USA WRESTLI N G SUCCESS ST ORI E S
opportunities to succeed. I think wrestling was a critical element in building those instincts.”
BUILDING BLOCKS Then again, if wrestling is the root of his suc- cess, maybe Bardis’ story really starts when he was in grade school. He grew up in the Chica- go area, and one day a local high school coach put on a sports clinic at his elementary school. “Once I went to the clinic, I knew wrestling is what I wanted to do,” Bardis says. He relished the chance to compete one-on- one and prove himself. He was also motivated by a boy in his fifth-grade class who, as Bardis recalls, “said he had brother in high school who was teaching him wrestling and was go- ing to kick my butt.” The other boy, Jeff Shank, became his first
wrestling match—and, as it turned out, a life- long friend. The two of them, in fact, saw each other again recently when Bardis, 59, had his 40-year high school reunion. Those early matches taught Bardis the val- ue of competition, hard work, and overcoming obstacles. “Without a doubt, the most important thing I learned is perseverance,” Bardis says. “You cannot succeed in wrestling without working hard. Being able to take the pain as- sociated with it means you’re going to have your ups and downs and you have to stick with it.” That’s why Bardis still talks about his high school coach—who required his wrestlers to run 7 miles for their conditioning work at 6 a.m. so they could focus on skill development in after-school sessions—with admiration and not a hint of complaint.
DEEP ROOTS If we’re talking about working hard and fight- ing through pain, though, it’s pretty clear that Bardis’ story starts before he was even born. His father, Raymond, and mother, Julia, were both children of immigrants. Julia was the last of 11 children of Russian immigrant parents. Bardis’ grandfather on his father’s side, Anthony, fought in World War I on the U.S. side, and earned his citizenship before going to work as a carpenter. Anthony lived to be 96 and was Bardis’ best friend. Bardis’ father fought in World War II, on some of the same soil in France where Anthony faced battle. Bardis says his parents worked hard to raise him in a middle-class environment, but he notes that the family “didn’t have excess. We didn’t have savings. We didn’t have a lot of money for college.” But it didn’t matter because the entire fam- ily tree instilled in Bardis a work ethic and ap-
HEAD COACH STEVE FRASER (LEFT) AND JOHN BARDIS WITH TWO LOCAL WOMEN IN HAVANA, CUBA DURING A US GRECO-ROMAN WRESTLING TEAM TOUR OF THAT COUNTRY IN THE MID-2000S, WHILE BARDIS WAS THE TEAM LEADER.
“Not only did he make substantial financial contributions to our program, but just as good was the leadership that he provided our team. He’s a down-in-the-trenches kind of guy and not afraid to get his hands dirty.”
preciation for the fruits of labor that he carries with him to this day. “I am the byproduct of people who worked
much harder and made greater sacrifices than I did,” Bardis says. “They did far greater things. The world I live in, you get credit for things that don’t effectively compare with what it took for me to be here. What that took was unbeliev- ably hard-working and courageous people.”
REPAYING THE DEBT
The sum of all those beginnings has been a life of lessons learned, time well spent and gifts passed on. Having his own company has allowed Bardis to repay wrestling in multiple ways, both as a board member and donor for USA Wrestling and as a team leader for the U.S. Greco-Roman team. “Not only did he make substantial financial
contributions to our program, but just as good was the leadership that he provided our team,” says longtime U.S. Greco-Roman coach Steve Fraser. “He’s a down-in-the-trenches kind of guy and not afraid to get his hands dirty.” On one particular instance during the 2007
Pan-Am Games in Rio de Janeiro, Fraser re- calls, Bardis sat in a sauna dripping sweat with another wrestler who needed to shed an extra pound to make his weight class. “He’s that kind of guy,” Fraser says. “He’d do anything to help the team.”
For his part, Bardis counts among his life highlights some of the experiences he gained from his association with the Greco-Roman team – including his role as part of the U.S. delegation at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. Also among his life’s highlights, time spent with his family: wife Judy, to whom Bardis has been married 35 years, as well as sons Michael Anthony (31) and Tom (28) and daughter Kari (25). The kids were raised in the Atlanta area, where Bardis has lived for the past 20 years. But despite Bardis’s wrestling background, his children ended up following other athletic pur- suits. Kari was a scholarship volleyball player at the University of Arizona, Tom lettered in hockey at the University of Wisconsin, and Michael ended up as general manager of the Bardis family’s ice arena in suburban Atlanta. “It never really caught on with them,” he says of the sport, “And you know how it goes with wrestling: if the bug doesn’t bite you, best not get in.”
The bug got into Bardis early. And he’s sure glad it did. “I think it’s at the top of the list of most
important things,” Bardis says of the sport’s influence on his life. “Business is difficult. There’s not a straight line from A to B. It’s a lot of hard work, and you’re not going to have a positive trajectory all the time. It’s the same thing in wrestling.”
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