Schalles Award: Nominate athletes from 1980-1998

Editor’s Note: Please send nominations to: wschalles@cfl.rr.com.

By Wade Schalles, WIN staff

The Schalles Award has recognized the nation’s most dominant pinners in wrestling since 1999. Over the years, the award has expanded to honor both male and female wrestlers at the collegiate and scholastic levels, celebrating athletes who embraced one of wrestling’s purest and most exciting skills — the fall.

But long before the Schalles Award existed, there were outstanding collegiate wrestlers who led the nation in pins and never received national recognition for that achievement.

We would like to change that.

WIN Magazine and the Schalles Award are beginning a project to identify and recognize the top collegiate male pinners in America for every season prior to the award’s creation, beginning with the 1980 season and continuing through 1998.

We know those wrestlers are out there. The challenge is that many records from that era are incomplete, scattered, or difficult to locate. That is where the wrestling community can help.

We are asking coaches, former wrestlers, sports information directors, historians, alumni, and fans to submit nominations for athletes they believe may have been the nation’s top collegiate pinner in a given season from 1980 through 1998.

Anyone may nominate an athlete.

To be considered, please provide the following information:

• Athlete’s name
• Year being nominated for
• College or university represented
• Weight class
• Total matches wrestled that season
• Total number of pins recorded that season

Please send nominations to: wschalles@cfl.rr.com

As nominations are compiled, a list of leading candidates will be published through WIN Magazine, allowing the wrestling community one final opportunity to review the information and submit additional candidates or supporting statistics before selections are finalized.

Somewhere in wrestling history are athletes who dominated with falls and deserve to be remembered. With the help of the wrestling community, we hope to finally recognize them.