WIN’s 2020 Award Winners Announced

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Updated: April 30, 2020

(Note: The latest issue of WIN, printed April 29, 2020, and features the 2020 Award winners, was designed by Quantal Langford.)

NEWTON, Iowa — Wrestling Insider Newsmagazine is proud to announce this year’s 2019-2020 season award winners.

One month after Iowa’s Spencer Lee won the 2020 WIN Magazine/Culture House Dan Hodge Trophy as college wrestling’s most dominant wrestler, WIN is pleased to announce the following recipients of this year’s awards:

  • Wisconsin’s four-time state champ Keegan O’Toole as the Junior Dan Hodge Trophy winner;
  • Iowa’s Tom Brands as Dan Gable Coach of the Year;
  • Adeline Gray and Sally Roberts as Mike Chapman Impact Award winners;
  • Teenagers Jude Swisher and Sam Herring as WIN’s Journalists of the Year;
  • Cornell All-American Ben Darmstadt as Schalles Award winner;
  • South Dakota prep Nash Hutmacher as Junior Schalles Award winner.

Features on all of these 2020 award winners can be found in the recent issue of WIN, which was printed on April 29. Go to WIN-Magazine.com or call 888-305-0606 to subscribe to WIN Magazine. Use Discount Code “May” to start your subscription — in print, digitally or both — with this issue.

O’Toole, who became the state of Wisconsin’s 18th four-time state champ in February at 160 pounds for Arrowhead High School, earned the award named after Dan Hodge, the former three-time champion from Oklahoma. O’Toole will wrestle in college at Missouri, the alma mater of his club coaches Ben and Max Askren, who also won state titles for Arrowhead High in Harland, Wisc.

Brands, who just completed his 14th year at Iowa, earned the Dan Gable Coach of the Year honor — named after the legendary former coach at Iowa which is presented annually by WIN — for a third time. Brands led the undefeated Hawkeyes (13-0) to a Big Ten championship and a No. 1 ranking prior to the 2020 NCAA Division I Championships that were canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic. This Hawkeye team featured nine wrestlers seeded in the Top 8 of their weight class at the NCAAs.

Gray and Roberts shared the Mike Chapman Impact Award, which is named after WIN founder Mike Chapman, who also created the Dan Hodge Trophy and Dan Gable Museum and Wrestling Hall of Fame. Gray, a native of Denver, Colo., has inspired many girls to wrestled and is the only American to win five World freestyle championships, while Roberts has played a big part in mobilizing local leaders within the states to sanction girls wrestling at the prep level and start college programs as director of Wrestle Like A Girl.

Swisher, who is 16 years old, and Herring, 13, actually live 900 miles apart in their respective hometowns of State College, Pa., and Memphis, Tenn., but combined to create the Home Mat Advantage weekly podcast that has covered all levels of wrestling in this country for the past year. Swisher and Herring, who are both successful wrestlers in their age groups, showcase their youthful passion for the sport by welcoming guests like Jordan Burroughs and Kyle Snyder to their on-line show.

The Schalles and Junior Schalles Awards, presented to the nation’s top college and high school pinners, are named after legendary NCAA champion Wade Schalles. Darmstadt, a 2018 All-American who is a native of Elyria, Ohio, pinned 14 of 28 opponents this winter as the Big Red sophomore qualified for the 2020 NCAAs at 197 pounds after winning a second EIWA championship. Hutmacher, meanwhile, pinned all of his opponents this season and ended his career with 73 straight falls as the senior from Chamberlain High School won a fourth South Dakota state championship. The heavyweight wrestler will now begin a football career at the University of Nebraska.

 

 

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