by Craig Morgan, theSunDevils.com writer
TEMPE, Ariz. -- Jim Gressley was watching the postgame celebration and interviews after the Minnesota Vikings shocked the New Orleans Saints on a last-second, 61-yard touchdown pass from Case Keenum to Stefon Diggs in the NFC Divisional Playoffs on Sunday.
The look on Vikings players' faces felt familiar to Gressley, who helped the 1988 Sun Devils wrestling team capture a most improbable NCAA championship.
"I'm sure that's exactly how I looked: total shock," he said. "To be honest, I still don't know if I believe we did it."
Gressley and the other members of that team will gather this weekend in Tempe for a 30th reunion. The team and their coach, Bobby Douglas, will be honored during the No. 9 Sun Devils' match against Oregon State on Saturday. Following the match, the ASU Wrestling Legends celebration will take place at Tempe Mission Palms at 4 p.m. with appetizers, raffles, a cash bar, and tributes to the team.
"That was the team that put west coast wrestling on the map forever," said Sun Devils coach Zeke Jones, who was a sophomore on the squad. "We're all going to bring one or two good memories. It's going to be a lot of fun."
To say the Sun Devils' title was surprising would be an understatement. It had been 21 years since a team outside the states of Iowa and Oklahoma (Michigan State in 1967) had won an NCAA championship. Oklahoma State, Oklahoma, Iowa and Iowa State won all the titles in between, Iowa had won nine of the last 10 titles and the Hawkeyes were favored coming in.
Nobody thought a team that sported three Arizona natives could challenge the traditional powers.
"That's a fact near and dear to my heart that of the actual guys who were in nationals, three of us (Chip Park, Gressley and Thom Ortiz) were from Arizona," Gressley said.
Douglas was familiar with the prevailing sentiment, but he had other plans.
"We knew we had a chance to win the national title because I recruited that group of guys to win the national title," he said. "We had some injuries that slowed us down a little bit but we knew if we had a decent draw and the points were spread out we had a shot because we had beaten most of the top wrestlers in the country."
Douglas' training regimen was mythical in its difficulty. The wrestlers became intimately familiar with the running path up then-Squaw Peak and the indoor practices were territorial battles.
"You had to fight to get mat space in our wrestling room because the room was so small," Douglas said. "It was a matter or pride to stake out a position in that wrestling room and hold it."
Douglas was ahead of his time in more experimental training methods.
"He brought in a lady who had us doing visualization and yoga," Gressley said. "We're like,' coach, c'mon. We're not going to do yoga. Are you kidding me?'
"She'd say imagine you're holding an orange. It was supposed to relax us and help us focus. Half the guys were falling asleep and snoring, but it was relaxing."
There were no rest days and the Sun Devils were on the road so much they were forced to bond.
"We never took a day off and that's why that NCAA rule exists, because of Bobby," Jones said, laughing. "Practice was brutal. You were so excited to go compete, just so you could rest. Meets were like rest for us."
Douglas said the Sun Devils' schedule wouldn't allow for his team to face eastern and Midwestern teams, so he had to go over budget, carting his team around the country in a van.
"It wasn't a matter of meeting them in a dual meet and winning. It was a matter of getting film on them so we could prepare for them," Douglas said.
Despite that arduous travel schedule, Douglas cut the Sun Devils no slack. Gressley recalled a practice session the day before a meet at Oklahoma State in Stillwater. He was training with teammate John Ginther.
"He head butted me and literally, when I closed my eye, I could still see through my eye because my eyelid was split open," Gressley said. "We couldn't find a doctor but they found a veterinarian who stitched me up and I wrestled the next day.
"The whole time, coach is screaming at us: 'You guys are just trying to get out of practice!'
"I'm like, 'coach, I'm about to bleed to death.'"
Ginther suffered an injury a week before the NCAA meet, robbing the Sun Devils of a key competitor, but Douglas said they used it as motivation. The coach also prepared them in every other way.
"He's got the highest wrestling IQ of anyone I have ever known," Jones said. "He's an educator and a teacher so when you come from that background, he knows the sport like nobody from a technical and strategic standpoint."
After two days of the three-day NCAA Tournament in Ames, Iowa, the Sun Devils were in fourth place. A local paper had already proclaimed the Hawkeyes national champs in a Dewey-Defeats-Truman moment, but the Sun Devils had resolve.
Captain Mike Davies (190 pounds) was the only Sun Devil to make the finals, but six other ASU wrestlers fought their way through the wrestlebacks. By the time the morning session had ended, the Sun Devils were in the lead, although it took some time for them to figure that out
"Technology wasn't what it is today with instant gratification," Gressley said. "Back then, we were doing stubby pencil math to figure things out. We didn't have cell phones. We probably had pagers."
When the final results came in, Arizona State had 93 points to Iowa's 85.5. ASU had no individual champs. Davies finished second; Park (126), Dan St. John (158) and Gressley (167) finished third; Ortiz (142) finished fourth; Rod Severn (275) finished fifth; and Jones (118) finished sixth.
Jones said the fact that ASU produced no individual champions made it all the more impressive.
"There's nothing worse or more meaningful than wrestling back," he said. "You can't be the individual champ so your dream is shattered, but it's a true sign of character and selflessness by wrestling not for yourself, but for your team."
In the hours after the Devils captured the title, they celebrated like mad.
"Chip Park took the trophy, turned it upside down and started to carve his name into the bottom," Jones said. "I ran up and said 'don't do that! Bobby Douglas is going to kill us! The trophy is sacred.'
"No more than two hours later, everyone had carved their name, including Bobby."
All except Gressley, who is now a federal agent. He carved an 'X' for plausible deniability.
That trophy sits in the Sun Devil Athletics Hall of Fame on the first floor of the Carson Student-Athlete Center, behind glass.
"People try to look up under the trophy behind the glass to see the names," Jones said. "I know because there's always fingerprints in front of that trophy. When I walk past and see 20 fingerprints, I know that story is alive."
Douglas said he was too involved in the moment to remember or record his feelings when the Devils won.
"That championship proved that once the bonding took place between those team members, they wrestled for each other," he said. "They wanted to prove to America that wrestling did not stop in Oklahoma and Iowa, and they did."
Jones hopes his current wrestlers learn from their predecessors.
"It's good for the kids on our team to see the history and have it motivate them," he said.
TEMPE, Ariz. -- Jim Gressley was watching the postgame celebration and interviews after the Minnesota Vikings shocked the New Orleans Saints on a last-second, 61-yard touchdown pass from Case Keenum to Stefon Diggs in the NFC Divisional Playoffs on Sunday.
The look on Vikings players' faces felt familiar to Gressley, who helped the 1988 Sun Devils wrestling team capture a most improbable NCAA championship.
"I'm sure that's exactly how I looked: total shock," he said. "To be honest, I still don't know if I believe we did it."
Gressley and the other members of that team will gather this weekend in Tempe for a 30th reunion. The team and their coach, Bobby Douglas, will be honored during the No. 9 Sun Devils' match against Oregon State on Saturday. Following the match, the ASU Wrestling Legends celebration will take place at Tempe Mission Palms at 4 p.m. with appetizers, raffles, a cash bar, and tributes to the team.
"That was the team that put west coast wrestling on the map forever," said Sun Devils coach Zeke Jones, who was a sophomore on the squad. "We're all going to bring one or two good memories. It's going to be a lot of fun."
To say the Sun Devils' title was surprising would be an understatement. It had been 21 years since a team outside the states of Iowa and Oklahoma (Michigan State in 1967) had won an NCAA championship. Oklahoma State, Oklahoma, Iowa and Iowa State won all the titles in between, Iowa had won nine of the last 10 titles and the Hawkeyes were favored coming in.
Nobody thought a team that sported three Arizona natives could challenge the traditional powers.
"That's a fact near and dear to my heart that of the actual guys who were in nationals, three of us (Chip Park, Gressley and Thom Ortiz) were from Arizona," Gressley said.
Douglas was familiar with the prevailing sentiment, but he had other plans.
"We knew we had a chance to win the national title because I recruited that group of guys to win the national title," he said. "We had some injuries that slowed us down a little bit but we knew if we had a decent draw and the points were spread out we had a shot because we had beaten most of the top wrestlers in the country."
Douglas' training regimen was mythical in its difficulty. The wrestlers became intimately familiar with the running path up then-Squaw Peak and the indoor practices were territorial battles.
"You had to fight to get mat space in our wrestling room because the room was so small," Douglas said. "It was a matter or pride to stake out a position in that wrestling room and hold it."
Douglas was ahead of his time in more experimental training methods.
"He brought in a lady who had us doing visualization and yoga," Gressley said. "We're like,' coach, c'mon. We're not going to do yoga. Are you kidding me?'
"She'd say imagine you're holding an orange. It was supposed to relax us and help us focus. Half the guys were falling asleep and snoring, but it was relaxing."
There were no rest days and the Sun Devils were on the road so much they were forced to bond.
"We never took a day off and that's why that NCAA rule exists, because of Bobby," Jones said, laughing. "Practice was brutal. You were so excited to go compete, just so you could rest. Meets were like rest for us."
Douglas said the Sun Devils' schedule wouldn't allow for his team to face eastern and Midwestern teams, so he had to go over budget, carting his team around the country in a van.
"It wasn't a matter of meeting them in a dual meet and winning. It was a matter of getting film on them so we could prepare for them," Douglas said.
Despite that arduous travel schedule, Douglas cut the Sun Devils no slack. Gressley recalled a practice session the day before a meet at Oklahoma State in Stillwater. He was training with teammate John Ginther.
"He head butted me and literally, when I closed my eye, I could still see through my eye because my eyelid was split open," Gressley said. "We couldn't find a doctor but they found a veterinarian who stitched me up and I wrestled the next day.
"The whole time, coach is screaming at us: 'You guys are just trying to get out of practice!'
"I'm like, 'coach, I'm about to bleed to death.'"
Ginther suffered an injury a week before the NCAA meet, robbing the Sun Devils of a key competitor, but Douglas said they used it as motivation. The coach also prepared them in every other way.
"He's got the highest wrestling IQ of anyone I have ever known," Jones said. "He's an educator and a teacher so when you come from that background, he knows the sport like nobody from a technical and strategic standpoint."
After two days of the three-day NCAA Tournament in Ames, Iowa, the Sun Devils were in fourth place. A local paper had already proclaimed the Hawkeyes national champs in a Dewey-Defeats-Truman moment, but the Sun Devils had resolve.
Captain Mike Davies (190 pounds) was the only Sun Devil to make the finals, but six other ASU wrestlers fought their way through the wrestlebacks. By the time the morning session had ended, the Sun Devils were in the lead, although it took some time for them to figure that out
"Technology wasn't what it is today with instant gratification," Gressley said. "Back then, we were doing stubby pencil math to figure things out. We didn't have cell phones. We probably had pagers."
When the final results came in, Arizona State had 93 points to Iowa's 85.5. ASU had no individual champs. Davies finished second; Park (126), Dan St. John (158) and Gressley (167) finished third; Ortiz (142) finished fourth; Rod Severn (275) finished fifth; and Jones (118) finished sixth.
Jones said the fact that ASU produced no individual champions made it all the more impressive.
"There's nothing worse or more meaningful than wrestling back," he said. "You can't be the individual champ so your dream is shattered, but it's a true sign of character and selflessness by wrestling not for yourself, but for your team."
In the hours after the Devils captured the title, they celebrated like mad.
"Chip Park took the trophy, turned it upside down and started to carve his name into the bottom," Jones said. "I ran up and said 'don't do that! Bobby Douglas is going to kill us! The trophy is sacred.'
"No more than two hours later, everyone had carved their name, including Bobby."
All except Gressley, who is now a federal agent. He carved an 'X' for plausible deniability.
That trophy sits in the Sun Devil Athletics Hall of Fame on the first floor of the Carson Student-Athlete Center, behind glass.
"People try to look up under the trophy behind the glass to see the names," Jones said. "I know because there's always fingerprints in front of that trophy. When I walk past and see 20 fingerprints, I know that story is alive."
Douglas said he was too involved in the moment to remember or record his feelings when the Devils won.
"That championship proved that once the bonding took place between those team members, they wrestled for each other," he said. "They wanted to prove to America that wrestling did not stop in Oklahoma and Iowa, and they did."
Jones hopes his current wrestlers learn from their predecessors.
No. 9 and trending up! @ASUWrestling talks about the importance of the legacy left by the 1988 National Championship team ahead of its 30th reunion on Saturday. pic.twitter.com/2Fgx7XDNdQ
— Arizona State Sun Devils (@TheSunDevils) January 19, 2018
"It's good for the kids on our team to see the history and have it motivate them," he said.