John Smith--Americam badass retires from Oklahoma State

Adding that a guy I know around here has a son wrestling for Oklahoma State and was a freshman last season. Great kid and he's lucky he got to wrestle under John Smith for one year.

I thought of him too and was like that guys still coaching??

Is this the same John Smith who scored on Elgin Baylor?

Ehh, that kinda sucks to hear, I was hoping he'd stay there forever.

In the summer of 1988 there was a wrestling camp in my hometown, Bartlesville, OK, put on by a guy named Andre Metzger. In addition to Metzger, who is a wrestling legend himself, he was able to invite and bring to the camp several other wrestlers. Most of the coaches that Metzger brought along were not actual coaches, they were active collegiate wrestlers. They were Pennsylvania guys as he was affiliated with Villanova at the time who briefly had a D-1 wrestling program when local mega-rich donor and superfan John du Pont put forth the money to create one. Unfortunately I don't remember their names.

As an aside, if any of you are familiar with the movie Foxcatcher about Dave Schultz being murdered by Jon du Pont, well....I think in hindsight, a lot of the madness that led to Dave's death was well underway by 1988. The wrestling program at Villanova had been canceled sometime in 1988. It had been funded by Du Pont, and Metzger was a coach there, and Metzger sued du Pont over sexual harrassment/assault and it was all settled out of court very quietly. This was actively happening over the course of 1988. As a kid I knew nothing of this, and it would be 8 years until du Pont flipped out and shot Dave, but thinking back to 1988 and that wrestling camp and how it fit into larger events just blows my mind to think about.

Anyway, the names I do remember, he brought John Smith and Kenny Monday to that camp, they weren't there all week, just the last 2 days. This would have been a couple months prior to them going to the 1988 Seoul Olympics where both Smith and Monday won gold medals. I frequently sit back and think about how when I was 9 years old John Smith came to my hometown and taught me (not 1 to 1, there was a whole camp full of kids in a gymnasium) how to shoot his famous single leg takedown. I'm sure non-wrestlers won't get it, but this was like peak career Mickey Mantle coming to my hometown to help me with my swing just before the world series. Well, it was to me.

Before the end of the camp, all the campers were given the opportunity to buy a poster and get it autographed by Monday, Smith, and Metzger. I still have mine, so glad the parents had this framed almost immediately. Kenny's signature has faded bad over years, he should have used the blue sharpie like John did, but I can still read it.

Another cool thing I remember about John Smith from that camp was how after he did his big presentation to the entire camp, and we broke up into groups to practice for a while, he circulated around the gym and gave feedback where he felt it was needed, and then we broke for lunch. Most kids just ran off to go eat, but some of us were like "Lunch? Who cares? John Smith is here!"

He didn't go to lunch, he just hung out with Metzger and the other guys bullshitting and I saw him go over to this little mesh bag he carried with him that he carried his shoes and knee sleeves in, keys, etc.....and a can of Skoal. He's standing around rapping about technique and Olympics prep with Kenny and a bunch of us are just hanging around to soak in the John Smith and he just casually throws a dip in (no spitter, I guess he just swallowed it), and continues to give us little kids some of his time, cool as hell. Just a true Oklahoma boy.

That's what sticks out in my mind the most, a can of fricking Skoal! It was truly an amazing experience to get to have, if you know what John Smith meant to wrestling, no matter where you're from, you can understand, but being from Oklahoma.....shite, he was Bo Jackson + Michael Jordan + Joe Montana + Nolan Ryan + whoever else you can think of. Maybe it's just me, but me and my wrestling teammates worshiped the guy.

The sport passed him by. Best wrestler ever

Legend and American hero. Kind of sad that he won’t be directly involved in the sport anymore with coaching but it was probably time.

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John Smith-

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The most used name on hotel registers…

Congrats to him, good job.