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Discussion Topic: Pat Galbincea passes away
Bob Preusse added to this discussion on May 8, 2020
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i am informed Pat Galbincea passed away today. Shocking and very sad, he was a great wrestling writer for well over 30 years, symbolic of the Golden Age of Cleveland area wrestling. He was a friend too, a real sense of humor, colorful guy.
In a message dated 5/8/2020 4:24:08 PM Eastern Standard Time, TWarsinskey@plaind.com writes:
Hi Bob,
Some sad news to pass along. Pat Galbincea passed away today. I don't have any other details yet. A huge loss for all of us.
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Discussion Topic: Pat Galbincea passes away
Roe Fox added to this discussion on May 8, 2020
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Bob: Thanks for posting. A great contributor to NE Ohio wrestling.
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Discussion Topic: Pat Galbincea passes away
Bob Preusse added to this discussion on May 8, 2020
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AWN INTERVIEWS PAT GALBINCEA
Wrestling Journalist Recalls 37 Year Career
For 37 years Pat Galbincea of The Cleveland Plain Dealer has covered area wrestling, Ohio wrestling, NCAA wrestling, and FILA wrestling. Sensing it was time for a change, recently he left the sports department for general assignment at the newspaper.
Pat, now 62 years old, was hired at The Plain Dealer on his birthday in 1969. Before that he worked as sports editor of the Euclid News Journal and he was a copyboy/writer trainee at the now defunct Cleveland Press before he went to college at Cleveland State, graduating in June 1970. For a while he worked at The Plain Dealer while going to college. He also took a one year leave of absence at the Plain Dealer in 1980 to get a master's degree in communications at Florida Beacon College in Largo.
Pat covered wrestling for about 20 years until October 1988 when he was transferred to the police beat for two years. The public outcry over lack of wrestling coverage put him back in the sports department in September 1990. Besides high school and college wrestling, his sports beats covered at The Plain Dealer include high school and college football, PGA, LPGA and amateur golf, high school boys and girls soccer, high school boys and girls track, high school boys tennis, the Cleveland Marathon, and the Cleveland Triathlon.
Pat married in February 1990 the former Barb Brucker, who was the first female editor of a newspaper in Ohio, the Warren Tribune. They have a daughter, Kristin, 19, who is a freshman at Ohio State majoring in Japanese and Chinese. Pat has been a past winner of Amateur Wrestling News' Bob Dellinger Award and a past winner of the National Media Wrestling Association Writer of the Year Award.
With Pat’s rich history this AWN reporter thought it would be a good time to ask him to reflect on his time in our sport, where we’ve been, what he’s observed, and where we are going.
AWN: Pat, I know you went to high school at Cleveland John Marshall where legendary Gene Gibbons coached for almost 50 years. Tell readers how you got into wrestling journalism and what you learned from coach Gibbons.
Galbincea: I was a high school basketball player who got appendicitis right before the season started. Back then you didn't recover right away from having your appendix removed. I was going to be on the sidelines for the remainder of the season, but I always had an interest in writing so I went to the journalism teacher and asked if I could write about basketball for the school paper. She said "No, we already have a basketball writer. How about covering wrestling?" I told her "I don't know a thing about wrestling!" She said "Why don't you talk to our coach, Gene Gibbons? He's an interesting man and was a champion wrestler. Talk to him before you say no."
I've never regretted that two hour plus meeting in which he gave me a cauliflower ear about the sport. But his enthusiasm was so genuine- he was more passionate about wrestling than any other coach I've met in any other sport since- that it rubbed off on me. Gibbons taught me every hold has a counter hold, and it's not just a sport where you go
out and outmuscle your opponent.
AWN: What intrigued you about the sport of wrestling? Why is it so popular in the Cleveland area?
Galbincea: You can win a wrestling match in many different ways.Wrestling is like chess in action.You can win with finesse as well as strength. You can be unorthodox and great like Wade Schalles; or have an unrelenting iron will and killer instinct like Dan Gable; or use angular and leverage moves like John Smith; or be a perfect technician like Tom Milkovich or Cael Sanderson and be great.You can be a winning wrestler by merely mastering one move well.
Why is wrestling so popular in Cleveland? Tradition. From day one, this sport and this area has been blessed with great teaching coaches. The people they teach also tend to come back and coach.And the people who coached at the youth level like Dave Mariola Sr. (Longwood YMCA) and Howard Ferguson (Westshore YMCA) and Billy Barger (North Akron TMCA) developed championship caliber wrestlers before they even got to high school. Wrestling fans here are also fans for life, like soccer. These people keep coming to matches even when they no longer have relatives, friends or peers they know who are wrestling.
AWN: Pat, you covered the last part of the Mike Milkovich dynasty at Maple Heights Ohio which covered the 1950’s, 1960’s and 1970’s; tell us about that experience. (Milkovich is one of only seven high school coaches inducted as Distnguished Members in the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in Oklahoma.)
Galbincea: On my first day at The Plain Dealer, sports editor Hal Lebovitz told me to talk to Mike Milkovich, but warned "He's not an easy guy to talk to and looks upon newspapers with disdain." Well, the first time I talked to him we spoke for over an hour. He was friendly, gracious, funny, and a man who pulled no punches. He never knew what 'No comment' was. I loved the man, and still do. He had a great program in part because he was the first coach to have a junior high feeder system into Maple Heights high school. He was Cleveland's original King, not LeBron James.
The fact he produced state champion wrestlers and state championship wrestling teams to me took a back seat to his wit. At the first Medina Holiday Tournament, which had over 30 teams, he saw Gene Gibbons, the John Marshall coach who taught me so much about the sport. He tapped Gibbons - whom he loved to needle - on the shoulder and said "Oh
thank God you're here. Now I know I won't have to finish in second place!"
He called me after Maple won the 1969 state championship and The Plain Dealer, in our Sunday morning edition, had a front page picture of him and son Tom waving to the crowd after Tom had won his third state title. He said "Pat, did you notice there was only two other pictures on page A1? One of the Pope and one of the President. You know, those two guys were in pretty good company!"
AWN: You covered the St. Edward dynasty first under Howard Ferguson in the late 1970s and 1980’s; then under Greg Urbas since Ferguson’s untimely death in 1989, tell us about that experience.
Galbincea: Howard Ferguson was a great youth coach when he took over St. Edward's wrestling program, which had gone 0-16 in dual meets back in 1975 I believe, and predicted he'd have a state title winning team in five years. He lied. It took him only three years. Every youth wrestler wanted to wrestle for him. He loved kids, and was a great motivator. Ferguson always called back promptly- sometimes too promptly. He'd think nothing of calling you at home at 1 a.m. to say something.
I also remember how he said how dependent he was on assistant coach Greg Urbas, "The most organized man I've ever met. I can't function without him- and he'll never get the credit that's due him." Well, when Ferguson died of an untimely heart attack in 1989, St.
Edward asked Greg Urbas to take over the coaching reigns. It was like asking any assistant coach to take over for Paul Brown or Vince Lombardi in football. How can you?
But Greg Urbas, a gentleman's gentleman, did the impossible. And unlike Ferguson, whom some critics said bent rules, Urbas' worst critic can't find fault with him. He's honest and above the board. Ferguson taught takedowns, and that's where his teams excelled. He hated mat wrestling. Urbas is a more diverse coach who can deal with all styles.
AWN: Give me a short response to each of these names: Bill Barger, Dick Bonacci, Mike DeAnna, Lee Kemp, Tom Milkovich, Alan Fried, Johnny McGhee, and Harry Lester.
Galbincea: Bill Barger (Walsh Jesuit Ohio) is the most humorous great coach I ever met.
Nobody is funnier. I'll never forget when we were driving in Pittsburgh and he just flippantly said "This is a city of cement confusion."
Dick Bonacci is a very underrated coach. What he did at Cleveland State with limited scholarships, lukewarm administrative support and a wrestling facility which hardly excited recruits is amazing. He had powerhouse teams despite the drawbacks. But Dan Gable saw how diversified and tough the CSU lineup was, and that's why he scheduled
them. Iowa didn't schedule just anybody. Bonacci was an unrecognized genius otherwise.
Mike DeAnna (Bay Village Ohio) is Cleveland's best wrestler who didn't win
an NCAA championship, but two seconds and two thirds at Iowa show what a talent
he was- plus he was an outstanding coach at Edinboro.
I'll never forget the first time I picked Chardon wrestler Leroy Kemp (Chardon Ohio) for our Plain Dealer All-Star team and Mike Milkovich called me and said "Leroy who?". But Kemp had great strength and no real weaknesses on the mat. He should have been college wrestling's first four-time NCAA champ.
Tom Milkovich (Maple Heights Ohio) is the greatest technical wrestler I ever saw. He
never had so much as a fingernail out of place on the mat. He carved up opponents like a surgeon, and they never knew they were bleeding.
Alan Fried (St. Edward Ohio) told me at age 14 he'd be a state champ, NCAA champ and Olympic gold medalist. I think if it hadn't been for Tom Brands, he'd have accomplished all three.
Johnny McGhee (Coventry Ohio) was the most fun-to-watch wrestler I ever saw. He
invented moves in the middle of a match. He was all offense and a pinner. Had he been academically eligible to compete at a Division I college level, he would have been the most popular and talked about wrestler in the country.
Harry Lester (Cuyahoga Valley Christian Ohio), another guy I felt would be a gold medal winner in the Olympics or at very least a World champion. Lester was the most complete wrestler I've ever seen come out of Ohio. He had offense, defense, could
pin, could be flamboyant- he lacked nothing.
AWN: Who are most memorable wrestlers you have seen that we haven’t mentioned so far, regardless of age or level, and why?
Galbincea: If Columbus DeSales Ohio heavyweight Luke Fickell had loved wrestling as much as he did football, nobody in the country would have touched him.
More needs to be said about Clarion's Wade Schalles from Hollidaysburg Pennsylvania. He was unique. He dared you to grab his leg for a single or anything else you thought you could do with it. If you took the bait, you'd be pinned.
I also thought J Jaggers of St. Peter Chanel Ohio and Ohio State was an underrated performer even if he did win four state titles and two NCAA titles. He wasn't the strongest wrestler, but he was one of the most entertaining. I was always impressed that he had eight different takedowns he could use, and he wasn't confused as to which one he'd use. He could go from one to another to another until something worked. Plus, he fought through a lot of injuries in college.
One other guy I'll mention most people won't remember is Don Tomko, a 189-pounder out of Medina Highland Ohio. He obliterated everyone he ever met, and like Marcus Mollica of Walsh Jesuit and Arizona State, had "NCAA champion" written all over him. Tomko wrestled in 1970-71, but he didn't have the grades to wrestle in college. Mollica won two NCAA titles, Tomko would have won more.
AWN: Recall for us several of the most memorable moments you’ve see in the sport.
Galbincea: In 1976, Bay Village was expected to win the Ohio big school state title,
but unheralded Cleveland Heights stayed close on their heels. Heights' final wrestler, Tom Seals at 167 pounds, was wrestling for third place and in the final seconds, he put his opponent on his back and with one second left in the match got a pin. Cleveland Heights won the state title by a half point. Height' coach Larry Hoon jumped for joy, and the crowd went nuts.
In 1977, Maple Heights was in position to win an 11th state title in Mike Milkovich's last year of coaching. Nordonia, who edged Maple in a dual meet, got a state qualifier in 167-pounder named Jeff Cole. He placed sixth in the state. He was pinned in the first round, then got a forfeit in the first round of consolations when the wrestler who pinned him reached the finals, carrying him into the consolation bracket. Cole, lost, 11-0, in the consolation semifinals and then got pinned for sixth place. So without actually winning a match on the mat, that forfeit victory, which was like a pin, give Nordonia 58 1/2 points, enough to edge Maple Heights which had 56.
In the 1995 World Freestyle Championships in Atlanta, I still can't believe the Iranian wrestler who wouldn't even touch his Israeli opponent and was disqualified- and the Iranian coaches called him a national hero! I didn't realize to what extent the hatred is in the Middle East.
AWN: Pat, who were the greatest coaches you have observed at any level and why?
Galbincea: Dan Gable of Iowa was the greatest. His intensity and work ethic were unparalleled and his wrestlers bought into his system- one which not all wrestlers could buy into. And most of his wrestlers loved the guy. I also thought Bob Bubb of Clarion was great. Look at all the NCAA champs he produced at that little school in Pennsylvania, including Schalles.
On the high school level, I've admired the rugged style Blair Academy New Jersey
wrestlers have under coach Jeff Buxton. Another obscure great was old Euclid Ohio coach Clarence Eckert, an full blooded Apache and quite a character. He'd walk out on the middle of the mat and apply a hold while telling the wrestler to look at him. That's until the state ruled coaches had to remain in their chairs. But Eckert had 14 individual state champs and three state title winning teams. Plus he was a wonderful storyteller. One of the great characters in a sport full of characters.
I've mentioned Milkovich, Gibbons, Ferguson and Urbas, and Barger, but another great coach was the mustachioed Greek, Mike Papouras at Richmond Heights Ohio. This little school won four (small school) state titles with 30 individual state champs under him. Today the Spartans don't even have a wrestling program, but they weren't any bigger when Papouras was coaching them. He could see the weakness in any opposing wrestler with his keen eye.
AWN: If you had a magic wand, what would you change about wrestling at any level?
Galbincea: I'm old fashioned. On the high school level, I'd bring back some form of riding time. Right now skilled leg wrestlers are punished if they don't turn an opponent in 15-20 seconds, and warned for stalling if it happens a second time. It might break some of these ties which send a match into overtime. Mat wrestling on the high school level is
being deemphasized as a result.
AWN: Pat, what do you think the fans will say about your long tenure covering wrestling?
Galbincea: Some will say good riddance to bad garbage. That's just the way some people are nowadays. But the good people I know say I will be missed because I wrote interesting and easy-to-read stories. That was my goal. Make it interesting, make it factual- the latter is hard to do at times especially if you are under deadline and can't double-check a fact and have to go on memory which may or may not be 100 percent
accurate- and make it easy to read. I try to do that with all the subject matters I write about.
AWN: Pat, now that it has come time for you to leave wrestling journalism and be just another fan, what will you miss the most and the least?
Galbincea: I miss the interaction with the coaches and wrestlers. I've seldom had a dull interview with a wrestler or coach. I have half a hand how many bad interviews I've had in 40 years. I've told people at The Plain Dealer that wrestlers make the best interviews by far. There's not even a close second. The least thing I'll miss is working with a sports editor who doesn't care about wrestling coverage and one I have to fight with or argue with to get space in the paper. Some know it's popular and they just don't care. The old expression "You can't fight city hall" is very true.
Contact Bob at ohiobobp@aol.com and fax/ph 216-941-7956
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Discussion Topic: Pat Galbincea passes away
Jim Behrens added to this discussion on May 8, 2020
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Unbelievably sad news.
Pat was a great guy and always fun to listen to.
This is a huge loss to wrestling in general and to the greater Cleveland wrestling community specifically.
RIP Pat!
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Discussion Topic: Pat Galbincea passes away
Bob Preusse added to this discussion on May 8, 2020
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Plain Dealer reporter just called me, will be a feature on Pat in probably Sundays PD-- he didnt know if on Obit page or Sports page
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Discussion Topic: Pat Galbincea passes away
Hank Kornblut added to this discussion on May 8, 2020
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I am very sad to hear about Pat. He was quirky, observant and a good story teller. I will always be grateful to him for the positive exposure he offered my wrestlers at a time when lots of folks clamored for his attention. At heart he was a terrific guy with a deep appreciation for wrestling. RIP and thanks.
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Discussion Topic: Pat Galbincea passes away
Jeff Streu added to this discussion on May 9, 2020
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Very sad news. I never met him but I knew of him even before I moved to Ohio because my Grandma would always clip wrestling stories out of the Plain Dealer and save them for me when I was growing up. Lots of good stories and I miss the coverage he did.
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Discussion Topic: Pat Galbincea passes away
Bob Preusse added to this discussion on May 9, 2020
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Discussion Topic: Pat Galbincea passes away
Pat Costilow added to this discussion on May 14, 2020
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I was really sad to hear this. I don't often post here anymore (can't remember the last time actually), but Pat's passing warranted comment.
When Dan and I were getting this site off it's feet, I went out and covered tournaments and dual meets relatively frequently, always Ironman, Brecksville, sometimes Medina, bigger duals around Cleveland. I was 18-19 and had no idea what I was doing, but managed to get on the media rows, where a lot of people looked at me kind of funny because I still looked like a kid (and was).
Pat was an exceptionally kind guy who was always very welcoming and willing to talk wrestling with me, and even ask questions about things he didn't know about. That's how I will remember him, he was a kind man that welcomed people into the world he had been a big figure in for a long time. Prayers for his family.
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Discussion Topic: Pat Galbincea passes away
John Ice added to this discussion on May 14, 2020
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