{"id":4946,"date":"2012-02-15T13:16:50","date_gmt":"2012-02-15T18:16:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/?p=4946"},"modified":"2014-01-25T18:10:20","modified_gmt":"2014-01-25T23:10:20","slug":"tcnj-in-class-by-itself-at-national-wrestling-hall-of-fame","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/?p=4946","title":{"rendered":"TCNJ in class by itself at National Wrestling Hall of Fame"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Representing TCNJ in the 2011 New Jersey chapter to the National Wrestling Hall of Fame & Museum were Dennis Smith, second from left, Ken Scott '71, third from left, and Gene Barber '73, third from right. Also entering the Hall were George Coker, left, Len Zanowicz, second from right, David Dunlap, right, and Greg DeMarco, not pictured.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

No college administrator wants to hear this, but after head coach Mike Curry \u201963<\/strong> helped move TCNJ\u2019s wrestling program from the club to the varsity level in 1966, he didn\u2019t have rules.<\/p>\n

Instead, he subscribed to philosophies.<\/p>\n

That Curry\u2019s prot\u00e9g\u00e9s were afforded trust and the freedom to develop individualism may help to explain how last September, three of them were among the five inductees who entered the New Jersey chapter of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame & Museum under the classification of \u201cLifetime Service to Wrestling.\u201d Ken Scott \u201971<\/strong> and Gene Barber \u201973<\/strong> wrestled under Curry for what was then Trenton State College, and Dennis Smith<\/strong> was a graduate assistant under him during the 1972\u201373 school year. All three went on to enjoy widely successful careers as high school wrestling coaches in their native New Jersey, where they each led many district, region, and state individual and team champions.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you\u2019re sitting in a room full of people from all over and guys are getting up giving speeches, and they kept on bringing up Trenton State College, it\u2019s an honor to have them say that,\u201d Curry said. \u201cAnd you see how well they\u2019ve done since our program.\u201d<\/p>\n

Curry\u2019s \u201copen-book philosophy,\u201d as Scott calls it, helped to instill values such as fundamentals, discipline, conditioning, and the maximizing of one\u2019s abilities. His teaching inspired others, Smith says.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou experimented,\u201d Barber added. \u201cYou weren\u2019t afraid to go out and do something different, try a different move or go into a match with a different philosophy. He gave you that freedom. A lot of coaches won\u2019t do that. That way I think you learned more and you grew more.\u201d<\/p>\n

Scott, who was a high school teammate of Smith\u2019s at Lenape Regional, was an NAIA champion on the College\u2019s first championship team. He was an assistant coach at Cedar Ridge High, and then served as head coach at Madison Central and Old Bridge from 1977 to 2005. Over 28 seasons, he became the winningest coach in Middlesex County history with a 359\u201368\u20132 record.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s quite an elite group, and I\u2019m very proud to be in it,\u201d Scott said of the Hall of Fame, which is located in Stillwater, OK. \u201cAnd they have quite a vetting process. It took about a year and a half to check the credentials, you wait your turn, people have to recommend you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTo work all your life in a certain genre or a certain field, to be recognized at the highest level, it doesn\u2019t get any better than that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Barber arrived at the College from Camden County College and went on to compile an 80\u20135 two-year record, placing third at the Division III nationals in 1972 and then as the runner-up at the Division I nationals a year later. He was the coach at Absegami High for 33 seasons, beginning in 1977, and led a four-year run of 89\u20130\u20131 teams from 2001\u201304, en route to a 507\u2013137\u20134 career record. His program was top-ranked in the state in 2002, 2003, and 2004.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was a firm believer in conditioning, but I wouldn\u2019t try to tell a wrestler what to do,\u201d the TCNJ Athletic Hall-of-Famer said. \u201cI would let them have that freedom. I wouldn\u2019t try to change his style. I think you\u2019re taking away from a kid if you do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Smith was a captain at Rutgers University before going into coaching at the College, where his specialty was working with lightweight wrestlers like Barber. Smith became the head coach at Delran High in 1975 and remains so today in his 37th season. He entered the campaign with a 578\u2013164\u20135 record, ranking second among South Jersey coaches in career wins.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust to be considered, let alone be inducted, is a great honor,\u201d said Smith, who plans to be a head coach through the 2012\u201313 school year and then be an assistant coach.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought it was really neat how that intertwined like that (for TCNJ). I\u2019m glad it did, because it just goes to show it\u2019s a big world out there, but there are so many connections.\u201d<\/p>\n

Scott, Barber, and Smith coached against each other at some point of their careers. As they swapped stories at their induction ceremony at nearby Rider University, they learned about another bond they now joke about. Each has had a hip procedure or replacement in the last year.<\/p>\n

And all are ecstatic about how TCNJ pointed them toward successful careers. \u201cI was like, wow, three Trenton Staters,\u201d Scott said. \u201cI hope Mike Curry understands what an honor it is for him.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Three of the five 2011 inductees to the New Jersey chapter of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame and Museum have ties to the Lions wrestling program.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":4947,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50,16,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4946","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-march-2012","category-lions-roar","category-on-campus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4946","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4946"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4946\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4947"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}