Few of today’s high school wrestlers remember Tab Thacker.
He was a star at N.C. State, winning the NCAA heavyweight title in 1984.
Before that, he dominated the heavyweight class while at West Forsyth High School, tipping the scales at well over 400 pounds.
Since his college days, Thacker has been best known for his movie career. He appeared in a couple of the “Police Academy” sequels. His best role was as Phillip Finch in the film “Wildcats” that starred Goldie Hawn as a female high school football coach.
It was wrestlers such as Thacker who led to a change in the high school wrestling rules 19 years ago. The heavyweight class ceased to be unlimited, and a top weight of 275 pounds was established.
Last week, in response to the continued growth of wrestlers over the past 19 years, the National Federation of State High School Associations bumped the limit for the top weight class up 10 pounds to 285.
While the change may appear slight, Cumberland County wrestling coaches greeted it as a real plus for the sport.
“I think if we’re going to get football players in, that’s going to help quite a bit,” said Jack Britt coach John DeWeese. “It’s hard to get football players, and I don’t like them to cut weight anyway.”
South View coach Cam Spence thinks it will open the door to a few wrestlers who’ve not been able to get down to the 275-pound limit.
“We’ve had a kid or two before to come in over 275 and work his weight down,” he said.
Terry Sanford coach Matt Lynch said the change will also help wrestlers now under the limit.
“I know we had a couple of freshmen early in the year who weighed about 260,” he said. “You’ve got to figure by the time they are seniors, they’d have outgrown the weight class.”
Lynch said there have been proposals for a super heavyweight class that wouldn’t count in team or individual scores, but it has never been approved.
“It would still give a person of that kind of girth and size a chance to be active and busy,” Lynch said.
Speaking of wrestling, UNC-TV will air taped highlights of this year’s state wrestling championships, which were held at Joel Coliseum in Winston-Salem in February.
The broadcast is scheduled Saturday at 3 p.m. It will feature action from all of the championship matches in the 1-A/2-A, 3-A and 4-A classifications.
Scholastic sports editor Earl Vaughan Jr. can be reached at [email protected] or 486-3519.
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