In 1996, on a snowy weekend in Syracuse, N.Y., a Penn freshman by the name of Brett Matter stepped up to win an Eastern Intercollegiate Wrestling Association title at 142 pounds. The championship, coupled with those of teammates Josh Bailer and Clint Matter at 167 and 177 pounds, respectively, helped to secure the EIWA team title and returned a Penn wrestling program that had been on its back for decades to the glory to which it had been accustomed.
"My situation was a little unique because I was able to watch the program develop since I was a sophomore in high school because my brother wrestled there," Brett Matter said. "I was excited about the prospect of helping them build a tradition. To think back and realize I was a part of that was something that I can't ever forget."
The last time Penn had seen an EIWA champion was in 1944, but in the eight years since that night, Penn has had 23 EIWA individual champions, four EIWA team titles, eight Ivy League championships, a national champion and an Olympic gold medalist.
Penn has the longest running college wrestling program in the United States, and with it comes a history rich with stories and tradition that has had a profound effect on many of its wrestlers, including current Penn coach Roger Reina.
"When I first became coach, I was 24 years old and I was the youngest Division I coach in the country at the time," Reina said. "I got a letter one afternoon sitting in my office from a gentleman who explained that he had been a coach here in the 1930s and '40s and was describing some of the wrestlers and state of the program at that time and what they accomplished with his teams."
The letter was from W. Austin Bishop, a Penn coach from 1936 to 1943 and a legend in the wrestling world. He officiated the 1932 and 1936 Olympic games, and initiated the Pennsylvania Grapplers club in 1937, the first booster club for intercollegiate wrestling. However, his coaching career at Penn was cut short when he became the head of all the physical recreation programs and interdepartment athletic events for the military during World War II.
The pair corresponded regularly and eventually Reina began to visit Bishop at his retirement home in Lancaster, Pa. Reina said that during a taped conversation prior to Bishop's death in May 1994, Bishop predicted that Reina's teams would not only meet, but surpass the success of his own.
"He gave me hope that as we were beginning to rebuild our program that I could pattern myself after the things he had done," Reina said. "He had inherited a team that was not competitive and in a relatively short time developed one of the most nationally competitive teams there was. So I thought, if he could do it, we could do it."
Not only did Bishop have some of the best teams in Penn history, but he coached wrestlers with amazing stories and successes.
In 1935, Bob Allman arrived as the first blind wrestler in intercollegiate history. He had lost his sight when he was four, after jumping from the top of an abandoned freight car in Atlantic City, N.J. It is said that when Allman arrived at the Quadrangle, Penn had arranged for him to have a room right in the front of the Quad, allowing for easy access. However, Allman's father scoffed at the idea of treating his son differently from anyone else and requested the room at the farthest end of the Quad on the top floor.
"I made up my mind that I was going to do everything any one else could do, but see and maybe do it better," Allman told The Philadelphia Inquirer in a 1940 interview.
Allman became a captain his senior year and placed second at the EIWA tournament three years in a row. He also compiled a 44-12 record and went on to graduate from Penn Law School. In 1939, following his senior year, Allman was named by the Philadelphia Sports Writers as the "Most Courageous Athlete in America."
Dick DiBatista, who graduated from Penn in 1943, went 85-0 during his career at Penn. DiBatista, a National Wrestling Hall of Fame inductee, will be a speaker at the March 6 EIWA centennial banquet.
He told the Penn Athletic Department that his most memorable match came as a sophomore against A.J. Crawford of Appalachian State, a 29-year-old freshman with multiple Amateur Athletic Union national championships.
Bishop had conceded that DiBatista would lose and had gone to coach another match. In his place, Bishop sent Lehigh coach Billy Sheridan, the most prominent wrestling coach at the time, to advise DiBatista. Sheridan told him to stay on his feet and avoid Crawford, but when DiBatista did so the crowd started booing and the referee, Cliff Keen, gave two stalling points against him.
"I finally decided I am not going to get put down in this fight; I am going to wrestle. I am going to take this guy down," DiBatista told the Athletic Department.
DiBatista went for the takedown, put Crawford on the mat and got the crowd on his side. He rode Crawford throughout the third period en route to winning the match.
Penn's new generation of wrestlers also has its greats as well.
In 2000, Brett Matter became the first Penn wrestler since DiBatista to win an NCAA national title.
"It was something that I had planned on doing well before I ever went to Penn," Matter said. "It's something I worked very hard for and had to sacrifice a lot of things. To be honest I never really had any Olympic aspirations, so for me on an individual level that was my ultimate goal."
However, Matter's teammate Brandon Slay had those aspirations since he watched Dave Schultz win Olympic gold in 1984.
"What attracted me was coach Reina's commitment to his vision to want to take Penn to the top of wrestling in the nation," Slay said. "I really bought into that vision."
Slay was also able to train with Schultz at the Fox Catcher wrestling complex in Newton Square, Pa.
After finishing second at NCAAs his junior and senior year, Slay moved out to the Olympic training facility in Colorado Springs, Colo., to prepare for a shot at the Olympics.
After former Penn assistant coach Brian Dolph pulled an upset in the semifinals at the Olympic trials, Dolph was set to face Slay for a chance to go to Sydney.
"The cool thing about that moment was we knew that someone affiliated with Penn was going to go to the Olympic games," Slay said. "What was hard about it was he knew me -- he knew my mind and body and technique more than anyone at Nationals. Brian Dolph summed it up best by saying it was a 'no-lose, no-win situation.'"
Slay defeated Dolph and went on to win the silver medal in Sydney, but was awarded the gold when Alexander Leipold of Germany, his opponent in the finals, tested positive for steroids.
"I had to start learning the lessons associated with a silver medal, but then we find out two weeks later that he tested positive for steroids," Slay said. "I think the most important thing that I realized is that no matter how much that gold medal meant to me, and my community and Penn wrestling, there is more to it than that, there is your family and friends and faith and integrity."
