By Mike Finn, W.I.N. Editor

Greg Urbas has seen a lot of good things happen to his St. Edward High School wrestling program, especially last year’s Ironman tournament victory over Blair Academy.

And while that moment, which helped the high school from Lakewood, Ohio, replace the prep school from Blairstown, N.J., as the nation’s mythical national champion for last season, the Eagles’ head coach also received good news when several college programs wanted to hold dual meet competitions in his gymnasium the last weekend of November.

“It’s an honor for us to have these great programs coming into St. Eds High School,” said Urbas. “We had Iowa, Old Dominion, North Carolina State, Findlay (Div. II) and Iowa Central Community College. It’s a privilege to host one of the great programs ever in Iowa and we had Ohio State last year against Northwestern, which has five former St. Eds wrestlers.”

In other words, college programs are coming to this program that has won 11 consecutive Ohio state team championships and has produced many collegiate wrestlers; thus drawing the college programs.

The same can be said about many high school wrestling programs in the state of Ohio that has just four Div. I programs.

“In the state of Ohio, the competition is so stiff that these kids are so used to battling on a weekly basis. They are more accustomed to college wrestling where everyone is pretty good,” said Ohio State coach Tom Ryan.

“Last year 12 NCAA All-Americans out of a total of 80 were Ohioans. Stats like that are impressive for the state of Ohio.”

The state of Ohio has been considered a recruiting hotbed for a long time and Ryan knew that when he took over the Buckeye program last year after creating a successful program at Hofstra in New York.

But he also knew that Ohio State was losing many of those great wrestlers to programs outside the state.

“I feel strongly that Ohio State is a state university and that we have to keep home in-state talent,” Ryan said. “I could have been viewed as an outsider and I don’t want to be. My children will be raised in the state of Ohio. I wanted to reach out to them before they reached out to me. I went around the state and shared our vision on the program.”

The same could be said of Jim Andrassy, a native of Macedonia, Ohio, who has made Kent State more than respective on the national level. These Ohio college coaches feel fortunate to be able to attend the Ohio state tournament, which is held Feb. 28 and March 1 on the Ohio State campus; about the same time college programs are preparing for NCAA tournaments.

“I found it to be even more impressive than I thought it would be,” said Ryan. “I had not been able to come and recruit the Ohio tournament (while at Hofstra) because it was always the week of our conference championships in New York.”

“That’s the big show,” agreed Bob Preusse, one of the co-directors of the Ironman tournament. “Even a (Cleveland) Plains Dealer writer I know who doesn’t really like wrestling, wrote, “there is no spectacle like the Ohio state wrestling tournament.”

And so is the Ironman tournament, which was created in 1994 by Bill Barger, the head coach at Walsh Jesuit High School, which is located just south of Cleveland. They once shared the Ohio state power with St. Eds, whose dynasty was created by the late Howard Ferguson in the mid-1970s and continued by Urbas, his successor.

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