A Life Of Wrestling

By Will Hammock

More than 26 years have passed since the blackout.
Plenty of time to move on with his life, build a family of his own and stay connected with wrestling, the sport he has lived and breathed for most of his 44 years.
Yet to this day, the number 18 sticks out in Bud Hennebaul’s mind.
It was etched there forever when he was a Parkview High School senior, a prep phenom who stood only 18 seconds from his second state championship. Had he held a 2-1 lead over Rockmart’s Murray Crews, a future All-American at Iowa State, for 18 more seconds, Hennebaul would have completed a perfect Georgia wrestling career.
The lights were about to shine brightly again on Hennebaul, Parkview’s first state champion in any sport in his junior season, 1978.
Then came the blackout.
Crews tripped Hennebaul, who was sporting 16 stitches and a brutal head injury from his semifinal match, and sent the Panthers’ 155-pounder to the mat. When Hennebaul’s head hit the mat, the lights went out at now defunct Briarcliff High School. At least the lights in Hennebaul’s head.
“I was on bottom. I was winning 2-1 with 18 seconds left (in the 1979 final), “said Hennebaul, now a Buford resident and a district manager for a windows and doors company. “I was on my feet. (Crews) trapped my wrist. He stepped in front and tripped me. I hit my head and I was out. There were 18 seconds left on the clock. I could hear everybody but I couldn’t see a thing.”
Just like that, Hennebaul suffered his first and only loss in Georgia. A loss in his final high school match.
The defeat was hard to swallow for a youngster accustomed to so much success on the mat, but after time he came to grips with it. The depressing high school finish didn’t dampen his love for wrestling or his legend ” he still has the distinction of being Parkview’s first state champion.
However, Hennebaul is more widely known these days for his contributions to wrestling as an adult than he is for his exploits as a youth. A well-respected wrestling official and supporter, he also played a pivotal role in bringing the 2006 state high school wrestling championships to the Arena at Gwinnett Center. It will mark the first year that Georgia has held all its wrestling finals at one site.
“(Hennebaul) does so much for wrestling, “said current Parkview wrestling coach Tom Beuglas. “He’s got a full-time job and it’s not wrestling. But he’s been involved with wrestling his whole life. He said the reason he and his brothers are officials is to be around the sport.
“Anything they can do to give back to the sport, that’s what they do. The main reason I respect them is they’ll do anything to help kids.”

A life of wrestling
Wrestling runs deep in the Hennebaul family.
It started back in Pennsylvania, where Walt Hennebaul, a former wrestler himself, was a prominent coach at the Wilkes-Barre YMCA. His oldest son wanted to tag along at an early age, finally getting to join his father, who was recently inducted in the National Wrestling Hall of Fame for Lifetime Service to Wrestling, for practices as a 5-year-old.
Hennebaul took some steady beatings in those days from other wrestlers, which he didn’t mind at first. He was just happy to be with his father’s team. Then be began to take winning seriously.
“I remember winning a tournament at Keystone Junior College, “he said. “I pinned this kid, the coach at the college’s son who was three years older than me. That little trophy was a big deal to me. It’s not like where you play on a baseball team and everybody gets a trophy. Man, I wanted to see that thing every day.
“I remember today what it looked like. It was a wrestler standing on top of a globe, the top half of the earth.”
The family’s involvement in wrestling was actually bolstered by a tragedy.
Hennebaul’s uncle, Fred Hennebaul, was a quadriplegic after suffering a broken neck during a high school wrestling match. Locked in a reverse Full Nelson ” a hold that is illegal now ” Fred Hennebaul had his head slammed into the horse hair wrestling mat, snapping his neck. The presence of a doctor in the crowd saved his life.
Instead of dropping the sport, the Hennebauls embraced wrestling as a way to honor Fred, who died at the age of 33, 17 years after his accident.
Walt found legendary status as a coach, and his three sons, Bud, Jerry and Rick, all had outstanding careers.
“It was a situation where (the family) wanted to do it for (Fred), “said Marianne Hennebaul, Hennebaul’s mother. “Bud, even when he was 4 or 5, when he won a trophy had to stop by Uncle Fred’s house and show him the trophy.”
The success reached a pinnacle for Marianne’s oldest son when he won a national title and earned a trip to Turkey with the Junior World Team in 1976. He enjoyed quite a career in wrestling-conscious Pennsylvania, but just a few years later, at the beginning of his junior year of high school, he found a new home.

Making Parkview history
After his father’s job transferred him to Atlanta, Hennebaul enrolled at Parkview three weeks after the school year started. A football, wrestling and baseball standout for the Lilburn school, he immediately joined the football team for a Tuesday practice. That Friday night, he got eight carries from his fullback spot against Redan.
His running backs coach, current Gainesville head football coach Bruce Miller, had started the wrestling program at Parkview the year before. Miller heard that Hennebaul was a former AAU national champion, but he had to see it for himself.
Then it became “Bud Hennebaul Time. “Quite literally.
Hennebaul was such an accomplished wrestler that Miller had “Bud Hennebaul Time “in each wrestling practice where the star demonstrated a new move for his teammates.
His junior wrestling season ended with perfection, an unbeaten season and Parkview’s first state championship. Boatloads of state titles have called Lilburn home since then, but he still can lay claim as the school’s first state champ. His wrestling photo still hangs in the school’s cafeteria as a reminder.
“It was special, “Hennebaul said. “I still remember (Parkview principal) Mr. (Bartow) Jenkins saying, ‘You’re my first state champion.’ That’s a pretty neat thing.”
The state title also sparked an interest in wrestling among then rural Gwinnett, which wasn’t exactly a hotbed for the sport. DeKalb County dominated the state championships and only a few Gwinnett schools even had wrestling programs in the late 70s.
Hennebaul, who was 100-3 as a high school wrestler (including his years in Pennsylvania), was so much more advanced than his Parkview teammates that he trained with Berkmar coach Jay Gassman after his practices. He and his brothers ” Jerry was a Parkview state champion in 1982 and Rick a state runner-up in 1984 ” laid the foundation for the Panthers’ program. So did his father Walt, who started the school’s wrestling booster club, and his mother Marianne, who drove Parkview’s school bus to matches from 1977 to 1994.
“When Bud came in and won the state championship, it was the push for wrestling to take off in Gwinnett County, “Miller said. “He was really one of the ones that helped get Gwinnett County wrestling and Parkview wrestling where it is now. To have a state champion in your second year (of wrestling) was a big deal.”

The loss
Hennebaul’s senior year also went smoothly with win after win piling up on his perfect record.
The roadblock came in his state semifinal match against a Cartersville opponent, a wrestler whose name he can’t recall. But only because he beat him.
“If (the Cartersville wrestler) had beat me, I would have remembered his name, “Hennebaul said.
“I can remember all 31 losses I ever had (28 were outside of high school action). I can’t remember the wins, but I can remember all 31 losses. Actually I can remember all three ties, too.”
In a way, the Cartersville kid did beat him.
Leading 14-1 in the semis, Hennebaul got caught, picked up and slammed headfirst into the mat. A massive gash opened on his forehead, one that required 16 stitches and a hospital stay to fix. He became so sick that he vomited repeatedly.
In no shape for the final, he managed to get clearance and wrestled for the crown. Then he got knocked out vs. Crews in his final high school match.
“That (loss) was tough, “Hennebaul said. “Even after that in freestyle, I chased Murray Crews everywhere I could find him. I beat him five times that summer. I didn’t care where he was going, where he was wrestling. (Losing my last match) was a tough thing for me to handle.”

Giving back
When he left Parkview, Hennebaul earned a scholarship to Chattahoochee Valley Community College (Ala.), but a severe knee injury ended his career. He joined Tennessee-Chattanooga as an assistant coach, essentially serving as a full-time coach while going to college.
He then chose the business world over coaching, but remained active as a wrestling referee, a job he’s held since he graduated from Parkview. Recognized by Beuglas and others as a fair official, he serves as president of the Metro Atlanta Officials Association, which provides referees for all Gwinnett County schools.
Among his other wrestling exploits are serving as a board member for the Georgia chapter of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame and advising the Georgia High School Association on wrestling issues. According to Beuglas, those tasks are in addition to the many favors he does for the state’s wrestling programs, from helping find mats to giving special rates for fundraiser tournaments.
“He’s helped a couple of our kids get scholarships, “Beuglas said. “He’s just a great guy.”
Some of his most important work will pay off Feb. 9-11, 2006. That’s when the Arena at Gwinnett Center hosts the GHSA state championships.
Hennebaul and his colleagues with the Atlanta Takedown Association have worked endlessly in recent years to make such an event possible. His referee schedule was cut down to 12 dates last year (from a typical year of 40) so he could spend extra time working on the state’s marquee high school wrestling event.
Wrestling fans expect the state finals with all classes at the same site to be quite a spectacle and so does Hennebaul, who will serve as tournament director.
“To me this is going to be the greatest thing that has ever happened to high school wrestling in the state of Georgia, “Hennebaul said. “We’ve set it up to have the semifinal matches on Friday night (with the finals on Saturday). To have 10 semifinal matches going on at one time, if you’re a wrestling enthusiast, it doesn’t get any better. The 20 best kids in the state at one time.
“That will be the greatest night that I’ve ever had in wrestling. Better than winning the national championship to get on the Junior World team. My dad being in the Hall of Fame was a big deal and I think that was great. But I’m going to tell you, this is going to be big. ”