By Bryan Van Kley

            Binghamton’s Josh Patterson has been named WIN Magazine’s Schalles Award winner for the 2008-2009 season. The Bearcat junior racked up 22 falls and finished the season 46-6. His 46 wins were also the most of any Division I wrestler.

            He became Binghamton’s first Division I All-American, finishing seventh at the NCAA Championships at 184 pounds.

            Bearcat coach Pat Popolizio, a two-time All-American at Oklahoma State, was very pleased with Patterson’s season. He added that his star pupil’s success will pave the way for others and help fast-track the growth of the program to higher levels of success.

            “I think it’s unbelievable the progress he’s made. At the beginning he took a chance on us and the program. In a short amount of time, he’s risen the expectations,” said Popolizio, who just finished his third year at the helm. “He’s opened the door for a lot of the recruits we’re talking to. More importantly, he’s gotten a lot of the guys on the team to believe.”

            Patterson grabbed two falls on his way to the medal stand at Nationals and had a streak of six straight pins in late November/early December.

            The Wayne Central (N.Y.) prep said he chose to stay in-state and wrestle for Binghamton because he knew he’d get the personal attention he wanted to help him reach his goals.

            “I realized I was going to be able to accomplish my goals at Binghamton,” he said. The soft-spoken Patterson, who also has had two brothers wrestle for the Bearcats, felt achieving the program’s first All-American honor and winning an award like the Schalles will help Binghamton get other top-level kids.

            “I really think it’s going to put us on the map and show kids they can come to a school like Binghamton and become All-Americans,” he said.

            The program’s biggest supporter, Hollywood star and former alum Billy Baldwin, said seeing Patterson get his hand raised in the round of 12 to become an All-American was a special moment for many people who had put a lot into getting the program back in 2005. It was cut after the 2003-2004 season.

            “He’s a great kid and a great wrestler. I’m very proud of him. We all are. When Sandy (Stevens, the public address announcer at the NCAAs) announced that Josh Patterson had just become Binghamton University’s first Division I All-American, I got a huge lump in my throat. I said to Popolizio that I felt like his father,” Baldwin said.

            Baldwin was instrumental in helping bring the program back financially. But more importantly, he worked tirelessly to mobilize past alumni and raise money so the university couldn’t say no to the proposal of bringing back the program.

            Popolizio said he really wants what they’ve been able to do in a short amount of time at Binghamton to be a billboard to the national wrestling community.

            “It gave hope to other programs that you can build a program pretty fast if you do things right,” he said of the program’s success.

            Baldwin added that there were a few key ingredients in helping Binghamton to succeed quickly: a coach like Popolizio, a strategy with an ability to be wise about the politics involved, money and alumni support.

            Baldwin, who wrestled for Binghamton in the early 1980s when it was a Division III program, said an important step in regards to fundraising was getting all the past alumni on the same page.

            “You need a dozen guys at the core on a committee and another 300 or 400 who can support you. Some guys will write a check for $25 one time, other people can give $1,000 a year for 25 years,” Baldwin said. “It’s up to Popolizio after that. He needs to create an environment in the room where they’re going to remember Binghamton wrestling when they reach their earning potential in their career.”

            Popolizio reflected back on the risk Patterson took on him, his staff and the school when he came there as Popolizio was starting in the fall of 2006.

            The wrestlers in the room had a combined 20 wins the previous year before Popolizio came through the door. The former Cowboy said he had to run “high school” practices that first year just so none of the kids would quit. And gradually they’ve raised the bar each year since.

            “I like to say I’m a positive person. I have to admit I was pulling my hair out at times. ‘Why did I do this? Can it be done?’ I had to be very patient,” Popolizio said.

Like anything worth getting in this world, Binghamton has shown that worthwhile things take time and there’s going to be a high level of investment. But, what is so exciting to me about what Popolizio, Baldwin, Patterson and company have done at their New York university is that it is a great success story that our wrestling community can point to.

            If you’re organized and the commitment level is high enough from enough people, you can get a program back and have success quickly.

            I’d encourage any of the young collegiate coaches out there or boosters who are trying to start or get a program back to give Coach Popolizio a call or e-mail and hear straight from him what it has taken to get to the point where they’re at.

            One thing I do know is this: there was a handful of incredibly-excited Bearcats in the Scottrade Center in St. Louis, March 20, when Patterson defeated 2008 All-American Kirk Smith of Boise State in the round of 12 to make the medal stand.

            “That was symbolic of the program as a whole,” Baldwin said as he thought back to that moment. “That will be a very significant turning point in the program’s history.”

            (Binghamton head coach Pat Popolizio can be reached by phone at 607-777-5860 or by e-mail at ppopoliz@binghamton.edu.)