For Eagles, a Historic Takedown
Wrestling Champion Glenn Gives AU Its First Division I Title

By Alan Goldenbach
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 20, 2007

On the first day back from spring break, Josh Glenn passed one American University classmate after another without turning a head. Apparently, being a school pioneer doesn't get the same attention it used to.

"They were more interested in the parties they went to in Cancun," Glenn said. "Some people don't even know we have a wrestling program."

Perhaps by the end of the week, they will. On Saturday night, Glenn, a redshirt junior wrestler, won the 197-pound title at the NCAA championships in Auburn Hills, Mich., with a 6-4 overtime victory over Iowa State senior Kurt Backes, to become American's first national champion in any sport since Ray Crowe won a Division II diving title in 1966. Later that year, the school began moving its sports into Division I, making Glenn's title the school's first in the nation's top echelon.

"This is huge for the university overall," American's interim athletic director Athena Argyropoulos said. "We have successes in a number of our programs, but this can really help put us on the map nationally. What this means to us is there's no boundary to our success."

Glenn's ascension to the top is an improbable journey, with two dedicated coaches riding shotgun. Growing up in Johnson City, N.Y., just outside of Binghamton near the central Pennsylvania border, Glenn and his two older brothers were raised by their mother, Jeanine Bowers, after she and her husband divorced when Josh was 4.

All three boys eventually were placewinners at the New York state tournament in high school. They learned plenty from Pete Capone, the coach at Johnson City High School. Capone, a dentist who just completed his 17th season coaching, has a special bond with his wrestlers.

A runner-up in the 1985 NCAA championships while wrestling for Hofstra, Capone dedicated the basement of his home to teaching the sport to future generations. He has a 16-by-16-foot wrestling mat, a weight room, and a wall of fame of his former wrestlers. There is also a foosball table, a bubble hockey game and a plasma screen TV.

Capone's bond to Glenn, however, was particularly close. For about six months each year from when Glenn was in sixth grade until he left for American, he would live with Capone and his wife, Sue. When the Capones built a new house when Glenn was in the ninth grade, the guest room was essentially designated his.

"I'm sure a lot of coach-athlete relationships are really good, but Josh is like family to me," Capone said. "We built a house, and that's an open door to my wrestlers. They can come home, and they can feel comfortable."

And that's what Capone wanted Glenn to feel when college recruiters called. Glenn won the 152-pound state title as a senior, and felt a strong desire to follow in his coach's footsteps at Hofstra. But Hofstra couldn't give Glenn more than half a scholarship, and Glenn couldn't afford the rest.

That's when second-year American coach Mark Cody stepped in and made what appeared to be an unfathomable offer, especially for a program that had fallen on hard times in the 1990s and was in danger of being cut altogether.

American has just five scholarships annually, each valued at $42,000, according to Cody. Nevertheless, Cody thought Glenn was worth a full scholarship -- 20 percent of the financial support he can offer his entire roster each year.

"I had confidence that he could be very special," said Cody, a former assistant at national powers Oklahoma State and Nebraska, where he coached Olympic champion Rulon Gardner. "But, still, you're taking a big chance."

It paid off quickly. As a redshirt freshman, Glenn was named the Eastern Intercollegiate Wrestling Association's freshman of the year. Last year, Glenn advanced to the NCAA semifinals before finishing fourth at 184 pounds. After missing the first month of this season because of a rib injury, he lost to Backes and then reeled off 24 straight victories. It set up a rematch with Backes for the national championship.

With 17 seconds left in the third period, Backes grabbed hold of Glenn's right leg and contorted it in a way that Glenn could only compare to his torn labrum a year earlier. After a minute of injury time to recover, the final seconds played out uneventfully, and the match went to sudden-death overtime. Glenn wasn't the least bit nervous. He knew what to do.

"It's a situation we've trained for," Glenn said. "If there's 30 seconds left, and you're down one point, what are you going to do? If there's one minute left and you're down three points, what are you going to do? I've already done this. All I've got to do is attack him and it's over. Besides, I couldn't walk. It was so painful."

Right off the whistle, Glenn shot at Backes with a move Cody called a "low single leg." Glenn circled away from Backes's right leg, and then whipped his arm around Backes, grabbed his lower right leg, held it, and then grabbed Backes's left ankle for the takedown.

Twelve seconds into the extra session, Glenn had won his title.

As he and Cody embraced, Capone darted down the bleachers, past one security guard after another and congratulated Glenn.

"The first thing he said to me was, 'Doc, I hope this puts some closure to you losing,' " Capone recalled.

"Josh," Capone said, "you wrestle for yourself, and nobody else."

"No, it's about everyone who helped me be there, and you did."

Capone relented.

"I guess he's right," Capone said. "It came full circle Saturday night."

And it validated the gamble Cody took four years ago -- on both the athlete and his program.

"Josh is the school's first NCAA champ, first two-time all-American," athletic department spokesman Patrick MacAdie said. "In a lot of ways, he's our first-time anything around here."