“I felt that I had to be the Homer of wrestling.” — Mike Chapman
By Mike Finn, W.I.N. Editor
Normally, the words homer and journalism mix like oil and water for the last thing an objective journalist wants to be is a homer; a term used to describe someone who is so biased for the home team that he can’t see the other side.
That’s not Mike Chapman.
For he is a man who has made journalism his life for at least 35 years; first as a sports editor and later publisher of newspapers in at least six locations from Oklahoma to Colorado to Illinois and back to his home state of Iowa, where his love for wrestling was manifested in creating the International Wrestling Institute and Museum (I.W.I.M.) in 1998 to writing over 20 books on wrestling, including most recently “Wrestling Tough” and “Legends of the Mat.” The latter includes biographies of 34 of America’s greatest amateur wrestlers and will be out this winter.
The Homer Chapman refers to, according to Greek legend, was a blind poet who wrote epic poems, including the “Illiad” and the “Odyssey.”
“Homer was a story teller,” said Chapman. “We wouldn’t know about Achilles and the other great heroes of the Trojan War if Homer had not written about them.”
Chapman, whose love for history and heroes, including those in wrestling, comes forth in the wrestling stories he tells, whether its in his books or his regular column in Wrestling International Newsmagazine (W.I.N.), which he created in 1994, or in the countless speeches and radio interviews he gives each year.
“If you look at baseball, all the great players of today are compared to Babe Ruth,” Chapman said. “We need to do more of that in wrestling. How many of today’s great wrestlers even know who Robin Reed was and why hasn’t there been a biography written about John Smith?”
Chapman’s preservation of wrestling’s history and his concern about the sport’s future was a big reason Chapman was named W.I.N.’s 2006 Journalist of the Year.
“Mike’s contributions to the advancement of the sport in the media are almost too extensive to even list,” said current W.I.N. publisher Bryan Van Kley, who purchased W.I.N. from Chapman in 1998. “I think one of his career priorities from the beginning was to use his journalism skills to get wrestling the respect that it deserves in the media.
“I have never met one person in wrestling who is more committed to that end goal and who works more tirelessly for our cause. I greatly admire and respect him for his contributions to the sport. Despite being the founder of W.I.N. Magazine and publisher for the first four years, there has never been a more worthy recipient of W.I.N.’s Journalist of the Year Award.”
Chapman said he is honored by such awards — he also was named national wrestling writer of the year four times by other publications — but is concerned about the lack of future wrestling writers.
“I’ve seen no improvement in terms of the scope of wrestling journalism,” said Chapman, who covered his first NCAA tournament in 1968. “There have been a lot of good individual writers and journalists, but wrestling suffers in terms of the number of wrestling writers. There are very few former wrestlers who have moved into journalism.
“I remember a speech I gave to sports writers about 20 years ago when I asked about 250 journalists what sports they had participated in during their lives. I’d say about 90 percent said they had played at least little league baseball and about 50 percent said they had competed in basketball and football.
“When I asked how many had wrestled, only two raised their hands. At that point, I knew wrestling was in trouble.
“Writers have to be familiar with the sport and need to have a passion for wrestling if we expect the media to cover it. That lack of interest shows up in our daily sports pages on a national level.”
Chapman also believes that the leaders of the sport — from its coaches to directors of national wrestling associations — need to make marketing of wrestling their focus as much as teaching the sport.
“Sometimes, I’ve felt like a voice crying in the wilderness,” he said. “Coaches and other leaders in the sport need to understand the power of the media.”
Among Chapman’s ideas for promoting the sport was the creation of the Dan Hodge Trophy, awarded annually to the nation’s top collegiate wrestler by I.W.I.M. and W.I.N.
The exchanging of ideas was also a big factor in why Mike and his wife, Bev, started the I.W.I.M.
“As an Institute, I wanted it to be an outreach for fans and we’re always looking to plant stories about wrestling in the national media,” Chapman said. “Our mission is to let people know that wrestling is an educational tool. We like to remind them that the values in wrestling are the same that made the United States of America great.”
After spending nearly a decade in Newton, Iowa, the I.W.I.M. is moving to his hometown of Waterloo, Iowa, which Chapman calls a “stronghold of wrestling” and also the birthplace of Dan Gable, whose name will also be associated with the institute and museum.
Chapman said the move to Waterloo has given him a second wind in promoting his passion.
“This has recharged my batteries and my interest in writing,” said Chapman, who did not start wrestling until he was in the Navy in 1963 when he used wrestling as a form of self-defense. “Some guy picked a fight with me. He cut me with a knife (needing about 17 stitches) but I took him down with a power double and controlled him. At that moment, my life turned around and I knew that I loved the sport.”
That love is evident in Chapman’s latest book, “Wrestling Tough”, published by Human Kinetics.
“The reason I wrote “Wrestling Tough” is that Human Kinetics sold me on the fact that they could place the book in major bookstores all over the country,” Chapman said.
“I also like the idea that since every book written is located in the Library of Congress, I know there will always be my books on wrestling there as long as the United States exists.”
For Chapman, wrestling is a never-ending story.