‘Wrestling fraternity’ prominent today
By Andy Hamilton
Iowa City Press-Citizen
The brown brick apartment sits at the bottom of the hill across the street from Carver-Hawkeye Arena’s north side and wears no indications that it once doubled as a fraternity house.
More than 15 years ago, this was the place to live for Iowa wrestlers. In fact, 1064 Newton Road could’ve been listed as the home address of the NCAA wrestling champions. After all, nine All-Americans and five NCAA champions who competed for the Hawkeyes on their 1991 and 1992 national title teams lived there.
“It was like a wrestling fraternity, “Terry Brands said.
Ten brothers from that select society remain prominent figures in the sport as coaches, and two former neighbors will reunite across the street from their old apartment complex today when Tom Ryan returns to Carver-Hawkeye Arena in his first season as Ohio State’s head coach to take on Tom Brands and the No. 10 Hawkeyes in a 7 p.m. dual.
Ryan spent 11 seasons at Hofstra before making his second career jump from New York to the Big Ten last spring.
The New York native left Syracuse in the summer of 1989 to chase a childhood dream of wrestling for Dan Gable at Iowa. He had gone to Iowa wrestling camps, but the Hawkeyes never called during the recruiting process, so Ryan followed his brother to Syracuse.
Eventually, though, his desire tugged him to Iowa.
“I packed my car up after the season and left after my second year at Syracuse, “he said. “I got to know the Brands brothers because, out there, you never stopped working out and the room was full of people all summer. I met a few guys, met Terry Brands and Tom, got along with them real well and decided to live with Terry.”
In another apartment down the hall, Tom Brands lived with Bart Chelesvig, now a Wisconsin assistant. West High coach Mark Reiland lived with Air Force coach Joel Sharratt, Oregon State assistant Troy Steiner and Terry Steiner, the USA Wrestling women’s freestyle coach, shared another apartment.
“They’re all good guys, and they’re all very focused people, “Ryan said. “You surround yourself with people like that and you can’t help but have success.”
Three-time All-American Chad Zaputil, Coe College coach John Oostendorp and Travis Fiser, now the coach at Grundy (Va.) High School, and several other Hawkeye wrestlers also lived in the building.
“The whole complex was almost wrestlers, “Reiland said. “I can’t believe anybody else wanted to live there. They had assigned parking spots, and we’d take each other’s. Half the time, you didn’t know if you were taking the right ones.”
Of course, there were living-room wrestling matches, too.
“I think there were a few Brands brother matches, “said Terry Brands, the men’s resident freestyle coach at USA Wrestling. “One of them was after Tom got beat at Midlands and I told him he was being a big baby and he was feeling sorry for himself. There was a blizzard outside and we ended up going outside and trying to settle it in a snow match.”
Said Tom: “That was one of the worst fistfights I’ve ever gotten into with my brother. We went in his apartment, out, up the stairs into my apartment, down the hall, outside into the snow bank shirtless and it was 2 degrees outside.”
Entertainment aside, the benefits of the living situation were obvious to the wrestlers. They could leave their front door and walk to the Iowa wrestling room in five minutes without the hassle of finding a parking spot or feeding a meter.
“All the extra workouts that everyone did, we spent so much time there that it just made sense to live right there, “Reiland said. “It was a lot easier. … We just plain outworked everybody. Whether we did or didn’t, we certainly thought we did.”
The Hawkeyes at least outwrestled everybody in the early-1990s. Iowa went 25-0-1 in 1991, scoring the third-most points by a team in NCAA meet history. Eight Newton Road residents placed third or better, including Tom Brands and Reiland, who won individual titles.
The Hawkeyes went 16-0 in 1992 and won the NCAA meet, posting the sixth-largest margin of victory in tournament history. The wrestling fraternity had three champions — the Brands brothers and Troy Steiner.
Ryan placed second and third at 158 pounds during his two seasons at Iowa and left the Hawkeyes with a life-changing experience.
“It taught me a level of commitment I thought I had but really didn’t, “he said. “It gave me a great perspective on how hard you have to work to be great at something. I learned a lot at that place about being great, how to compete hard, how to train hard, being around good people, a lot of intangibles that changed my life.”
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