I mean when he wants something, he worked hard at
it every single day, every I mean, no matter what
it is.

Speaker 53 (01:25:31):
I live currently the first zip go the West of
the Rockets, the first Zip of West of the Rockets,
So I mean that's pretty cool. My great grandfather, who
I grew up next door to his parents, like left
the Midwest and like ventured over the over the.

Speaker 20 (01:25:49):
Rockies, over the Cascades.

Speaker 53 (01:25:51):
They got out to the Oregon coast and they're like, Okay,
we're going to homestead here.

Speaker 20 (01:25:56):
So it's like this this.

Speaker 53 (01:25:57):
Pioneer spirit of exploring adventures, and I still have that
in my soul.

Speaker 54 (01:26:04):
Yeah.

Speaker 12 (01:26:05):
I owned the Oregon Athletic Club for about forty seven
years and he started there. I think when he's about
eighth grader freshman. I I know that when he first
started wrestling in our program, mean, it was a real
challenge for him. And I think one of the reasons
he chose our program was because he knew it was
going to be a challenge. You know, he wanted to
get with the best kids, and we hit some of

(01:26:27):
the best kids. You know, you've got to be willing
to fail and fail and fail and failed till you
figure it out.

Speaker 14 (01:26:34):
So yeah, Matt was willing to do that.

Speaker 12 (01:26:37):
When he wrestled in high school, he was just getting.

Speaker 14 (01:26:40):
Started and he didn't do all that well.

Speaker 12 (01:26:42):
And then he after he got out of high school,
they went to Clackham's Community College and didn't do real
well his first year, second year, he became a national champion.

Speaker 53 (01:26:51):
And I got recruited to a lot of Midwest colleges,
a lot of East Coast colleges, and the wrestling on
the West Coast just wasn't at the level. And I
knew to be successful, I had to surround myself with
like minded people, high level athletes, good coaching. I had
to put myself in a competitive environment, and if I

(01:27:13):
was wrestling on the West Coast, I just probably wasn't
going to get those same opportunities. So I invited my
girlfriend to move to Nebraska with me, and when we
got out there, we realized that she shouldn't be my girlfriend,
she should be my wife, and so we.

Speaker 2 (01:27:32):
Got married when we were twenty.

Speaker 51 (01:27:34):
So we dated wrestling season the wrestling season, and we
got married when he had a little break at Nebraska,
and then nine months later we had our son, James,
and it wasn't like, oh, maybe we should wait.

Speaker 9 (01:27:47):
He was like, I want my family.

Speaker 14 (01:27:49):
And didn't do all that great the first year.

Speaker 12 (01:27:51):
The next year he was the number one one hundred
and fifty eight one hundred and fifty eight pounds seed
NC two a tournament, and you got to be pretty
dark good to get that number one seed, the.

Speaker 13 (01:28:02):
Number one rank one hundred and fifty eight pounder in
the country.

Speaker 26 (01:28:05):
He's Matt Lindland up Nebraska, twenty three of ZIP.

Speaker 34 (01:28:08):
Look at that record.

Speaker 20 (01:28:09):
I ended up getting picked up by Sunkeston.

Speaker 53 (01:28:12):
What you really need when you're trying to pursue really
difficult things like winning Olympic Games and world championships is
you need to build a good support team around you.
And some of that support is funding to get you
overseas and get you to the right competitions, get you
to the right tournaments.

Speaker 20 (01:28:30):
Some of it's coaching.

Speaker 12 (01:28:31):
Training partners could at the top when they start to
be the best in their weight class, it's hard to
find workout partners. Matt just couldn't get workout partners. He
just couldn't get it good enough ones. So that's the
ras that he wanted to go to the Olympic Tree Center.

Speaker 14 (01:28:45):
You just felt like that was a nixt jump.

Speaker 10 (01:28:47):
He had to do it.

Speaker 14 (01:28:48):
He worked and work.

Speaker 52 (01:28:49):
There was some hard he went through some hard times
when he got out of college wrestling. I mean that
weight class and Greco it was his stack.

Speaker 20 (01:29:00):
Well, I think what.

Speaker 53 (01:29:01):
Drew me more to Greco Roman was it's a little
more punk rock. I mean it's uh nonconformist, that's uh,
it's not what the Americans do and what the Americans
are passionate about.

Speaker 52 (01:29:13):
I mean, he worked hard, and he might might have
gone around to three different places in here to go
to wrestling practice.

Speaker 54 (01:29:20):
But he all also always went back home to Redmond
and where.

Speaker 52 (01:29:25):
His parents lived and did whatever work needed to be
done on their property.

Speaker 50 (01:29:31):
Uh. But I just think the way he lost and
and learned from it, went on and won the next
level and almost won the next level, lost and learned,
uh and.

Speaker 19 (01:29:48):
Uh and what he what he did for.

Speaker 54 (01:29:53):
By winning the silver medal and uh coaching and hopefully
coached some of that stuck in the or the people
represent the US.

Speaker 10 (01:30:03):
It all than that.

Speaker 53 (01:30:06):
A lot of what I did, you know, as a
national coach was fighting for more opportunities, finding money, finding
finding tournaments, finding training camps, you know, and Ozerba Jehan
and it was Pakistan in Kazakhstan, and you know, these
these places where frankly they didn't necessarily want to go to,

(01:30:26):
but I knew this is where they needed to be
to get the training, get the get the leveling up
that they needed to have to accomplish their next.

Speaker 20 (01:30:36):
Level and that next challenge.

Speaker 53 (01:30:37):
And so for me, it was always trying to provide
more opportunities for the athletes.

Speaker 20 (01:30:42):
And uh, it wasn't about me, it was about them.
It was about seeing them have success.

Speaker 17 (01:30:48):
I see he hadn't succeeded.

Speaker 10 (01:30:49):
It was.

Speaker 12 (01:30:51):
Really an entering prayer and for his life, you know,
it's what he wanted to do.

Speaker 14 (01:30:58):
That was finding.

Speaker 12 (01:30:59):
That was one of the things that we talked a
lot about in our program was every year I'd take
kids down the Olympic Training Center, younger kids too, so
they could see and plant the seed of greatness in them.
And uh, Matt was easy to coach cause he wanted
to learn. If he wanted to learn, I'll tell you
when he when he came into our program and I
had a whole bunch of beasts in there, and he

(01:31:21):
was just really learning and he just got whiled on.
He picked up the nickname of the bender because they
would just bend him up in every direction, you know,
but he always got up and always smiling, always happy,
first guy in the room.

Speaker 10 (01:31:34):
And Matt was great.

Speaker 17 (01:31:36):
M and you know that's why he's done.

Speaker 50 (01:31:38):
So well, and it's his career.

Speaker 12 (01:31:40):
You know, and to make the Olympic team the way
he did, you know, to go through all that legal,
legal battles and everything to get a chance to make
the team.

Speaker 14 (01:31:49):
And I tell that story at the camps. You know,
I said, this is what it's like.

Speaker 17 (01:31:53):
You got you.

Speaker 12 (01:31:54):
Gotta be willing to put everything on the line.

Speaker 14 (01:31:57):
So he was willing to do that. So we're very, very,
very very proud of that.

Speaker 20 (01:32:02):
You know, it's humbling. It's humbling for sure, but it's.

Speaker 4 (01:32:08):
Not about me.

Speaker 20 (01:32:10):
It's about all the people that helped me get here.

Speaker 2 (01:32:13):
Oh yeah, I'm super proud of him.

Speaker 9 (01:32:14):
I've always been super proud of Matt.

Speaker 51 (01:32:16):
I mean, besides his accomplishments, he's a he's a great friend,
he's a great husband, he's a good father, he's a
good coach.

Speaker 4 (01:32:25):
But yeah, I think this is a great He deserved it.

Speaker 2 (01:32:30):
He deserves it.

Speaker 53 (01:32:35):
Very grateful that the bottom line is just gratitude and thankful.

Speaker 1 (01:32:49):
Let's bring Matt forward now with his presenters, his children,
James Lindland and Robin Schaeffer.

Speaker 17 (01:33:16):
H Wow, wow, what a.

Speaker 20 (01:33:19):
Great video, scooter.

Speaker 53 (01:33:20):
Thank you and thank you guys for the honor of
just being a part of this great group of men that.

Speaker 17 (01:33:26):
Have done this.

Speaker 53 (01:33:27):
I mean hereon Coleman's story, I mean that's a guy
I looked up to when I was starting to do this.
I just think the theme of wrestling for me is
just kind of like gratitude and love. Like I grew
up really loved. I was just super blessed. I just
I had a really great family. My parents were very loving.

(01:33:48):
I lived next door to my great grandparents, my grandparents.
I had great role models throughout my life. And then
I was I was an athlete, I was I was
an equestrian, and then one day my parents told me
we're poor people, and you can't ride horses because you
can't go any farther on this sport, and maybe you
should find something new. So I'd done wrestling in seventh

(01:34:12):
and eighth grade. It was like six weeks. It was
like something you showed up to and you did and
then it was over. And then I went back to
my ponies. And when you're when you're a small man
and you ride ponies, you get picked on a lot.
So in freshman year, when they asked me to do wrestling,
and they lied to me and told me I was
really good at it.

Speaker 17 (01:34:30):
You should come out with a team.

Speaker 53 (01:34:32):
I was like, well, maybe I can learn how to
beat other people up that are picking on me and
protect others. And you know that that's kind of the emphasis.
It's really is a martial art and I see myself
more as a martial artist than just a wrestler. But
also see myself more than a martial artist. I see
myself as a husband, a father, a son, you know.

(01:34:54):
And but I mean, it's really just grateful for everybody
that's been a part of this. I've had so many
transformational coaches. I've had some transactional coaches as well, but
the guys that have been in my life.

Speaker 17 (01:35:08):
I mean, you saw.

Speaker 53 (01:35:09):
A couple of the coaches here, and then you heard
Mark and my training partners and Bracken and Norman. Bernie's here.
The only guy that ever recruited me out of high school.
I went there Clacimus Community College. You called me up,
said come here, and I you know, and didn't have
any money, but I told him if I could. I
asked them, if I could beat some of the guys
that were getting scholarships.

Speaker 34 (01:35:27):
Could I have some money?

Speaker 53 (01:35:28):
And we ended up I ended up staying there and
went a national title and moved on to Nebraska and
then just blessed to have my wife alongside me this
whole ride, and my kids and and just love and
gratitude and so thankful for this honor.

Speaker 9 (01:35:46):
I want to thank everyone.

Speaker 53 (01:35:47):
I appreciate you, guys, And if you've been a part
of this journey at all, as a coach, as a
training partner, as one of the leaders, very thankful. If
you were one of those athletes out there like Mark Coleman, or.

Speaker 17 (01:36:00):
Any of these guys.

Speaker 20 (01:36:00):
I mean, even these young guys.

Speaker 53 (01:36:01):
I'm watching the kids like Marcus and Dayton Fix that
are just these guys are animals now. It's so fun
to watch these guys. So I'm inspired by the young
guys coming up. I was inspired by the legends of
this sport. Dave Schultz. I mean, one of my highlights
was wrestling on the same mat as him in the
national finals.

Speaker 17 (01:36:20):
He was in the freestyle category.

Speaker 53 (01:36:21):
I was in the grecol category, and it was my
first national championship. And so just I'm honored to be here.
Thank you so much, guys, I appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (01:36:39):
Our next honoy is distinguished Member Terry Steiner.

Speaker 2 (01:36:43):
Please enjoy this video.

Speaker 55 (01:36:53):
You know Terry and I who grew up in Bismarck,
North Dakota, and wrestled for or Wrestling high school there
and at Century High School and came through the Matt
Peck Club.

Speaker 56 (01:37:05):
We used to practice in my basement in a little
room twelve feet by twelve feet square, and the first
thing they learned was how to not back up, because
if you hit the wall, Lesley kept going until you
hit the ceiling. So actually, when my room was sheet

(01:37:29):
rocked and there was holes all over the sheet rock walls,
and so we labeled those Troy's head, Terry's elbow, my
little face.

Speaker 14 (01:37:42):
You know Troy and Terry, I mean I don't. I've
never known them.

Speaker 30 (01:37:46):
As just Troy or just Terry, right, I mean, it's
always been Terry and Troy.

Speaker 55 (01:37:51):
Until we're thirty three years old or thirty two years old.
We pretty much were in the same spot. Maybe separated
a year or here, a year there, but we will
lived a similar life.

Speaker 56 (01:38:01):
They weren't fast at first. They weren't fast, they weren't strong,
they weren't slick, but they were so determined they became fast.
It became strong, and it became slick. They used to
battle each other a lot in those early days, and.

Speaker 4 (01:38:25):
One would win.

Speaker 56 (01:38:26):
Or the other one we win. It would never be one sided, but.

Speaker 10 (01:38:31):
It was always war.

Speaker 55 (01:38:34):
When we started having some success and so im like
we never want.

Speaker 9 (01:38:39):
At the same time, we knew that we were.

Speaker 57 (01:38:41):
A part of each other's success, right and so when
he won, you took some you know, you took some
pride in the right you know, my winn in nineteen
ninety three, obviously, you know, it was a huge win
for me Ain Sulays and something that was you know,
you know, you worked so hard for something and you'd

(01:39:02):
like to see it, you know, capped off the right way,
and so like that was a great way to have my.

Speaker 55 (01:39:09):
College career, coming from the University of Iowa under coach Gable,
who he you know, opened up a lot of doors
for both of us because of the opportunity we had there.

Speaker 57 (01:39:20):
Already, I was an assistant coach at two different colleges,
at Oregon State University and then at the University of Wisconsin,
and I was in those programs for two years and
six years.

Speaker 55 (01:39:31):
And then he jumps into this position at USA Wrestling,
taking the women's job, and I think there were a
lot of people like what is he doing, and.

Speaker 58 (01:39:41):
It wasn't It wasn't an obvious answer. Was it an
obvious career path or choice?

Speaker 57 (01:39:46):
I mean he took a massive risk women's wrestling. At
the time, we had three states that were sanctioned in
the sport of high school girls wrestling, only three, and
we had about five college program I knew one thing,
you know, was to coach a team. But I knew, well,
the other part of the job was grow the base
right and open up the opportunities. And I knew that
was going to take time. And all of a sudden,

(01:40:07):
you're in a room with a bunch of female athletes
and you realize, like, this is not quite the same right,
and they needed to know details and you know, why
we were doing what we were doing. And I finally
got to the point where I realized that if I
can't explain what we're doing and why we're doing it,
then why are we doing it. They really helped me
be a better coach. You come in thinking you're going

(01:40:28):
to teach someone everything. You realize that they've helped me
as much as I've helped them. Now, fast forward to
twenty sixteen, when Helen Ruralis won the Gold medal. That
gold medal was immeasurable, right, What that did I think
for just the energy around the program and knowing that

(01:40:49):
we could do it. But you know, if you go
back to twenty sixteen, we probably had forty five programs
in the college. You know, we had six states at
that time that we're saying, and now you know, now
twenty twenty five were at forty seven states and you know,
over one hundred and eighty college.

Speaker 20 (01:41:07):
Program in each level.

Speaker 58 (01:41:08):
We'll feed the next you know, we'll start at the
youth level, and we'll have girls making our Olympic team
who didn't know a world where they weren't allowed to wrestle.
And we're not through that. You know, the teams that
I'm on was just on. We were girls who had
to still fight through those barriers. We're still in its
infancy as a program really, so you know, in twenty

(01:41:31):
years time here we're going to look at a generation
of people who didn't.

Speaker 57 (01:41:34):
Know that I'm a wrestling person. I'm not a women's
wrestling coach. I'm a wrestling coach. I happen to be
in charge of the women's program at US Wrestling, But.

Speaker 9 (01:41:46):
I believe in the sport ar wrestling.

Speaker 57 (01:41:48):
And I believe in how we can build people through
the sport of wrestling, and how we can you know,
build their character and build their integrity and make great
human beings because of the sport. Right, That's what gets
me up every day.

Speaker 30 (01:42:03):
If he's not the most important, certainly one of the
most important figures in the history of women's wrestling, not
in the United States but around the world, right, Terry Steiner,
you know, brought his credibility and the respect that people
have for him to the program, and without that, the
foundation that us are wrestling for women's wrestling would have
been really difficult for us to build. So Terry deserves

(01:42:26):
the honor that he's is being bestowed on him for
the impact that he's had not on just women's wrestling,
but the sport in general.

Speaker 22 (01:42:34):
And certainly, yeah, he's had a lot of success.

Speaker 58 (01:42:37):
I can't think of somebody more fit for any hall
of fame in the whole wide world.

Speaker 9 (01:42:41):
So I think this award is.

Speaker 57 (01:42:45):
For me as much for them as it is for myself.

Speaker 59 (01:42:50):
I genuinely don't think that there is anyone that deserves
getting recognized more than someone that's dedicated their whole life
to something that very well could have failed at any point.

Speaker 55 (01:43:03):
You put someone in the Hall of Fame for lifetime
and service and achievements.

Speaker 14 (01:43:11):
And that's what he's done.

Speaker 56 (01:43:14):
Because of him. Girls, wrestling's exploded from like thirty five
hundred in the whole country that thousands.

Speaker 55 (01:43:23):
It doesn't happen with how Cherry Stander taking a position.

Speaker 60 (01:43:26):
And he's always had the same excitement, right, So as
long as you continue to see that, that to me
is just the pinnacle of what the Hall of Fame
is all about.

Speaker 2 (01:43:42):
It's those who have continued to.

Speaker 60 (01:43:47):
Not only run the race, but to try to achieve
the goals, right, and the goals are constantly moving, And
for him to be able to be honored like this.

Speaker 9 (01:44:00):
Is mm hmm.

Speaker 60 (01:44:08):
I you know, I just I just think it's phenomenal.
I mean, and I'm very appreciative because I know how
hard he's worked.

Speaker 19 (01:44:20):
Thank you so much.

Speaker 58 (01:44:21):
I just feel so grateful that that he is who
he is and he's done what he's done, because it changed.

Speaker 17 (01:44:27):
My whole life.

Speaker 1 (01:44:41):
Let's bring Terry forward now with his presenter, his daughter
Raven Gray Steiner. M.

Speaker 57 (01:44:59):
Well, thanks, thank you, Scugar Schultz. He did a fabulous job, Lee, Roy,
and Jack. I'm going to give you your two minutes tonight,
but I have to warn you I gave Rich Bender
two years twenty.

Speaker 9 (01:45:16):
Three years ago.

Speaker 57 (01:45:21):
I'm surely honored and humbled and proud to be receiving.

Speaker 9 (01:45:26):
This award tonight.

Speaker 57 (01:45:29):
I would like to thank the Nationalist in Hall of Fame,
Leroy Smith, and the selection committee for putting me up
on this stage tonight. I would like to thank the
Good Lord for placing me and keeping me in a
position where I have been able to utilize some of
my gifts and strengths to influence the next generation of superstars.

Speaker 9 (01:45:50):
How did we get here?

Speaker 57 (01:45:52):
I'm thankful for Rich Bender for offering me a position
at USR Wrestling as a women's national team coach. It's
been a life altering journey, but I wouldn't be here
today if it wasn't for my wife seeing the vision.
Because when I first came home and talked about Rich

(01:46:16):
offered me this job, I wasn't so for it, but
she saw a vision of what was possible for women's wrestling.

Speaker 9 (01:46:25):
So through her patience and love.

Speaker 57 (01:46:28):
Thank you, Thank you for your continued support and commitment,
you know to this wrestling way.

Speaker 9 (01:46:34):
Of life.

Speaker 57 (01:46:35):
It's not for everyone, and she I don't know if
when we got married.

Speaker 9 (01:46:38):
If she knew what she was getting into.

Speaker 57 (01:46:42):
But I've missed a lot, and you know, she's sacrificed
a lot, a lot of missed birthdays, family events, holidays.

Speaker 9 (01:46:50):
That's part of the job. That's what we signed up for.

Speaker 57 (01:46:55):
Thank you for allowing me to do what I love
to do and being beside me everything every step of
the way.

Speaker 9 (01:47:02):
For Raven.

Speaker 57 (01:47:05):
As a coach. The one thing that I think always
burdens us is that we're spending all of our time
with someone else's kids and our daughter is sitting home
and waiting for me to be there.

Speaker 9 (01:47:25):
But you know, I'd like to thank her.

Speaker 57 (01:47:28):
For sharing me with the athletes in this program and
around the world. Like Adline said this morning, every year
she gained twenty new babysitters and twenty new sisters, right,
and they've shaped her. But it hasn't gone unnoticed what
you've given for this day to be possible. Jody always

(01:47:51):
used to say Raven is God's child, and I was
always like, why do you say that? She said, because
when you have her with you, God's the only one
watching her. I've grown up in a strong family. I've

(01:48:19):
been fortunate around be around supporting, encouraging, inspiring.

Speaker 9 (01:48:24):
People my entire life, and.

Speaker 57 (01:48:25):
I need to mention a few. You know, Coach Gable,
I don't know if he was right on this. He
said once he wrestled, everything else is easy. I don't
know if this is easy. My mother, Lila is sitting
in the stands tonight.

Speaker 9 (01:48:43):
My father is watching from above.

Speaker 57 (01:48:55):
But I'm fortunate that four of his brothers are sitting
in the stands tonight.

Speaker 9 (01:49:01):
Thank you for being here.

Speaker 57 (01:49:13):
My sister Tracy is here, my brother Troy is here.
A lot of my extended family is here. These special
people have laid the foundation for my success. I want
to thank you all for raising me and and nurturing
upbringing and always going the extra mile. Your example of
service and support for me and to the people around

(01:49:34):
you is my greatest gift. My uncle Vince is sitting
in the stands. He got us started in this sport
and saw the value of this sport in our lives,
and I thank you for that. To all the coaches
I've ever had, I'm grateful. I'm thankful for the passion,
the time, and the knowledge and the attention you've given me.

(01:49:56):
You've truly shaped me into the person I am today.
I've been fortunate to only have three jobs in my life.
I worked at Oregon State University for coach Joe Wells,
the University of Wisconsin.

Speaker 9 (01:50:12):
For coach Barry Davis, and at USA.

Speaker 57 (01:50:15):
Wrestling for Richmonder with rich Mender and I thank you
all for taking the chance on me and pouring yourselves
into me. Thank you our team leaders and some donors
out here. One notable one is David Lehman. I'm grateful
for all of you and the relationships we have. Thank

(01:50:37):
you for being willing to jump in and support this
women's wrestling movement while not many people were on board.

Speaker 9 (01:50:44):
To the athletes, what can I say? Thank you for
the scratches and the bruises, the daily beatings, all of
my gray hair. But really I want.

Speaker 57 (01:50:55):
To thank you for your inspiration, your questions, challenges, and
thank you for following my lead. Most of all, thanks
for memories, and thank you for taking Raven under your
wing and being big sisters to all the athletes and
coaches that came before me. Soon is in here, f

(01:51:19):
Soon Johnson. Soon, You're the true pioneer, And thank you
for your passion and your struggle that you've forged your
way forward in this sport so we could be where
we're at today. To all the USA Wrestling employees, all
of my coaches that have been with me over the years,

(01:51:41):
to the uso c's support staff, thank you for continuously
working tirelessly making me sound and look good. It's not
always easy, but you've done a great job of holding
me up. I'd like for all of you, just for
a moment, to take a moment and think about the

(01:52:04):
people that have inspired you in your lives, in your careers,
in your journeys, because that's what this is all about.

Speaker 9 (01:52:14):
To me, coaching is about moving people forward.

Speaker 57 (01:52:17):
Championships and medals are one thing, but they tarnished quickly,
and the moments are very short, but the relationships last forever.
It's been a life altering journey. I knew I didn't
know if I wanted this position, but I knew I

(01:52:39):
was prepared for it because I've been around strong females
my entire life, my mother, my aunts and uncle, my aunts,
my grandmother, my wife, now my daughter, a team full
of strong people and rich I want to thank you
for giving me the time and the grace to figure

(01:52:59):
it out out. Like I said, I'm a wrestling coach.
I wasn't a women's wrestling coach. I happen to be
put in charge of the women's program, and I had
a lot to learn. But I did feel like I
had a few main tasks in this job when I started,
and I always thought of women's wrestling like religion.

Speaker 9 (01:53:23):
I can't force.

Speaker 57 (01:53:24):
It on people. I can't go out there and scream
and holler at the coaches that are lifelong coaches to
accept this sport.

Speaker 9 (01:53:33):
I have to help them see the value in it.
We saw the value in it for.

Speaker 57 (01:53:37):
Young boys, for generations. Why aren't we seeing the value
of this sport on young girls.

Speaker 9 (01:53:43):
And I'm so grateful to have had that time to
be able to do that. You can't do that in
a year. That takes time to do that.

Speaker 57 (01:53:54):
Now we have our young coaches now, they don't know
wrestling without women's wrestling. And I knew we had to
raise the you know, just raise the numbers, grow the numbers.
But also I had I had to learn how to
coach a female athlete.

Speaker 9 (01:54:13):
And I had to learn that.

Speaker 57 (01:54:15):
As much as I thought it was coming in and
telling people what to do and dictating.

Speaker 9 (01:54:21):
I had to listen.

Speaker 57 (01:54:22):
And just a quick example of this was the twenty
twenty one World Finals. Satelline Gray is going for her
sixth record setting world title, and at the break and
the match, she's down for zero and she comes over
to the edge of the mat looking for some wisdom

(01:54:45):
and she wasn't getting it for me that day, but
she came over and she's down for zero, and she
could tell I'm agitated or anxious or whatever, and she
just puts her hands on my shoulder and she's said,
it's going to be okay. And three minutes later she

(01:55:05):
wins the match six to four and becomes the first
person male or female to win a sixth world title. Yes,
we've come a long ways, but looking forward.

Speaker 9 (01:55:25):
We still have a ways to go. We still have
work to do.

Speaker 57 (01:55:30):
LA twenty eight is right in front of us. The
goal is for Team USA to dominate the sport of
women's wrestling and to be the best wrestling country in
the world, women's wrestling country in the world.

Speaker 9 (01:55:45):
I'm thankful for all of you for the Hall of Fame.
A lot of people.

Speaker 57 (01:55:52):
Work hard in their jobs and do quality work and
don't get recognized. I'm grateful that you recognize and appreciate
the efforts that have been put forth. So with that
on behalf of all of the people that have lifted
me up my entire life.

Speaker 9 (01:56:10):
I'm truly honored and humbled to receive this sword tonight.

Speaker 4 (01:56:14):
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:56:29):
Our final honoree is distinguished Member Greg Wojakowski and now
Wojo's video.

Speaker 49 (01:56:45):
In the Heavyweight Championship final, Greg Lojakowski of Toledo with
us back to the camera, conquered Dave Joyner of Gena State.

Speaker 61 (01:56:53):
You know, I've heard it said if you were a
wrestler in Toledo back in those days, you were somebody.

Speaker 14 (01:56:58):
Because I had World Championships and like.

Speaker 61 (01:57:00):
Sixty two and sixty six in Toledo and they were
pretty huge crowds, and then the World Cup after that.

Speaker 4 (01:57:07):
It was a good time to be in the seventies
in Toledo. And yeah, that was probably a highlight of
my life. Good watching being in Toledo and watching the
National Championships and World Championships, seeing the guys, especially the
USA and ER back in the USA warm up, I
always wanted to have one of the USA warm ups
and then on the single it. I started out Victorial

(01:57:29):
Health Club nineteen fifty eight, I think I was eight,
soon to turned nine, and Ictoria at tumbling classes for
kids and wrestling classes. My dad answered, My dad got
me started there, he answered, a small newspaper ad in
the sports page in Toledo Blade, and this is classes
for kids. First year I was nine. I did about

(01:57:51):
a year of training Victorio. I won that tournament, and
I think it was a Rougherees decision, and I think
I got hooked at it. It felt so good to win.
I wanted to keep winning, So I think that's what
set it in. Plus, you know, watching Dick Wilson train
at Torrios and they planned some seats. In my head,
I wanted.

Speaker 17 (01:58:07):
To be a wrestler, be cooler and get a quarter
from his dad.

Speaker 39 (01:58:11):
They put the quarter down, take a doll, go back
to the shower, and then you come out, come up
and shake my hand, fixed coach, and walk out the door.

Speaker 19 (01:58:24):
Oh he's very nice, very polite.

Speaker 62 (01:58:26):
And yet the mini scept on that match.

Speaker 39 (01:58:29):
He's all business.

Speaker 62 (01:58:30):
He was a holy tear. When we make contact, you're
gonna pay.

Speaker 17 (01:58:34):
It never backed up. There wasn't anybody who wouldn't wrestle.

Speaker 39 (01:58:39):
I mean, he would be like fourteen and he'd be
eighteen year old heavyweights and he'd be out there and
they'd be beating the shit out of him, and he'd
be right.

Speaker 47 (01:58:52):
Back at him.

Speaker 4 (01:58:53):
I wanted to win, and they're they're in my way,
they're wrestling me, they're in my way. And the matches
over after got my hand raised, and that could be
nice again.

Speaker 62 (01:59:02):
I don't believe he ever lost a match past his
sophomore year.

Speaker 63 (01:59:09):
Back in those days, freshmen were not eligible to compete
at the NCAA RC level. So the fact that Greg
Wichakowski made it the three finals is because he only
could make it the three national finals.

Speaker 61 (01:59:23):
After watching my dad, you know, go through the training
to make the nineteen sixty Olympic team at Torreo's gym,
Craig set a goal for himself that he was going
to make an Olympic team.

Speaker 4 (01:59:38):
And then in nineteen sixty seven, I was on the
first junior world team and then I started getting letters
from colleges guaranteed me a scholarship that was between my
junior and senior year. So then I decided not to
play football.

Speaker 14 (01:59:50):
They knew who he was. He was on there.

Speaker 61 (01:59:52):
He was on everybody's radar, but he stayed in Toledo,
and that was a big reason, was the you know,
mister Torio and vultage of the people that had got
him right to knew to where he was, which eventually
would then be at ncuaa champ and an Olympia.

Speaker 62 (02:00:09):
In seventy he won the world freestyle title.

Speaker 4 (02:00:16):
I'd bet Dave Joiner in nineteen seventy one to win NCAA.

Speaker 61 (02:00:20):
He was wrestling in the in the heavyweight division and
at the time it was unlimited. It could be as
big as you want, and some of.

Speaker 14 (02:00:29):
Those guys were giants.

Speaker 7 (02:00:31):
He had to wrestle Chris Taylor.

Speaker 61 (02:00:33):
Who I think was about a four hundred and sixty
five pound guy. A couple of other guys later on
after Taylor retired in seventy six that were you know,
three fifty three, you know, three seventy five pound guys,
and Greg was about a two hundred and fifty two

(02:00:54):
hundred and sixty pound heavyweight.

Speaker 17 (02:00:55):
Making the Olympic team is.

Speaker 4 (02:00:56):
My goal since I was ten years old. If I
it wasn't easy first all in, at first, all and
at first all in it for one reason or another,
and then I finally made the Olympic team in nineteen
eighty as my proudest moment in wrestling.

Speaker 17 (02:01:11):
Craig missed out. I'm going to the Olympics after it
won the position.

Speaker 62 (02:01:17):
I don't think Carter boycotting the Olympics hurt Russia. I
think it hurt all the United States athletes. They're preparing
for it for years and then we're not going.

Speaker 49 (02:01:34):
The decision has been made. The American people are convinced
that we should not go to the Summer Olympics. The
Congress has voted olahomaly almost unanimously, which is a very
rare thing, that we.

Speaker 17 (02:01:47):
Will not go.

Speaker 49 (02:01:49):
And I can tell you that many of our major allies,
particularly those democratic countries who believe in freedom, will not go.

Speaker 62 (02:01:59):
I think Russia was happy because I'd give them more
medals so that they could win, that the United States
would have won.

Speaker 14 (02:02:05):
He had his goal.

Speaker 61 (02:02:07):
He had the goal that he was going to make
a team.

Speaker 14 (02:02:10):
And you know that's I mean, I heard that, you
know before you know then him ever making the team.
That was his goal was to make the team.

Speaker 4 (02:02:21):
It hurt.

Speaker 34 (02:02:21):
I'd loved to have been I'd loved to have been
at the Olympics.

Speaker 4 (02:02:24):
I'd loved to have been on a matt rustling, but
I had another life to go to, so it wasn't
It wasn't crushing. I had. I had three kids at home.
I was already twenty nine years old. I was eight
years into a teaching career. I had a good part
time job at Roadway Express unloaded loading drugs. I needed
to do that in a week and the weekends and
then the summers to survive my teaching income. So I

(02:02:48):
had another life to come back to. But I was
happy I made the Olympic team. I'd give almost anything
just get out there on that mat in the Olympics.
But I survived.

Speaker 63 (02:02:59):
So we we named this WOJO Arena.

Speaker 14 (02:03:03):
It's a practice.

Speaker 63 (02:03:04):
Facility for University at Toledo Wrestling. Uh, basically because WOJO.

Speaker 14 (02:03:09):
Is University of Toledo Wrestling.

Speaker 63 (02:03:11):
When you hear about Toledo wrestling, Uh, you say you
talk anything about Toledo wrestling to anyone in this area,
they immediately start talking about the great Wojo.

Speaker 61 (02:03:20):
Greg Is is wanting to, you know, honor his mentors
very much, and uh that's an admirable everyone in itself.
But uh, uh you know, Greg was the man in
the arena.

Speaker 4 (02:03:34):
I was the primary. I'm the prime beneficiary all their
collective efforts. Time he was just right. I had those
people in my corner. I was a prime beneficiary. So
now I'm going in and I think they're smiling down
from heaven that I finally made it in. So it's
just it's just, uh, I feel like I'm I'm I'm
doing it for them. It just gives me great satisfaction.

Speaker 34 (02:03:58):
So I'm happy. I'm happy to be in all.

Speaker 4 (02:04:00):
There was no quit in Wojo.

Speaker 62 (02:04:04):
To me, it's a bragging point. You know, I knew
him when I coached him, and you don't live on
that kind of thing. But very proud to have said
helped coach LOJ.

Speaker 4 (02:04:18):
Surreal, I guess it's surreal feelings just putting that USA
single it on the fact that.

Speaker 63 (02:04:23):
He's not in the Hall of Fame up until this point,
it's kind of a you know, people have overlooked him,
just like kind of people have overlooked Toledo.

Speaker 2 (02:04:41):
Ladies and gentlemen.

Speaker 1 (02:04:42):
Let's bring forward Greg Voyd Chakowski with three legendary Toledo
wrestling families who were influential in Greg's career, the representatives
Gino Torrio, Mike Scalzo, and Bruce Wilson, thank you.

Speaker 4 (02:05:16):
I'm happy to be here. A scooter did a hell
of a job on there. He took away a lot
of my speech. But uh, I'd like to introduce the
guys that Uh, the guys that brought me in here.
They're representing their dads is Dictorial. You saw probably on
their Gino. Yeah, Gino Torreo is represented his dad Dictorio.

(02:05:37):
Mike Scalzo represented his dad Joe Scalzo, was the founding
father of wrestling in Toledo. And Bruce Wilson. Bruce Wilson's
represented his dad, Dick Wilson, three time Olympian, my college
coach mentor So all right, thanks guys, almost forgot I

(02:05:57):
gotta I gotta introduce that lovely lady that escorted me
in here. I had a good buddy at Libby High School,
Fred Wazolowski, assist and athletic director in charge at wrestling.
We had a good, good friendship and before I got married,
he took bets on anything. He loved to gamble, took
bets on everything. He made the over and under for

(02:06:18):
my marriage to Hilda. He started out at two years,
you know, but that was a week before My game
time is not a one and a half and I
bet one hundred on the two. So anyhow was two
months ago. We just celebrated twenty six years of marriage.
So all the kudos go to her. I standing up,
I can't see Yeah, all right, all the kudos go

(02:06:40):
to Hilda, though she puts up a lot with me,
and I grew up in just a tremendous environment.

Speaker 34 (02:06:46):
I scooter, he cut it pretty good.

Speaker 4 (02:06:47):
But as Joe Scalzo was the founder of wrestling in Toledo,
he brought Toledo. He brought wrestling to the University of
Toledo in nineteen forty nine, and we always say he
brought wrestling to Toledo. And then he brought the nation
to Toledo for wrestling, and he brought the world to
Toledo for wrestling. And I was just a beneficiary of

(02:07:08):
a tremendous environment. My dad started me out eight years
old at the Toorial Health Club. I mean, Toreo is
a wrestling coach.

Speaker 9 (02:07:15):
I got, I got.

Speaker 4 (02:07:15):
I started eight years old, back when they didn't have
biddy programs. Half the high schools in the northwestern Ohio
area didn't have wrestling, and I was in the first
junior high program in the area. Joe Scalzo lobbied for
the wrestling in the entire area, so I had an
incredible envibment. I had Dick when I started out of
Torio's Dick Wilson's training there. He had his Olympic warm

(02:07:38):
up on and I asked my dad, what what's that
all about. He said, well, he's he's trying out to
make the ninety sixty Olympic team. You know what's the Olympics.
Told it to me, and there's a there's a seed
that's planet in my head. I had a trendous goal ahead.
He was a trendous role model. And then Toreo toorio
oninally started me early wrestling, but seventh when I was

(02:07:58):
in seventh grade, he started me.

Speaker 34 (02:08:00):
On his world class lifting program.

Speaker 4 (02:08:03):
Now, back then, most coaches in all sports they told
the guys not to lift because it make your muscle
about everything. Torio taught it full range of motion, full
range of motions. He gave me a tremendous edge and
strength over my opponents. So I had to trend this
environment to grow up in and it wasn't for those three,
those three dads.

Speaker 34 (02:08:23):
I wouldn't be here right now. And to beat that.

Speaker 4 (02:08:28):
In nineteen sixty one, I think I'm the only one
that Toledo remembers this. They brought in the National Freestyle
and Greco Tournament to Toledo's the Toledo Fieldhouse, and I
enjoyed that, probably best of anything he wrestled for two years,
but I enjoyed. I enjoyed watching our local guys, our
best local guys wrestling the best guys in the country.
And Dick Wilson, my coach and mentor, he wanted, he wanted.

(02:08:52):
His little field House held about four thousand people and
it was almost packed to the rafters, and they did
a real nice ceremony. He walked up, walked up to
the podium and he standing ovation that sucking my head.
I'd like to do this someday, and then that's not
good enough. In nineteen sixty two, we had the World

(02:09:13):
Wrestling Championships, first time was ever in the Western Hemisphere,
first time they ever did freestyle, Greco Roman wrestling both together.
So I got a chance to watch the best in
the world. Dick Wilson also wrestling in that I saw
him win a couple of matches, and then we also
had a heavyweight roll solo wint wrestling in that he
won one match and good crowds. The finals was packed.

(02:09:35):
And then nineteen sixty six it brought the World Championships
back again, and freestyle and greco again. Joe Scalzlan did
such a good job putting these tournaments on and Dictorreo
was his right hand man. They're a great team, just
created a trenis environment. Most people remember the World Cups
in Toledo almost every year, but as a kid, I

(02:09:57):
remember there's thirty seven teams from around the world coming in.
Those are the ones I like the best. So I
had a great environment, and on top of that, I
had great workout partners, so Harvey Bowles one of them.
Let me let me go down the list here, but
starting at Torreos now, mind you, fourth through sixth grade.
Another guy did the toorial classes, but our Dad's brought

(02:10:18):
us in on another day is Ron Gooseman. He ended
up second at one O three in the state. He
was thirday at one twelve in the state. Russell at
Lee one hundred and thirty. I always had fifty pounds
on him as a kid. Even he's a couple of
years older than me and he's faster. So we had
great workouts. So that wasn't good enough. In high school,

(02:10:39):
I had a guy named Denver Beck. He was a
state champ with me our senior year. He was a
light heavyweight state champ. I was a heavyweight state champ.
I worked out with him every day in high school
for three years. How great is that? And that's not enough?
Harvey Bowles Tuesday and Thursday nights in high school. He
tourtored me in Wreussell with me, so I'm out of

(02:11:00):
the thing. He was He was six four by two
hundred and thirty pounds. He ended up being a coach
at the University of Toledo for twenty years that he
I had him. He had a five year interval. I
had him as my personal tutor and workout partner, and
he teamed up at Toreo in college. Dictoria worked out
with me, and he was, well, what we do. I'd

(02:11:21):
work I got Tuesday and thursdays off from the university's
Lego practice and I worked out with Torio.

Speaker 34 (02:11:26):
I'd go in there and work at the gym. It's
from six to ten. Toreo had come in, we'd close
up the gym, we'd wrestle till midnight.

Speaker 4 (02:11:33):
And he was he was two hundred pounds, five to nine.
We gave and take and stuff. There's times I could
have he could have beat me, and he wanted to.
And then later on I got bigger and better. Maybe
I could have beat him, but we gave him take.
But he was smart enough to enlist the help of
two heavyweights or athletes. I think he knew what I
was going to deal with in n cl A tournament

(02:11:54):
as far as great athletes, and he brought in Don
wiper and Paul Elsey.

Speaker 34 (02:12:00):
Don Wipery, you're here. I know you smoke for me.

Speaker 4 (02:12:02):
This. He smoked for me this morning at the banquet.
Stand up where you yeah Don with Don was sixty
three pounds and his running partner, Yeah, oh good, good,
good good. I can't see. His running partner was Paul Elsie.
Elsie was six three, two thirty two forty. They're both

(02:12:22):
outstanding football players. Don was playing for the University of Toledo.
Now he was an Associated Press UH Honorable Mention at
All American and Paul Elsie. He was two time MAC
All football, two time MAC Champion wrestling, but he he
was drafted in the fourth round with Baltimore Colts, ended
up playing with the Cincinnati Bengals and then Don Whiper

(02:12:43):
went to Canada and played for a while. Those guys
came back and they came into the rest of the
room in January after they got back from football. They
double teamy. One guy go three minutes, the other guy
go three minutes, the other three three. They do that
about twice during the workout. When when those guys walk,
I knew, hey, my scholarship plan is over. It's not
gonna be too easy anymore. But you know, I had

(02:13:06):
three overtime matches of the n CB A I never
lost one. I attributed that to them guys.

Speaker 34 (02:13:12):
He had other other good workouts.

Speaker 4 (02:13:14):
Harvey Torrio, Don Wiper, Elsie, Oh, Zultan Ivan, Zultan Ivan.
He was Hungarian. He is on the Hungarian twenty and
under team. He uh. He wrestled in Italy and he
defected and I think it was Joe Scalzero got involved
with that. He got him to Toledo.

Speaker 34 (02:13:34):
Joe Scalzer worked at the Sun.

Speaker 4 (02:13:36):
Oil Company on the East Side and east side Toledo
had a lot of Hungarian Bulgarian people. He found him
a sponsor. So I had Zolid to work with. He
pher Pisher, somebody on a Eastern European team back in
the day.

Speaker 34 (02:13:52):
I think of the Rocky movie and had to Russian.

Speaker 4 (02:13:55):
He was he looked like a human specimen, human test
tube specimen six three two forty two fifteen rips.

Speaker 17 (02:14:01):
You know.

Speaker 4 (02:14:02):
So I was fortunate to have him to work out with.
And all these guys stuck with me till nineteen eighty
if I made the Olympic teams.

Speaker 34 (02:14:07):
So I had a lot of a lot, a lot
of I had a great environment.

Speaker 4 (02:14:11):
So you know, last the guy's talked about it, John
Colly talked about it.

Speaker 34 (02:14:18):
I like all this stuff happened fifty years ago.

Speaker 4 (02:14:21):
I'd like to talk a little bit about some guys
I'm proud of right now. And first of all, well,
I gotta I gotta introduce my son, Chad. He walked
me in here. You there, chat Yeah, there he is there.
He is sun chat Is. He's a good wrestler in
his own right. He's a state qualifier. He placed in
a minin American conference. He was best at freestyle and greco.

(02:14:44):
At two twenty he placed in the junior nationals, one
year in freestyle, one year in greco, and then he
placed at every age group.

Speaker 34 (02:14:53):
He's the twenty and under.

Speaker 4 (02:14:55):
He did the University FREESNG grecos, and a couple of
sports sports vessevals. More importantly, though, he kept he's kept
being the game because I had a dissecond A order
in nineteen ninety nine, and I'll thank God right now
for saving my life. And also doctor Michael mrad Is,
a fantastic surgeon, is on duty that day. But I

(02:15:15):
couldn't teach anymore. I couldn't wrestle anymore. I couldn't let heavy.
I can lift light, though, So he kept be involved
in a game. So I became. I pointed myself as
a booster for his. Uh you know, I taught at
Libby High School twenty eight years of inner city anyway.
He wanted to find an intercity school. It was an
inner city school and we were on the mean streets
of South Toledo. He was in there. He was in

(02:15:38):
then teaching and my assistant coach. Last year I coached.
I got out of it the year before the A order,
knowing that he could get a great assistant in there.
He brought in Jose Martinez. Both of those guys around
the last university team, varsity varsity wrestling team. Jose. Where
you at stand up Razor in Yeah yeah, yeah, stand

(02:16:01):
up them guys.

Speaker 34 (02:16:02):
Look at you.

Speaker 4 (02:16:06):
He's me. I wouldn't want to fight fight him and
my best day. He grew up in Port Clinton, Ohio,
was the fifty miles from Toledo. It's a resort town.
But he came in and he wanted to right in.
He fit right into the inner city program and uh
he he mentored a lot of guys. And then I
have three other guys that I'm very proud of. Uh

(02:16:27):
let me, let me talk a little bit about each
of you guys. I want you guys to stand Yeah.
These are these are guys I mentored. They credit me
with helping him out. But the only way I helped
him out. I took him to the gym and made
him lift weights hard. I took him to wrestling and
Clinton so they got their butts kicked. I took him
to wrestling matches, they got their butts kicked, wrestling clubs

(02:16:48):
and they it made him tough. I'm gonna steal from
Tim Johnson today. It gave these guys guts, grits and
gumpshow and he gave him a belief in their yea.
So these are the guys I'm most proud of. But
first one, hey, Paully E.

Speaker 34 (02:17:06):
Barro stand up?

Speaker 4 (02:17:08):
Yeah. PAULI started wrestling two years ago as a junior
and never played a sport before in his life. He's
got guts and gumption.

Speaker 19 (02:17:15):
Now.

Speaker 4 (02:17:15):
He just finished a graphic design at Bowling Green. He
got accepted into school. He's got a tremendous portfolio. He's
the one that got together about ninety percent of my
pitchers I had up there, but wrestling did him good.
He gave him up guts and guph Next one to
Sean Mitchell. He's the pride of Libby High School. Sean,
where you got stand up? Yeah, He's the pride of

(02:17:36):
Libby High School. He grew up in the South, in
the streets of South Toledo, but he he walked on.
He's a good student. He walked on at Cleveland State Wrestling.
By the second year he broke into the lineup. Third
year he had a scholarship, but he got sent He's
in a National Guard he got sent to uh Iraq,

(02:17:56):
got sick to Iraq, and recently did a tour in
my goalie. But we're proud of him. He graduated, he
started teaching. A couple of years he taught. He got
fast tracked in the administration. He's the principal, been to
principal about ten years of the biggest grade school k
throw aid in Toledo. So he was the pride of

(02:18:16):
Libby High School. He's top of the podium. But now
he's gonna have to move over. If we had another
guy that I'm very proud of, Trey Lampkin. Trey stand up. Yeah,
all right, tell you.

Speaker 34 (02:18:29):
He went to the gym with me three years in
a row.

Speaker 4 (02:18:32):
He's legally blind, so he volunteered as a coach at Libby.
Then we went over to Boucher High School and they
closed Libby. He had decided he's wasting his time collecting
that medicaid checked. He's too smart for that. He loved teaching.
He's coaching. He's a gift for coaching. He just at
thirty four, he just received his bachelor degree. He's going

(02:18:53):
to be a teacher. And it's too bad. Too bad
they don't have a draft, a draft like you're doing that.
If football or a free agencycret, he'd be. He'd be
a top draft, top draft choice of all the schools
around this lit area. He's got a good reputation. So
and he without without oh, John call John Collis, stand up.

(02:19:15):
John Collis spoke spoke for me this morning. He's my
claim to fame coaching. You standing up. He's my claim
to fame of coaching. He's a state champ, the only
state champ. My first year out of college, I went
to Archbold coach John college state championship. That's the best
I did. And we've been fifty fifty years. We've been
friends fifty years plus. He's been there more for me,

(02:19:36):
the high highlights and the values that the hard knocks
of life will give you. He's been there for me.
I tried to be there for him, but I think
he's given more to me. So hey, without without further
ADO like to thank thank the Hall of Fame.

Speaker 34 (02:19:51):
For having me.

Speaker 4 (02:19:53):
I like to thank Leroy did a great job, Jack fantastic,
the Veterans.

Speaker 34 (02:19:59):
Committee and all the people on the committee.

Speaker 4 (02:20:01):
You got me in here. I know Bruce Wilson for
year has been putting my name out there. I think
Don Wiper and Robin Rayfield they kind of pulled me
over the finish line. So I'm happy to be here.
Thank you very much, Thank you Greg.

Speaker 1 (02:20:27):
Very shortly, I'm going to ask our twenty twenty five
honorees to come to this stage for a final group photo.
That first photo, however, the official photo will be taken
by our official photographer, Larry Slater. Once Larry has taken
the official photographs, than any of the rest of you

(02:20:48):
are invited to come forward to take pictures if you
so wish. Before I do just a final wrap up,
which will be a minute long. I want to tell
you that when I was watching Greg's video and saw
the references to the huge, the huge, the hugest Iowa

(02:21:12):
State heavyweight, it reminded me. I write a column for
Wind magazine and it's always human interest in feature stories,
and a few years ago I asked referees to tell
me some of the funniest things that had happened to
them while they were working. And a couple of the
stories had to do with Chris Taylor. And this was

(02:21:35):
not when Wojo was wrestling him be aware of that,
but Chris had his opponent on his back, and the
opponent's coach was down there on the edge of the
matt yelling he's not end he's not penned. And this
little voice came from underneath four hundred and forty pound

(02:21:55):
Chris Taylor saying, yes I am, Yes, I am.

Speaker 2 (02:22:01):
True story.

Speaker 1 (02:22:02):
But that wasn't great so I could tell that story.

Speaker 10 (02:22:06):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (02:22:08):
I know that a lot of you have told me
over this weekend what a great time you've been having,
how much you've enjoyed visiting the Hall of Fame and
meeting our honorees and meeting so many others who come
here year after year to celebrate our sport and its history.
We hope that you will very seriously consider coming back

(02:22:33):
next year or for future honors weekends. You don't have
to know anybody being honored. You can just celebrate with
us our sport and its history next year. Next year
is the fiftieth anniversary of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame.

(02:22:54):
We are planning big celebrations and especially hoping that we
make our goal of the first ever endowment campaign of
the National Wrestling Hall of Fame. If any of you
are interested in donating in becoming part of that endowment campaign.

(02:23:17):
We would be delighted to talk with you any of
us who are involved with the National Wrestling Hall of Fame.
We want you to have an extremely safe trip going home.
We appreciate your being here so much. Every single one
of you, have a safe trip home, and except for

(02:23:37):
bringing up all of our honorees for a final group photo,
thank you and good evening.

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist

Crime Junkie

Stuff You Should Know

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}NWHOF Class of 2025 Full Induction Ceremony

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist

Crime Junkie

Stuff You Should Know

All Episodes

NWHOF Class of 2025 Full Induction Ceremony

CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist