THE TRIALS... 1968
Wayne Wells captured an Olympics spot in his first serious attempt at Freestyle competition Photograph courtesy of Wade Schalles
with the Los Angeles Y, then the San Francisco Olympic Club. I did well, but was never number one in my class. I tried out unsuccessfully for the 1964 Olympic team. I moved back to Chicago and in 1965 Steve Combs, Brad Glass and I founded the Mayor Daley Club. We were new kids on the block, yet we won the National AAU team title in both 1966 and 1967. I was the National AAU champion at 154 in ’66 and 2nd [to Bobby Douglas] in ’67. I wrestled my first international match in the FILA World Championships in 1966, finishing 4th in the world. In the 1968 Trials in Ames, I entered both Freestyle and Greco. I was having a good Freestyle tournament and had the least black marks entering the final round-robin match. I faced Fred Lett, to whom I had never lost before. Somehow, that day he beat me so I ended up finishing 2nd. I did win the Greco tournament, beating Bill Berry. I was able to compete at the Finals Camp in both Freestyle and Greco. 60 Wrestlers At The Trials
In the challenge matches, I lost my opening Freestyle match to Wayne Wells, then tied him, then lost again to him. He got me on a duckunder, which was my best move. Wayne was tough to get to and I didn’t have the zip as I did when I was 25. I had a good headlock which helped me with my Greco-Roman style. I beat Berry again to make the Greco Olympic team. Some thoughts about the coaching situation – Bill Smith resigned as Freestyle coach at the start of ’68. He was my coach at the Olympic Club and was very knowledgeable in international Freestyle. Tommy Evans didn’t know nearly as much, but I had no problem with him. His integrity was impeccable. He was extremely fair and had all the basics, but not all the techniques that Bill had. Evans pushed the Freestyle guys hard. I don’t think Henry Wittenberg really knew much about Greco and was a little too easy on us. We pushed ourselves. Overall, I thought the conditions were great at Alamosa and I was not short-changed What I am most proud of is the participation
THE TRIALS... 1968 of the wrestlers from the Mayor Daley Club. We placed five men on the US Olympic wrestling team – Don Behm, Steve Combs, Larry Kristoff, Bob Roop and me. Two other members came close, Bill Harlow and Pat Kelly. We made a tremendous impact right off the bat. The University of Oklahoma’s NCAA Champion Wayne Wells talks about events leading up to the 1968 Trials: I wrestled at John Marshall high school in Oklahoma City, coached by Virgil Milliron. That’s the same school Wayne Baughman went to, only I came along a couple years later. I won two state titles and was recruited by Tommy Evans to the University of Oklahoma in the fall of 1964. As a freshman I competed three times that year: two duals against the Oklahoma State freshmen, plus the state AAUs. For those matches, we never called it Freestyle or Olympic style – it was ‘AAU style’. I was fascinated by the ‘AAU style’, but didn’t get to do it much. I remember wrestling and beating Ron Finley, an old experienced hand who was wrestling up a weight class or two. That gave me the confidence that I could do this. Later in 1965, Evans took us to the National AAUs in Omaha. Three matches and I was out. That’s the last AAU Tournament I wrestled until I went to the Olympic Training Camp in Alamosa in ’68. In the fall of 1967, my senior year, I injured the cartilage in my knee. I didn’t want an operation then; I was afraid it would put me behind in my quest for an NCAA title. I did win the NCAAs and had the knee operated on after the season and after the East-West match was completed. It was a significant operation. In those days they opened it up all the way. Today it would have been more simple arthroscopic surgery. So, I couldn’t go to the Trials which were held in May. That was probably a blessing. I very well might not have won them. I would have received too many black marks that hurt you in a tournament situation. I was very inexperienced in Freestyle tournament wrestling as opposed to veteran guys like Werner Holzer and Fred Lett. I could do okay on top, but getting a takedown in those days was brutal. The experienced guys had their strategy. They could just stand there the whole match
just looking at you, waiting for you to make a mistake. They knew how to wrestle for a draw and how to work the black-mark system – it’s a whole different mind-set from what I was used to. Thanks to the influence of Port Robertson and Tommy Evans, I got an invitation to the Alamosa Camp. I was definitely a dark horse. I had never wrestled or even seen an international match. The closest was watching some films from Shozo Sasahara during his trip to America. At Alamosa, I had to win all my matches… first against Holzer, then Lett, if I was to make the team. It was tough for me to get down to 154, especially at the high altitude and with a slim weight allowance. I found it very difficult to sweat and I had to make weight four days in a row for my matches. I beat Holzer in two really close contests. He was extremely hard to score on. We tied once and I won the other two matches, 1-0 and 2-1. My parents drove to Alamosa from Houston to watch me wrestle, arriving there for my two final matches against Lett. Our first match I hardly remember; I think I won by a pin. In our second match, Lett went ahead of me by one or two points – that’s like ten points against a veteran such as Lett. It’s extremely difficult to catch-up at this level. He was running from me – just like I would have done if the situation were reversed. He’d jump outof-bounds whenever I got near him. I was losing with less than one minute left in the bout and I was panicking trying to figure out something. Back in the center, I jerked him down to his knees. As he came up, I closed my eyes and went for it… I leapt at him with a pancake and flipped him over. He went right to his back and I pinned him with just seconds to go. If not for that one desperate move, he would have gone to the Olympics instead of me. I was fortunate and lucky. Looking back at the training camp – I think Evans was trying to outdo Port’s 1960 regime. We worked and worked and worked. Three-aday practices sometimes. Altitude was a source of problems for many of the wrestlers. Everyone’s skin was like parchment paper. We were all flatlanders up in the hills for an extended Wrestlers At The Trials 61