Augsburg College Wrestling History

Augsburg College celebrates 50 years of wrestling July 30-Aug. 1 -- Click here for the schedule!

For a complete look at Augsburg wrestling history, check out our "In the Pursuit of Excellence for 50 Years" publication. Click here for the cover (PDF, 279K) | Click here for the full publication (PDF, 692K) | You need to have the free Adobe Acrobat Reader plug-in, included in most web browsers, to see the PDF files (click on this link to download the free Adobe Acrobat Reader plug-in!)

By Don Stoner, Augsburg College Sports Information Coordinator

When you look inside the wrestling rooms in the lower level of Si Melby Hall, the history surrounds you. The names and photos of former wrestlers are all around, with all sorts of honors aside their names.

The history is everywhere.

Augsburg College has maintained a tradition as one of the nation's wrestling powers, yet it all started 50 seasons ago with an innocent meeting.

The establishment of wrestling as a varsity sport at Augsburg was a minor announcement in its time, December of 1948. In fact, the idea of starting a program merited just a couple of paragraphs in the student newspaper, the Augsburg Echo - since basketball and hockey were, at that time, the hot winter sports on the Augsburg campus.

"If you like to lie around on the floor and grunt, come over to the gym this coming Tuesday for a meeting of all wrestling aspirants," said an Echo article in December 1948, encouraging young men to try out the sport. Ten wrestlers took on the sport, and it moved from club to varsity status.

"Experimenting in a new field, Augsburg came out with its first wrestling squad in history," reported the student yearbook, the Augsburgian. "With growing enthusiasm, a team was formed, but lacking a coach, progress was slow. During the season, three matches were held with Don Slarks and Art Roessel acting as co-captains. Losing their first matches to the Minnesota University Farm team and to the Minnesota 'B' squad, the Auggie mat men came back to beat the Farm team after the University boys had run up a winning streak of seven straight."

Thus, with that one victory in 1949, history began.

And it hasn't stopped since then.

Augsburg slowly built itself into first a state, then a national powerhouse in small-college wrestling. The Auggies began competing on the national level in 1968, the year the squad claimed its second MIAC championship. By the time John Grygelko took over the program in 1973, MIAC domination was becoming the norm; now it was time to take over the national scene.

Jeff Swenson took over the head coaching duties in 1981, and scored the school's first national wrestling championship a decade later. But despite the years of national prominence, the title came as a surprise to many wrestling observers.

"As recently as last season at the eastern-dominated NCAA Division III Wrestling Championships, schools like Augsburg College faced an identity problem," wrote former sports information director Gene McGivern in a 1991 issue of the Echo. "Fans and sportswriters familiar with New York, New Jersey, Ohio and Pennsylvania schools would ask, 'Where's Augsburg? Is that where they make Augsburg Beer?'

"Folks in Minnesota have known that Augsburg has been brewing up a terrific wrestling program for two decades. Today, more of America knows that Augsburg, and the 1991 NCAA III wrestling championship trophy, resides in Minneapolis."

The 1990s have been defined as the "Augsburg decade" in small-college wrestling. No other team has dominated the national scene as much as Augsburg -- in eight of the nine Division III national championships held in the decade, Augsburg has finished no lower than second. Five national championships -- 1991, 1993, 1995, 1997 and 1998 -- have punctuated the decade.

Augsburg also made MIAC history in the final season of the decade. The 1999 championships, held at Augsburg, featured all 10 Auggies earning individual conference titles -- the first time that had ever happened in the 50-plus years of the MIAC meet.

Will the next millenium hold even more glory for Augsburg wrestling? Just watch and enjoy as the "Pursuit of Excellence" rolls on.

Augsburg will be celebrating its 50th anniversary all season long, capped off by a special weekend celebration next summer. The "Celebrating 50 Years of Augsburg Wrestling - 1949-1999" weekend will be held July 30-Aug. 1. The weekend will kick off with the annual John Grygelko/Augsburg Wrestling golf tournament on July 30. A cruise on Lake Minnetonka and dinner/dance at the Holiday Inn Metrodome will be held July 31, and a barbeque picnic in Murphy Square (adjacent to Augsburg) will be held Aug. 1.