Attending the Portage County wrestling tournament on Jan.3 brought back many memories for former Crestwood Red Devils’ state champion and wrestling Coach Jack Lynch. The Portage County community also had fond memories of his wrestling days and presented him with a Lifetime Achievement Award on Jan. 3 at Ravenna High School.
“It felt good,” the 1976 Crestwood graduate told The Weekly Villager on Jan. 9. “It is very humbling and very honorable to have your peers recognize you in your field and in your sport especially when you are alive. Lot of times they do not do it until you are gone.”
Lynch was one of three Crestwood state champions at the 1976 Class AA state meet and also a member of the first and only Class AA wrestling team state champion in school history. Despite that historic season being 49 years ago, Lynch still remembers the 1975-76 season like it was yesterday.
Having qualified five wrestlers for the 1976 state meet, Lynch said that Crestwood did not even consider the possibility of winning the Class AA championship until an assistant coach brought it to their attention halfway through the meet.
“He comes up running to me and Jeff Sanicky and said, ‘Listen, if one of you pins and the other wins, we can win this thing’ and we said ‘Okay’,” Lynch noted.
Dave Blake had already won the 126-pound title and Lynch had the next chance to clinch another one in the 185-pound bracket. His last obstacle to becoming Crestwood’s second state champion was Portage County rival Gary Glagola from Ravenna Southeast. They had already wrestled four times in the season and after Lynch won the first two meetings, Glagola had defeated him the next two times to win the Class AA sectional and district championships. Lynch won the rubber match against Glagola by a 1-0 decision, leaving everything up to his teammate and defending Class AA heavyweight champion Jeff Sanicky.
According to Lynch, after Sanicky took a few shots from his opponent, Medina Highland’s Jim Ritcher, who would go on to play guard in the NFL, he used his anger to overpower Ritcher with a takedown and a pin.
“When Jeff gets really angry, he sounds like a horse and he flutters his lips,” Lynch said. “He smacked Jeff one more time and pushed him out. When I saw him flutter his lips, I knew it was game on. He went back in and restarted and had what is called a hip toss, he grabbed the head and arm. He landed on his head, and he was stunned and was a little groggy.”
The Red Devils won the team state championship with 66.5 points, followed by Columbus St. Francis DeSales which finished as the runners-up with 66.0 points and Akron Coventry took third place by scoring 64.0 points.
Lynch said as special as it was to win an individual state title in his only season as a state qualifier, it meant even more to bring home the team trophy especially for his head coach, Frank DiNapoli.
“A lot of wrestlers will tell you, you develop a relationship with someone who becomes like your second father, and he was that to a lot of us,” he said. “For us to win it not only for my teammates but to also win it for my head coach, he was a special man. He was 5-foot-4 or maybe 5-foot-5, but when we entered a room, he was seven feet tall. He had the respect around the league, and he just had that demeanor.”
In Lynch’s three years as a varsity starter, he posted an undefeated record in Portage County League play, finishing as a three-time conference champion.
Lynch credited his friend, whose father was one of his father’s closest friends, for helping introduce him to wrestling. He acknowledged that his father was more of a diehard basketball fan but supported Lynch’s efforts in wrestling every step of the way.
In the years after his graduation, Lynch remained close to the sport and was eventually hired as an assistant wrestling coach at Field High School and worked there for three seasons under DiNapoli.
“I learned so much from him mentally,” Lynch said. “He looked at me and said I was ready and to me that was like having Bear” Bryant or Woody Hayes tell you in football that you are ready. Him telling me I was ready to be a head high school wrestling coach, that was priceless.”
He eventually returned to his alma matter and coached the Red Devils for two-and-a-half seasons when Brian Singleton became a two-time Division II state champion and then coached at Rootstown, Stow and Cuyahoga Falls before eventually retiring.
