By Mike Chapman, W.I.N. Columnist

The State of Illinois enjoys a long and proud wrestling tradition, from Abe Lincoln to Allie Morrison to Mark Johnson.

         Most wrestling fans know something about the story of the legendary wrestling match that took place in the little frontier village of New Salem, in the summer of 1831. That’s when a young and gangly Abe Lincoln tangled with the local toughie, Jack Armstrong, in a wide-open, frontier-style wrestling match. The results are lost in the mists of time, but the general opinion is that Abe came out ahead, at least in the collective memory of the nation’s Lincoln enthusiasts.

         Though no one knows for sure who won the wrestling match, what is certain is that Lincoln became close friends with the Armstrong family. Not only did he journey to Jack’s farm on many occasions to talk and share supper, but his most famous trial as a young attorney involved Jack’s son, Duff. The friendship even extended into Lincoln’s White House years.

         Jack Armstrong is buried in a tiny cemetery stuck in the middle of a cornfield near New Salem. Today, only a few people know of the grave’s whereabouts and the site is very seldom visited. But Jack Armstrong and the wrestling match had a tremendous impact on Lincoln’s early development and the story has become an important element of our sport’s grand history.

There are at least three other accounts of Lincoln engaging in some sort of wrestling match while living in Illinois. In two of them, he is the victor; in the third, he suffers defeat.

         Shortly after the Armstrong match, he apparently tossed a troublemaker out of his New Salem store, resorting to wrestling techniques to gain the upper hand. He threw the man to the ground outside the store and stuffed his mouth with grass to shut him up. Some three years later, while campaigning in a tiny berg named Pappsville, he tangled with a ruffian and threw him to the ground before continuing with his speech.

         Abe also admitted that he lost a wrestling contest to a powerful soldier in the summer of 1932, during a break in the Black Hawk Wars. He said the fellow was simply too powerful for him to contend with. So, for the record, Abe was probably 3-1 in his unofficial wrestling career.

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         THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS began its wrestling program in 1911 and had met with varied success throughout the decades. To date, 18 wrestlers have won a total of 20 Division I NCAA titles, but surprisingly the school can boast of just two multi-title winners. Joe Sapora won titles in 1929 and ’30 at 115 pounds, and Bob Norman captured crowns at heavyweight in 1957 and ‘58.

         The greatest wrestler in UI history never won an NCAA title. Allie Morrison entered Illinois in the fall of 1926 and never lost a match from that point on. The NCAA held its first-ever NCAA tournament in early 1928, but it wasn’t as important to many college wrestlers as was the AAU national freestyle meet, and Morrison passed up the NCAA meet of 1928 to concentrate on the AAU tourney and the Olympic Trials.

         He won AAU national freestyle championships at 135 pounds in 1926, ’27 and ’28, and also made the 1928 U.S. Olympic Team. In Amsterdam, he romped to the gold medal at 134 pounds without a close match, the only American to win an Olympic championship that year.

         Returning to Champaign in the fall of 1929 for his junior season, Morrison suffered broken vertebrae in his neck and never wrestled in competition again. He began a long and highly-successful coaching career, winning four state team titles for Omaha (Nebraska) Central High, and was a decorated naval officer in World War II. Morrison was born and raised in Marshalltown, Iowa, where he was a two-time state champion, and died in 1966, at the age of 62.

         Today, there is a large photo of the 1928 Olympic champion in the Illinois wrestling room, helping to inspire up-and-coming Illini to dream big and work hard.

         The program was in the doldrums for over a decade, when Mark Johnson arrived on the scene as head coach for the 1993 season. Johnson brought with him a long and distinguished resume to the position. The summer following his senior year at Alleman High School in Rock Island, Illinois, he won a Junior National championship. He was a two-time All-American at the University of Michigan, and won two national championships in Greco-Roman wrestling. In 1980, he made the Greco-Roman Olympic Team but was forced to watch the Games on television with the rest of the United States team when President Jimmy Carter declared he was boycotting the Moscow Games.

         Known nation-wide for his tremendous strength and bodybuilding achievements, Johnson was an assistant to Dan Gable at Iowa for eight years, then took over the head job at Oregon State in 1991. He quickly made the Beavers a West Coast power, winning the Pac Ten title in 1992 and being named conference coach of the year.

         He was wooed to Illinois when Ronnie Clinton was fired after the 1992 season, and began rebuilding the program immediately. The Illini had only posted two winning seasons over the past decade. The year prior to his taking over, the Illini were 2-11 and finished 54th in the NCAA meet. Mark’s first team went 9-4 and moved up 21 spots in the NCAAs. The word went out that the Illini were on the road back.

         In 1995, Johnson led the team to a 13-2 record and finished ninth in the NCAAs. He was named national coach of the year by both W.I.N. Magazine and the NWCA. In his 15 years at the helm, Johnson has seen his teams win three Midlands titles, the Big Ten championship in 2005 (the first for the school in 53 years) and place in the nation’s top ten on nine occasions.

         During the Johnson era, Illinois has crowned seven individual NCAA champions, fifth among all schools, and its nine finishes in the top ten team race is good for sixth place! Entering this year, his 177 wins are the most in Illini wrestling history by a huge margin, and his winning percentage of .818 is the best since 1928.

         His top assistant the entire time has been Jim Heffernan, a four-time All-American at Iowa who was NCAA champion in 1986. Heffernan has been named national assistant coach of the year twice. The two have been a tremendous team!

         OTHER ILLINOIS colleges have enjoyed successes, as well. Jack Riley won a pair of NCAA crowns for Northwestern at heavyweight in 1931 and 1932, and grabbed a silver medal in the 1932 Olympics. He pinned most of his foes with a double wristlock, now illegal, and used it to such degree that he was one of the most feared wrestlers in collegiate history. He coached at Northwestern for many years.

         While Iowa gave Illinois an Olympic champion in 1928 in Allie Morrison, Illinois returned the favor 32 years later. Terry McCann was a high school sensation in Chicago, and elected to attend the University of Iowa. He won two NCAA tiles for the Hawkeyes before winning a gold medal in the 1960 Olympics in Rome. Known as one of the fiercest competitors ever to step on a mat, McCann, winning his gold medal at 125.5 pounds, said he was inspired as a little boy by a photo of Morrison.

         “I was at a candy store across the street one day and saw a picture of this little guy, Allie Morrison, getting a gold medal in the Olympics, for wrestling,” said McCann for the book, Legends of the Mat. “I was very impressed. I thought he was just a little guy and if he could do something so special in sports, so could I. That was the start. I had a vision.”

         Chicago also produced a legendary coach in Bill Weick. After winning two NCAA championships on the mat for Iowa State Teachers College in the 1950s, Weick embarked upon one of the most amazing careers in coaching history. By the end of 2007, he had coached in every major tournament around the world and had more victories, 749, than any other high school coach in history!

         In 1960, Northern Illinois claimed its only Division I title when Roy Conrad finished first at 177 pounds, while Art Kraft captured the 157-pound title for Northwestern. In 1964, Southern Illinois had two NCAA champions and placed fourth as a team in the Division I race. Terry Finn took the title at 115 pounds and Don Millard won at 167.

         Jim Woods gave Western Illinois its only Division I champion ever when he claimed heavyweight honors in 1974.

         Another Illinois heavyweight, Larry Kristoff, earned a reputation in the 1960s as the finest big man in American history until Bruce Baumgartner arrived on the scene. Kristoff, who never wrestled until his senior year in high school, owns a total of 14 national titles — two for Southern Illinois (Division II), nine in freestyle and three in Greco-Roman. He also owns three silver and two bronze medals from the World Championships and was on the 1964 and 1968 Olympic teams.

         Illinois State can boast of one of the nation’s finest Greco-Roman stars. Willie Williams won a total of 13 national titles, including 11 in Greco-Roman and one in freestyle, in the 1970s. He finished first at 190 pounds for Illinois State in the Division II tournament in 1967, and also placed fifth in the Division I meet.

         Perhaps the most famous star in Eastern Illinois history is Matt Hughes, who placed eighth and fifth in the NCAA Division I tournament at 158 pounds and then became a mixed martial artist. Hughes has been one of the top stars in the UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championships) the past half decade and has given considerable credit to his wrestling background.

         The state has also produced many of the top leaders in the sport, like Ken Kraft, Werner Holzer and Steve Combs. Kraft coached for many years at Northwestern and is one of the founders of the very popular Midlands Championships, while Holzer and Combs were college All-Americans (at Illinois and Iowa, respectively) who went on to become Olympians and founders of the USWF, along with McCann.

         Foremost among influential Illinois wrestling leaders would be Dennis Hastert, who wrestled at Wheaton College and then coached Yorkville High to a team state championship in 1976. Shortly after, he entered politics, eventually becoming an 11-term United States Congressman and, eventually, Speaker of the House. In the latter position, he was third in line for the presidency. Donald Rumsfeld wrestled at New Trier High School before entering politics and becoming Secretary of Defense for two presidents.

         All in all, Illinois is a state with a long and powerful tradition in the sport of wrestling; dating all the way back to the summer of 1831 when a gangly, six-foot-four inch young man sauntered into New Salem, a small stop on his way to immortality.

         (Mike Chapman is the founder of W.I.N. and has written over 500 columns on the sport of wrestling. He is also the executive director of the Dan Gable International Wrestling Institute and Museum in Waterloo, IA. Mike and his wife, Beverly, were given W.I.N.’s IMPACT of the Year Award for 1999 and Mike was named W.I.N.’s Journalist of the Year in 2006.)