USA WRESTLI N G SUCCES S S T ORI E S
“Once I started
wrestling, I never looked back.” –ART MARTORI
A
AFTER YEARS OF CRAMMED HOTEL ROOMS AND BOLOGNA SANDWICHES, ART MARTORI WAS DETERMINED TO GIVE THE NEXT GENERATION OF WRESTLERS LIKE KENNY
MONDAY (ABOVE) A BETTER EXPERIENCE. MARTORI WITH BOBBY DOUGLAS (RIGHT), WHO COACHED ASU TO THE NCAA TEAM TITLE IN 1988.
SUNKIST KID THE ART MARTORI
RT MARTORI never set out to be a wrestler. Instead, he had plans for a football scholarship. Being on the gridiron was where the Phoenix native was most comfortable. But at age 16 his plans shifted when a fl uke injury took Martori off the football fi eld for good.
Like any natural athlete, Martori sought anoth-
er competitive outlet to fi ll the football void. T at’s when he discovered wrestling. “Once I started wrestling, I never looked back,”
says Martori, who was president of USA Wrestling from 1992 to 1994. “I just really enjoyed it. T e rest is history.”
FROM WRISTLOCK TO SUN DEVIL
Soon after his injury, Martori became a regular at the local YMCA’s Phoenix Wristlock Club. Success quickly followed at the Arizona AAU Freestyle and Greco-Roman state championships. But it wasn’t all about winning and championships and accolades. “It’s kind of cliché. It’s what everyone says,” Martori acknowledges, but he insists the sport’s real benefi ts accrue off the mat. “Wrestling gives you a good feel- ing about yourself. You feel confi dent, you can focus, and it helps you grow as a person.” Martori’s new passion took him just 18 miles
down the road to Arizona State University in 1965, where he helped the Sun Devils capture the West- ern Athletic Conference (WAC) title in his senior year. More than half of the starters, including Mar- tori and Pro Football Hall of Fame inductee Curley Culp, won individual WAC titles that same year. “We all had a really great bond,” Martori says of
his former wrestling team. “We enjoyed going to practice every day and it was just one of those things that clicked. For me it’s been a lifelong relationship with my teammates.” And while his competitive wrestling career ended with graduation, Martori couldn’t walk away from the mat completely. In fact, a new era was just beginning.
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