Regardless of weight class and include Pitt-Johnstown in your list of wrestlers (i.e. Haselrig). 1-10. Who do you have?
Top 10 Pitt Wrestlers of All Time
- Thread starter TheSpecialSauce
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Including Carlton makes it really hard. I don't have time to research the next five right now, but here's what I'd go with for the first five:
1. Hugh Peery 3x NCAA champ, 56-1 career, Olympian
2. Ed Peery 3x NCAA champ, 51-1 career, unbeaten in his weight class
3. Carlton Haselrig 6x NCAA champ (3 D-II, 3 D-I), 143-2-1, 122 straight matches without a loss; played 6 NFL seasons (Haselrig rule was instituted, no longer allowing D-II and D-III champs to compete in D-I tourney)
4. Pat Santoro 2x NCAA champ, 4x AA, 167-13, Olympic alternate
5. Keith Gavin, NCAA champ, 2x finalist, 120 career wins, 2x World Team Trials runner-up
1. Hugh Peery 3x NCAA champ, 56-1 career, Olympian
2. Ed Peery 3x NCAA champ, 51-1 career, unbeaten in his weight class
3. Carlton Haselrig 6x NCAA champ (3 D-II, 3 D-I), 143-2-1, 122 straight matches without a loss; played 6 NFL seasons (Haselrig rule was instituted, no longer allowing D-II and D-III champs to compete in D-I tourney)
4. Pat Santoro 2x NCAA champ, 4x AA, 167-13, Olympic alternate
5. Keith Gavin, NCAA champ, 2x finalist, 120 career wins, 2x World Team Trials runner-up
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In my opinion, no. He’d be close to Gavin - both would have a title and two finals appearances - but Nino would get his in the extra year. Gavin lost to a Hodge winner (Ben Askren) in the finals and was a Hodge finalist himself.
Also Gavin was an undefeated ncaa champ with few if any real close matches.
What was even the point of the Haselrig rule? Why was it even deemed necessary?
Probably because the NCAA doesn't allow lower level teams/competitors into the D1 championships in any other sport. IUP basketball is the number one ranked D2 team right now, but they aren't playing in the D1 tournament next month. The top swimmers in D2 don't get to compete in the D1 tournament. The rule that allowed that was always a wrestling only rule, and an odd one at that.
You’re probably 100% right on this, but the UPJ take on it was that the D-I guys didn’t like it that a D-II guy came and won three titles.
From a fan perspective, I’d love to see it again, but it will never happen.
The sport has changed so much with clubs and national events that the odds of someone like Haselrig doing it again would be almost zero.
I agree but still would like to see how some match up. Could D-II four-timer Joey Davis have been a D-I champ? I don’t think so - I seem to recall him losing to a D-I guy somewhere in an unofficial match - but would like to see how he would have done.
Pitt-Johnstown is not Pitt. Why are we considering them?
Jody Strittmatter won 2 D-II titles then transferred to Iowa and placed third twice, I believe. I know he placed 3rd at least once. Wasnt a title obviously, but he had a legit chance.
Haselrig was an incredible athlete. If he went all in on wrestling, then he could have been one of the best.
Yes and no. UPJ is a constituent school of the University of Pittsburgh. They're all the same university and same degree. Imagine if he had been at Pitt main ("main" being a term the Pitt administration hates). He'd have been on those teams with Pat Santoro, no? But that said, I agree, you can't count him as being one of the greatest wrestlers in Pitt varsity wrestling history because he wrestled for a separate campus and separate team even though it's technically part of the same university. He was a Mountain Cat, but still a Pitt man, if you can wrap your head around that. Probably not a similar example of such a world class, record-setting athlete like that an any other university system's lower level branch/regional campus (and no, I'm not counting UCLA as a branch of UC, etc).
And UPJ just won, what, its 7th consecutive PSAC title and is ranked #2 in DII. I wish more of its sports programs were that successful. UPJ men's hoops is receiving votes in the DII poll. Sports success is always good publicity for the school, and Pitt's regional campuses need good publicity.
BTW, there have been 11 Pitt wrestlers who have won an individual NCAA title, so narrowing a top 10 is difficult because who are you going to eliminate from this list:
- Hugh Peery, 115 lbs (1952, 1953, 1954)
- Joe Solomon, 167 lbs (1954)
- Ed Peery, 123 lbs (1955, 1956, 1957)
- Ed DeWitt, 167 lbs (1956)
- Tom Alberts, 167 lbs (1957)
- Ron Schirf, 191 lbs (1957)
- Paul Powell, 123 lbs (1958)
- Larry Lauchle, 130 lbs (1961)
- Jim Harrison, 167 lbs (1963)
- Pat Santoro, 142 lbs (1988, 1989)
- Keith Gavin, 174 lbs (2008)
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Slot the D2 champion in as the 33 (or 34th if you must) wrestler in each weight class.
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