On Saturday night, Black champions proved their greatness once again at the 2022 D1 NCAA Wrestling Championships, and what better place to do it than in the city of Motown.
Last year’s event featured five Black wrestling champions, including Minnesota’s eventual Olympic gold medalist, Gable Steveson.
It also featured a trio of champions from Penn State University, which finished second overall.
This year those same champions defended their titles and helped Penn State capture the overall team crown.
The Nittany Lions’ Roman Bravo-Young was a back-to-back champion at 133 lbs. He was joined by his teammates, Carter Starocci (174 lbs) and Aaron Brooks (184 lbs), who also defended their 2021 titles.
Then came the heavyweight, Minnesota’s Gable Steveson.
Steveson won the 285 lbs. NCAA title last year and then traveled to Tokyo with dreams of Olympic gold. In the finals, things looked bleak for the NCAA champ, as he was losing 8-5 and time was running out.
With 10 seconds remaining, he scored two quick points. Then, with only .4 seconds remaining, he scored two points for a takedown and won Olympic gold in thrilling fashion, 9-8, as time expired.
After the Olympics, Gable signed a multi-year NIL deal with the WWE which allowed him to return to school. That was essential because he had one more task to accomplish.
Defend his NCAA title.
Steveson returned to Minnesota where he held an 85-2 record during his four-year career, those two losses coming in 2019.
Since then, he’s dominated. At the NCAA championships in Detroit on Saturday night, he did that once again.
After winning four matches, he reached the final. There he defeated Arizona State’s Cohlton Schultz 6-2 to defend his title and complete one of the most dominating college wrestling careers in history, one which includes a 52-match win streak.
The year’s championships exemplified the continued greatness, and rich tradition, of Black collegiate wrestling success, a subject we explored last year in our feature on the storied history of Black collegiate wrestling.
It started in 1949 when Harold Henson became the first Black man to compete at the national wrestling championships. In 1957, Simon Roberts completed Henson’s mission by winning the 147-pound title for the Iowa Hawkeyes, becoming the first Black NCAA wrestling champion.
The legacy of Black NCAA wrestlers continued to blossom over the next few decades, adding names like Iowa State’s Carl Adams, who won back-to-back NCAA titles in 1972 and 1972.
That history reached a climax in 2021 when five Black NCAA champions were crowned in St. Louis.
In 2022, four back-to-back Black champions were crowned. Last year’s 157 lbs. champion, Iowa State’s David Carr, took third this year.
This year’s event also featured 7 Black finalists, including the four previously mentioned NCAA champions.
Kizhan Clarke of North Carolina finished second at 141 lbs., Quincy Monday of Princeton finished second at 157 lbs. and Mekhi Lewis of Virginia Tech finished second to Penn State’s Carter Starocci in the 174 lbs. division.
In addition, Bravo-Young, Clarke, Starocci, Monday, Lewis, Brooks, Steveson and Carr were all named All-Americans, a list that also included wrestlers like Tariq Wilson (NC State), Jacori Teemer (Arizona St.), Jonathan Milner (Appalachian St.) and Devan Turner (Oregon St.).
Most sports fans might not think wrestling has deep roots in Black history, but they’re mistaken. There’s a reason why Morgan State announced they were reviving the school’s once-dominant wrestling program.
If that wasn’t proof enough, the 2022 NCAA wrestling championships illustrated, once again, the sport’s strong connection, and proud contribution, to Black history.
Detroit’s event gave us back-to-back champions, All-Americans and names to watch for the 2024 Summer Games in Paris.
But more importantly, the event both nourished and continued the rich tradition of Black excellence in collegiate wrestling.
