More than 70 years have passed since Kermit Blosser won the 1932 191-pound national wrestling championship, Ohio's first national championship of any kind, but he still remembers every match and every pin.
Perhaps even more amazing than Blosser's memory, though, is that he knew nothing about the sport when he arrived in Athens in 1928. His high school did not have a team, and he had never wrestled in his life.
I didn't know anything about wrestling
Blosser said. But I won the national championship.
One of the driving forces behind Blosser's historic title was Ohio's first wrestling coach, Thor Olson. Olson, who coached the Bobcats from 1919 to 1948, taught the basics of the sport and told his wrestlers to just put the opponent on his back, Blosser said.
Thor Olson said 'Don't be fancy ' Blosser said. My senior year
they started bringing in the points system - two points for an escape and one or two points for a takedown
and all that. Thor said
'That isn't wrestling. To wrestle somebody
you beat 'em
and the way you beat 'em
you put 'em on their back. All you got to do is pin 'em.'
The basic instructions of Olson and football coaches Don Peden and Dutch Trautewein played a large role in molding Blosser for his own coaching career, which included four sports and 42 years at the collegiate level, all at Ohio. No matter the sport he was coaching, even golf - which he had never played before being named coach in 1946 - Blosser always returned to the basics of the game.
(The basics have) been a lot of my success in life and everything else
Blosser said. I never expected to even coach. I expected to be in business or teach. I didn't (coach) because I was any genius. I just believed that to be a good teacher
you've got to teach 'em the basics.
