A big loss for our sport. Coach Roderick was a great man and coach.

http://www.okstate.com/genrel/122911aaa.html

This was posted on themat forum and I thought it was fitting to re-post it here. I believe the poster is Warren Applegate:

"I'll add another story about Myron. We got to know each other while i was an assistant at OU. I was born in Wellington, Ks which is 30 miles west of Winfield where he went to high school. Joe Seay wrestled at Wellington. Ed Gallagher was originally from Kansas. So i tell people half the head coaches at OSU came from Kansas.

In 1996 i was coaching a high school club program at ASU at the request of Lee Roy Smith then the head ASU coach. Myron had come into town for some reason. Lee Roy asked me to let Myron run practice that evening. Since i'd worked for 3 HOF coaches i wasn't intimidated, of course i'd let him run practice.
During the practice he had one drill partner lock his hands behind his back while the other partner tried to take him diwn. You had to stay in the small circle. Myron said you can only do a single leg, double leg, or an ankle pick when the opponent has his hands behind their back. I had kids doing the exact sane drill for years, so 1) they would shoot, and not worry about clearing the opponents hands, and 2) the defensive wrestler would learn to use his hips to defend against the opponent's shot when they got past his hands. So i felt pretty good to have come up with that in my own.

At the end of practice he said to me that he wiuld have only been an average high school wrestler, but fortunately someone taught him the fireman's carry. Myron said show kids everything you knoe, because you don't know what they'll gravitate too. Bill Smith who was legendary with the Whizzer said almost the exact same thing to me when i was visiting with him about him pinning Danny Hodge with the whizzer.

The last time i talked to Myron was a few years ago at the USA Nationals in Las Vegas. I didn't know that Art Griffith taught strictly counter offensive wrestling. Myron said he wanted to dictate the action more, which he implemented when he took over as the head coach. He said that Bob Johnson and Ronnie Clinton really developed the high crotch in their own."

OBITUARY: Myron Willis Roderick, 1934-2011


Oklahoma State release on Myron Roderick's passing

By National Wrestling Hall of Fame
12/29/2011

Myron Roderick and his beloved wife Jo Ann. Photo courtesy of National Wrestling Hall of Fame

STILLWATER, Okla. – Oklahoma State University wrestling icon Myron Willis Roderick passed away yesterday (Dec. 28) at the age of 77 years, according to his wife, Jo Ann.

A 1952 graduate of Winfield (Kan.) High School, Roderick was born on Sept. 15, 1934, in Anthony, Kan. He won back-to-back wrestling state championships before coming to OSU to compete on the wrestling team for head coach Art Griffith and to play varsity tennis. But it was as a wrestler that he gained national acclaim.

In three years of collegiate wrestling competition for the Cowboys, Roderick won 42 of his 44 matches and earned three NCAA individual titles from 1954-56, one at 137 lbs and two more at 130 lbs. He continued his career at the 1956 Olympic Games, where he lost a split decision to the eventual Olympic champion.

At age 23, in 1957, Roderick took over the reins of the program and, just one year after winning his last individual NCAA title, became the youngest coach in any sport to guide a team to an NCAA championship. His teams continued to dominate the world of collegiate wrestling for 13 years, posting a 140-10-7 dual record on the way to 13 Big Eight Conference titles and seven NCAA team championships.

As a testament to Roderick’s coaching prowess, he was named the NCAA Wrestling Coach-of-the-Year on three occasions and produced 20 individual NCAA champions and three Olympic gold medalists.

He became one of the first coaches in collegiate sports to recruit foreign student-athletes when he secured commitments from three eventual NCAA Champions from Japan in the early 1960’s. It was Japanese native Yojiro Uetake Obata that many consider to be the greatest of Roderick’s athletes and one of the best to ever wrestle in NCAA competition, winning three national titles while going undefeated from 1964-’66 for the Cowboys.

Roderick left Oklahoma State in 1969 to become executive director of the United States Wrestling Federation (which became national governing body USA Wrestling) an organization that he co-founded. He resigned from that position in 1974 to enter private business and take over the reins as executive director of the United States Racquetball Federation.

In 1983, he returned to OSU as the university’s eighth athletic director, guiding the program for seven years from 1983-1990. Under his direction, OSU athletic teams won more than 30 Big 8 championships, as well as four NCAA championships.

Roderick received the sport of wrestling's highest honor when he was inducted as a Charter Class Distinguished Member of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame. He completed his professional career by serving as President of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame & Museum, an organization he helped to co-found in 1976, from 1991-2004.

“On behalf of our Board of Governors, I want to express our deepest sympathies to Myron’s wife Jo Ann and his entire family,” said Lee Roy Smith, Executive Director of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame & Museum. “Myron Roderick was such a dynamic person with a witty sense of humor matched by a courageous and innovative leadership style that touched many, many lives and influenced generations through his work in sport.”

The Roderick family is planning a private family funeral service next week, however, the National Wrestling Hall of Fame and Oklahoma State University will collaborate on a memorial service and tribute to his life which will be planned and announced in coming weeks.

I had the pleasure of meeting Myron many times at wrestling events and functions. He was a great guy, a tough guy, and a guy that I never got tired of listening to. He was a teacher and he taught with everything he said and talked about. I was in Kansas City once and found out he was playing in a racquetball tourney here in town and I went down and watched him play a round of that. I found out that he didn't do that just for fun either, he was world class at it and a dogged competitor at that sport as well. I appreciated the fact that when I was a young wrestling coach, he had time to talk to me and he acted like (even though it was totally ridiculous) we were peers somehow. He didn't have many peers, and I was certainly not one of them. Whatever there is in the hereafter, Myron Roderick will be on the board of directors there, that much I am sure of.