| Bobby Douglas Interview |
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| Written by Ronnie Sigmon -- Top Prospect Editor | |
| Wednesday, 11 July 2007 | |
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After retiring from
competition, Douglas started coaching wrestling, and this was even more
successful for him than competing. He
was head coach at Cal-Santa Barbara during the 1973-74 season. The next year he took over the wrestling
program at Arizona State where he stayed for 18 years. There his team won the NCAA National
Championship in 1988, and his Sun Devil teams finished as National Runner-ups
the next two seasons. At Arizona State
he had eleven top eleven finishes at the NCAA tournament. Douglas took over the Iowa State wrestling
program in 1992-93. While there Douglas
had three national runner-up teams (1996, 2000, 2002) and nine top six or
better NCAA national finishes. Douglas
also was the coach of Cael Sanderson who is the greatest wrestler in college
history. Under the coaching of Douglas,
Sanderson won four NCAA individual championships and four NCAA tournament most
outstanding wrestler awards finishing his collegiate wrestling career
undefeated.
Coach Douglas was on the
coaching staff of the 1976, 1980, 1984 and the 1988 Olympic wrestling teams. In the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, Spain
Coach Douglas was the USA head freestyle wrestling coach. He was also named the 1992 USA Wrestling
Freestyle Coach of the Year. Coach
Douglas has been either the head or
assistant coach on numerous USA World Championship and international
competition teams. In 2004 Douglas was
again a member of the USA Olympic coaching staff when he coached Cael Sanderson
to a freestyle wrestling gold medal in Athens, Greece. In the spring of 2006, Coach Douglas stepped
down from the Iowa State head coaching job to become a wrestling administrator
for the Cyclones. Douglas's star pupil,
Cael Sanderson, was then given the team's job as head coach.
You can read more about
coach Bobby Douglas at these web sites:
http://bobbydouglas.com/index.html
http://www.bobbydouglas.com/meetbobby.html
As a high school wrestler
in 1975, I first read about the exploits of Bobby Douglas in the newspaper. The first time I ever saw Coach Douglas was
at the NHSCA High School Senior Nationals at Cleveland, Ohio in the spring of 2003
where I went to coach Bandys wrestler Daren Burns. I saw coach Douglas again at the NHSCA
National Open at Virginia Beach that summer.
Both times he was putting on a free clinic for wrestlers and coaches
that were at these tournaments. I met
and got to know coach Douglas last week when we were working at the UNC
Greenboro wrestling camp. At the age of 65, Coach Douglas is still passionate about the sport of wrestling. He is always eager to share and demonstrate
his knowledge of the sport. Bobby
Douglas is a polite and unassuming man. One
could never guess that such a modest man has accomplished the things he has
done. The second day of the wrestling camp UNC Greensboro head coach
Jason Loukides took the camp's instructional coaches to Hugo's ( a local sports Grill) for supper and to watch
the UFC matches (Ultimate Fighting Championships) on their big screen TVs. Little did the many cheering patrons at the
sports grill know that among them quietly sat a man who had coached and
instructed many of the UFC fighters in the art of wrestling. This man had competed and coached at the most
prestigious events in the world. As I looked
over Hugo's menu featuring a Dean Smith Cheese Burgers and Mia
Hamm Hogies, I couldn't help to think that there should be an entree on the
menu to honor this man too.
Read on to learn more about Bobby Douglas
and his views about the sport of wrestling. RS - Coach Douglas do you have a wife and family? BD - Yes. Jackie my wife and a son Bobbo, age 38.
RS - How did you get involved in the sport of wrestling? BD - I grew up in the rough Ohio coal mine country. I was small as a kid and the bullies loved to pick on me. I had to learn how to wrestle and defend myself to survive in that environment.
RS - Did you play other sports growing up in Ohio? BD - I also played baseball and football, but I always have and always will consider myself a wrestler. As a wrestler it is sort of like belonging to a fraternity that you will always be a part of.
RS - Where did you attend college? BD - Out of high school I went to a NAIA school, West Liberty State in West Virginia. Later on I transferred to and graduated from Oklahoma State.
RS - What were your placings in college? BD - I was a NAIA National Champion at West Liberty, and I was a NCAA National runner-up at Oklahoma State.
RS - What about your international competition placements? BD - I was the captain of the Olympic team in Mexico City (1968). I was a World Championship runner-up. I placed several times at the World Championships. I was the US National Champion in freestyle three times and two times in greco.
RS - Where did you coach in college, and what were your top finishes? BD - I was at Arizona State for 18 years. We won a NCAA National Championship there and finished second two times. After I left Arizona State I coached at Iowa State for 14 years. We were NCAA runners-up three times and placed 4th twice..
RS - What about International coaching? BD - I have coached at a lot of international events. I was an Olympic staff coach a number of years, and I was the head freestyle coach at Barcelona in 1992. I have a web site that my wife keeps up and another one at Iowa State. All of the coaching information is on those web sites.
RS - What are some of your most cherished wrestling memories? BD - Cael winning his Olympic gold medal. Zeke Jones beating Jordonoff of Bulgaria to win his World Championship. The 1992 Barcelona Olympics where we had three Olympic Champions. Three of my college wrestlers were on that team.
RS - Who are some of the wrestlers you coached in college that have won Olympic medals? BD - Cael Sanderson, Zeke Jones, Townsend Saunders, Billy Rosado.... Another is Dr. Gary Bohy, he won a silver World medal and he was a placer for Canadian Olympic team. Dr Bohy wrestled for me in college, but he competed with Canada. He has a medical practice in Arizona.
RS - Who are some of your former college wrestlers that have went on to become prominent college coaches? BD - Zeke Jones (Pennsylvania) and his assistant Rob Eiter. Tommy Ortiz at Arizona State. Cael (Iowa State), Chris Bono (UT Chattanooga), Bart Horton assistant at Missouri and Air Force, Barry Weldon at Oklahoma. Barry is a great recruiter, and he really hurt us with his recruiting...
RS - What college rules do you not like or changes you would like to see? BD - I don't like riding time. I don't think we should use two officials on the mat at the same time. The assistant official could be at the side of the mat, but being on the mat is a distraction. I would like to see more center of the mat wrestling. I would also like to see video review.
RS - What things can a high school wrestler do to get a college recruiters attention? BD - Compete well at the Fargo Nationals. Win their state championships. Be successful against good competition. I also check things like the strength of their state competition. I track kids from a young age starting when they attend my camps and clinics where they start standing out. The Sanderson brothers started attending my clinics when they were 5 or 6 years old.
RS - What other qualities does a college coach look for when recruiting a scholarship wrestler? BD - The number one thing is they fit into the college environment. At Iowa State we are in a rural environment. A lot of inter-city kids don't like this environment and would transfer out to go to a big city college. Another thing is the school standards. I would recruit kids with higher academic backgrounds for schools like Stanford.
RS - What was perhaps your best college recruiting class?
BD - The 2005 Iowa State recruiting class. Some of those guys were Nick Gallick, Mitch
Mueller, Jake Varner, David Zabriskie, Nick Fanthrorpe, and Cyler Sanderson
were in it. They were my best ever
recruiting class. They were all good and
they were all very fast.
RS - From the top of your head, who are some of the young kids to watch for the future. BD - Steve Morey and the White brothers from Missouri are some young kids that are going to be tough. Dustin McCallie is a junior high kid from Minnesota that is very good.
RS - What about in college? BD - Corey Jantzen of New York is going to be tough and Metcalf who is at Iowa.
RS - Who are some of the UFC fighters that you have instructed or coached? BD - Dan Severn, Townsend Saunders, Don Frye.... We were practicing submission techniques in our club long before UFC become popular.
RS - What do you think about the UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championships)? BD - It is the sport of the future. It is getting extremely popular and is very exciting. It is also dominated by former college wrestlers. This sport is giving college wrestlers a professional avenue to pursue after college.
RS - Thanks for your time coach. BD - You are welcome. |
Recently, I had the pleasure to personally meet and
talk to a man that I have admired for over thirty-two years. This man has accomplished so many things in
his life that it would take a book to list them all. He is a writer who has written and had
published five books. He is a skilled
wrestling technician who has produced many tapes and DVDs that have helped
young wrestlers across the nation reach their goals of winning a high school state
championship, a feat he accomplished by becoming Ohio's first black wrestler to
win a state championship wrestling in the 112lb weight class. This provided Douglas with a scholarship to
West Liberty State College (W Va.) where he won a NAIA national title wrestling
in the 130lb weight class. He later
transferred to Oklahoma State and was a NCAA National Runner-Up at 147lbs. He earned his bachelors degree from Oklahoma
State in 1967. Douglas earned his
master degree from Arizona State in 1981 where he was admitted to the doctoral
program. Douglas competed in many
international competition events. Douglas
had a 4th place finish at the 1964 Tokyo Games.
He was a runner-up in a World Championship. Douglas also placed 3rd and 4th at two other
World Championships. Douglas was a
multiple US National Champion winning three US freestyle national championships
and two greco roman national championships where he competed mostly at 163lbs. In 1968 Douglas was the captain of the USA
Olympic team in Mexico City. The year he
retired from competition (1970), Douglas was named the nation's most outstanding
wrestler.| < Prev | Next > |
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