The Penn wrestling team walked onto the floor of the Palestra Saturday knowing that the Ivy League title all but hung in the balance during the first meet of the Ancient Eight season.
The Quakers, along with their opponent Cornell, have combined to win at least a share of the last 17 Ivy League championships, and are the only two Ivy programs that can legitimately contend with national powerhouses.
The meet, like most between bitter rivals, hinged on the final match, with Cornell walking away the victor, 17-15.
The Quakers were disappointed with the result, but not their performance. Now they can concentrate on the important end-of-year tournaments -- the Eastern Intercollegiate Wrestling Association Championships and the NCAA Championships. Despite the bitter taste the Big Red left in the mouths of the Penn grapplers, it wasn't long ago that the Red and Blue had trouble winning a meet against the scrubs of the Ivy League.
Beginning in 1976, the Quakers compiled a total of eight Ivy League wins during a span of 13 seasons, never finished higher than 12th at the EIWA Championships and only sent representatives to the NCAA Championships twice. Then, in 1981, it was announced that the wrestling program at Penn was to be discontinued.
"As word of that got out, recruiting was severely impacted, and it led to a less than optimal experience for me and a lot of my teammates," current coach Roger Reina said.
Reina was a sophomore in the College at the time of the announcement. However, the plans to scrap the team were blocked by alumni, and the Quakers continued to wrestle.
The scenario is difficult to believe considering Penn's recent seven Ancient Eight titles and the No. 15 ranking it currently holds. But believing is really what it was all about when Reina took over in 1986 and attempted to resurrect a program that had been only months away from being terminated.
"One of the biggest roadblocks is belief," Reina said, motioning toward a banner with the word "belief" in big blue letters at the other end of the practice room in Hutchinson Gymnasium. "Once you get to college athletics, in the sport of wrestling, there's a lot of work that's involved. But then there's this area of really believing in yourself to do things that you haven't yet accomplished.
"In the '80s and '90s, that wasn't only an individual thing, that was programmatically. Can people get it done at Penn?"
Reina also needed to garner the financial support that is a necessity when constructing any team that's expected to compete among the nation's best. Reina spends a great amount of time working with alumni, not only as a fundraiser, but as a networker for current and former wrestlers.
"One of the things the announcement of dropping the program did, was it really mobilized our alumni," Reina said. They "put us in a position financially where we could ... become competitive within the league at first and then within our conference and nationally ultimately."
However, strong convictions and good facilities are only parlor tricks and could not cover up a program in which few people had faith. Reina and the Quakers still needed to show that wrestlers could not only win in the classroom when enrolled at Penn, but also on the mat.
"We were looking for pioneers. We were looking for people that wanted to make a difference in the program, that wanted to make an impact," Reina said. "I think a lot of people who came in in the late '80s and early '90s take tremendous pride in the changes that took place during their time here."
The changes Reina instituted began long before his wrestlers ever reached the practice mat. He wanted his recruits' priorities to be school first, wrestling second and everything else third. Reina also set out to increase the intensity of practices, add a junior varsity schedule and teach and make sure his wrestlers were involved with International and Olympic-style wrestling.
The commitment to Olympic wrestling paid off when Penn alumnus Brandon Slay, a 1998 Wharton graduate, won a gold medal at the 2000 Summer Games in Sydney
"Regardless of whatever degree of talent someone is blessed with, in this program, you are going to be expected to work your tail off and fully reach for your potential," Reina said. "It's really like climbing a mountain just one step at a time and trying to strengthen all areas of our program."
