Greg Strobel GARY ABBOTT’S MATSIDE CHAT WITH...
Greg Strobel was named 2010 USA
Wrestling Man of the Year. He has done it all in our sport. He was a two-time NCAA champion and OW for Oregon State. He worked as National Teams Director for USA Wrestling. He coached the 2000 Olympic Team, and was coach of the tal- ented Team Foxcatcher club. He coached Lehigh University to national prominence. USA Wrestler asked Strobel his thoughts about his journey within wrestling.
USA Wrestler: How did you get involved in wrestling, and what made you want to stay involved? Strobel: What started me in the sport
were my older brothers Bob and Rick. They were nine and 10 years older than me. I was just a little kid. They would come home and show us all some moves. We wrestled in the living room. I didn’t start wrestling officially until ninth grade. In reality, I started at age five with my brothers in the living room. And in reality, it was fun. That has been my mainstay in my life within wrestling.
USA Wrestler: Who were your early influences in wrestling, and how did they help you to become successful as a wrestler? Strobel: My oldest brother Bob was
the most influential. When I was in high school, he was a salesman. He got me into the Carnegie success principles. It was amazing how that was applicable to wrestling and life. It was huge, learning about thinking positive. My high school coach Bill Covlin was a great motivator. I didn’t learn moves from him, because he never wrestled. But I learned to train and how to be mentally prepared.
USA Wrestler: What would you con-
sider the highlights of your high school career? Strobel: Two things stand out. When I
was a junior, I qualified for a cultural exchange to New Zealand in 1969. We spent two months there. It was an amaz- ing trip. We wrestled so many matches. I made friends there that I still have today. The other highlight was winning the state title three times. The first two times were very close. By the time I was a senior, it wasn’t that I was going to win the state,
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but by how much. That was fun for me. USA Wrestler: Explain what it was like
to compete for the legendary Dale Thomas at Oregon State? Strobel: Dale Thomas really was a leg-
end. I remember at Dale’s funeral, I gave a eulogy. A reporter asked me to sum up Dale Thomas. I told him he’d tell all of his wrestlers, you have to like it tough, not kind of tough. That was Dale. He taught that when adversity comes, you have to be able to handle it. We thought that he created adversity for us. I learned later as a coach that adversity just happens to us all. We knew that when the tough times come, we have to relish it. That is when we had to be at our best.
USA Wrestler: What was special about
the Beaver teams that you competed on? Strobel: The most memorable was our
1973 team. We had four guys in the finals, and should have had five. We were second at the NCAAs. We beat a lot of great teams. We didn’t just win duals. We shut out our opponents many times.
USA Wrestler: Tell us a bit about your freestyle career, and why you decided to finish your competitive career. Strobel: I really enjoyed freestyle in
high school. I won an Octagon plaque, after my senior year down in Stillwater. My brother drove me back, and took me up to Lincoln, Neb. for the AAU Nationals. I drew the No. 1 seed, Ed Dewitt, and I beat him as a high school senior. I didn’t place. I lost to J Robinson and somebody else but I got everybody’s attention. When I was in high school, I would train freestyle at the Multnomah AC with Rick Sanders and many others. As a freshman in college, I took third. I lost to Russ Hellickson and Wayne Baughman in the round robin. I placed many times but I never won it. In 1975-76, I hurt my neck bad. It basically ended my career. While I was going through, two of the greatest in the world, either Ben Peterson or John Peterson were at my weight class. Back then, we didn’t have a National Team pro- gram. If you didn’t make it right away, you would start your life. At 21, I was married and at 22, I was raising kids. But I really enjoyed doing the freestyle.
USA Wrestler: Why did you choose coaching as a career? Strobel: I didn’t go to college to be a
coach. I went as a business major. I was going to go back home, start a construc- tion company and be a businessman. In 1973, I went to California and worked a clinic and really enjoyed it. I changed my major and became a teacher. I believed in the educational part of it, and I truly enjoyed working with the kids. My first job was head coach at Roseburg High School in Oregon, and it was a blast.
USA Wrestler: Explain your decision to
take the National Teams Director position at USA Wrestling. Strobel: It was one of those unintend-
ed things, like when something comes along and you like it. I was an assistant to Dale Thomas at Oregon State. He said that he would coach a few more years and then I could coach the program. After a few seasons, he said to me that he thought he would coach until he was 70. That was nine more years. I started look- ing for other things. What really hap- pened was that Steve Combs recruited my wife Donna while I was overseas coaching a team. He convinced her to have us move to Stillwater. I wasn’t going to be an assistant coach for nine more years. I thought that the job would expand my opportunities.
USA Wrestler: You were very active in USA Wrestling’s involvement in the 1984
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