USA Wrestler: As a youth in New York, how did you get involved in the sport and what was it about wrestling that made you pursue it with a passion? Barth: I started at the New York Athletic Club, which had a Saturday morning program my folks signed me up for. I walked into the wrestling room one day with Coach John Bruce, an excellent coach at the youth level. He encouraged me after a few practices. He said you should also go down to your high school, try wrestling at Styvesant High School. Sometimes get- ting that encouragement, somebody telling you that you might be good at it, you should keep trying this at other locations is what you need to get started. I liked the workouts. I’d never experienced anything that left you so exhausted but so exhila- rated. Once I got into it, and had a little success in high school, there was no feeling that matches winning a wrestling match. I liked the combination of being involved with a team but also having a lot of the burden fall on you to see how you succeed.
USA Wrestler: Who influenced you as you learned to wrestle and made you want to continue with the sport after high school? Barth: I felt I had unfinished business in high school. I was runner-up twice in New York City in the PSAL Championships. My last experience was a disappointing one and I wanted to keep going. I was a walk-on at Columbia. I went to coach Ron Russo’s office one day and he told me when practice was. He was an important influence. I had other people at the New York Athletic Club I continued to work out with and be involved with, people like Mark Miller and Alex Porter. I saw the good exam- ples they set as educators or businessmen, and wrestling helped them in their lives. It is a rare sport.
USA Wrestler: What are your top memories from your col- lege career at Columbia? Barth: We were fortunate. We had a lot of very good wrestlers on the team. We won three Ivy League titles while I was there. Columbia has won four Ivy titles in its history. The second and third years we won the title, where I got to play a role in them, were the best memories. That second year, we were 13-1 coming into the last match of the season with Cornell. It was very close, almost tied, coming into my match at 190. I was against a fellow who had beaten me a couple of times. I ended up winning that match. It was a big upset; they were expecting to win it. Beating someone you lost to and help- ing the team win the title was really exciting. The third year, at the start of the Ivy season, we were in trouble in our first match against Princeton. I was going up against a fellow at 190 who had been undefeated so far going into the match. He was expected to beat me. I was down 5-2 going into the third. I was able to get away, take him down and tilt him. We won that match. We ended up tying Princeton that year, but we won the league championship.
USA Wrestler: You did international-style wrestling with the
New York AC. What was it like to compete for this successful and respected club program? Barth: It was just a dream to me to wear the New York AC colors and compete for them. They had pictures on the wall, of all the great guys who wrestled for the club. You’d see those guys come in and work out. At that time, a lot of the guys who wrestled for the AC trained in New York. It was something to dream about to wear the winged foot. I wrestled mostly Greco and some freestyle. I was a little more successful in Greco. I won the New York and Eastern Greco Championships, I went to one tournament in France. That was my last year of wrestling in 1985. I had to go get a job and get to work after that.
USA Wrestler: You are a success in the financial industry. What were the top challenges you faced and how did you approach them in as your career progressed? Barth: Being in the investment business, there are so many lessons you get out of wrestling. Markets will go up, markets will go down. You have to learn to keep your head about you, just like in any match. You can’t just stop if you give up a few points. You keep going and keep thinking. You do a lot of things in the investment business, doing analysis of companies, but you don’t always know. You just have belief that doing these things will pay off, doing spreadsheets, reading a lot, searching out infor- mation. Be the best investor you can be. It’s a lot like being the best wrestler you can be. Why are we doing all these pushups and situps? There is a point. Why are we climbing ropes and running sprints? They do matter, just like in training. It’s like a quote from one of those Rocky movies. It’s not how well you do in life. It’s how often do you get up when you get knocked down. You learn that from wrestling. You can’t dwell on it too long. You have another match coming. You have to put mistakes and dis- appointments behind you and move on. Tomorrow’s another day. You keep fighting and preparing for the competition tomor- row.
USA Wrestler: Why are so many former wrestlers successful in the financial industry and other businesses? Barth: It is all about mental attitude, sticking to it, don’t give
up. Wrestling is one of the best sports for that. We try to impart this to our Beat the Streets kids. Wrestling gives you confi- dence. How do you get confidence in life? You do something you never did before. You set a new record. You beat someone who beat you. If you keep working hard and improving, you keep building confidence. You need confidence in business. You have to have confidence in your decision making abilities, that you will get it right sooner or later. Wrestling gives you that con- fidence. You are setting goals and reaching goals. You build a belief in yourself that you can do it.
USA Wrestler: You remain active in wrestling in many ways. Why did you decide to stay involved and give back? Barth: I first started with my university at Columbia. We had a good program. But there were a lot of good programs getting dropped. I believe in Title IX. I have three daughters and believe in equality of opportunity. What happened to wrestling was an unintended consequence. I hope we learn to work with Title IX to add wrestling programs. Anyone who was not paranoid about their wrestling program was missing it. How can we do things to preserve and protect the Columbia wrestling program? That involved a certain level of financial giving, and we figured out how to do that. We are now at almost three endowed coaching positions. I believe in legacy, the importance of continuity, the importance of traditions. Protecting and preserving that was one of my objectives. Over time, I realized there were other parts of wrestling that needed to be strengthened and enhanced. I’ve tried to contribute to help at all levels.
USA Wrestler: You helped establish the Beat the Streets Los Angeles program, which has grown in size and influence in that major urban area. What are the goals for BTS-LA and what value does it provide? Barth: It is important in LA for a lot of reasons. We have a huge population of kids who will be well served by wrestling. We are attacking it the way it started in New York and Philadelphia, at the middle-school level. We can have the biggest impact in the community serving as a youth development program, allow-
Continued on page 35 25 USA Wrestler
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