Lehigh University Athletics
Family Ties
2/17/2004 6:00:00 PM | Men's Wrestling
Through the years the Lehigh wrestling family has been just that: a family. This year’s team is no different with several members of the squad having past relatives pass through the storied Lehigh wrestling program. Father/son combos competing for the Brown and White has been rare with the total now up to eight—Travis Frick, son of two-time National Champion Mike, is the most recent. As icing on the cake, Mike’s brother, Jim ’88 (teacher and assistant coach at Blair Academy), followed Mike and twice placed second in the EIWA. The Frick brothers’ 148 wins is second all-time for Lehigh, but the entire family counting Travis now has a commanding lead in that category. The rarest family tie of all? That would be the grandsons of former wrestlers. When Ben Bishop III suited up for the West Virginia Open on November 8 this season, he became the first grandson of an alumnus wrestler ever to represent Lehigh. His grandfather, Ben, is well-known for having won an NCAA title and Outstanding Wrestler Award in 1934, and still cheers vigorously in Grace Hall today at age 92. That Ben III arrived in Bethlehem as a freshman in the Fall of ’02 was anything but automatic. His father, Ben II, or “Buzz,” broke the family bloodline in the sixties to become captain of the 1970 Cornell team. Placing fourth in the EIWA in 1970, Buzz offered this: “When we met with Coach Strobel he was encouraging and inclusive and his style really impressed me. Just like my parents never influenced me to go to Lehigh and not Cornell, I let Ben come to his own decision. I know it made his grandfather very proud but he never tried to convince Ben to come to Lehigh. He sees them often and truly values the time he spends with them.” The Ivy League Bishop came very close to witnessing another rarity in family tradition at the January 25 Lehigh dual at his alma mater. Cornell Coach Rob Koll commented that the two schools came close to a historic rematch. Except for a minor infection, Ben III was slated to go at 157. Koll had the option of wrestling freshman Joey Hooker there, fully aware that Ben Bishop I and Joey’s grandfather Russ Hooker of Princeton wrestled 70 years ago. The elder Bishop lost to him in the 1933 EIWA finals, then pinned him in their 1934 dual and EIWA final. If such knowledge of history is impressive for a coach, Koll is just one of our four sons in NCAA history to follow a national champion father to the top rung. But despite father Bill winning three titles at Northern Iowa and coaching at Penn State, Rob attended the University of North Carolina. Like the Bishops, the Frick family applied no pressure on their son to follow Mike and Uncle Jim and there is evidence to support that, according to Travis: “The first EIWA Tournament I saw was my first year at Lehigh, when we hosted in 2002.” His first memory of the Lehigh campus was in 1995 when a USA-USSR freestyle dual took place in Stabler Arena. Watching Lehigh meets on TV, his bloodlines were actually more “Blue Eagle” thanks to admiration for recent fellow Nazareth High School alumni. “My favorite college wrestlers when I first got interested in Lehigh were Travis Doto ’00, Chris Vitale ’01 and Rob Rohn, NCAA champion in 2002.” Mike Frick makes no bones about how nice it is for him and wife, Linda, to have Travis close to home. As builder of houses as well as family life, Mike has enjoyed helping mentor all four sons in wrestling. One reason Travis is a 184- pounder is his experience since seventh grade helping Dad with construction projects. Mike and Linda attend all home meets and the entrepreneurial home builder attends most away meets, too. Competitors for Travis included Penn State and Brown but Dad confesses, “When it came to decision time, he knew all along he wanted to study Industrial Engineering and wrestle for Lehigh.” There is little historical certainty about how many nephews of Lehigh are in the books, but freshman Matt Cassidy from Plum, PA has always been very close to Uncle Steve Cassidy (EIWA champion and two-time All-American) both literally and figuratively. “He lived with my family for a few years,” says Steve, who is 11 years older “and the family homes are still only 10 minutes apart.” Despite coaching as an assistant at Rutgers, they talk often by phone, usually several times a month in season. However, Matt competed in four sports as a youth, so wrestling was on the back burner among his interests as a fan. “Growing up, I really did not follow wrestling other then what my uncle was doing at Lehigh. My first memory of the campus was in 1993. I came up with my grandparents to watch my uncle wrestle.” Cassidy continues, “The only Lehigh dual I can remember watching was at Lehigh against Penn State. The most vivid memory I have of this particular meet is being in awe of how big Bill Closson’s (also a Plum grad) opponent was. He turned out to be one of my coaches, Kerry McCoy. “ -Story by Denny Diehl, Lehigh Wrestling Historian
