Junior/Cadet Nationals offers glimpse into future

The 2005 World Championships of Wrestling were held in Budapest, Hungary, and the top international wrestlers from the United States were battling the world’s best.

Three U.S. men wrestlers won medals in the competition, freestyle stars Joe Williams of the Sunkist Kids and Tolly Thompson of the Sunkist Kids, and Greco-Roman wrestler Justin Ruiz of the New York AC. Besides winning a medal at the same World Championships, these athletes had something else in common. All three had competed at the USA Wrestling Junior Nationals when they were in high school.

Will iams and Ruiz were “double champions” at the Junior Nationals, winning both the freestyle and Greco-Roman titles the same year. Thompson was a Junior National finalist and was also successful in both international styles early in his career. Most of the other members of the men’s freestyle and Greco-Roman teams in Budapest competed in the Junior Nationals, with some of them winning gold medals at the tournament.

USA Wrestling’s biggest showcase each summer is coming up starting next weekend, offering a glimpse into future Olympic Games and World Championships in the years to come. The ASICS/Vaughan Junior Nationals, as well as the Accelerade Cadet Nationals, will be hosted in the Fargodome in Fargo, N.D., July 22-29, and the nation’s top young wrestlers will be in action in this annual extravaganza.

There is no question that there is a strong connection from the Junior Nationals and Cadet Nationals to future U.S. Olympic and World Teams. Thumb through the USA Wrestling Team USA Guide and look the athletes who have made U.S. teams in the last three decades, and you will find dozens of Junior and Cadet National “alumni” who went on to international success.

The ASICS/Vaughan Junior Nationals, which was created in 1971, already had a Junior National champion on a U.S. Olympic team just a year later, when high school sensation Jimmy Carr of Pennsylvania qualified to compete in the 1972 Munich Olympic Games in freestyle wrestling. His younger brother Nate, also a Junior National champion, won an Olympic bronze medal at the 1988 Seoul Olympic Games.

The most recent Olympic champion for the United States, Cael Sanderson, who won his gold medal at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, Greece, is also a Junior National alumni. As a high school senior from Utah in 1997, Sanderson was a Junior National freestyle champion and placed third in the Junior Nationals in Greco-Roman that summer. The rest, as they say, is history.

The list of past Junior National champions who went on to win World and Olympic gold medals is long. Bruce Baumgartner, the only freestyle wrestler in world history to win four Olympic medals, was a Junior National champion in 1978 competing for New Jersey.

Olympic champions who were also Junior National champions included Randy Lewis, Kenny Monday, Kevin Jackson and Kurt Angle.

Add in World titles, and you can include other star athletes with Junior National crowns such as three-time World champion Lee Kemp, 1985 World champion Bill Scherr, 1993 World Champion Melvin Douglas, 1995 World champion Dennis Hall, 1998 World champion Sammie Henson, 1999 World champion Stephen Neal, among others.

Many of our Olympic champions competed at the Junior Nationals but were not champions there. An prime example is 1988 and 1992 Olympic champion John Smith, who many consider to be the greatest freestyle wrestler in U.S. history. Smith, as an Oklahoma high school star, was a placewinner at the Junior Nationals, but did not win the event.

The Cadet Nationals came along in 1986, featuring the best 15 and 16 year old wrestlers in the nation. Many of the U.S. team members since then have competed in both the Cadet and Junior Nationals as they climbed the ladder of success in wrestling. One such example was Brandon Slay of Texas, a Cadet National champion and Junior National placewinner, who went on to become an Olympic gold medalist at the 2000 Athens Games in freestyle.

The roster of Olympic team members with backgrounds from both of these events is huge. In fact, it is easier to list the athletes who did not compete at the Junior and/or Cadet Nationals on recent Olympic teams than to list the ones who did.

This trend can not be established for our women wrestlers, at least not yet. The Junior Nationals for women was not created until 2002, so the 2004 U.S. Olympic team for women did not include any alumni from that event. However, athletes who wrestled in that tournament have already made Women’s Team USA and are challenging for spots on the World Team. It would not be a surprise if one of the women who compete at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, China, was a champion or All-American at the Junior Nationals in Fargo earlier in their career.

For those with an interest in U.S. folkstyle wrestling, specifically on the college level, success at the Cadet and Junior Nationals has a proven direct correlation to success at the NCAA Championships. That is one of the reasons that college coaches flock to Fargo each year to watch the tournament, assess the talent, and pursue the athletes with the ability and desire to compete in the international styles.

Who will be the stars in Fargo during the summer of 2006? Those who are attending in person will be able to witness these star wrestlers on the way to glory on the raised platform in the Fargodome. Others can follow the results and stories from Fargo via the internet.

But there is almost a certainty that if you tune into the Olympic Games in 2012 in London, England or in 2016 somewhere else in the world, some of the stars from Fargo this year will be representing our nation on the Olympic mats. And a few of them will come home with Olympic medals draped around their necks.

Gary Abbott is the Director of Communications and Special Projects for USA Wrestling and is a founder of the National Wrestling Media Association and is a 2005 recipient of the NWCA Meritorious Service Award.

Gary Abbott