There were giants that walked here, once upon a time. And unlike your traditional giants, this particular breed came in sizes from a formidable 285 pounds to a disarmingly lean 125. They were Olympians, World Cup winners and NCAA champs.

When its Division I status was revoked in 2001 after 79 years, this clan of wrestlers left behind the uniforms and footsteps they desperately wanted to be filled.

To make up for this lack of sport at Syracuse University, a club team formed in 2003, but progress has been slow and membership sparse. But on Jan. 21, at the National Collegiate Wrestling Association’s New York dual meet at Adirondack Community College in Queensbury, wrestlers wearing Syracuse orange will hit the mats in competition for the first time since 2001.

Though it has been years since some of the upperclassmen have wrestled competitively, there is confidence from Club President Tom DeGrocco that the club will come out strong. There are freshmen who were leaders in their sections or even states in high school, and there is one wrestler – a woman – who was a national champion.

It’s all with one eye toward the future and regaining D-I status. For now, the wrestlers are satisfied with – and busy preparing for – Saturday’s competition.

‘Wrestling is all about timing and awareness and getting in sync with yourself,’ DeGrocco said. ‘It’s just a matter of getting that back for the guys that haven’t wrestled in awhile.’

Rededication

There’s certain energy in the air at practice. The club has grown from 10 members with a 50-percent attendance rate to 50 participants with little recruitment, DeGrocco said. The meet Saturday is the light at the end of the tunnel of long practices, weight checks and workouts.

It is hard to train when you don’t know what you’re training for, said Melissa Fukashima, the lone active female club member and a senior exercise science major. ‘I’d like to think there’s a lot more girl wrestlers out at Syracuse,’ she said with a laugh.

‘It’s a lot easier to push yourself,’ Fukashima said, ‘because you know someone is pushing just as hard.’

Though some come to the club as novices, most are former wrestlers who chose academics over athletics. DeGrocco did, and missed the sport so much he made sure that the opportunity for competition is there for others in his position, such as Fukashima.

‘I’ve had a long time to think about what wrestling means to me,’ she said. ‘Getting it back has made me realize just how much I missed it.’

‘A lot of people still have that competitive edge,’ said Nick Hall, a sophomore who chose SU for the business program rather than Rutgers or Boston University for wrestling. ‘For some people, it’s a mini-community or a mini-fraternity. I can see people starting to get closer.’

The club’s enthusiasm goes above and beyond competition and somehow embodies a true love for the sport and its history. To raise money for the season, members hosted a clinic for Syracuse-area high schoolers and organized a banquet for the alumni in November.

The team enthusiastically volunteers to help outside the gym, said Kristina Rossman, the manager of the team.

‘I’ve never been a wrestler, and I’ve never really followed the sport,’ Rossman admits, ‘but the passion that the club has and that the alumni have for getting this team reinstated is contagious. The more we get out there through things like this, hopefully, the more it will spread to everyone like it spread to me.’

An eye toward the past

There is something catching about Syracuse wrestling, about the tradition, about the past. It’s hard to get anyone to talk about the club team and future competitions without evoking praise for former athletes.

There’s Gene Mills, a three-time World Cup champion and 1980 Olympian, who still holds the NCAA record for most pins at 107. Or Art Baker, who won the NCAA in 1959, or Matt Kerr in 1992. Year in, year out, the team constantly ranked in the top 15 or higher.

Three alumni – Gene Mills, Andy Schwab and Joseph Pavone – have also helped at practice.

‘If I had a choice of where I’d want to be for the rest of my life, I’d be a college wrestler at Syracuse University,’ said Sonny Greenhalgh, who wrestled at SU in from 1959 to 1963 and returned as a graduate assistant coach in 1967-68.

Greenhalgh is also president of Keep Syracuse Wrestling, Inc., a non-profit organization founded in 2001 to work for the team’s reinstatement to Division I status. Keep Syracuse Wrestling donated over $7,000 to the club for this season, Greenhalgh said.

About $1,500 of it went to new uniforms, called singlets, DeGrocco said, but the club is working to raise its own money for entrance fees and transportation to meets.

Greenhalgh and DeGrocco both hope that the new administration and Gross, who was hired last December, will be receptive to the idea of reinstatement.

But Gross declined to comment on a possible reinstatement. There needs to be more discussion with alumni, said Sue Edson, director of athletic communications.

When D-I status was initially revoked, then-Athletic Director Jake Crouthamel told alumni they would need $1 million to endow the program with scholarships, a number alumni have not been able to meet, Greenhalgh said.

The number of scholarships offered varies by sport depending on the number of athletes involved. According to NCAA bylaws, for Division I-A participation, there must be at least seven team members, 13 to 16 competitions against D-I opponents and a maximum of 9.9 scholarships offered.

‘You’re in the perfect area to pick the best of the wrestlers and have good team,’ Greenhalgh said. ‘For Syracuse to bring a team back, you would be right on top in three, four years.’

Wrestling is becoming one of the most popular high school sports in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York and Ohio. Though New York has a huge wrestling population, the state offers very few D-I opportunities, DeGrocco said, and many wrestlers are forced out of state.

‘I think a lot of people at Syracuse would support a wrestling program,’ DeGrocco said. ‘It’s not one of those sports that’s going to fill the Carrier Dome, but you have a lot of kids who are interested or are former wrestlers and who are interested.’

There was even a father who called DeGrocco asking him to let his son practice with the club, to be recruited – just in case the team is reinstated.

A reinstatement would be a victory for the sport and for athletes in general, said Gene Mills, who wrestled and coached at Syracuse from 1976 to 1997. It is the only sport that offers equal chance at competition for small and tall athletes and teaches something that can only be learned in a wrestling room.

‘I honestly believe that I have learned a thousand times more through and from the sport of wrestling than I have in all my academic classes put together,’ Mills said. ‘And I have my masters and 27 graduate credits on top of that.’

Mills is just one member of a large alumni base that has been long been involved, raising money for the team’s reinstatement and helping the club when they can. Being a Syracuse wrestler is for life.

‘They’re proud of their heritage and where they’re from,’ Mills said. ‘I think everyone can say that Syracuse wrestling helped them get where they are today.’

The alumni are a source of inspiration and rejuvenation for club members, who speak of Mills and other alumni with a tone of reverence usually reserved for war heroes or kings.

‘When we had dinner with the alumni, just to see the passion,’ Fukahsima said, trailing off. ‘I get excited when I just think about it.’

For now, though, there are practices to make it through and hotels to be booked. They’re working hard, but they don’t seem to notice.

They roll out their lightweight mats in the fencing room of Flanagan Gym, the building that once housed the wrestling giants until four years ago. They wrestle each other for two hours Sunday through Wednesday, the best way to practice. They try to get back into the groove of making weight.

‘That’s the wrestler, the guy wearing two pairs of sweatpants running on a treadmill,’ Rossman said, laughing. ‘I could just never do it, but they do and they love it.’

Published on January 17, 2006 at 12:00 pm