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One of those athletes was Billy Rosado.
“Billy Rosado was a great wrestler and we gave him the chance in freestyle and funded him,” said Martori. “He was one of our first success stories.”
Rosado, representing Sunkist Kids, made three U.S. World Teams and was an Olympian on the 1976 freestyle team in Montreal. He won a bronze medal at the 1981 World Championships in Yugoslavia at 48 kg/105.5 pounds. The flood of talent began coming through the club’s home complex in Tempe, on the campus of Arizona State University, where Bobby Douglas was building the Sun Devils into a wrestling factory. “We brought the athletes to ASU and pushed them to a national champi- onship,” said Martori.” At the same time, Bobby embraced that. He’s a person who would say, ‘I think this guy is going to be really good’.
“(Douglas) was going to all the national tournaments and would look at the ath- letes with Joe Seay. The two of them were the reason why we’ve been as great as we’ve been because of their ability to identify athletes for us and to get those athletes in the right situations to help them and be able to attain the highest level they can.”
“Bobby and Joe were there at the beginning and helped us get started. They had been there all along. We also had Joe Corso, who worked for us and helped out on a continual basis for many years,” said Martori.
Dennis DeLiddo, Kevin Jackson, Sammie Henson, James Johnson and Keith Wilson are still active with the Sunkist program in the corner. According to Martori, 90 percent of the coaches have volunteered their time. “Without the Sunkist program, America would have never won a world champi- onship,” said Douglas. “That model is what helped Arizona State become NCAA champions and produce numerous world and Olympic champions and launched the women’s program.”
Early on, the late Bill Farrell, who was leading the charge at the historic New York Athletic Club, approached Martori. Martori’s movement had caught the eye of the wrestling legend.
“Bill came up to me when we were at the nationals and he came up into the stands,” recalled Martori. “I was just a young punk and he said it’s good that I’d started a club. He said I could stay in the West and (the NYAC) would control the east and everything’s going to be fine. “Then I went out and got everyone I
The Sunkist Kids has been a huge supporter of women’s freestyle wrestlers, including 2012 Olympian Kelsey Campbell. Larry Slater photo.
2004 Olympic champion Cael Sanderson (left) and 2011 World champion Jordan Burroughs are among the standouts who have wrestled for the Sunkist Kids.
could to get on the team, I didn’t care which state,” said Martori.
More known to freestyle, Sunkist Kids has been supporting athletes in all three styles of international wrestling. “We didn’t have a lot of people in Greco, but we’ve been national champi- ons,” said Martori. He also points to the success of two of the sports’ biggest names in the heavyweight division, Olympic and world medalists Matt Ghaffari and Rulon Gardner. “You have coaches that help you reach
particular goals, but Sunkist is the organi- zation that gave me the key to success,”
said Gardner. “Art Martori kept believing in me to make the Olympic team and financially support me on those trips to help me win the gold medal.” Gardner defeated Russia’s Alexander Karelin in the 2000 Sydney Games in one of the sport’s biggest upsets. “How many thousands of athletes’ lives did they change in a positive direction?” said Gardner. “How many medals did they bring back from the Olympics? The support Sunkist gave was more influential than the medals brought back. “(Art) has given me so many great
Continued on page 14 13 USA Wrestler
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