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    Mark Palmer •

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    Palmer: Stieber, Ohio State make history in 2015

    Saturday, March 21, 2015: For the Ohio State wrestling program and its fans, it's a red letter -- make that a scarlet and gray -- day, doubly historic for it is the capstone of a season that not only saw the Buckeyes win their first national wrestling team title at the 2015 NCAA Division I Wrestling Championships ... but also saw Logan Stieber conclude his collegiate mat career by becoming only the fourth wrestler in the 85-year history of the NCAA championships to have won four individual Division I titles.

    That Saturday -- the final day of three days of competition at the 2015 NCAAs in St. Louis -- capped a season where the Buckeye wrestlers, coaches and supporters experienced historic highs ... and a devastating loss: the tragic suicide of Kosta Karageorge, former Ohio State heavyweight and, at the time, reserve defensive lineman for the team that went on to win the first-ever National College Football playoff title.

    The first-ever team title

    Logan Stieber and the Ohio State Buckeyes celebrate after winning the 2015 national championship in St. Louis (Photo/Tony Rotundo, WrestlersAreWarriors.com)
    For Ohio State, it was an interesting journey to the 2015 NCAA title. Before the start of the season, the only thing that wrestling journalists and fans might have agreed on regarding "who will win the team crown?" was -- "it could be just about anyone's." The word "parity" was one that was frequently heard even more than usual, with the idea that there were a number of programs that would be contending, other than defending team titlist Penn State, who had won four straight NCAA championships, but was expected to be in a rebuilding year, with the graduations of superstars Ed Ruth and David Taylor. As the season progressed, two teams that garnered much of that team title speculation: the Iowa Hawkeyes, no stranger to NCAA championships ... and the Missouri Tigers, who were having a Cinderella season. As for Ohio State, they compiled a 14-4 dual-meet record in 2014-15, with losses to Virginia Tech, Missouri, Iowa, and, to Lehigh at the National Duals. However, the postseason was the time for the Buckeyes to shine when the lights were the brightest.

    Ohio State played host to the 2015 Big Ten Wrestling Championships at venerable St. John Arena, a nearly 60-year-old facility across Lane Avenue from famed Ohio Stadium. At the end of the two-day tournament, the hosts found themselves sharing the team title with Iowa ... the first time there have been conference co-team champions since 1932, and only the sixth time in the long history of the organization once known as the Midwest Conference. There were other factors that made the 2015 Big Tens one for the history books. While it was the 35th conference crown for the Hawkeyes (who last won the Big Ten mat title in 2010), it was the first for the Buckeye wrestling program since 1951. Ohio State could claim its first four-time conference champ -- yep, Logan Stieber, who became only the 14th in Big Ten history. It was also the first time since 1994 that the host school won the Big Ten title.

    Tom Ryan was named Coach of the Year by the NWCA and InterMat (Photo/Tony Rotundo, WrestlersAreWarriors.com)
    Immediately after his program was crowned one of the 2015 Big Ten team champs -- and he was named conference wrestling coach of the year -- Ohio State head coach Tom Ryan was not only excited about what his team had done, but what he thought they'd do two weeks later in St. Louis: "The bottom line is I'm really proud of our team. We ended a 65-year drought. The drought's over. Ohio State wrestling is here to stay. Now it's on to nationals. And this team has a goal of being national champions."

    The Buckeyes sent ten wrestlers to the NCAAs ... and, as a whole, the team acquitted itself well right from the start. At the end of the second day of competition Friday, the Buckeyes found themselves in first place in the team title race, with a 13.5-point lead over Iowa. Ohio State was sending three wrestlers into the finals: Nathan Tomasello at 125 pounds, Kyle Snyder at 197, and 141-pounder Stieber. By contrast, the Hawkeyes had only one finalist -- Cory Clark at 133.

    Unlike in recent years where the team championship was decided during the finals -- and the margin of victory was less than a handful of points -- Ohio State clinched the team title at the 2015 NCAAs during Saturday morning's medal round matches to determine third through eighth place, hours before the first wrestlers took to the mat at the finals that evening. At the end of competition, the Buckeyes had racked up 102 team points, a comfortable lead over second-place Iowa with 84 points. Of the three Ohio State finalists, two left Scottrade Center with national titles: Tomasello and Stieber. A total of five Buckeyes earned All-American honors, with Bo Jordan and Kenny Counts joining their teammates who were in the finals.

    The Twitterverse was abuzz about the win.

    The official Ohio State wrestling Twitter account posted the following:


    Some well-known individuals in Ohio State athletics also weighed in. Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith wrote:


    Head football coach Urban Meyer tweeted:


    Coach Luke Fickell -- considered one of the best big-man wrestlers in Ohio high school history -- wrote:


    Former Buckeye mat star Lance Palmer -- now competing in mixed martial arts -- posted this on his Twitter account:


    Ohio State's 1921 wrestling team
    By winning the 2015 NCAA team title, Ohio State joined an incredibly rare club of Division I wrestling programs that have won a national mat championship. Since the first NCAA wrestling championships in 1928, only a dozen programs have claimed a team title (official or unofficial; for a time in the 1930s, no official team champ was crowned). Ohio State joins Indiana, Cornell College of Iowa, Iowa State Teachers College (now University of Northern Iowa), Michigan State and Arizona State who have one NCAA team title. University of Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Iowa, Iowa State, Minnesota, and Penn State each have more than one national mat championship. Although Ohio State is a newcomer to winning an NCAA team title, it maintained a more recent trend where a Big Ten school has claimed the national mat championship nine out the last ten years.

    The four-time champ

    "The greatest day in the history of Ohio State wrestling ended with the university's most successful wrestler ever capping his glorious career in the grand fashion he long craved." That's how the Columbus Dispatch described that Saturday -- March 21, 2015 -- when the Buckeyes won their team title ... and Logan Stieber won his fourth NCAA individual championship, only the fourth wrestler to achieve that feat in nearly nine decades of the tournament.

    As coach Ryan put it so elegantly at the post-finals press conference, "More people have been on the moon than have won four national titles." The four-timers club includes Oklahoma State's Pat Smith (who won his fourth title in 1994), current Penn State head coach Cael Sanderson, who earned his fourth title for Iowa State in 2002, and, just two years ago, Kyle Dake for Cornell University, the only one of the four to win each of his titles in a different weight class.

    Logan Stieber defeated Edinboro's Mitchell Port to win his fourth title (Photo/Tony Rotundo, WrestlersAreWarriors.com)
    Stieber claimed his fourth and final national title with an 11-5 decision over second-seeded senior Mitchell Port of Edinboro University. It was Stieber's second title at 141, having earned a 10-1 major decision over No. 4 seed Devin Carter of Virginia Tech in the 2014 NCAA finals. Stieber's first two titles were both at 133 pounds. At the 2012 NCAAs, the then-freshman unseated defending champ Jordan Oliver of Oklahoma State, 4-3, in the finals. The following year, Stieber beat Iowa's Tony Ramos, 7-4, to win his second championship.

    Stieber's fourth title match happened to be his 50th consecutive victory. The Buckeye completed his college career with a 119-3 record, translating into Ohio State's best all-time winning percentage (.975). Prior to coming to Columbus, Stieber had crafted a near-perfect 184-1 overall record -- including a 179-match win streak -- on his way to capturing four Ohio state titles for Monroeville High, located in north-central Ohio, almost exactly halfway between Cleveland and Toledo.

    Logan Stieber celebrates his championship with his parents (Photo/Tony Rotundo, WrestlersAreWarriors.com)
    In the post-finals press conference, Stieber was asked what it meant to him personally to win his fourth title. "It's all the hard work I've done. All the sacrifices I've made and complete my dreams, complete one part of my dreams. And I can't thank my teammates, my coaches and my family enough. It's been an incredible journey."

    "To think that this little kid from a small farm town in Monroeville, Ohio, did what he did, is pretty awesome, pretty amazing," Ryan said. "I'm so happy for him and his family, and they believed early on in the process of us getting to the point we are. And now he can pass the torch to the other guys."

    In terms of the team title, Stieber said, "It means so much. It's just hard to put into words. It's something we've wanted so bad. Our coaches, they've been sick. They're so anxious, so nervous, they want to win so bad. Everyone wants to win so bad. I'm happy to be a part of this team."

    By contrast, the guy from tiny Monroeville was pretty much calm, cool and collected at the NCAAs -- at least in terms of himself. "This has been so much fun. I haven't been nervous at all. I was nervous for Kyle Snyder, I was nervous for Nathan Tomasello," said Stieber. "In my match, if I have an inch of nervousness, I push it out right away. And this is fun. It's like wrestling in the practice room. I really, really enjoy it. And it's a little bit of relief to be done and be able to, I guess, celebrate with my family and friends."

    In addition to winning his fourth title -- and a place in the history books -- Stieber earned two major individual awards at the 2015 NCAAs: the NCAA Most Dominant Wrestler, and the Most Outstanding Wrestler award from the National Wrestling Coaches Association. In the days since, Stieber was named winner of the 2015 Hodge Trophy, presented by WIN magazine to the best college wrestler in the nation, as well as 2015 InterMat Wrestler of the Year honors.

    What's next for Stieber? Right now he hopes to qualify for the 2015 World Championships, then the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

    The singular loss of a teammate

    It's difficult to disagree that Kosta Karageorge was a figure that loomed large over the Ohio State wrestling program throughout much of the 2014-15 season ... even though the 6' 3", 285-pound 22-year-old from suburban Columbus had completed his wrestling eligibility the previous season, and was now a member of the Buckeye football practice squad.

    The day before Thanksgiving 2014 -- Wednesday at approximately 2 a.m. -- Karageorge went for a walk from the apartment near campus that he shared with some Ohio State wrestlers to reportedly "clear his head." He failed to show up for a Wednesday 6 a.m. football practice to prepare for that Saturday's game with Ohio State's archrival Michigan. His mother Susan Karageorge filed a missing person's report. On Thanksgiving morning, the story went nationwide; ABC News reported "His family fears he may have done something rash after suffering one too many concussions."

    On Sunday, November 30, Karageorge's body was found in a dumpster near his home by a woman collecting cans for recycling. Later the county coroner ruled his death a suicide by self-inflicted gunshot wound; he was holding a gun in his hand. Just last month, the pathologist who examined Karageorge's brain said the athlete did not have chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a degenerative disease sometimes found in athletes and others with a history of repetitive brain trauma.

    Kosta Karageorge
    The death of Kosta Karageorge left the Ohio State wrestling program devastated. In an interview with the Columbus Dispatch soon after Karageorge's body was found, coach Ryan painted a picture of a gentle giant who had matured in his three seasons as an Ohio State wrestler. "He grew a lot as a person through the challenges of wrestling. For as big as he was -- heck, he could have put a knot on my head whenever he wanted -- he was so respectful and embraced everything the program really stood for ... He was loved. He cared about others. He grew a lot as a person. He brought a lot of good to a lot of people."

    Although a backup to heavyweight starter Nick Tavanello, Karageorge won titles at a number of tournaments during the 2013-14 season, racking up 35 wins. As Ryan put it, "He was the backup to the guy who's starting now, but the matches were very close. Kosta was considered the best backup heavyweight for any team in the country last year."

    The team attended Kosta Karageorge's funeral in Columbus together. They wore a "KK" tag on the left shoulder strap on their singlets. What's more, his memory was invoked in interviews with Ohio State wrestlers during their successful team title chase ... so his spirit has lived on as the team made its historic title run.
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