Lou Banach won an Olympic gold medal, but he couldn’t make the Port Jervis varsity wrestling team as a sophomore.
Banach finally cracked the lineup in his junior year.
Banach and his twin brother, Ed, lived along the railroad tracks in Port Jervis. BowFlex wasn’t around in the mid-1970s. So the twins found wheels from old trains, which weighed more than 200 pounds, and set them on pulleys in their basement.
Lou Banach went from a 149-pound jayvee wrestler to a 177-pound state champion after one summer of working out.
“I tried to work out at his pace for an hour and I’d quit after 10 minutes, ” Ed Banach said.
With two Division I titles at Iowa and a dominant 1984 Olympic tournament, in which he had four pins and allowed just one point, Banach locked up his spot next to Ed in the National Wrestling Hall of Fame.
Ed, a three-time NCAA champ and Olympic gold medalist himself, said that Lou might have even been better than him.
“Louie was one of the top five wrestlers that I’ve ever seen, “Ed said. “He was actually more talented than I was. He was quicker and stronger.”
Attempts to reach Lou Banach, 46, were unsuccessful. Ed said that his brother is “more of a private guy.”
On the wrestling mat, Lou Banach didn’t back down from anyone.
He once tried to throw 404-pound Mitch Shelton of Oklahoma State in a heavyweight match. Shelton landed on Banach, pinning him in his final match at Iowa’s field house.
If you stepped on the mat with Banach, you’d better be ready for an all-out brawl.
“You never wanted to wrestle Lou because Lou would just abuse you, “said Michael Cordisco, his high school teammate.
Bruce Baumgartner, one of the most decorated American wrestlers, took a pounding from Banach.
Banach is one of the few foes ever to pin Baumgartner. He cradled the top-seeded Baumgartner 5 minutes and 45 seconds into their Division I title match in 1981. Banach was giving up 50 pounds to Baumgartner, who went on win a combined five Olympic and World Championship gold medals.
“The match was non-stop action, “said Mark Faller, Banach’s coach at Port Jervis. “I’ve never seen big guys go at it like that. In terms of pure ability and greatness of stature, Louie may have been the best.”
Not just the best Banach. But the best wrestler Faller has seen.
Being the best Banach came at a price. Lou and Ed always banged heads with brother Steve (one year older) in practice at Port Jervis. The drilling got so intense that two teammates were assigned to each brother to break up fights.
“It wasn’t if a fight was going to break out, it was when, “said Ernie Jackson, a former teammate.
And once Banach battled his way into the varsity lineup, he went from a fighter to a winner.
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