One of the fondest memories that I am sure must have already evoked some stories had to be our one-point win over Oklahoma in January 1978. We didn’t have a heavyweight or one that was in shape early enough in the year (the football team had been in a bowl) or one Coach Koll had enough confidence in his not getting pinned. So Coach Koll decided to insert our 167-pounder, Ashley Swift. I recall the team was up by 4 points going into the H/W bout, and Ashley had to not got beat by more then 8 points for us to win the match.
Somehow Ashley (with his great conditioning and superior intelligence)—giving up probably 60 to 70 pounds in favor of Oklahoma’s giant heavyweight—was able to lose by less then 8 points to preserve a big upset over the highly ranked Oklahoma team. [Swift lost to Cutchall, 12–7.] As soon as the last second ticked off the clock our entire team —JV’s and all—rushed the mat and carried Ashley off. It was one of the most emotional matches I have every witnessed in Rec Hall.
I am sure it was the most memorable and best loss of Ashley’s career. Knowing what kind of modest person Ashley was, I highly doubt he would have told this story, but it surely was one for the memory books.
Normally the day before a match we would have a rather light practice with most of the varsity guys, who had just wrestled a match or two in an attempt to lose enough weight for the next day’s weigh-in. Jerry (“Whitey”) White for some reason always wanted to roll around with me, the JV 126-pounder, knowing we would have fun and he would lose some weight. During our normal practices, I would never work out with Whitey so I had no idea of his concealed habits.
It was about the third or fourth time when we working out—him on his knees and me standing up—that he told me he needed to spit. It was then I learned that Whitey had a “chew in”—he was chewing tobacco and did so almost for every practice. Whitey was able to keep a chew in his mouth and beat everybody in the room. More surprisingly is that he hardly ever spit, he simply swallowed. One can only imagine how much better his conditioning could have been had he given up the chew. However, I don’t recall Whitey ever being out-conditioned by any opponent. Nevertheless, Whitey placed 3rd in the NCAA’s. He got screwed in the semi-finals by the ref and should have won that match. During the match oach Koll was so mad he cursed at the ref (who deserved to be cursed at) and not only was he ejected from Whitey’s corner, but we also had a team point deducted. That year he also pummeled the highly-regarded Mark Lieberman from Lehigh, who went on to win an NCAA title the following year. And Whitey beat him with a “chew in”.
