Bobby Douglas

BRIDGEPORT — Bridgeport High School is honoring one of its finest grapplers this weekend with the first annual Bobby Douglas Invitational.

Wrestlers from Ohio and West Virginia will gather on Saturday at the John Havlicek Gymnasium starting at 9 a.m.

Organizer and BHS Head Wrestling Coach Matthew McFarland said 14 teams were participating for now, including Bridgeport, Frontier, Toronto, Triway, Steubenville Catholic, Paden City, Bellaire, Wheeling Park (B), Shenandoah, Beallsville, Madonna, East Liverpool (B) and Buckeye Local. Admission is $7 for adults and $5 for students and a full day of matches is being planned.

“We will start out with each weight class getting placed into pools, and depending on how the wrestlers finish in each pool will place them into a bracket to decide where they place in the tournament,” McFarland said.

He is hopeful that the invitational will be the beginning of a tradition at Bridgeport.

“This is the first of many more years of this wrestling tournament to be held in Bridgeport High School,” McFarland said.

McFarland said the tournament honors a fixture in the school’s wrestling history. “Bobby Douglas is a Bridgeport legend and a huge influence for the sport of wrestling. He has a long list of accolades.”

Douglas graduated from Bridgeport in 1961 and within his high school career he was the first wrestler to win four OVAC titles. He also was a two-time Ohio state wrestling champion in 1959 and 1961 and would progress his wrestling career and continue his education at West Liberty State College. He continued his studies and athletics at Oklahoma State University and racked up an NAIA national championship in 1962, a turn as an NCAA Division I runner-up in 1963 and a Big Eight title in 1965 with a collegiate record of 72-2.

He would also compete on the international stage and place fourth at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, plus he was captain of the 1968 games in Mexico City. Douglas would go on to coach one of the greatest wrestlers of all time, Cael Sanderson, at Iowa State University as well as serve as head coach for the 1992 U.S. Olympic freestyle team that competed in Barcelona, Spain. He would remain a member on the coaching staff of the U.S. Olympics for five other games and is currently a member of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame, the NAIA Wrestling Hall of Fame, the Ohio Hall of Fame, Iowa Wrestling Hall of Fame, Arizona State Hall of Fame and the OVAC Hall of Fame.

McFarland said Douglas left an indelible mark on not only Bridgeport High, but also the wrestling world, and it was only fitting to honor him with a tournament in his name.

“This tournament needs to happen because Bridgeport is where wrestling started in the Ohio Valley. Bobby’s coach, George Kovalick, is known as the ‘father’ of wrestling in the Ohio Valley. Having this tournament is going to bring a big wrestling event back into Bridgeport where we can honor the tradition of wrestling that was started many years ago. I look upon Bobby as an inspiration for why I am even at Bridgeport. When I was in sixth grade as a student at Union Local, I portrayed Bobby Douglas in the Famous American Fair and I was lucky enough to meet the man himself thanks to several individuals from the Bridgeport community,” McFarland said. “Having a tournament has been a want of mine since I got into coaching, and when I was putting a schedule together and trying to figure out where we are going to go, I decided where else better than right here at home.”

He is being assisted by tournament director Roger Herbert while his family has also been a source of support in organizing the event. McFarland said school officials and wrestlers’ parents have also been helpful, the latter with filling needed spots and giving donations for concessions to help save the program money. Proceeds from a portion of ticket sales and all concessions and side raffles at the tournament will benefit the wrestling program.

“Come out and support our team,” McFarland concluded. “They are excited and ready to show our community what they have been up to when no one is watching.”

Full coverage can be found in Monday’s edition of The Intelligencer.