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THE TRIALS... 1976
Dziedzic is so intense and competitive. I have him hoisted in the air and he is coming down – unceremoniously. I bow forward and he is wrapping himself around me. He is bear-hugging one of my arms and scissoring my other arm. He knew he was going down and was going to take me with him.
– WADE SCHALLES
‘Butch’ Keaser who was a brawler and a cruncher. Iowa coaches tried to change Morgan but not successfully. Morgan could beat Keaser in the room, yet not that often in the tournaments. The intensity at Iowa was impressive – three to four sessions a day – but it was too much for me. I started dragging and had to take time off. I went to Cleveland where I pinned my first six opponents. I figured it would come down to just me and my biggest rival, Stan Dziedzic, and I knew I could beat him. I was very surprised to see Lee Kemp beat Dziedzic. Lee was a good wrestler, but I didn’t think any collegian could beat Stan or me. It was most likely a style match-up thing. When I wrestled Kemp, I didn’t have much trouble with him. My last match was against Dziedzic and it came down to one call at the end. We were even, although he was ahead on criteria. It was either 2-2 or 4-4 and I come close to taking him down but we go out-of-bounds. Back in the center of the mat with under 30 seconds left, in the area they call ‘the zone’, I get in behind Stan and initiate a throw. Now in those days if you initiated an offensive move from the zone, you couldn’t have points scored against you. Anyway I throw Stan and we both land on our backs. They give Dziedzic two points, none for me, and he was declared the winner of the match. That was maybe the first time I ever knew that I won the match but my hand didn’t get raised at the end. I believe it came down to AAUUSWF politics. The head official was Steve Evanoff and he hated me. He was an AAU guy and I was one of the wrestlers that broke away from that organization and became a USWF guy. I had 110 Wrestlers At The Trials
been very outspoken about the way wrestlers were being dumped-on by the AAU. On top of that, I had no mentor telling me how to act and play the politics game. I bet if I had an influential person like Farrell in my corner, I would have received the points. Meanwhile, Dziedzic, who I’ve always said is a top-shelf quality individual, was more politically astute than me and remained friendly with the AAU and their officials. Mousetis and I protested the call. Evanoff talked with the mat referee when we protested and I believe he intimidated the officials into giving the tilt points to Stan. That was a bad ‘homer’ call. The next week I got a letter (I still have it, by the way) from the referee of the match apologizing for the bad call. Nevertheless because of all my pins, I had fewer black marks than Lee or Stan, so I won the tournament anyway. For the next month I went to the Camp at DeKalb to continue my training. I didn’t workout with the 163-pounders. Instead, I preferred wrestling the guys at 180. I wrestled a lot with John Peterson and could beat him pretty easily. I couldn’t handle the bigger Peterson – Ben – though. In my estimation he was, by far, the better wrestler of the two brothers. At Brockport, I was in the best shape of my life, both mentally and physically. I never felt stronger as an athlete. I had my weight under control; I came down from over 180. Physical test results from a sports camp I attended at Indiana State showed that I had more power in my legs than any of their college football linemen. I had great legs and thighs. I really didn’t care whether I met Kemp or Dziedzic in the finals. I knew I could beat both – at the same time if need be. If I was rational, I would have thought that I’d rather face Kemp, because I had his number, but I didn’t give a shit who my opponent was. Early in the match with Stan, we are on our feet and I am in on him below his under-hook, squatting in the fireman’s carry position. I picked him up and due to our intense ‘friendship’ I had every intention of planting him on the mat like a daisy. Ha! As an aside, when Stan and I would be entered in tournaments at different weight classes, we were very friendly and would work as a tandem – hang out together, have a beer or soda, look for
THE TRIALS... 1976 girls, the things guys do – but when we were wrestling each other, it was a very different story. Anyway, as I said, Dziedzic is so intense and competitive. I have him hoisted in the air and he is coming down – unceremoniously. I bow forward and he is wrapping himself around me. He is bear-hugging one of my arms and scissoring my other arm. He knew he was going down and was going to take me with him. I carried him with me as I dropped into a front bridge. I had no hands to break our momentum. My head was driven into the mat with the force of us both and I broke two vertebrae. I got my two points but I knew something was not right. I was seeing double. The injury clock started and after 30 seconds, the mat judge, Steve Evanoff, barks at me, “Get up and wrestle.” I got up and started, but I couldn’t do anything. My chest was spasmatizing. Stan was behind and was coming after me. He was pushing me and I was just trying to hang on. I got warned and then penalized two points in the second period for stalling. Was I stalling? You bet. I wasn’t shooting. I felt like the boxer who, after taking a blow, clinches to buy time to shake the fog in his head. My fog never cleared. At the end of the second period, my corner man, Mousetis, tells me ‘Wade, you gotta suck it up.’ I couldn’t. My chest wasn’t expanding and I was having trouble breathing. I went back out there but finally, with about 45 seconds to go, I collapse. The next thing I remember is waking up in the hospital later that day. In a magnanimous but meaningless gesture, my buddy Evanoff announced that this first match with Dziedzic was null-and-void because of my injury and that we will have to wrestle two more matches. Well, the doctors said, ‘no way, you cannot wrestle with a broken neck’, so I was done. While I was very dejected, I was grateful that I didn’t receive a life-threatening injury. I just had a compression fracture, the mildest form of a broken neck. My thoughts went back to the day six years earlier when I was wrestling Ray Murphy from Oklahoma State in the semi-finals of a Freestyle tournament in Stillwater. I had Ray up in the air, brought him to the mat on his head and he broke his neck. Very badly; he was paralyzed
and never walked again. After the Dziedzic match, I was still able to walk around and my mind told me it just wasn’t meant to be for me to wrestle in the Olympics. That evening, I join the rest of the wrestlers at the medal ceremonies. I am standing one rung down from Dziedzic. I reach up, shake his hand, congratulate him, and wish him good luck in Montreal. He replies, ‘I deserved to go. I was the best wrestler.’
1976 OLYMPIC TEAM MEMBERS
Freestyle
Greco-Roman
105.5 Bill Rosado
Mike Farina
114.5 Jim Haines
Bruce Thompson
125.5 Joe Corso
Joe Sade
136.5 Gene Davis (3 ) rd
Gary Alexander
149.5 Lloyd Keaser (2 ) Pat Marcy nd
163
Stan Dziedzic (3rd)
John Matthews
180.5 John Peterson (1 )
Dan Chandler
198
Ben Peterson (2 )
James Evan Johnson
220
Russ Hellickson (2nd) Brad Reinghans (4th)
st
nd
UNL Jimmy Jackson
Peter Lee (5th)
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The Soviet wrestlers dominated the Olympics, winning a total of 12 gold and 5 silver medals. In Freestyle, Communist block countries won 15 of the 30 possible medals. In Greco, Communist block countries won 27 of the 30 medals.
1976 presidential election
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Winning a close race, Carter became the first president elected from the Deep South in more than 125 years. According to many, Ford’s pardon of ex-President Nixon was his undoing, while Carter appealed to the masses as a Washington outsider. THE SCORECARD Jimmy Carter Walter F. Mondale
297 Electoral Votes 50.1% of Popular Vote
Gerald R. Ford Robert J. Dole
240 Electoral Votes 48.0% of Popular Vote
Wrestlers At The Trials 111