UNO’s five-years of dominance, resulting in one national championship, two runner-up finishes, a third-place finish and an eighth place showing, regularly made the front page of the Omaha World-Herald sports section. Having a strong black man as coach meant the world to Mel and Dhafir.
The first came 40 years ago amid currents of change. Practicing in rubber suits disallowed today Hospodka said a thermostat once recorded the temperature inside at 110 degrees and climbing. UNO had the market cornered. The intense workouts tested physical and mental toughness.
Washington said it was UNO’s version of “showtime.” He and his teammates competed against each other for the most stylish or quickest pin. The small, white institution best known for its Bootstrapper program went from obscurity to prominence by making athletics the vehicle for social action. He told Benning his allegiance to Black Muslim leader Honorable Elijah Muhammad superseded any team allegiance. “The only close match we had was Athletes in Action, and those were all ex-Big 8 wrestlers training for the World Games or the Olympics. I had tremendous pressure on me because of being African-American.
University of Nebraska at Omaha Wrestling dynasty built on tide of social change, Version of story published in a March 2010 issue of The Reader (www.thereader.com), As the March 12-13 Division II national wrestling championships get underway at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, it’s good to remember wrestling, not hockey, is the school’s true marquee sport. The team won every tournament it competed in. Football certainly has a longer tradition than wrestling at the school, but when it comes to sustained success there’s no comparison. By 1970 he led UNO to its first wrestling national title.
NU was among the NCAA schools UNO beat during Benning’s tenure, along with Wyoming, Arizona, Wisconsin, Kansas and Cornell.
“We were a real, real tight group. Mel Jr is his son who wrestled at Omaha North under Curler Alexander, his godfather. Briscoe went on to be the first black starting QB in the NFL. The following story, a version of which appeared in a March 2010 issue of The Reader (www.thereader.com), charted his accomplishments on the 40th anniversary of making some history that has not gotten the attention it deserves. I shall always be grateful. Everyone worked a job. This is an invaluable contribution to film history and criticism – and a sheer pleasure to read as well.” –Thomas Schatz, Film scholar and author (The Genius of the System).
Not by the regents, not by administrators, not by major university donors, not by the media, not by the general public. Biga co-edited "Memories of the Jewish Midwest: Mom and Pop Grocery Stores." Every dynasty has a beginning and a narrative. Years later he reluctantly returned them to the school, where some can be viewed in the Sapp Fieldhouse lobby. Everything fell into place. “He did it in a quiet way. I would not be surprised if Don Benning adds his voice to the chorus of disapproval over Christensen’s and Albert’s decision to throw away the history and tradition that UNO wrestling represents. Mel Washington, his brother Dhafir and other teammates watched North 24th St. burn. Benning’s boys still follow his lead. “The committee came up with Appalachian State, which just started wrestling. I just want to tell you that I’m new to blogs and certainly savored your web-site. I couldn’t help think having a black coach and four or five black wrestlers had something to do with it.”, Hospodka said wherever UNO went the team was a walking social statement. UNO had two individual champions that year: Roy Washington (150-pound weight class, deceased) and Bernie Hospodka (190- pound weight class). Head coach of the University of Nebraska-Omaha 1970 NAIA championship wrestling team was Dr. Don Benning. A lot of things I held to myself.”. The white wrestling infrastructure also went out of its way to make Benning and his team unwelcome. Muhammad won his third individual national title and Hospodka his only one. Hospodka said “the bitter disappointment” of the team title being snatched away in ’69 fueled UNO’s championship run the next season, when UNO won its 14 duals by an average score of 32-6. Omaha photographer Rudy Smith was a black activist at UNO then. He said as UNO “wrestled and defeated ‘name’ schools it added luster to the team’s mystique. Half the starters were recent high school grads and half nontraditional students in their 20s; some, married with kids.
That sends a disturbing, dysfunctional message to anyone really paying attention. Tempers flared. Hospodka said Benning’s race was never an issue with him or other whites on the team. His popular blog, Leo Adam Biga's My Inside Stories at leoadambiga.com, is an online gallery of his work. “We were booed a lot when we were on the road,” Hospodka said. The Omaha Mavericks are the sports teams of the University of Nebraska Omaha.They participate in the NCAA's Division I and in The Summit League, except in ice hockey, where they compete in the National Collegiate Hockey Conference (NCHC). “I think race played into that. “When you went into a lot of small towns in the ’60s with four or five black wrestlers and a black coach you stuck out. This band of brothers is well represented in the Maverick Wrestling and UNO Halls of Fame. When they do, the bonds forged in sweat and blood reduce them to tears.
The news of going D-I isn’t that big a surprise in and of itself, as UNO has made clear for more than a decade that is where it wanted to go, but what is is UNO doing it so soon and its decision that in order to make it work long-term it must sacrifice the school’s two winningest sports — football and wrestling. Sadly, wrestling at the school has always been viewed as marginal and expendable, and the words and actions of the UNO administration today bear that out. At a time and in a place when blacks were denied opportunity, he was given a chance as an educator and a coach and he made the most of the situation. It created a perfect storm.”. The events helped give a school with little going for it much-needed cachet and established a tradition of excellence unbroken now since the mid-1960s. He won the 150-pound title en route to UNO capturing the team title over Adams, 86-58. It was especially audacious given that Benning was but 26 and had never held a head coaching position before. I really like what you have It’s sad to think the story may now be the Requiem for a Dynasty. UNO football’s been one of the best entertainment bargains in the city. Just as the Washington brothers were and are a legacy, I pray Mel Sr’s grandsons become ones as well….. Benning, Mel Washington, Dhafir Muhammad and Curlee Alexander are in the Nebraska Black Sports Hall of Fame. It has been an elite program for more than 40 years. Their differences caused no riff. The foundation for it all, Hospodka said, was laid in a wrestling room a fraction the size of today’s UNO practice facility. Benning, too, found himself walking a tightrope of “too black or not black enough.” After black U.S. Olympians raised gloved fists in protest of the national anthem, UNO’s black wrestlers wanted to follow suit. One of the pleasures in doing this story was getting to know Don Benning, a man of high character who took me into his confidence. The two go way back. UNO’s current Hall of Fame coach, Mike Denney, knows the program owes much to what Benning and his wrestlers did. Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.
Aaron Denson - 165 Pounds Redshirt Freshman, Omaha… They hesitated to serve us or they ignored us or they hoped we would go away.”, Washington could relate, saying, “I had a feeling what he was going through — the prejudice. Burroughs repeated as World Bronze and increased his overall medal count to 8. Somewhere else, he said, things might have been different. The rafters would shake at those matches.”, “You’d have to say it was the coming-together of several factors that brought about a genuine excitement about wrestling at UNO in the late 1960s,” said former UNO Sports Information Director Gary Anderson.
“There were some outstanding athletes who were enthusiastic and colorful to watch, a very good coach, and UNO won a lot of matches. No one scored more than 14 points on them all year. ( Log Out / I was very aware of Jackie Robinson and what he endured. Said Washington, “That didn’t bother me. I was used to it. UNO wrestling may be gone, but its spirit lives on. Benning released him from the squad. The championship team was inducted by UNO and by the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference. It was a bold move for a nondescript, white-bread, then-municipal university in a racially divided city not known for progressive stances.
If everybody would have looked at our wrestling team and seen this one big family the world would have been a better place.”. “It was criminal. Founded in 1908 by faculty from the Omaha Presbyterian Theological Seminary as a private non-sectarian college, the university was originally known as the University of Omaha.
It was about time for me to wrestle for my own race,” said Mel. They were fearless. It’s inconceivable it is prepared to walk away from something so successful, but that is what is about to happen.
The sport’s bible, Amateur Wrestling News, proclaimed UNO one of the best teams in the nation, regardless of division. My take is that no matter how much UNO wrestling achieved, and it achieved so very much, it was never accorded the respect or due it deserved. It was the first national championship won by a scholarship team at the school and the first in any major sport by a Nebraska college or university.
Therefore, it seems like a good idea to look back at the wrestling program’s early years in order to gain an appreciation for where it came from and the significance it had at a tempestuous time in the university’s and in the city’s and in the nation’s history. That was pretty strange for them.”. The first of these saw Marlin Briscoe star at quarterback there, which overturned the myth blacks could not master the cerebral position. This was a business decision made by UNO and given the thumbs up by the regents. Dhafir was the team’s acknowledged leader. As a Regional Training Center, the NWTC allows senior level athletes to train, alongside our University of Nebraska student-athletes, full time in Lincoln as they pursue their dreams of representing the USA on both World and Olympic teams. That just made me want to go out there more and really show ’em up.” He did, too. You know why? “It’s tough enough to develop to such a high skill level that you win a national championship with no other factors in the equation. It took a tremendous amount of intestinal fortitude of doing what’s right, of being ready to step out on that limb when no other schools or institutions would touch African-Americans,” said Benning.
Losing football hurts, but the rationale for excising it ultimately makes sense because it was never going to come close to making money. The confidence to go head-to-head with anybody was something Benning looked for in his wrestlers and constantly reinforced. But more to the point — how do you just dismiss the incredible success that UNO wrestling has achieved? Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan. It was always considered marginal and therefore expendable. Benning’s best wrestlers were working-class kids like he and Alexander had been: Wendell Hakanson, Omaha Home for Boys graduateRoy and, Mel Washington, black brothers from New York by way of cracker GeorgiaBruce “Mouse” Strauss, a “character” and mensch from back East, Paul and Tony Martinez, Latino south Omaha brothers who saw combat in Vietnam, Louie Rotella Jr., son of a prep wrestling legend and popular Italian bakery family, Gary Kipfmiller, a gentle giant who died young.
He earned NAIA national coach of the year honors in 1969. He can only surmise Bail “thought that was the right thing to do and that I was the right person to do it.”.
Yummy Yummy Yummy Song Meaning, My Sister's Keeper Full Movie, Twinnie Meaning In Tamil, Guru Randhawa House, Khancoban To Tumut, American Basketball Association Tryouts, Dc3 Integra, Everton Vs Brighton Results, Tenterfield Population 2020, Burnley Vs Southampton 2019/20, Hapkido Mma, Mendocino College Student Email, Best Dvsn Songs, Books About Telling Time, Barbara Alberstadt, Regulars Kpop Meaning, Nancy Strang, Champion Store Hong Kong, Land Of 1000 Dances Band, Dumb Litty Meaning, Watford 2017/18 Kit, Open Fire Synonym, General Relativity And Cosmology Pdf, Tumut Caravan Park, Shiladitya Mukhopadhyaya Age,