The return of wrestling at Washington State University since 2012 has led to national championships and other successes on the mat, as a team and for individual athletes.
A university club sport, the team won the men’s Division II National Championship, Collegiate Cup, and other achievements. Beyond the club’s recent wins, wrestling has a long and storied history at Washington State.
According to Dick Fry’s history of Washington State sports to 1989, The Crimson and the Gray, Frank Jenne (1912 Ag.) of Coupeville was captain of the first Washington State College wrestling team in 1909. WSC met Spokane Athletic Club, Multnomah AC, and Oregon Agricultural College, all on the road. Team members were Edward Cheely (1910 Vet. Sci.), DeBeque, Colorado; Fred Hunter (1913 Gen. Stu.), Palouse; Walter Ferguson (1910 Vet. Sci.), Goldendale; Fred Calkins (1909 Vet. Sci.), Ellensburg; and Cornelius Kruchek, Waitsburg
J. Fred “Doc” Bohler introduced wrestling in 1910 as an intercollegiate sport at WSC and coached the team for many years.
Wrestling was switched from a major sport to a minor one in 1926. Harold Berridge (’29 Phys. Ed.), Monroe, Pacific Northwest Association heavyweight champion at 175 pounds, took over as student coach. Al Polenske (’27 Ag.) of Edwall won the PNA title at 135 pounds.
WSC had an undefeated wrestling team in 1942 under Coach Bob Neilson, winning all its dual meets and the three-way tournament with Idaho and Washington. Letter winners were Walt Rohde (’48 Ag. Mech.), Monroe; Leighton Wallace (’43 Vet. Med.), Snohomish; Don Bennett (’47 Ag.), Spanaway; Henry Brown, Tacoma; Chet Gisselberg (’45 Hort.), Cathlamet; Ryomi Tanino (’50 Arch.), Bellevue; and Alex Ryncarz (’44 Vet. Sci.), Tacoma.
In 1948, legendary coach Bill Tomaras came to WSC and brought a new era of success not only for WSC wrestling but also high school wrestling in the state.
Tomaras coached at WSC from 1948-59 and, after completing a doctorate in education at the University of Oregon, coached at UC Berkeley, 1959-61, and was coach, 1961-65, and athletic director at Western Washington University, 1962-72.
“Fewer than 10 high schools in the state offered wrestling when WSC hired Tomaras for $2,800. He soon realized the need for a feeder program if wrestling was to succeed at WSC. With that in mind, he organized the first state high school wrestling tournament in 1953—two mats, eight teams, 60 wrestlers—in Bohler Gym. … Teammates kept time and scores,” former Washington State Magazine editor Pat Caraher (’62 Comm.) wrote in a profile featured in the fall 2004 issue.
Tomaras was recognized as the “Father of Washington State High School Wrestling” at his induction into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in 1972.
Under Tomaras’s direction, the Cougars captured five Pacific Coast intercollegiate championships. Between 1952 and 1954, WSC won 23 consecutive dual meets. Among them were Alden Peppel (’55 Pharm.), Ray Needham (’54 Ag.), and Sosh Watanabe. Peppel competed in the 1956 Olympic Trials at Portland. Needham, drafted out of intramurals, won the coast crown at 157 pounds. Watanabe never lost a dual match in four years at 121 pounds.
Cash Stone (’59 Phys. Ed.) won a Pacific Coast title as a Cougar 130-pounder in 1958 and later became a coaching legend at Spokane’s Mead High School.
“Billy never gave up on you, even if you had a bad match,” Stone told Caraher in 2004. “You always wanted to perform well. If you didn’t, you thought you let him down.”
The WSU Athletic Hall of Fame features four wrestlers, along with Tomaras (2012): Carl Ellingsen (1980), Bill Berry (1989), Clem Senn (1990), Vaughan Hitchcock (2006).
The WSU wrestling team in 1986 featured Wendell Ellis (’88 History) of Yakima, who won his second straight Pac-10 heavyweight wrestling title and went to the quarter-finals of the NCAA tournament. The 350-pounder was 30-6 in his senior season. Ellis was joined by four other Coug wrestlers in the 1986 NCAA championship meet.
However, due to budget cuts, WSU wrestling as an NCAA intercollegiate sport ended that same year.
In the 1986 Chinook yearbook, then-vice president for university relations Stanton Schmid said, “I regret the elimination of another varsity sport, but I have to look at what’s happening locally and nationally.” Schmid noted that womens’ field hockey and skiing, mens’ gymnastics, and mens’ swimming were cut previously.
Coach Phil Parker and others were sorely disappointed, not only because of WSU’s wrestling success but also because of high school sports. Parker said Washington, which as a state ranked third in youth involvement with sports, now had no local college options to offer young wrestlers in the 225 high schools with wrestling programs.
Wrestling became a club sport in 1987, but it dwindled over the years.
In 2012, wrestling came back to the mat again as a university club sport.
The Cougar wrestling team joined the National Collegiate Wrestling Association Northwest Conference. In 2015, the team became two-time conference champions and NCWA Division II national champions. That led to a promotion to Division I.
(Photo Oliver Mckenna/The Daily Evergreen)
In 2017, WSU wrestling had three members ranked nationally. Hunter Haney (’19 Accounting), also club president then, was ranked number two at the 133-pound class; Zack Volk (’19 History) was ranked number two at 165 pounds; and Tucker Hanson (’20 Busi.) was number 12 at 184 pounds.
The men and women of WSU wrestling over the last decade also had 16 NCWA All-Americans, a lot of Academic All-Americans, and 18 individual conference champions.
WSU archivist Mark O’English assisted with this overview of Cougar wrestling.
Current matches are held in the Student Recreation Center with championships in Beasley Coliseum (Courtesy UREC)
More about WSU wrestling
Read news articles and watch videos about the WSU wrestling club.
WSU Wrestling Podcast: Wazzu Wrestling Inside The Den
Wrestling legend: Cash Stone (’59 Phys. Ed.) as an athlete, coach, and movie consultant
Big little man Bill Tomaras touched many lives (WSM Fall 2004)