I have shared part of this story before but the above article and the quotes from Gfeller and others have made me reflect on my first Bedlam match.
My first Bedlam match was in 1960 and it was also my first wrestling match. I had graduated from St.Gregory's in Shawnee when it was a high school in 1959 and I first attended college at Central State in Edmond but dropped out the second semester when my father died in March of 1960. I enrolled at OSU in the fall of 1960 having never attended a wrestling match as St. Gregory's did not have wrestling. When the Bedlam match rolled around several of my friends asked me to attend.Back in those days Gallagher Hall(Not Gallagher Iba arena) had a seating capacity of less than 7,000 and the student activity tickets were only good for every other match as believe it or not the Arena could not hold all of the students who wanted to attend the match. I had to trade my ID for another student's ID to attend.
The arena was packed for Bedlam and just the atmosphere awoke in me a desire to see how this would play out. The first match was at 118 pounds and the first wrestler I watched was Mark McCracken. He was exciting to watch and won his match and by the end of the first match I was hooked on wrestling and more specifically Cowboy wrestling. He was followed by Masaki Hatta and my love affair with wrestling began in earnest. That night I also got to watch wrestlers such as Ronnie Clinton at 167 who I still believe may have been the best takedown expert I have ever seen. Phil Kinyon was back from the Army and wrestled at 157 that night and Bob Johnson who was a 157 pounder wrestled up two weights as this two time national champion could not beat out either Kinyon or Clinton. Another Blackwell boy besides Ronnie Clinton was the heavy weight Ted Ellis and he was the returning national champion and he had legendary battles with Dale Lewis the heavy weight from OU. There were by my count, five national or future national champions in the lineup that night.
I did not miss a dual meet at Gallagher that year and in 1962
I attended my first National championship in Gallagher. I listened to all the away matches during that four years. Jack Griffith, the son of Art Griffith who was the second coach after Gallagher was the radio announcer. Jack had a voice that many comedians over the years have imitated when making fun of an Okie drawl. You could envision the straw sticking between his teeth when you heard him on the radio. He was unabashedly a "HOMER" and never saw a takedown against an OK State wrestler that was legitimate but railed against the referees when they did not give the boys in Orange and Black their legitimate takedowns.
I have not missed many Big 12 and National Championships since 1960 and certainly have not missed more than 1 or 2 home duals. All of this stems from that first Bedlam match in Gallagher Hall in 1960. Some times at the young age of 77 I tend to blend the first few years of my wrestling experience and make a few errors in the exact dates or years that a wrestler may have participated so forgive any slip-ups in this narrative. It all happened but maybe not in the exact order it transpired.
"LETS GO POKES"
