Wyckoff Wrestling Royalty Decries Olympic Snuff

The Olympic Wrestling Club is lined with trophies and photos, many celebrating the career of three-time All-American and two-time National Champion, Florian Ghinea.

Ghinea, the 39-year-old owner of the club and an instructor there, defected from his native Romania in 1994 following a trip to America with his national wrestling team.

After the international tournament, Ghinea stayed at a friend's apartment in Queens, and did not join his team at the airport.

With $50 in his pocket, there was a lot going against Ghinea. He did not speak or write English, for example, but he could wrestle.

It was that skill that bought Ghinea a college education at Montclair State University and ultimately changed his life — so there should be no surprise that he wasn’t a fan of the International Olympic Committee’s move to question the future of the sport.

Wrestling is one of the original Olympic events — dating back to 708 B.C. — and has been in every modern Games since 1904.

The sport may only have one more appearance left at the Olympic Games, however, if the IOC chooses to remove it officially from the 2020 lineup.

The IOC historically has operated under the guidelines that there are 26 "core sports" that will be contested every four years in the Summer Olympics, of which wrestling was one. Due to cost-cutting measures following 2012's London Olympics, the IOC determined that it will only sanction 25 core sports and others will be voted in or out on a Games by Games basis. 

Wrestling was the single core sport that was dropped. It will now will have to compete with seven other non-core sports — baseball/softball, squash, karate, sport climbing, wake boarding, wushu and roller sports — for a place in the 2020 Games.

Ghinea says the prestige of the sport is at stake with its pending removal.

"Add more sports," Ghinea suggested. "But don't take any sports out. Especially wrestling — wrestling has made the Olympics. When you say 'wrestling' you think of the Greeks and the Olympic Games. It's so strange."

If the sport is removed from the 2020 games, Ghinea admits that the world will move on. But there will potentially be great losses for those who may choose not to participate in the future. 

Wrestling with the Future

There are some 250 students at the Olympic Wrestling Club, a 5,000-plus square foot warehouse tucked away in a commercial section of Wyckoff on Braen Avenue.

The OWC is regarded as one of the top gyms in the state, and Ghinea wants wrestlers there to use the sport as a means to an education. But he worries that if the sport is scrubbed from the Olympics, wrestling's future as a viable option for the next generation may be compromised.

Ghinea coaches northern New Jersey wrestlers from kindergarten through college and has a handful of students now who he believes could win on a national level and make the 2016 Olympic Games.

Some of his best wrestlers, however, like fifth grader Kelly Dunnigan, could only have their sights set on 2020. Dunnigan's father, Gene, who spends most of his weekends chauffeuring his son to traveling tournaments, sees life lessons as well as opportunities within the sport for his son.

"The discipline will carry you for the rest of your life," said Dunnigan. "Like [wrestling legend] Dan Gable said, 'After you wrestle, everything else in life is easy.'"

Ghinea agrees. He reflected on how the sport saved him from a bleak life in Romania.

"I was one of the poorest kids around and I was a troublemaker in school. And it kept me out of the streets, kept me out of conflicts…after I finished practice I don’t need to fight anymore. I wouldn’t have enough time to spend on the corner of the street, smoking, who knows what."

Ghinea estimates that 90 percent of his students train at his facility five days a week, two-and-a-half hours per night. He gets emails all the time crediting wrestling for his students' improved grades, focus and behavior.

"After school they go home, they eat, they do their homework," Ghinea said. "They come here; they get tired and go to bed. Their parents know where they are at all times."

Grappling Towards Graduation

Richard Tavoso is a former Princeton wrestler who runs the Ridgewood Junior Wrestling Program. All three of his sons have wrestled at the Ghinea’s OWC.

Tavoso became animated and visibly upset when discussing the removal of wrestling from the Olympic core sports list. 

"Once Olympic wrestling goes away, it gives colleges the incentive to dump wrestling," Tavoso said. "The Olympics drive our college programs. College programs drive our high school programs, et cetera."

Ghinea has seen wrestling in Wyckoff and the surrounding area grow larger and larger throughout the high school level. He estimates that close to 100 members of Wyckoff's Olympic Wrestling Club have received wrestling scholarships, many to Ivy League schools such as Brown and Penn State.

The first test meeting with the 15-member IOC Executive Board will be this May in Russia, according to Tavoso.

Both he and Ghinea are optimistic that wrestling will be reinstated for the 2020 Olympic Games, and hopefully once again, indefinitely in the future.

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