Lehigh University Athletics
The mat is where it's at in the Lehigh Valley
1/17/2008 12:00:00 AM | Men's Wrestling
By Gary Blockus
Of the Morning Call
Across the
Area wrestlers have brought back state titles from the PIAA championships every year since 1967, and District 11 wrestlers -- the designation for the
That's more than any of the other 11 districts in
So what makes wrestling so good, so important in the
In a word, tradition.
A long and rich tradition has been influenced by the success of
''You're from wrestling country,'' said Gary Abbott, the director of communications and special projects for USA Wrestling.
That's evidenced at District 11 dual meet championships, where fans pack the stands at both Freedom and
Tradition is something forged over generations, such as the annual Lehigh-Lafayette football game or the Thanksgiving Day high school football game between
Thad Turner, who finished second at the NCAA Division I championships in 1960 for
Former
So where does tradition start, and how does it begin?
Wrestling began in the
Leeman produced nine NCAA champions during his run at Lehigh, but more than that, took part in developing wrestlers and coaches through clinics pioneered by Sheridan that were decades ahead of their time.
''So many teams got started because of the clinics we did,'' Leeman said in a 2000 interview. ''The growth [of high school wrestling] would not have been as rapid and popular if not for Lehigh's influence.''
Leeman personally helped start the program with a wrestling clinic at
''People who wanted to be coaches, people who never wrestled in their lives, came,'' Leeman said of the clinics. ''The coaches would learn right along with the kids. We had kids coming to our clinics from
Tony Iasiello, a former
'I think it all came to be because of Lehigh,'' said Iasiello, who along with Pat Tocci helped run the Talon Wrestling Club for offseason training. ''When I was a kid, I always went up to Lehigh -- that's how I got interested in wrestling. Lehigh was always good and brought in good teams.
''Billy Sheridan, he started wrestling in this area. I think he helped make it a hotbed. Lehigh always had national champs like Mark and Mike Lieberman, Joe Gratto, Mike Caruso.''
Tom Sculley, who wrestled for Iasiello at Bethlehem Catholic, also became an NCAA champion for Lehigh in 1974.
Coaching
For years at the PIAA Wrestling Championships -- forever it seemed -- District 7 from western
''The great thing about that 1976 crop was that the seven champions came from five different high schools,'' said Paul Reinhard, a former sports editor of The Morning Call who covered wrestling that year. ''I had so many champions to write about. But it was great to be able to silence the guys from District 7 [Western Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic League]. We had done a respectable job the year before, too, but '76 was, to use today's overused term, lights-out.''
Lehigh wasn't the only reason area wrestlers began getting so good, Reinhard said.
''We just got good coaches, and all of a sudden it changed. Kids took to it,'' Reinhard said. ''The basketball programs weren't doing a lot. Wrestling became the winter sport at high schools.''
Reinhard cited standout coaches such as John Maitland and Bob Zarbatany at
''It snowballed,'' he said of the explosion in wrestling prowess. ''The better we were, the better we got.''
Expanding the playing field
While area wrestling teams were good, the Lehigh Valley broke through the roof in 1994 when USA Today named Rohn's Northampton team No. 1 in the country.
''Everyone has their own approach to the sport,'' said Crowell, who coached at
That started in January 1981 when
Crowell, who coached a young Jack Cuvo while at
Elementary school programs
As coach at
''The explosion of elementary school wrestling has made the sport grow, made the kids better,'' said Lovello, whose high school won its 500th match this month. ''When the parents started pushing the young kids in wrestling, it changed the scene. Elementary wrestling used to be just fun. Then the parents started pushing the kids, and it got serious. Some kids quit, but the ones who stayed, they got better.''
Lovello said the boom of the elementary programs started in the 1980s, and the results are seen today in wrestlers such as three-time state champion Tim Darling (Nazareth, now at Penn State) and Easton's Jordan Oliver, who is shooting for a third state title this year.
''We had an elementary tournament [Dec. 22] and 400 kids showed up,'' Lovello said. ''That's a lot of little kids running around, and the kids were psyched, cranked, intense and some of them were blowing people out of the water.''
Lovello credited Red Hawk Wrestling Club in
The bottom line
USA Wrestling's Abbott is intrigued by wrestling's stronghold in the
''The bottom line is, the wrestling is integrated pretty much into all levels of your community,'' he said.
''It starts with youth clubs, where a lot of young kids are involved. Towns have wrestling available for the youth, and that's not always the case around the country. The high schools are very competitive and annually have national recognition.
''
Abbott said that nationally, wrestling is everywhere but isn't strong everywhere. In the
''You live in an area where wrestling is important, people take pride in it, people go out to watch it, and young kids have appropriate role models in the sport who are accessible,'' he said. ''Over the course of time, it's a consistently strong area for wrestling. That's the definition of tradition.''
This story originally appeared in the Sunday, January 13, 2008 edition of The Morning Call . Used with permission.
