Blue White Illustrated

CHARLIE IN CHARGE Speidel addresses the crowd at Rec Hall following the Lions' victory in the 1953 NCAA tournament. With him (left to right, in uniform) are wrestlers Dick Leymre, Hud Samson, Joe Leymre, Jerry Maurey and Don Frey. Penn State Athletic Communications 6,000, and the NCAA thought Eastern wrestling fans might fill the building. Ninety-four wrestlers from 32 teams were entered, but on the day before it started, the NCAA tournament wasn't even the biggest sports story in the semi-weekly student newspaper, The Penn State Collegian. A seven-column headline across the top of page one proclaimed that former Nittany Lion All-American Bob Higgins had been promoted to succeed Hugo Bezdek as head football coach. Just four Penn State wrestlers com- peted in the 1930 tournament and they didn't score a point, as Oklahoma State won with 27 points and Illinois finished a distant second with 14. The size of the crowd was not mentioned by the Collegian or the local State College weekly, The Times, perhaps because it was so small; even most of the 4,300 students on campus had stayed away. The most significant part of the tournament for Penn State occurred with the creation of the National Wrestling Coaches organization by 41 institutions. The personable and pop- ular Speidel, who helped organize the group, was elected vice president. When the tournament returned to Rec Hall in 1938, little had changed in the national media and sports cultures, although the local newspaper was now published Monday through Saturday and had been renamed the Centre Daily Times. Lehigh was still the dominant team in the East, but Penn State was coming on and had won the EIWA championships in 1936 and 1937. This time, 92 wrestlers from 29 colleges entered the NCAA competition. Only two schools had full eight-man teams – Penn State and Oklahoma State – and there was big disparity in talent between those squads. The Cowboys had three defending individual national champions and one runner-up, while the Lion wrestlers hadn't even won an EIWA title and only two had been runners-up. That fact caused the Penn State Collegian to note, "The Nittany chances for a sensational showing are slim. Attendance at the bouts, thus, may suffer." The newspaper was right. None of the Penn State entrants made it to the semifinal round, and although student enrollment had increased to 6,345, only 2,000 fans turned out for the Saturday matches. Oklahoma State won again, its 10th championship in 11 years of the tournament, beating out Illinois again, 19-15. Indiana was third with eight points. However, shortly after the end of the tournament, Speidel, now the president of the coaches association, made a prescient remark while speaking at a banquet honoring the nearby Clearfield High School wrestling team. "Speidel Predicts Rise of East in Wrestling," the Penn State Collegian headline stated. "Mounting interest in high school wrestling in Pennsylvania presages an

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