Legends

Bruce Burnett has excelled as a coach on the high school, collegiate and international levels, serving as USA Wrestling’s national freestyle coach and leading some of the most successful teams in American history. During his tenure, five Americans won Olympic gold medals and 11 U.S. athletes won 13 World Championships including four champions in 1993 and four in 1995. From 1993-2000, U.S. wrestler...

When wrestlers, coaches, media and fans gather to talk about the G.O.A.T. at Lehigh University, the conversation always includes Mark Lieberman. Combining all styles, he is considered the Mountain Hawks’ greatest overall wrestler. A 1979 Sports Illustrated article described Mark as “the guttiest and the best” college wrestler that year. He was a two-time undefeated NCAA champion at 177 pounds in 1...

One of only two Americans to win three medals at the Greco-Roman World Championships, Dremiel Byers is considered one of the best Greco-Roman wrestlers in U.S. history. Byers won a gold medal at the 2002 World Championships and is one of just five Americans to win a gold medal in Greco-Roman wrestling. He added a bronze medal in 2007 and a silver medal in 2009 joining Distinguished Member Matt Gha...

As a competitor and coach, Bill Zadick has forever written his name in the U.S. wrestling record book. He won a gold medal at the World Championships in Guangzhou, China in 2006. His younger brother, Mike, brought home a silver medal from the same tournament, making them the first set of brothers since Terry and Tom Brands in 1995 to both make the same World or Olympic team. For a 10-year period,...

In 1975, a few months after concluding his wrestling career at Grand Valley State University with a sixth-place finish at the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics national tournament, Gary Chopp went skydiving. During the 3,000-foot jump, his main and reserve parachutes malfunctioned, causing him to fall freely during the last 300 feet. He crashed into the ground, fracturing his spine...

Show Notes: Legends Since 1988, Gary Abbott has served as the media face of USA Wrestling, traveling to major wrestling events in the United States and around the globe, including eight Olympic Games, dozens of senior and age-group World Championships and 38 straight NCAA Championships. Currently the Director of Communications and Special Projects, he is responsible for USA Wrestling communication...

Tim Shiels began officiating full-time in 1988, working the regional and state tournaments in his home state of Minnesota. He began focusing on college officiating in 1989 and has worked 12 NCAA Division I national championships, seven NCAA Division II national championships, 19 NCAA Division III national championships, five national junior college tournaments and a National Association of Interco...

The induction speeches for the National Wrestling Hall of Fame Class of 2021. Meritorious Service for Officials: Tim Shiels Order of Merit: Gary Abbott Medal of Courage: Gary Chopp Outstanding American: Carl Eschenbach Distinguished Members Bruce Burnett Dremiel Byers Mark Lieberman Bill Zadick SUBSCRIBE TO THE SHOW Apple Podcasts   |  Spreaker  |  iHeartRadio  |  Spotify   |  Android  |  RSS   Su...

An outstanding high school and collegiate wrestler, Rich Lorenzo became an icon in college wrestling as the head coach of the Penn State Nittany Lions from 1978 to 1992. His exemplary career has earned Lorenzo induction into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame as a 2019 Distinguished Member. During his coaching career, he helped 53 Penn State wrestlers earn All-America honors, including two-time N...

Successful at virtually every level of his storied career, Brandon Paulson is recognized for his wrestling prowess and coaching expertise by the National Wrestling Hall of Fame as a 2019 Distinguished Member. The highlight of his wrestling career was winning the silver medal at 114.5 pounds in Greco-Roman competition at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. He also competed three times in Greco-Roman at t...

He devoted a lifetime to the sport of wrestling. But in more than 60 years as an athlete, coach and teacher, Charlie Speidel contributed far more to the lives of others than ever can be recorded in the statistics of achievement. He was a pioneer for wrestling and helped it gain stature as a major sport in the high schools and colleges of Pennsylvania and across the eastern states. He traveled exte...

His interest in wrestling surfaced in 1922 from deep in the waters of San Francisco Bay. After more than half a century of service to the sport, Dr. Albert deFerrari's impact on wrestling had spanned the globe. His first exposure to the sport followed a shipwreck near the Golden Gate. The ship's cargo of cotton was declared free to any takers. Already a champion swimmer and diver, deFerrari retrie...

He packed more wrestling success into five years than most athletes manage in a lifetime of competition. Keith Young spent the next three decades returning those rewards to the sport with full interest. His Algona High School team didn't offer wrestling until his senior year, and when he joined the University of Northern Iowa you'd hardly expect a youngster of such limited experience to fill the s...

As a tall, skinny college freshman, Frank Lewis was "a little tired" after six years of wrestling and planned to give full attention to his studies at Oklahoma State University. But he needed a physical education credit and a wrestling class would provide an easy grade. Members of the class were required to compete in the all-college intramurals and when he failed to win the championship his pride...

In the shadowed ruins of Rome's ancient Basilica, Doug Blubaugh battled the world champion from Iran for the Olympic gold medal. Emamali Habibi had never known defeat. Three times the Persian attacked, each time throwing the young American into danger. Then a swift counterattack from Blubaugh hurled his opponent to his back ... suddenly the struggle was ended. Thus did an Oklahoma farm boy reach t...

In another unearthed tape from the National Wrestling Hall of Fame, the introduction video for the Class of 1978 Distinguished Members has been released as a special episode of Hall of Fame Legends. This episode previews the inductions of the third induction class which featured true legends Glen Brand, Ross Flood, Stanley Henson, Harold Nichols, Robin Reed, Gray Simons and Bill Smith. SUBSCRIBE T...

A real-life profile of courage, Thomas Irving Green truly personifies the word. As the all-time wins leader at Weedsport High School in New York, Green wrestled collegiately at Cayuga Community College in Auburn, New York, and at SUNY Cortland. After college, he turned his attention to officiating and was moving up the ranks, including serving as an assistant mat official at the Division III NCAA...

The latest episode of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame Legends Podcast is with 2017 Outstanding American Dom Gorie. Beginning his wrestling career in junior high school, Dominic (Pudwill) Gorie always set his sights high. As a wrestler at Palmetto High School in Miami, he forged a standout career record of 41-9-1. He received an appointment to the United States Naval Academy in 1975 and wrestle...

The latest episode of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame Legends Podcast is with 2017 Distinguished Member and two-time NCAA champion Andre Metzger. SUBSCRIBE TO THE SHOW Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | Spreaker | iHeartRadio | Spotify | Google Play Music | Android | RSS For those historians who refer to the 1980s as the “Golden Age“ of American wrestling, Michigan native Andre Metzger shines bright...

The latest episode of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame Legends Podcast is with 2017 Distinguished Member and NCAA champion Chuck Yagla. Raised in the wrestling hotbed of Waterloo, Iowa, Chuck Yagla turned a talent for wrestling into a lifelong passion. He began his wrestling journey at Waterloo’s Columbus High School, where he served as a senior team captain and was runner-up in the 1972 Class...

When the conversation among Pennsylvania wrestling fans turns to “the best ever,” Jefferson Morgan High School alumnus Cary Kolat’s name is always in the mix. Kolat compiled a 137-0 high school record with four Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association championships, and he was named Outstanding Wrestler at the PIAA tournament each year he competed, an honor no other wrestler has achieved...

Episode 11 of the Hall of Fame Legends podcast unearths a gem of audio from the late 1970s. It's not confirmed when this was recorded, but noted wrestling historian Don Sayenga serves as a moderator for a special Olympians Breakfast that included wrestlers from all the way back in the 1920s. This recording has problems with sound quality, but some of the conversations between the group of Olympian...

Episode 10 of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame's LEGENDS podcast features the introduction speeches and acceptance speech from 1979 inductee Joe McDaniel. McDaniel passed away in 2011, but archives unearthed at the National Wrestling Hall of Fame have given us his voice from that Honors Weekend. He was destined to be an Olympic champion, but the Games of the XII Olympiad were engulfed in the ho...

Episode 9 of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame's LEGENDS podcast features 2017 Distinguished Member Tony Gizoni. Gizoni passed away just over a month after his 2017 induction. One of the greatest wrestlers ever to grace the collegiate mat, Tony “Babe” Gizoni was undefeated for seven years in high school and college, winning 108 straight matches. He became the fourth wrestler in Pennsylvania prep...

Episode 8 of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame's LEGENDS podcast features 2015 Order of Merit recipient Dave Bennett. Known as “Doc” throughout the wrestling community, Dave Bennett got his start in wrestling as a member of the inaugural high school wrestling team at Jamestown High School in North Dakota in 1959. He was a conference place winner and qualified for the NAIA National Championships...