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THE TRIALS... 1972
The AAU and USWF people never agreed on anything, but the one exception was the thought of sending the inexperienced Peterson brothers as our representatives to wrestle in Munich. I kept hearing stuff like, ‘These guys will be an embarrassment to us.’ – WAYNE BAUGHMAN
gold-medal winner and I worked on that dream for the next eight years. I would never have been what I was in wrestling – as a competitor and as a coach – if not for Terry and Doug. At the ’72 Olympic Trials I competed at 198. I made it to the finals, but I blew out my knee the day before my final challenge match while working out with Henk Schenk. I tore the interior ligament and medial cartilage. Ben Peterson was too good for me. I could beat Wayne Baughman since he was getting older and slowing down, but I couldn’t beat Ben, especially not with my injured leg. The thing about Ben – you could sometimes take him down but he’d then roll you onto your back for big points. Anyway, I went and got surgery on my leg and watched the Olympics on TV. Ben Peterson talks about the time between the Trials and the Finals Camp and his last encounter with Hellickson: During the month between the Trials tournament and the Camp, Gable brought me and my brother to the wrestling camps that he was working in Iowa. John and I moved in with Dan and his parents in Waterloo. His folks fed us and housed us. We had three workouts a day – morning, afternoons and evenings. Dan’s father said that we needed to do more. He forcefully told us to start running before breakfast. We did. At the Camp, Hellickson beat Wayne Baughman in the semi-finals wrestle-off to earn the right to face me in the finals. However, he hurts his knee in his last practice before our match. There was a question of whether 86 Wrestlers At The Trials
it would be he or Baughman to challenge me. Russ was now just a one-legged man but he couldn’t back down. I wrestled him and won handily. It was a shame that our rivalry ended this way – with him not at full strength. It was devastating for Russ to lose. There were some statements made by the AAU leadership that Baughman should appeal for the right to wrestle-off with me. People were questioning whether I was really tested. ‘Is he really ready?’ they were asking. Baughman defended the way the tryout system worked and that ended the controversy. Wayne Baughman confirms that most wrestling people were leery of sending the Peterson brothers to the ’72 Olympics: The AAU and USWF people never agreed on anything, but the one exception was the thought of sending the inexperienced Peterson brothers as our representatives to wrestle in Munich. I kept hearing stuff like, ‘These guys will be an embarrassment to us.’ They really wanted me to challenge Ben after seeing that Hellickson was unable to wrestle at full strength. But I said, ‘No. It’s not the ethical thing to do. Ben won the Trials fair and square’. I just couldn’t do it. 125.5 pounds Freestyle – Don Behm vs Rick Sanders
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his was the clearly the marquée match-up of the Trials. Both wrestlers were silver-medalists in the ’68 Olympics. No less an authority than Stan Dziedzic, runnerup to Wayne Wells at 163 in ’72, says of the finals match between Behm and Sanders: It was probably the best wrestling match I’ve ever seen. Those two were so highly competitive. It was a fantastic match to watch. Rather than recalling the match details, Don Behm provides this quirky behind-thescene story of his encounter with Sanders earlier in the day: I’m cutting pretty heavily to get to 125.5, as is my finals opponent, Sanders. We are sitting in the steam room together the morning before
THE TRIALS... 1972 our final match that will determine which one of us will make the Olympic team. We both hate making weight and we had to be at scratch weight. Sanders all of a sudden says, ‘Is this a weight losing contest or a wrestling contest?’ We both agree it’s all about wrestling and not about cutting weight. He says, ‘Okay, let’s forget about this steam-room stuff and not make weight for our match. What are they going to do – take the 3rd place guy? I don’t think so.’ I agree with him. We leave the steam room and go get something to eat and drink. Coach Farrell was having Bill Weick weigh-in each of the wrestlers. After a while we go over to Weick and he asks, ‘When do you fellas want to weigh in?’ We tell him, ‘In a little while’ and we go have some more to eat and drink. A couple hours later we see Bill and tell him, ‘We’re ready now’ and take off for the locker room scales. Sanders races into the locker room, jumps on the scales and the needle goes way up past 125. I jump on right after him and the needle does the same. Weick comes walking into the locker room just as I’m jumping off – and headed to the water cooler as Sanders had just done. Weick asks Sanders, ‘Did you make weight?’ ‘Yep’, says Sanders, guzzling down more water. He looks at me and I say, ‘Yea, he did.’ Then he asks me, ‘Behm, did you make 125?’ ‘Yep’, I say and Sanders backs me up. Weick gives us both a funny look and says, ‘Okay, let’s go wrestle.’ Bill Farrell remembers the competition: The hardest-fought of all the Freestyle challenge matches were between Behm and Sanders – very, very close. No one ever backed up or stalled. They could have gone either way. The two of them were amongst the best in the world. Mark Lieberman, just a young teenager at the time, says: While Behm and Sanders were going at it, Dan Gable was wrestling his final wrestleoff on an adjoining mat. Hardly anyone was watching his match, including Dan. Dan would ride on top, control his guy, and keep looking over to see what was going on between Behm and Sanders. It was incredible.
Since Sanders beat Behm at Anoka, he only had to defeat Don once at the wrestleoffs. Scoring a takedown with just one second to go, Sanders decisioned Behm 2-1 to win the 125.5 US Olympic team berth. Behm says of that match: It was a crowning moment in my career. Even though I lost, I was, and will forever be, part of one of the best wrestling matches ever.
1972 OLYMPIC TEAM MEMBERS
Freestyle
Greco-Roman
105.5 Sergio Gonzales
Wayne Holmes
114.5
James Steiger
Jimmy Carr
125.5 Rick Sanders (2 ) Dave Hazewinkel nd
136.5 Gene Davis
Jim Hazewinkel
149.5 Dan Gable (1 )
Bob Buzzard
st
163
Wayne Wells (1 ) st
Gary Neist
180.5 John Peterson (2 ) J Robinson nd
198
Ben Peterson (1st)
Wayne Baughman
220
Henk Schenk
Buck Deadrich
UNL
Chris Taylor (3 ) rd
Chris Taylor
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The Freestyle team matched their ’60 counterparts by winning three gold medals. The Russians outdid us, though, winning five Freestyle gold medals along with two silvers. While Gable and Wells won as expected, the performances of John and Ben Peterson opened the eyes of the international wrestling community.
1972 presidential election
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For the first time, 18-year-olds were permitted to vote for a president. Nixon won re-election overwhelmingly, winning every state except Massachusetts (and the District of Columbia). THE SCORECARD Richard M. Nixon Spiro T. Agnew
520 Electoral Votes 60.7% of Popular Vote
George McGovern Sargent Shriver
17 Electoral Votes 37.5% of Popular Vote
Wrestlers At The Trials 87