Sports : Meet VS Hall of Fame inductee Gary Tharp

VS Hall of Fame: Gary Tharp was among the first Viking wrestlers when the program began in 1958.

Forty six winters ago Gary Tharp was a ninth-grader when he became one of the first-ever Vinton Viking wrestlers. During that season of 1958-59 and over the next three, he set several “firsts” for the team, under the leadership of Coach Mel Waldon.

Gary, who now lives near the northwest Arkansas town of Rogers, near Beaver Lake in the Ozark Mountains, is traveling back to Iowa, where he will be honored as one of the new Viking-Vikette Hall of Fame inductees Friday during VS Homecoming festivities.

Among Gary’s accomplishment are:

· Among the first to wrestle for Vinton;

· First to win for Vinton;

· First to win by a fall for Vinton;

· First to have an undefeated dual meet Varsity season;

· First to have 2 undefeated dual meet Varsity seasons;

· First to qualify for state for Vinton;

· First place at the Traer Invitational Wrestling Tournament , the prep for the state tournament;

· Qualified for State twice;

· Wrestled Varsity all 4 years;

· Varsity Team Co-Captain all 4 years;

· Qualified for and Wrestled in every Varsity meet the first four years Vinton had wrestling as a sport (never failed to qualify or missed a competition);

· Undefeated in dual meets as a freshman (wrestling Varsity);

· Undefeated in dual meets as a senior;

· High School dual meet record, 44-2, winning approximately 80% of matches by falls;

· Was only taken down one time….ever;

· Fastest match, 12 seconds win with a fall (in district competition);

· Won second in state AAU competition twice. (Olympic style wrestling).

Yet, his athletic achievements and his life’s success both required the overcoming of several obstacles.

“I was a starter on the basketball team in Jr. high, and planned to continue in that sport, but when I arrived at high school, I discovered that I would need to purchase uniforms and shoes to be on the basketball team,” Gary recalls. “I really couldn’t afford that extra expense.”

So, he turned to wrestling.

“I think there was some kind of intramural wrestling to check out the potential abilities of students for the new wrestling program,” he said. “Some of my friends encouraged me to try out. After seeing me wrestle (or try to with absolutely no previous experience), coach Waldon apparently saw some potential because he sought me out and asked me to join his new team. When I asked about the cost of any equipment, he told me that if I would come out for wrestling, I wouldn’t have to buy anything, not even shoes (which were always a ‘personal’ item) because he had a pair he would give me.”

First meet

Gary writes about the team’s first contest, against Cresco.

My team-mates and I had a long way to go as we all began to build our skills and to help develop a wrestling program those first years that could compete with long- established programs in the state. The very first wrestling meet for Vinton and for me was with Cresco, the defending state champions. I weighed in at 86 lbs. and wrestled 95lbs., the lowest weight class available. Because it was Vinton’s first year in the sport, and Cresco fully intended to win every match easily, all of their first team wrestlers moved up a weight, so they wouldn’t have to “cut” weight for the meet and could “take it easy” and prepare for their next meet. Because I was in the lowest weight class, and everyone had moved up a weight, I competed against a second-string opponent. However, as a wrestling powerhouse and defending state champion, Cresco’s team was 3 or 4 deep in state-champions-to-be. In fact, the person I wrestled and pinned that night was a state champion the next year. My first match win and pin kind of upset their shutout plans, but it was the only match we won that night. I like to think that my “surprise” performance in that very first meet helped show the possibilities and raise the confidence of the team, the school and the community. I know it did that for me.

Yet, Gary’s career also included some disappointments.

“During my senior year I had two unfortunate incidents,” he recalls. “The first was my performance at the WAMAC conference tournament, which I expected to win handily. However, I became extremely ill the day before the tournament. I went ahead and competed, but was very weak and ended up losing the championship match to a wrestler that I had beaten earlier 23 -1.”

The second unfortunate incident came in Gary’s senior year, in the opening round of the state tournament.

“I had been scouted, and the competition knew I was very strong on takedowns, so my opponent tried to stay as close to out of bounds as possible,” recalls Gary. “ In the first period, I took my opponent down several times, but with no points awarded because each time I went for the takedown, my opponent was able to get out of bounds before I gained full control. The second period, I started in the down position and did not escape, and my opponent scored no offensive points.”

The match was now tied 0-0 going into the third period.

Gary describes what went wrong next:

“I knew I could take this guy down if he would just wrestle in the middle of the mat. I had a strategy and a move that I had used before, but only as a last resort, because I didn’t want it to be common knowledge and therefore able to be prepared for. I started on top in the third period. When the whistle blew, I stood up, releasing my opponent, then stepped in as he was standing up and trying to figure out what was going on, reached through, grabbing both of his arms and performed a double arm bar with a hip throw. This maneuver landed him flat on his back with me on top of him with both of his arms crossed between us………in the middle of the mat! He screamed out in pain and the match was stopped. Because he was about a head taller than me, I had to reach higher to get his arms locked under mine, and then I had to pull him farther through the move to get his feet off the floor. That size difference, coupled with the determination I had to not let him go out of bounds again, pulled my feet off the floor when I threw him. My feet coming off the floor changed my perfectly legal move to an illegal move, and I was disqualified for the rest of the tournament.”

That wrestler then went on to wrestle to the championship match.

“I was told that my opponent was given pain-killing injections overnight. The next day he was taped up and wrestled through to the championship where he tied in regulation, tied in overtime and then lost by a referee’s decision to a 3-time state champion whom he had beaten twice that year in dual-meet competition” says Gary. “Of course, I was very disappointed that the move I had used had gone awry and disqualified me to continue in the state competition. I felt bad that I had injured the other wrestler, but also felt that if he had just stayed on the mat and wrestled, or if the officials had warned him to do so in a more timely manner, we could have wrestled a fair match to a just finish, and both of us could have continued in the competition uninjured.”

Words of thanks and the end of a career

“I, of course, am grateful for all the support and encouragement I received from classmates, friends, faculty and the community, but I would like to mention the following three people in particular,” says Gary. “I was, and still am, grateful for the opportunity and encouragement Coach Waldon gave me to participate in high school wrestling. I am also grateful for the encouragement and support from Coach Holmes and Mrs. Cross, who solicited money from some local business people for a small scholarship for me to start college. I was only able to participate in wrestling at UNI for a short time until I incurred a couple of serious injuries, and the doctors forced me to make a decision: Either quit wrestling or continue without doctor’s approval or medical support from UNI and with the probability of being crippled for life by being injured again. Since I didn’t feel I could be competitive with the injuries anyway, I opted not to do more damage.”

Gary’s wife Janice says that his accomplishments as a young athlete were more remarkable because of some of the circumstances of his life at that time.

“The reason the expense of the school sports equipment was such an issue that it actually determined his choice of high school sports was because Gary’s parents divorced when he was three years old, and he was raised by his grandparents, who had very limited financial means,” said Janice. “Gary started working and bought his own school clothes and lunches after the fifth grade. This made purchases beyond the basics difficult, if not impossible. His hours spent working also limited the amount of time he had to give to homework and sports.”